Alban gazed over at the young man, who was engaged in some silly word game with Lady Rebecca Severn. “He was one of the ever-present hangers-on in Brighton—new to the court this year but well received, for he is witty and congenial—and he seems a harmless young man. I had heard that he was attached in some manner to some government office, but if so, his duties are most light.”
Lady Eliza pursed her lips. “But how did you come to know him?”
“Just as one of Prinny’s court. He was always at the Marine Pavilion, but he really seems a pleasant young sprig compared to some of the other unwholesome chaps who worship at Prinny’s swollen feet.”
“Hmm. And the earl; is he as enamored of Kittie as it appears just from listening to the silly fellow?”
“Orkenay . . . yes, it appears his regard is genuine, but I cannot say with what end in mind.”
Lady Eliza sat back in her chair, releasing Alban’s hand. “I will not have Kittie hurt. I leave it up to you to find out what he intends, nephew.”
“That is hardly my province, ma’am,” he replied, though he had been thinking much the same himself just moments before. “They are both, after all, fully grown adults.”
“There is just something about him that makes me uneasy,” she said.
Alban was silent. He had to agree. There was something about the earl’s behavior that made him uneasy, too, though he really was being the soul of propriety. Were his own feelings mixed up in the blend? For he had to admit, if he was honest, that the thought of Mrs. Douglas in the earl’s arms was enough to make him cold with anger. Was Orkenay truly interested in Kittie Douglas, or did he see her as a dalliance? And what business of Alban’s was it, either way? Lady Eliza’s concern had made it his business, and so he stood and motioned to the earl.
“Orkenay, could I have a word with you in the library, please?”
The earl stood up, a frown marring his pleasant expression. “What is this about, Alban?”
Rather than answer, Alban exited, expecting that the earl would follow. He strode to the library and Orkenay did, indeed, follow him in.
“What do you mean by making a spectacle of me, Alban, as though I were a schoolboy called onto the mat?”
Alban gazed at the other man, undecided how to handle the necessary interrogation. He supposed this was a bad beginning and he cursed his own impetuosity in dragging the man away from the company in such an abrupt manner. What exactly did his aunt want? It was certainly not in his interest to enrage the earl, though he had never seen Orkenay even mildly put out. This was the most angry Alban had ever seen him, and he seemed to be just perturbed.
“It has come to my attention that you are expressing an open interest in Mrs. Douglas. As my aunt’s companion, her welfare is our interest.”
Orkenay strolled around the room, turning objects over and disarranging piles of books on tables. “Are you asking me my intentions? How amusing. I feel as though you are her father, and I must tell you of my plans for the future.”
A spurt of anger flared in Alban’s breast, but he tamped it down. “So?”
“So? Mrs. Douglas is a damned fine woman, don’t you think?”
“She is lovely, in her own fashion.”
The earl whirled and jabbed one finger in the air. “Exactly! She is out of the usual way of women in London or Brighton. Very amusing.”
“But she is not exactly a woman of breeding. I mean to say,” Alban continued, frustrated by his lack of ability to express his exact meaning, “Mrs. Douglas is genteel, but there is no particular family history there.”
Orkenay shrugged. “Who worries about breeding when a woman looks like her? She is a different type: earthy, physical, good country stock, I would say. Healthy young woman like that, locked away in Yorkshire for years with no male companionship . . .” He broke off and winked. “There is nothing so invigorating as a lonely woman faced with a man she has expressed an interest in.”
Alban’s hand clenched. What was infuriating was that there was nothing Orkenay had actually said that was untrue, by appearances. The earl’s tone conveyed that he was speaking as one man of the world to another, and it was nothing that he had not said himself, in other times and about other women. But this time it offended him gravely. “Orkenay, please remember where you are and that Mrs. Douglas is my aunt’s paid companion, and therefore under the protection of my household.”
Eyes widening, Orkenay drew back. “Alban! I’m shocked. Why would you assume that I mean anything but that Mrs. Douglas and I are enjoying the invigorating prospect of a mild flirtation?”
“Just see that you keep it to that.” Alban strode to the doorway but turned back and glared at the earl in the murky light of the library. “Mrs. Douglas is, I am told, of a good family. Please don’t forget that, and act accordingly.”
“She is also an adult woman,” Orkenay said. “With wants and needs I am more than willing to satisfy, at some point in time, near or distant. Don’t you forget that, Alban.”
Nine
Dinner and the evening had not brought any fresh reason for concern on Alban’s part. It seemed that his words had had a salutary effect and the earl was being very careful in his attentions to Mrs. Douglas. But Alban’s stomach still churned and his mind still worked furiously on the problem.
He walked the woodland path alone the next morning. After an afternoon and night of rain, the dead leaves on the path were slithery, but the scent that arose was refreshingly countrified to his city-deadened senses.
Perhaps he was being unfair to Mrs. Douglas, but he couldn’t help but feel that she had ulterior motives in immuring herself in Yorkshire with Lady Eliza Burstead. Was her past all she claimed, or were there scandals of which his aunt was ignorant? Had Lafferty really researched her as he declared? Was she truly simply an unfortunate widow? Brooding, he came to the edge of the forest and found that, once again, he had made his way to the cottage, and there, once again, was Mrs. Douglas in the garden, cutting roses. He stood at the edge of the woods and watched.
She was graceful, there was no doubt of that, but with no mincing step or studied kind of grace. Rounded and voluptuous, her auburn hair unbound and draping in glorious curls down her back almost to her waist and garbed in a print morning gown, he found her more beautiful than any other woman he had ever seen. It was as stark and simple as that. She stunned him physically, touching deep wells of longing that left him ill and uncertain. His heart thudded treacherously, his breath catching in his throat. He gazed in rapt stillness.
One single ray of sunshine broke through the canopy of cloud and wall of trees and shone on her hair, lighting it to flame. She turned her face to the sunbeam and her pale throat was exposed, a column of white, like marble. Alban stared, capturing that moment in his memory, soaking it in as Kittie Douglas soaked in the sunbeam.
And then the moment ended; she turned and caught sight of him, standing at the edge of the forest like some Oberon staring at his glorious Titania. Her lips parted and she said something, but he couldn’t hear. On numb legs he lurched toward her, recovering his composure enough as he approached so he would not look a complete ass. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Douglas, I was too far away to hear you,” he said, breaking the spell with such ordinary words. He leaned on the wall drinking in the sight of her so close, her ruddy curls beckoning his fingers, her lush form summoning his body.
“Will you join us for breakfast, sir?”
“Breakfast?” He had lost his train of thought again in staring into her eyes. How had he never noticed how blue they were and large, fringed with dark lashes?
“Yes . . . breakfast.” Pink mantled her cheeks and her breathing quickened.
He imagined leaping over the wall, taking her into his arms and kissing her roughly and thoroughly. Oh, for days gone by when he might have caught her up in his arms, tossed her up on his saddle and stolen her away. He was enough of a savage sensualist to find the idea enticing and too much of a civilized creature to think that it would ulti
mately serve anything but the briefest and most one-sided of passions. It had long ago occurred to him that in the old tales of kidnapping and seductions no one ever considered the woman’s thoughts or feelings in the matter.
Like cold water dashed on him, such civilized reflections cooled his ardor. He was not a medieval knight, after all, but a modern man, to whom abduction was anathema. “Uh, no, I have already eaten breakfast, but please, don’t let me stop you.”
“I’ve already eaten. But Lady Eliza is still at the table.”
He chuckled. “Have you ever seen any woman who can eat as much as she can?”
“And yet she stays so thin . . . gaunt even,” Mrs. Douglas said, smiling and shaking her head in wonder.
“She seems to eat the most at that meal, and then not a lot for the rest of the day.” The mundane aspect of the subject matter struck him in that moment. Never would he have, in past, considered discussing his aunt’s dietary habits with a woman he lusted after so fiercely.
Kittie stayed silent. Alban straightened and pushed away from the wall. “Does she still . . . does my aunt still go for walks in the hills?”
“She does, accompanied by Mr. Lafferty or myself. I think, your grace, she would consider it a special favor if you would walk with her occasionally while you are here.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” It was curious that he should not take her suggestion amiss; he did not generally bear up well under advice from any source. He moved toward the gate and opened it. “Mrs. Douglas, would you walk a ways with me? I feel we have not really gotten to know each other since I arrived, and I do want you to know how much I appreciate your devotion to my aunt.”
Kittie laid down her basket and exited the garden, taking his offered arm. “She is a wonderful woman, sir, and even if she was not an employer it would be a privilege to know her.”
Was she sincere? She had the look and sound of sincerity. Had he just become so jaded by court life that he could not recognize a good woman when he met one? He had to admit the possibility, and to that end he would talk with her and walk with her. He led her down the path and away from the cottage. He noticed that she threw one long, lingering glance back over her shoulder, toward the garden.
“Let’s climb up to the fairy cavern and waterfall. I wish to see the improvements Lafferty has affected.”
“I think you’ll be pleased by the work. It’s quite marvelous, really.”
“Do you go there often?”
“I don’t feel it is right to leave Lady Eliza so long. But this morning I know she is still recovering from her cold and is going to have Beacon read to her for a while in the parlor.” She began the stiff ascent up the grassy hill, away from the copse and toward the rill that joined the beck, or quick-running brook, at the bottom of the fell.
“That isn’t the way there,” Alban called, trying not to stare at the enticing sway of her bottom as she climbed.
She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “It is now. Mr. Lafferty agreed that for those who can manage the ascent, this is much quicker.”
“You seem to have wrapped Stuart pretty snugly around your finger, Mrs. Douglas,” Alban said, grunting as he climbed after her.
“Nonsense! He is just a sensible male and amenable to suggestion, not at all the usual sort.”
And yet his land manager was known as unusually stubborn even for a Yorkshireman. It was contumacy of an unusual force that kept them surviving through bitter winters, spring floods, poor harvests and unfair tax laws. He wondered once again about the subtle seduction a smart woman could use to get her own way, and how Mrs. Kittie Douglas perhaps planned to use it in the next while on Orkenay. They didn’t talk during the climb, mostly because all of their energy was devoted to ascending. He followed her path, and when they came to Boden Rill and the fairy waterfall, as it had been called from his youth, he was taken by surprise, perhaps the intent of the new pathway.
They came out not at the top or bottom but at a spot about halfway up. Above them was a sheer face of stone shelves over which tumbled sparkling water, and below them the water hit the pool. It was exhilarating gazing down from a height of twenty feet or more, and dizzying looking up another twenty feet.
Kittie moved along the path and indicated wood steps up to a narrow stone shelf. “We . . . Mr. Lafferty and I, discovered another cave about halfway along, and with just these few wood steps you can get to the stone path and explore it.”
Alban grinned, leaning against the stone wall as he caught his breath. “Yes, Bart and I climbed up here once or twice. I wondered if our secret cave, as we called it, still existed in its seclusion. But you found it out.”
She grinned back. “Will you go with me?”
“Why would I not?”
She picked up her skirts, showing an enticing flash of well-shaped ankle and calf, and they scaled the precarious shelf; within moments they were in the small cave behind the waterfall. “Look,” she said, her voice hushed and awed, echoing back in the stone cavern.
Before them the sun broke through the trees just then and, through the mist, a rainbow appeared, arching down to the pool below. She lowered herself to sit on the shelf and he followed her example, watching her with interest as she gazed in awe at the spectacle until the sunbeam shifted and the rainbow disappeared. When it was gone she sighed and turned back to him, catching him watching her.
“Where did you come from?” he asked, almost to himself.
“Devonshire,” she said, interpreting his question literally, though it had not been intended that way. “I was raised there, but when I married I moved to Bath first, and then to London.”
“From Bath to London? Why?”
She stared down the rock face to the pool below. Her dress was damp at the hem and her unbound hair, too, from the mist, tiny pearly globules of water decorating her hair like a misty netting. “I didn’t question Roger,” she said with a shrug, “I just did as he bid.”
“Roger . . . your husband?”
“Of course! Of whom did you think I was speaking?”
Her tone was sharp, and her answer defensive. Why, he wasn’t sure. Their walk had started on good terms, but now he wondered at that defensiveness.
“I was merely making conversation. How long were you widowed before you came to my aunt?”
“Two years.”
“What did you do in that time?”
She bridled and stood, wavering. She stamped one foot. “My foot has gone to sleep.”
He stood, too, and said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
Her eyes widening, she retorted, “I don’t think it is any of your business. I can understand any questions you might have concerning my time here, but before is before.”
Even more intriguing. She moved to push past him but he caught her arm as she swayed back. She pulled her arm out of his grasp, teetered on the edge of the path, and he caught hold of her again.
“Mrs. Douglas,” he said, his tone biting. “I would not advise that you move hastily. There is rock at the bottom and a deep pool, no one is sure how deep, but it is carved in sheer rock. The water disappears there back into the fell. Please be careful. If you fell I would have to jump in and fish you out. If you wish to return to Bodenthorpe Cottage you need only say so.”
“I wish to return to the cottage.”
“Your wish is my command.”
“Then you will need to move, sir.”
He regarded her carefully, her flushed face and glittering eyes. What had he said or done to offend her? Or was there no offense, just guilt? He turned and made his way back to the safety of the path and she followed, but her foot slipped on the damp mossy rock as she made the transition. He caught her once again and pulled her to him.
Her heart was pounding against his chest and her auburn hair tangled over his hands where they gripped her tight. Staring down into her eyes, with the sound of the rushing water and the cool shadowy green all around them, he was tempted by her full lips. She met his ga
ze and there was a question in the clear blue and dark, expanding pupils.
But he released her, she passed him, and they made their way back with no further talk. Somehow he had ruined their tenuous connection just by asking about the mysterious two years between her husband’s death and her tenure at Bodenthorpe Cottage.
Why?
• • •
Over luncheon Kittie thought about her morning ramble with the duke. Lady Eliza commented that she seemed abstracted. Hannah shot her worried little glances. Only Rebecca let her go in peace.
After eating, they all sat together at the luncheon table discussing projects for their stay at Bodenthorpe Cottage. But Kittie found that her mind would still wander. The walk with the duke had left her confused. It had started so well, but he had shattered their comfortable companionship with close questioning. It felt like an interrogation—not so much the questions, she supposed, as his tone, harsh and suspicious.
Maybe she had taken offense too easily, and she had certainly been hasty and precipitous in moving away from the waterfall. She never thought she would be the kind of idiot female to endanger her safety through pique.
But it began to seem that his only reason in asking her to walk had been to pry into her past. There was no great mystery there; she had laid her life bare to Lady Eliza, even telling her the sordid tales of Roger’s gambling, but Lady Eliza had never made her feel as if she was prying.
But the duke . . . she had seen in his eyes as he made his farewell that he had gained only suspicion of her from their unfortunate discord. And she really had no one to blame but herself. She could have cleared up any suspicion, warranted or not, in two sentences, but it had been beneath her dignity. Or pride.
“Kittie! Kittie! The girl has not heard a word we have said to her this half hour!”
“I beg your pardon, Rebecca,” Kittie said, awakening from her reverie with a start.
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