by Mary Balogh
"A kiss?" he said. "Similar to ravishment? You malign me. I was about to kiss you, Diana, in the tradition of true romance."
"Well," she said briskly, "if he did not save me, he saved you. You were about to have your face smacked, my lord."
"Was I?" he said. "I wondered at the time. I am not at all convinced by your saying so now, though, Diana. Not at all convinced. But we will never know, will we?"
"If you ever dare try it again, you will find out," she said.
"Will I?" He grinned and flicked her cheek with one finger. "And at the same time we will also find out if my kisses bear any resemblance to ravishment. An interesting encounter to look forward to, Diana. I shall anticipate it with some eagerness. Ernie will doubtless be gnawing his fingernails to the elbows while he awaits us at the causeway. He will not trust me not to try to slink away into the bushes with you even now. Will you take my arm and prepare yourself for a brisk march?"
"Ernest is not a figure of fun," she said crossly, taking his arm. "He is a kindhearted man."
"I'll not argue that point with you," he said. "And on second thought, perhaps we should proceed at a more leisurely pace after all and allow him longer to give Miss Wickenham the length of his tongue. His wrath almost had me shaking in my boots."
"He was concerned for her safety," she said.
"Perhaps." He grinned. "By the way, before we come around to the front and he receives you with open and relieved arms, I must ask you one thing. Who did you think I was that night?"
"Oh," she said, wrestling with his arm and giving up when she realized that he was not going to relinquish his hold on her. "I did not think you were anyone. I was drugged, sir— with a double dose of laudanum."
"In that case," he said, "I must say that for once in my life I am happy to have been no one. Very happy."
"You are no gentleman, sir," she said as they rounded the west corner of the castle and came in sight of the other two.
"Oh, come now, Diana," he murmured. "Perhaps I am not gentle, though I believe I can rise to it when the occasion demands. But I am all of the rest of the word, my dear, as I think you know. Now what on earth is Miss Wickenham doing in the moat while Ernie stands on the bank, looking like a fish out of water? No, on second thought, looking more like a thunderhead."
It seemed that Angela had been told by the countess of a maiden who had once thrown herself to a watery death in the moat when she received word that her lover had been killed in battle. It was a quite unsubstantiated story, Lord Crensford had told her, but she wanted to see anyway where the girl must have landed and what she must have looked up to as she drowned.
"Though why no one jumped in to save her, I don't know," she called up to the three people ranged along the bank above her. "Surely someone must have been able to swim. Was it not a requirement of knighthood?"
"But all the knights were doubtless at the same war that killed her lover," the marquess pointed out. "Only old ladies and blacksmiths and jesters and people like that would have been left. Jesters couldn't swim. They were too busy jesting and jangling their bells."
"Well, I think it was a very romantic thing to do, anyway," Angela said, scrambling up the bank and reaching up a hand to the one Lord Crensford stretched down to her.
"And very brave, too. Not many ladies would have the courage to kill themselves for love. Most would prefer to pine away."
"The really brave ones would probably do neither," the Marquess of Kenwood said. "They would straighten their shoulders and lift their chins and march off into the future.''
Angela gave him a level look before throwing back her head and giving vent to a peal of laughter. "How very un-romantical you are, my lord," she said. "Just like my papa. Are all men the same? But I shall persist in believing that this girl was very brave. And I am sure her ghost must haunt the castle—but on dark and stormy nights. We must come back on such a night."
"We absolutely will not," Lord Crensford said testily. "I have no wish whatsoever, Miss Wickenham, to haul your dead body home with me."
Angela laughed again. "But you agree with me, don't you, Mrs. Ingram?"
And if he had any hopes of outwalking Ernie on the way home or lagging behind him so that he might resume his stimulating conversation with Diana, Lord Kenwood thought ruefully, he might let them trickle away at this very moment. Angela Wickenham linked her arm through Diana's, and the two of them went walking off together in the direction of home, their heads together, for all the world as if they were bosom friends who had just met after being apart for six months.
Ah well, progress had been made. Progress had definitely been made. She would have smacked his face, indeed! The kiss he had embarked on had lasted such a brief time that a clock would probably not have measured its duration. But she had been opening her mouth. He would take an oath on it.
He had well over two weeks left. Plenty of time. Time for the one necessary bedding and for more after that if he found that she made a pleasurable mistress, as he fully expected she would.
"So, Ernie," he said, "you have thwarted my wicked designs for one night. Are you proud of yourself, my boy?" ' 'I was almost too late,'' Lord Crensford said. He was quite grim-faced, the marquess could see. "And Miss Wickenham could have been hurt. I'll be more careful in the future, Jack. You are going to find me wherever you turn your head."
"How alarming for me," the marquess said. "And how potentially embarrassing for you, Ernie."
* * *
The Countess of Rotherham was planning a grand dinner and ball for the earl's sixty-fifth birthday two weeks after the arrival of the first guests. But busy as she was with the preparations for that and with the daily entertainment of her guests, she clapped her hands with delight when Nancy Decker told her at breakfast one morning that Allan Turner also had a birthday two days later.
''I should have remembered, dear,'' she said to him when the truth was discovered. "I recall telling your mama that she really must produce you on dear Rotherham's birthday— his thirty-fifth—and being quite cross with her when she was in too much of a rush and presented your papa with you five days early." She laughed heartily.
The earl rubbed his hands together. "This will be a cause for celebration," he said.
Allan's protests were to no avail. Before many minutes had passed, the countess had decided on an afternoon picnic at the river for the birthday, a very special dinner, and a musical evening.
"And everyone must participate in the concert," she announced. "There will be no protesting that you do not have a musical note in your heads. This family was ever musical. Everyone must do something. Yes, Ernest, dear, even you. Your violin is still in the music room."
"Mama!" Lord Crensford protested—to no avail.
Diana felt some alarm. She played the pianoforte, but not with any brilliance. And she could sing, but not well enough to rival any nightingale. Perhaps she would do both, she thought. She would sing to her own accompaniment. Then perhaps the audience would expect a little less of each performance.
"Are you fond of music, Allan?" Lady Knowles asked him when the earl and countess had left the breakfast parlor.
Allan Turner looked somewhat pained. "Not particularly," he said. "The one consolation seems to be that since this concert is to be in my honor, I will not be expected to perform in it. That will be a relief, both for me and for all of you, I do assure you."
"Isn't this just like Mama?" Lord Wendell said in some exasperation. "I suppose you are not overfond of picnics either, Allan."
Diana had promised to spend the morning in the village with Claudia and Angela and a few of the other ladies. Angela had been dithering for days over a bonnet at the milliner's that she was not at all sure was quite all the crack, though she liked it excessively, she said. This morning, though, she was going to buy it.
It was not until after luncheon, then, that Diana found a moment to steal into the music room. She would have an hour before they were all scheduled to play croquet on the lawn. A
nd it would be quite pleasant to have something definite to do in private. For the past three days she had been hiding in her room every time there was no common activity in progress.
And when there had been some general entertainment, she had attached herself to one of the ladies—she had always been fond of Claudia, and she had become quite friendly with Angela—or to Mr. Thomas Peabody, who seemed quite safe because he was old enough to be her father. The only trouble with the latter situation was that he was becoming quite markedly attentive. Oh dear, she thought sometimes, another problem was looming on the horizon.
But she had successfully avoided the Marquess of Kenwood in the past three days, if one discounted the fact that everyone's place at mealtimes seemed to have become fixed, and she found herself next to him at both luncheon and dinner each day. And if one discounted the seating arrangements the countess had made in the carriages going to church on Sunday, and in the pews inside the church. Almost inevitably, she had seated Diana beside the marquess.
But she had avoided being alone with him. There had been one tricky moment, it was true, before she had learned to hide herself in her room. She had been sitting in the rose garden reading a letter from her papa when the marquess had seated himself on the bench beside her. But since Ernest had seated himself on her other side no more than three minutes later, she had been able to feel a certain amusement.
They had spent the following twenty minutes, the three of them, extolling the superior virtues of the rose over any other flower. All of them had mouthed the merest commonplaces and had been in total agreement with one another. Diana would have been vastly pleased with herself had she not looked once at the marquess and known by the gleam in his eye and the set of his lips that he was enjoying himself a great deal more. Poor Ernest had had beads of sweat on his brow.
She thumbed through the pile of sheet music, looking for a song that she both knew and felt capable of singing in company. "The Cuckoo"? It was very pretty and within her range, but she had a shuddering mental image of the Marquess of Kenwood's face as it would look as she sang the line, "Cuckoo, cuckoo, he sings with might and main." She would feel foolish.
What a thoroughly obnoxious man he was. A rake, no less. A libertine. He had almost fought a duel over another man's wife. And had not even denied his guilt, Ernest had said. He was doubtless proud of his notoriety. Women were nothing to him but creatures to be seduced. She could never respect such a man. And he wished to add her to the list of his conquests. She knew he did. He had actually told her that he would like to make love to her. He had actually said—with no shame whatsoever—
That he wished there were more memories from that night at the inn.
It would have been very sweet, he had said in that bedroom voice he was so perfect at. No, it had not been a bedroom voice when he had said "Very sweet, Diana." It had been a right-between-the-sheets voice. It really ought not to be allowed. A man like that should not be allowed to roam around free.
"All Who Sing, and Wish to Please"? She read through the words of the song to remind herself of what they were. Oh no, she did not think so. "All who sing and wish to please, Must sing in tune ..." What if she sang out of tune? "Keep the time, take breath with ease.'' What if she should lose the timing and pant in her nervousness? No, not that song. His lips would quite curl with the irony of it all.
He was a dangerous man. Very dangerous, and she quite hated him. She had been going to slap him there at the castle. She really had. But she had wanted to time it well so that she did not make an utter cake of herself.
She had waited for him to commit himself. And men would have come the very satisfying crack across the face. She would not have cared if her hand had stung for an hour afterward.
She would have hit him. If Ernest had not called out when he had, she would have hit him.
But he did not believe so. When she had told him afterward, he had looked at her in that infuriating way he had, as if she were a child to be humored, and told her in so many words that he did not believe her. He had thought, then, that she would have submitted to the ignominy of his kiss.
He had thought that she would so lower herself, knowing what she did about him.
She had been submitting to only a moment's curiosity to know what he would feel like when she knew he was no fantasy and when sensations were not clouded by the laudanum. That was all she had been doing.
She would have slapped him one moment later.
How could she possibly ever have thought him a fantasy?
He had been all real, live, large man. His mouth had been opening over hers.
She shook another sheet of music open quite vengefully. "Haste Thee, Nymph"? She knew the words—they were John Milton's. But the music was unfamiliar. She hummed a little of it to herself and grimaced in distaste.
"You are singing it in a minor key," an all too familiar voice said from behind her. "It sounds prettier in the major key it was written in."
"Oh," she said, turning on the bench. "I am trying to select a song for Mr. Turner's birthday. I shall take the pile up to my room with me and choose something there."
''Mm.'' Lord Kenwood pulled at his lower lip and looked at her consideringly. "I think not, Diana. Someone's sensibilities might be outraged if I were seen following you into your bedchamber. Though it is an invitation that I must confess myself reluctant to refuse, it will probably be more respectable for us to stay here."
"I shall not keep you, my lord," she said, getting decisively to her feet. "Doubtless you wish to practice something for the concert."
"Doubtless," he said with a sigh. "I did suggest to her ladyship that I turn the pages of someone's music as my contribution. I am quite good at that, provided the music is lively enough that my attention does not wander. But alas, my offer was rejected."
"A pity," Diana said, clasping the pile of music to her bosom. "If you will excuse me, my lord."
"The countess is ever helpful, though," he said. "She has suggested a solution to my problem."
"Good," Diana said.
"You and I are to sing a duet," he said. "The countess's orders. You know it is impossibltto disobey those, Diana. I would as soon attempt to walk through a stone wall. She has sent me here now to practice with you, though I had intended to join Ernie and Miss Wickenham. You should not let your jaw drop so, my dear. It makes you look not quite in control of a situation."
"We are to sing a duet?" Diana said. "Do you sing?"
He raised one eyebrow again. It was beginning to annoy her to no small degree. He doubtless knew quite well what the gesture was capable of doing to a feminine heartbeat. "Certainly I do," he said. "Do you?"
"And the countess says we are to sing together." There was no possible way out then and no possible point in phrasing her words as a question.
"I would start selecting the music," he said, "but if I were to take a sheet from the pile at this very moment, I would probably be slapped for my pains, since my hand would doubtless come into contact with a part of your body that it has no business being in contact with. Not in broad daylight and in a public music room, anyway."
He smiled into her eyes. She wished his eyes were gray or brown. Anything but blue. Blue was mesmerizing.
"And where are Ernest and Angela?" she asked.
''Gone off walking somewhere with Clarence's infants,'' he said. ' 'Playing at being aunt and uncle, the two of them. It was the countess's suggestion that Ernie trot along too by the way. I am not at all sure that her suggestion about the duet was not just a ploy to exclude me from the excursion. She has decided to bring those two together. Most romantic, don't you agree?"
"I do not believe for one moment that you were going to join a walk with babies," Diana said scornfully.
Both eyebrows rose this time. "You malign me," he said. "I have a nephew of my own, you know, and positively dote on him. Ask my sister. I plan to teach him everything I know. My sister has other ideas. Come, Diana, the music." He held out a hand.
&nb
sp; Diana handed over the pile.
"Now let me see," he said. " 'The Miller's Flowers'? Bah! I would feel decidedly ridiculous. Look, you have all the words, while all I do is la la my way through the song. Everyone would think I had forgot the words. Oh, here we are, this is better. 'Sweet Kate.' Do you know it? A most affecting song. What a cruel maid was Kate. Look: she 'ran away and left me paining. Abide, I cried, or I die with thy disdaining.' This man certainly did not have much pride, did he?"
Diana stood beside him and peered at the music. "She was a wise Kate," she said. "Look, she could see through all his insincerity. 'Gladly wtiuld I see any man to die with loving. Never any yet died of such a fit.' A woman after my own heart."
"Well," he said, "I am not at all sure I approve of Kate's swain, whatever Ms name was. He allows her to have the last word in both verses. However, the song is probably as good as any. Shall we try it?"