A Country Flirtation

by Valerie King

“Yes,” he agreed. “I was twenty-six at the time—which was, good God, eleven years ago.”

  She considered this, tilting her head slightly. “That would explain it, then.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Kidmarsh has been downstairs surrounded by my sisters for the past two hours, speaking of all his London experiences. I couldn’t help but be reminded of my come-out Season. I recalled meeting a great many people and seeing numerous notables, but I couldn’t remember having ever seen you. But, of course, then, you would have been in mourning, for that was eleven years past.”

  “A long time ago.” He searched her face and her eyes. “I should like to have met you then. You are lovely now, but I would imagine in the first blush of youth you must have set the entire ton on its ear.”

  “Hardly. I am quite tall, you see, a regular Long Meg, and though I may not have a mountain of experience, I do know that there is scarcely a gentleman around who enjoys being looked square in the eye by any female.”

  He laughed outright and continued chuckling for a moment. “You have the right of it. There can be no two opinions on that score.” He then waggled his brows. “I’m a tall man. I’m sure you couldn’t look me directly in the eye.”

  Her heart turned over. He was flirting again. She wondered just how much taller he was than she and what it would be like to really look up to a man in that way. She recalled the moment of his accident when he had risen up in his curricle, like a mythological god, and pulled his horses to a halt. He had seemed like a giant.

  “You are blushing,” he said, teasing her a little more. “Have I said something improper?”

  “No,” she responded promptly. “You’ve said nothing improper, you’ve only inferred it.”

  He grinned. “So I have.”

  But she was liking this conversation a deal too much.

  He said, “I returned to London the next year. Did you not want a second Season?”

  She sighed. “Papa died that fall and—” She hesitated telling him the truth, for it was still a painful subject.

  “And?” he prompted.

  Constance could think of no reason to refuse confiding in him. After all, he would be gone in a handful of days so what harm could it possibly do?

  “And . . .” she began again, “all that I was used to taking for granted was gone—except our home. London might as well have been as far away as China.” She paused, but when she saw the concerned light in his eye, she couldn’t help but continue, “I don’t repine, I promise you, especially since at least I had one Season. My sisters have had far fewer advantages.”

  “What happened? A loss on the ‘change?”

  She shook her head and chuckled a bit. “Papa—whom I adored—had taken to gaming at the various East End establishments that spring and the Season prior, I think. His pockets were well to let when he passed on.”

  “My poor child,” he murmured.

  “Oh, no, pray do not. I will tolerate a great deal from anyone except pity. The Season was a thrilling event and something I shall never forget, but I’m convinced that over time the delights of Mayfair would have worn thin had I continued attending that riotous event annually. Tell me this is not true.”

  Ramsdell sighed. “Very much so,” he said. His eye took on a faraway expression. “The faces become too familiar, the feminine artifices used to make the most brilliant match of the Season a trying affair, the sheer opulence and extravagance becomes mundane, if that is even possible. I’ve taken to refusing more invitations than I accept when I am in London. The world, the beau monde, becomes a stifling place, indeed.” His eye cleared a little. “Of course, that might be different were you there.”

  His smile showed he was teasing and flirting again.

  “Are you always so wicked when you are ill?”

  “You forget—I am never ill. I have never been ill except for this ridiculous accident. So I can’t possibly answer your question.”

  “You amaze me. You don’t even seem tired. Are you not fagged to death of the moment?”

  He seemed pleased by her compliment. “I daresay it’s the company,” he responded generously. “Oh, you are blushing again. How delightful.”

  The air seemed to crackle. He fell silent as he watched her, his gray eyes smiling. She could think of nothing to say. She didn’t want to speak. She wanted to look into his eyes and drink from his soul.

  “Did you kiss me?” he asked abruptly.

  She felt her cheeks warm.

  “Oh, glorious day, you did.” He was smiling hugely. “I recalled your lips pressed to mine, but I was convinced until this moment that I had imagined it.”

  She felt even the edges of her ears begin to burn. She had hoped, trusted, that the laudanum would have tricked his memory. Apparently, she was wrong. She placed her cool hands on her cheeks. “I do beg your pardon, m’lord. The gesture was not meant to be flirtatious or offensive. You see—”

  “You don’t need to explain,” he interjected. “How could I possibly have been offended when I fell into the sweetest slumber ever with the feel of your lips on mine. As for flirting, what a ridiculous notion to think you might have been flirting with a near corpse.”

  She felt compelled to say, “I cared for my father when he was ill in a like manner. I—” Tears danced on her lashes.

  “No, pray don’t cry. I never meant to overset you—”

  “I didn’t want you to die,” she blurted out. “All the sensations were too familiar. I wanted you so to live, and when you did, I said a prayer of thanksgiving and kissed you.”

  “You saved me,” he whispered.

  “No,” she chuckled. “No. You had already chosen life, Ramsdell. I was just expressing my gratitude, that’s all.”

  * * * * * * * * *

  Fifth Viscount Lord Ramsdell looked at Miss Constance Pamberley and felt his heart lurch and strain toward her. From the moment she entered his bedchamber, he had felt lit with a fire he couldn’t understand. When he had said that part of his strength was a result of her company, he had meant it. He was drawn to her, he was taken with her, and the rapport he felt conversing in this so-delightful manner was like nothing he had ever known before. He realized with a start that had he been even half recovered, he would have slid from bed and gathered this beauty up in his arms and kissed her quite thoroughly. But perhaps his weakened state was proving a blessing of sorts, because warning bells suddenly clanged sharply within that portion of his mind relegated to common sense.

  Where could such a kiss end?

  What was he doing, flirting hell-bent with a woman who was little more than an innocent for all her abilities and even her age?

  Even so, he felt poised on a precipice above a clear blue sea, ready to dive in and enjoy a marvelous swim.

  Yet again, he had to ask himself—to what end?

  A country flirtation amid his set, in which the rules were straightforward and understood by all was one thing. But this—the camaraderie resulting from Miss Pamberley’s nursing, coupled with his admiration of her person and her character, were not covered by the careful rules of his usual society. What if she tumbled in love with him? What if he tumbled in love with her, which, given the peculiarly powerful sensation that seemed to surround his heart in just speaking with her, he suspected was a possibility.

  Yet the question would not go away—where could any of this end?

  He had never been a man to follow his impulses—as Charles was. He laid out his course carefully, and with allowances for one or two happy accidents along the way, he stayed with his course and because of it enjoyed a comfortable life full of excellent friendships and an estate that was growing annually. He sat in the House of Lords and involved himself in the pressing social issues of the day. And he was waiting for exactly the right woman to marry—the daughter of a peer, endowed with a proper portion, and prepared to become a notable London hostess. A woman who was his equal in every way—intelligent, sensible, and, hopefully, loving.

  Miss
Pamberley was the latter but certainly not the former. He watched her rise to her feet. “You are tired,” she said graciously, a half-smile on her lips. “I’ll leave you to your slumbers. Good night.” The smile wavered for a moment on her lips, then disappeared. She turned away from him. He wasn’t fooled. There was a certain tightness about her eyes. She had understood his silence, and he had little doubt that the expression on his face had betrayed his thoughts.

  So much the better. Flirting with her had been foolish in the extreme. Far better to end the possibilities now.

  “Miss Pamberley,” he said as she moved away from the bed.

  “Yes?” she turned back toward him, her expression guarded.

  He extended his right hand toward her. She looked at it for a moment, then came forward and laid her hand in his.

  “Thank you for everything,” he said softly. “Had our circumstances been different . . .” He looked at her. He willed her to understand.

  She smiled down at him. “Yes, but if only you had not been such a very tall man.”

  He chuckled and released her hand. She left with her head high. She was dignified to the last.

  He should have been utterly gratified by the exchange, but with the passing of a bare handful of minutes after the door closed behind her, something inside him began to hurt.

  ***

  Chapter Five

  Constance did not visit Lord Ramsdell again over the next several days. Instead, she questioned Marchand at the beginning and ending of each day regarding his master’s progress.

  His recitals were succinct and quite tactful, but she gained an increasing sense that Ramsdell was proving to be a difficult patient, something she could easily understand.

  By the fifth day, Marchand’s eyes and lips had grown pinched with extreme forbearance, and she could see that he was nearly worn to the bone waiting on his fractious master. She desired very much to give him a much-needed respite, but she knew instinctively that Ramsdell would not allow it.

  The viscount was a man of sense and discipline, just as she was a woman with similar qualities, and she knew very well he would not be gentle in his dismissal of her next time. Therefore, she stayed the impulse to offer her assistance, which, she believed, would have been refused anyway.

  Still, she was troubled by Marchand’s suffering and hoped that some circumstance might arise that would allow her to offer her help regardless of Ramsdell’s wishes.

  As she went about her business on the fifth day, she recalled to mind the conversation she had shared with him that first evening of his recovery. In all her nine and twenty years she had never enjoyed such an easy, exciting rapport with a gentleman. She had felt in those brief minutes that she had met a soul so similar to her own, she wondered whether it was possible she had known him or met him before, perhaps even in another life, which was silly, of course, but the sensation was so profound, she couldn’t help but wonder.

  Yet, he was a peer of the realm, and she a spinster daughter of a country gentleman whose death had revealed the scandalous nature of his gaming habits. A connection between her family and his, even in friendship, was unthinkable.

  Besides, friendship was not in the least what had been ebbing and flowing between them that night, not when she had spoken so scandalously of ravishment and he had confronted her about the kiss she had placed on his lips the night his fever turned.

  She had even shed some tears after leaving his room that night, so unlike her, tears of regret that her future must be endured entirely without him.

  Then she had awakened the next day, set her shoulders to the work in front of her, and ignored the occasional fluttering of her stomach when Ramsdell’s name was mentioned by her sisters or Alby. She had turned her interests elsewhere and had directed her attention instead to Mr. Kidmarsh, who was still pretending not to know his name or his residence, or his family, yet, so surprisingly, could recall every other detail of his life—every trip to London, every fox hunt, every ball he had ever attended, the vile taste of the waters at Bath, the color of the draperies in the music room at the Brighton Pavilion, all the cities he had visited in Europe three years before—including a lengthy recounting of the battlefield at Waterloo—the brilliance of Turner’s paintings, the odd white flecks in John Constable’s extraordinary work, his first meeting with Lord Byron—all this, and yet he just could not seem to recall his own name.

  Constance still felt it was not her place to confront him about his identity. Because his guardian was under her roof, she felt the obligation belonged to him, and when he was fully recovered, the viscount could address the matter with Alby himself. However, her sympathy for Alby’s “delicate constitution” ended the second day of her self-induced banishment from Ramsdell’s room. She had risen early that morning, before her sisters had awakened from their slumbers, and happened to observe Alby racing Lord-a-Mercy across the east lane in a neck-or-nothing fashion that would have astonished her had she not long since suspected his duplicity.

  Later, she had caught him entering the door of the morning room, which opened onto a sweeping terrace, his face flushed and his brow beaded with perspiration. He had appeared so guilty that she could have laughed had she not feared he would misunderstand her amusement, for he was in so many ways an ungovernable child. She withheld her laughter, therefore, and merely leveled a stern stare at him, offering her hope that his damp brow was not the first sufferings of a brain fever.

  Poor Alby! He had fallen all over himself assuring her that it was no such thing, he was perfectly well, she needn’t have any fear on that score. He then nearly let the cat out of the bag by begging her, “Pray do not send Marchand to me.”

  She eyed him curiously, a faint smile on her lips. “Why ever would I do that, Alby?” she had asked with a great pretense to innocence.

  His blush deepened. “I—that is, yesterday he came to see me and . . . and spoke to me as though he knew who I was. He began twitching at the sheets and touching my forehead and begging to know if I was well. I can’t bear to be cosseted in that manner, you’ve no idea!”

  His story had been almost convincing, except that he had stammered a deal too much to be entirely credible and his cheeks were a fiery red. Regardless, she suspected his complaints of Marchand might be true. Even Ramsdell had hinted that his staff doted on the poor boy.

  She had let him go after that, assuring him that Marchand was fully occupied tending to Ramsdell and that he had nothing to fear from her.

  He had been fulsome in his gratitude and had left her on a hasty stride. Afterward, he had become wary of her, yet even more respectful than before, which was a good thing, since a direct result had been that he had begun to temper some of his flirtations with her sisters.

  She had since that time started observing Charles Kidmarsh with fond detachment. Though his presence was a threat to the hearts of her sisters, especially to Augusta’s, otherwise he was in every way a quite harmless creature. He never crossed the line and seemed inordinately content to amuse them all, a propensity that kept her house full of laughter, and that made the evenings a joy.

  But today, nearly three weeks since Alby’s arrival at Lady Brook, she decided that the household must begin resuming its more normal workings and occupations. Many of the household tasks were not being attended to properly with two patients in the house to occupy the staff and all the Pamberley ladies.

  She wasn’t certain when the notion had bit her, perhaps when she heard Alby complain bitterly to Augusta that much of his life had been lived in the sickroom, but it came to her that a mite of labor would not be a bad thing for Alby.

  Therefore, she presented him with a choice—he could sit idle with no one to keep him company since all the sisters had numerous chores to perform, or he could offer his assistance in helping the ladies perform their tasks. In addition to sustaining the usual ladylike occupations of practicing the pianoforte and vocalizing, reading for the strict purpose of increasing their knowledge, and painting with watercol
ors, the Pamberley sisters were constantly employed in repairing their clothes as well as the household linens, enhancing their gowns with embroidery and other frippery, sewing baby and children’s clothes for the poor, gathering honey for both Lady Brook as well as to distribute to the needy, berrying in season, collecting fruit from the orchards for preserves for the winter, delivering bread to the parson to be passed among those in need, and visiting the sick and infirmed among several surrounding villages and hamlets.

  Alby was stunned when she read him the list of the ladies’ duties and watched as he blanched. “I had no idea,” he said, looking much struck. “Have I—have I been keeping them from all this?”

  Constance was surprised at his display of conscience. She decided he ought to hear the truth. “Yes, you have, but I’m not certain the holiday they have enjoyed was an unfortunate occurrence. My sisters have not laughed so much in years, and for that I am grateful to you.”

  His face grew pinched and his gaze dropped to the carpet. What his thoughts were she could not guess, but she was pleased that when he met her gaze once more there was a determined light in his eye. “I shall be happy to offer my assistance to whatever tasks will require the most effort. I have been so appreciative of my time in your home, Miss Pamberley.”

  “I can see that you have,” she responded sincerely. She considered him for a moment and realized that there might be one singular purpose to which his talents could be put to noble use. She said, “I was wondering how you might feel about reading to my mother, especially since you excel at it as you do. Augusta told me she introduced you to her the other day. I realize that her infirmity might be unsettling, so if you feel disinclined to take up such a role as I am suggesting,

  I will understand.” She smiled. “Though I don’t hesitate to tell you she particularly favors the novels by the author of Waverly.”

  His eyes brightened. “As do I,” he responded. Some strong emotion began working across his face. After a long pause he continued. “I would be happy to read to your mother. I have spent much of my life within the confines of a sickroom, so much so I’m fairly certain I know precisely how she is feeling of the moment.” Again she heard an edge of bitterness to his voice.