She gritted her teeth. Civility was one thing. Compassion was going much too far. “I know very little of your brother,” she said. “But he does not strike me as forgiving.”
“Be that as it may,” he said, “I cannot afford to hide any longer.” He hesitated. “In fact . . . in that regard, perhaps you might help me.”
“Oh?” She couldn’t think of how.
“Mrs. Hull seems a respectable sort,” he began, and everything in her tightened as though in preparation for a blow. “Do I have that right? No rumors circulating about her that I’ve yet to hear?”
No. No, no . . . “No,” she said with great difficulty. “I suppose she hasn’t spent enough time with me yet.”
His slight smile was his only acknowledgment of that barb—which, belatedly, horrified her. She would not betray herself that way. Never would she make herself the target of her own unkind witticisms. “Then she’s precisely what I require,” he said. “Some pretty pretext to keep my brother appeased. I will make a point of paying particular attention to her. Perhaps even drop a few unguarded compliments to her in the Hawthornes’ presence. Word should travel quickly.”
“No need for that.” She felt removed from herself, suddenly, speaking by some script designed to keep conversation flowing when she’d much rather be alone, alone in some dark, shuttered room. Jane Hull. “I can write letters, too. I have a very full roster of gossiping friends. Shall I say you’ve stated your intentions, or shall I paint your interest to be of the fledgling variety?”
“Somewhere in between,” he said after a moment. He nodded. “Yes—say that I’ve spoken highly of her, and made discreet inquiries about her prospects. Does that sound right?”
“Yes, very believable.” This conversation needed to end. Now. Yet her mouth kept moving. “You think your brother would approve of a widow, then?”
He paused before replying, as though widowhood—the mere fact of ill luck—might indeed cast a black mark on a lady. “I should think her previous marriage would not disqualify her,” he said. “At the least, he’ll not be able to object straightaway. And that’s the main thing—to keep him occupied.”
“Right.” She felt light-headed. Where was her anger? She should be angry. “Well, then . . . I should go down to breakfast, I think.”
“Of course. Now that the bargain has been struck.” He came toward her, holding out his hand, and for a second she was too much a coward to take it.
But she forced a smile onto her lips and shook his hand, his callused palm pressing against hers all too briefly before he retrieved it.
Yes. She could do this. She would do this. There was no choice in it.
He smiled back at her. “And so we will be friends again,” he said. “Comrades with a common cause.”
“To our joint victory, then,” she said, and gestured him out the door.
• • •
Since mysticism was best experienced after dark, Liza had instructed the spiritualists to remain concealed throughout the day. To keep her guests amused, she had scheduled a variety of entertainments: lawn tennis, bowling, and shooting at clay birds; a picnic luncheon by May Lake . . . nothing too original, but the company made all the difference.
As it transpired, the company was game for anything so long as champagne was provided. Nigel and Katherine (who, experience told Liza, would drink until she slurred her words; nap until sober; and then reappear for another drink) began the fun by challenging Jane and Tilney to a game of tennis. Already Katherine’s steps were slightly unsteady, which made the game quite entertaining to watch—to say nothing of her terrible, or perhaps very accurate, aim. Three times in the first five minutes, Jane was forced to duck to avoid a black eye.
Down the field, far enough not to disturb the tennis match, Lady Forbes and Lord Hollister practiced their gunmanship, aiming their shotguns at the clay pheasants shot up from behind a small fence erected for the occasion. The regular punctuation of explosions added to the festive flavor, as did the growing evidence that between the two shooters, Lady Forbes possessed the superior aim.
The archery butts drew no interest. The remainder of the guests—apart from the Sanburnes, who were once again suspiciously absent—loitered beneath striped awnings beside the tennis court, sipping drinks and nibbling on dishes of fresh strawberries and clotted cream. Conversation flowed agreeably. Everybody who had seen The Mikado deemed it perfectly splendid. The recent appointment of Cecil as prime minister occasioned a heated debate over Irish Home Rule that Liza put to an end by calling for a toast to good company. The weather was marvelous. Nobody thought it would rain tomorrow.
Slowly she worked her way toward Weston, who had broken off during the Home Rule debate to converse privately with Michael. Her stomach felt strangely fluttery as she made her approach. The two men were of a height, but next to Weston’s brawn, Michael’s lean strength put her in mind of a greyhound.
Many women preferred bulk. She supposed it might be like oysters: one must learn to acquire the taste.
He glanced at her briefly as she joined them. The faint curve of his lips seemed somehow conspiratorial. And then, to prove it, he winked.
She was betting a great deal on the sincerity of his offer, because he could as easily sabotage as aid her.
She knocked aside the fluttering ribbons that trimmed her hat to show Weston her kindest smile. “Important talk?” If they were still on the Irish question, she was going to intervene.
“No other kind,” said Weston.
“I suppose that depends on one’s perspective,” said Michael. “We were discussing horseflesh. Weston has recently been in the market.” As the breeze ruffled his glossy brown hair, he tilted his head slightly, probably to shift the stray wisps from his eyes.
That mannerism struck her suddenly as painfully familiar. A lover would appreciate it for the excuse it provided to brush his hair away with her hand. She knew how his hair would feel, soft and smooth, warmed by the sun . . .
She curled her itching fingers into her palm. “But I love horses,” she said brightly. “Have you found one to purchase?”
“There’s a very promising stud I’ve my eye on,” said Weston. “Dam Pandora, sire Apollonius.”
“Ah!” She could speak to this. “The same Apollonius who won the Queen Anne Stakes four years ago?”
Weston’s visible surprise gratified her. “Why, yes, the very same. Do you follow racing, then?”
“Yes, I—” But a look at Michael made her hesitate. He was shaking his head slightly. “That is, of course I read the papers.” Until recently, she’d made a great sport of wagering, too. “That’s bound to be a very profitable foal.”
Michael, who had retreated a subtle pace from Weston’s view, now winced.
“No doubt,” said Weston. “Of course, I consider racing more an art than an industry.”
She bit her cheek. Bat your lashes, Michael had instructed her on the way down the stairs. Imagine yourself fresh from your mother’s leading strings, wide-eyed and eager and naïve.
She’d snorted at his advice. Everyone knew Weston was somewhat tightly buttoned, but she could imagine no model more unlikely to snag a man’s interest.
Nevertheless . . . it was true that profit did not make a genteel motive. Very sweetly, she said, “Oh, I quite agree, Lord Weston. In fact, my admiration for horseflesh is deplorably shallow. It’s as simple as . . . some of them are very pretty.”
As easy as that, Weston was smiling again. “Ah, yes. Ladies and their ponies.”
Ponies? “Ladies and their ponies,” she agreed. What on earth? She had not sat on a pony since her sixth birthday.
“I have a niece who demanded a snow-white mare, the better to pretend it was a unicorn.” Weston’s smile was softening, growing fond. “Insists on collecting every equine dolly she comes across. A great stable she has, all of them no taller than two feet high!”
She joined in with his laugh, though she did not, in truth, find it a particularly flatter
ing comparison.
On the other hand, he was thinking of children in connection to her! And that could be nothing but encouraging. “Yes,” she said, “how perfectly adorable ponies are!”
Weston cast a look over the parkland. “Prime country for hunting, here. I suppose you chase the foxes now and then?”
She stole a questioning glance at Michael, whose impassive expression now afforded her no clues. Surely Weston did not consider it unfeminine to hunt? That would make him the oddest Englishman she ever knew.
Oh, this was rubbish. She was not going to second-guess everything she said. Michael was not so credible a witness as that. “I have been known to hunt,” she said. “I confess, more for the chase than the kill.”
Weston chuckled and shot a wry look toward Michael. Abruptly she became aware of the double meaning in her statement. Such a remark might also come from the mouth of a committed bachelor . . . or a merry widow.
But Weston, thankfully, did not remark on the unintended humor. “Have you scheduled a hunt for us, then?”
She had not. She truly did not like the slaughter of foxes.
Inspiration struck. “No, I haven’t, for foxes are too, too adorable to kill,” she said. “Nearly as adorable as horses! And—they put me in mind of dogs,” she added quickly, for Weston was blinking as though amazed. Drat it—foxes were darling. And if he did not like dogs, he was a Frenchman in disguise. “Puppies!” she said. “I do so love puppies!”
Weston shrugged. “A pity, of course, that they do tend to grow up. Shed hair all over the place. But foxes, you know, are vermin.”
“Weston always has three or four behemoths in his drawing room,” said Michael. “Monstrous ugly dogs. I don’t think he ever combs them.”
She nodded politely, willing her smile—and her outfit, a cream lawn suit with cunning pink trimming—to veritably scream her girlish charm. “I adore all kinds of animals,” she said. “Anything . . . fluffy.”
Good God. She felt her smile waver toward a grimace.
Weston was studying her, his expression one of benign amusement. “Is that so? Can it be that our famous Mrs. Chudderley, toast of all the town, was also once a girl who dreamed of unicorns?”
Was that a veiled joke about her virginity? She blinked innocently. “What girl does not long for a unicorn, sir? Why, perhaps I still want one!”
His brief laugh smacked of surprise. “Goodness! That’s a—well, I must say, Mrs. Chudderley, I never imagined that you might be . . .”
She waited for him to finish that sentence—which, in all fairness, might as easily turn into an insult as a compliment. But he trailed off, turning toward Michael as though in search of aid. Michael stepped forward immediately.
“Mrs. Chudderley is many things,” Michael said as his eyes met hers, “all of which surpass a mere mortal’s ability to imagine.”
Look away, she told herself. Now. But she was as helpless as a snake before its charmer. His eyes were the most extraordinary, heart-piercing blue. And he was making no move to look away, either.
“Very prettily put,” said Weston. His transparent relief at being rescued did not, precisely, cheer her. But it did free her from the spell. She looked out over the lawn, and when she peeked back, Michael was frowning in the direction of the tennis match.
As for Weston, he seemed disinclined to speak again, and the silence began to strike Liza as awkward. She cast about for another topic, increasingly frustrated when nothing came to mind. This was so unlike her! She wished Michael would walk away; she could not focus with him standing there.
The lull was shattered by a cry from the direction of the tennis game. Liza turned in time to see Jane regaining her feet with Baron Forbes’s aid. Somewhat mysteriously, her tennis racket lay about ten feet away. “Watch where you’re aiming that!” she yelled.
Katherine, on the other side of the net, gave a toss of her head. “The point is to hit it back.”
“I do believe someone’s going to die on that court,” Michael remarked. “One solid strike to the temple . . .”
“Had no idea tennis could be so gladiatorial,” Weston replied. “Are you prepared to play doctor?”
“I don’t play at it, Weston.”
Was that . . . a note of aggression? “I imagined you would be the first on the tennis court,” she said quickly to Weston. “Do the rumors mislead me? I hear you’re a great sportsman!”
“Such kind rumors,” said Weston, “that I believe it would be rude to deny them. No, you’re quite right, madam; spectatorship has never been my strength.” Good heavens, was that a subtle flex of his arms he’d just performed? That was encouraging. “I’ve already challenged de Grey to a match.”
“Which you will lose,” Michael said cheerfully.
“That would be a first,” said Weston, just as cheerfully.
The two men locked eyes, grinning fiercely. Oh, dear. Masculine rivalry. Well, she knew how to take advantage of that.
With a gentle, fleeting touch to Weston’s elbow, she said, “I have every faith in you, sir.”
“As you should,” he said, a touch too seriously. “This one may look strapping, but I promise you, at university, he was a perfect stranger to the playing fields.”
“Imagine that,” said Michael. “I rather thought we were there to learn.”
“And what can’t you learn on the playing fields?” Weston demanded. “Honor, courage, proper bottom, a sporting spirit—”
“Oh, indeed,” said Michael. “All of which would be very helpful when I’m playing doctor. What ho, a fever? Well, chin up, man; can’t let down the team!”
“Always had his nose in a book,” Weston said to her, then tsked and shook his head.
She managed a distracted smile at this bait, but her mind was wandering. Michael as a bookish boy: the image rather caught her off guard. What had he been like in his youth? Gangly and gawky, she would wager. But already dedicated; already unlike any of the other men of his class that she had known. It made sense that he would have been studious: one did not become a doctor by following the usual path by which the nobility traveled through their university days—namely, drinking, wenching, and sporting.
“Ah, that’s us,” said Weston—for Jane had stalked off the court, and Katherine and Tilney were jeering. “Shall we, de Grey?”
She mustered herself to the task. After another brief touch to Weston’s elbow, she ducked her head as though her own temerity had abashed her. “Good luck, Lord Weston.”
“Oh, I won’t need it,” he said briskly—a rather off-putting kind of reply.
Michael gave her another wink, to which she replied with the haughty lift of one brow.
As they walked off, she turned to watch them. For a self-proclaimed athlete, Weston moved with a strange stiffness, almost as if he had a steel rod in place of his spine. Very little swivel to his hips, either. A very . . . masculine walk, she supposed. Whereas Michael . . .
Michael strode. His movements were decisive. His stride firm and long-legged.
His hips moved fluidly.
He would make an excellent dancer. She already knew what else those hips could accomplish.
She swallowed and turned on her heel. High time to go find Hollister.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
During a lazy luncheon by the lake, Liza sussed out Hollister’s potential. They sat beneath an umbrella large enough to screen them both from the sun—a blessing, for he was paler than she, in that manner only dark-haired Irishmen could achieve, his mother, he explained without embarrassment, having hailed from Cork. She decided she admired a self-made man. His eyes were a pleasant, mossy hazel, and nobody would find fault with his features, which were finely, even exquisitely molded. If anything, he was too handsome, for a lady did not like to be outranked in that regard.
She forgave him for it, though, because she liked his manner better than Weston’s. He had sculpted lips made for sneering, and his humor matched his capacity: his wit was sharp and his repartee
tremendously delicious. On their stroll together back to the house, he commented on Jane Hull, walking ahead of them, her head close to Michael’s: “Climbing like ivy,” he said, “and no blade to hand. Do you mean to fetch one?”
She cut him a surprised look, but after a quick calculation, did not pretend to misunderstand him. “I have no designs on Lord Michael,” she said.
He lifted his brow briefly. “I do admire bluntness in a woman.”
She’d imagined he would. He was something of a climber himself—a financier who had all but purchased his title. That he should judge Jane for similar ambitions struck her as curious and perhaps concerning. “And what of feminine ambition? Do you approve of that as well?”
“Certainly,” he said. “Though I will admit I reserve my admiration for the more subtle displays.”
His faint smile left no doubt that he recognized her flirtations as the overture to her own ambitions.
Feeling so transparent might normally irritate her. But his frankness left her peculiarly unruffled. When he took her arm to help her over a very unthreatening tree root, she turned her hand in his grasp just so, the better to drag her fingers suggestively over his palm when he released her again.
His smile faded, the look he gave her turning somewhat hotter. But it called forth only the mildest physical reply in her—nothing to compare to the pull she’d so recently known.
She forced away the beginning of a frown. Ahead, Michael was making no similar attempt to touch Jane. A very stupid part of her was gratified by that. The rest of her was irked. If he wanted her aid in circulating rumors of his interest, he needed, at the least, to act interested.
Back at the house, she went to her rooms to bathe and rest. After a few lazy hours set aside for unscheduled amusements, the guests once again assembled in the larger drawing room, this time to be entertained by the clairvoyant, Signora Garibaldi.
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