Dangerous to Love

by Rexanne Becnel

  Valerie would very likely be browbeaten by Lady Westcott into a miserable match.

  As for herself, she would miss attending Sir James's lectures. She would lose her chance to meet the one man whose intellectual nature seemed suited to her own. She would never know if they might have formed an attachment, for she would be confined to Houghton Manor, playing governess to Graham's rowdy brood for the rest of her life while her brain rotted from boredom.

  Meanwhile, Ivan Thornton would go on his merry way, the only one unaffected by this whole mess. A spurt of righteous anger fired her blood. It always came back to Ivan Thornton.

  Tomorrow morning she would have to remind Lady Westcott about that. Her grandson's disdain of his grandmother was at the root of the old woman's scheming. If the dowager countess wanted to obtain her goals, whatever they might be, she would have to begin thinking of Lucy, not as a tool to be manipulated, but as an ally.

  Lucy didn't have a clue, however, of how she was to convince the old woman of that.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  Lucy awoke before dawn. This was becoming an unfortunate habit, she fretted as she tossed about, fluffing up her pillow in an attempt to get comfortable. She wanted to go back to sleep, for she'd gone to bed very late, mere hours ago.

  She turned to her other side, then winced when her plait caught beneath her shoulder. That didn't help the nagging headache that had plagued her last evening and had not dissipated at all while she'd slept.

  She let out a frustrated sigh and stared up at the pleated satin lining of the tall canopied bed. Why was she awake? There had been no ring of carriage wheels on the pavement outside. Ivan Thornton was not bidding some tart farewell at the front door.

  She grimaced. Be fair, Lucy. Even he would not bring a common tart into his home. Still, the sort of loose woman he'd had here that other night was not much better than a common tart, only better dressed.

  "Blast," she swore, punching the innocent down-filled pillow. The troublesome Ivan Thornton might not have awakened her with his nighttime escapades, but he was, nevertheless, the cause of her sleeplessness.

  Why had he kissed her?

  Why had she become so undone by that kiss?

  And why, why had she returned his kiss so passionately?

  As if that disaster were not enough for one evening, she'd then careened right into another one. Whatever had she been thinking, to challenge Lady Westcott that way? And in front of Valerie, no less?

  She groaned and pulled the pillow over her head. For someone anxious to remain in London, she certainly was going out of her way to ensure she would be sent packing, right back to the boring environs of Houghton Manor.

  Somewhere she heard a cock crow—not a sound she would have expected in London. Flinging the pillow aside, she stared again at the precisely gathered fabric that lined the bed overhang above her head. She might as well rise. Perhaps a turn in the garden would ease her aching head and calm her rattled nerves. Besides, she needed to be at her sharpest when she met with Lady Westcott this morning. If she were to undo the damage she'd done last night, she would have to engage the wily old woman's imagination.

  She dressed quickly, in an everyday dress, plain slippers, and a knitted shawl wound around her shoulders. Then, sans gloves and with her hair still in its untidy nighttime coiffure, she slipped into the silent hall, made her way down the back stairs, and let herself out the service entrance.

  The breeze carried a light chill, with the faint fragrance of coal smoke in the air. My, but Londoners were extravagant, she decided. Heating their houses on so mild a night. At home Graham would turn out the servant who dared to light a fire on such a night.

  She strolled across the gravel drive toward the box garden that extended between the two back wings of the house. On one side the library flanked it. On the other the morning room. A pair of silvered garden benches sat opposite one another with a sundial positioned between them. The benches were too damp to sit on, however. So instead of sitting, Lucy meandered through the shadowy garden, fingering an unfurling fern frond, gathering dew from the cupped petals of a rose.

  She breathed deeply, and exhaled, then loosened her hair from its confining plait. Massaging the back of her neck, she tried to banish the nagging ache buried deep in her head. She luxuriated in the dim quiet of the garden, the moist feel of the spring dawn against her skin and the fragrant peace of its stillness surrounding her. But she could not entirely control her churning thoughts.

  What was she to do about Lady Westcott? How was she to dissuade the dowager countess from packing her off to Somerset?

  Then a hinge creaked, Lucy looked up, and the morning peace was shattered.

  "You're up early. Or is it late?"

  Lucy wasn't certain whether her heart sank at the sight of Ivan or soared. There was no arguing, however, that its pace increased tenfold.

  Why was he here? And why now?

  "I woke early," she answered at last, watching his tall, broad-shouldered silhouette approach. "Why are you up and about at such an hour?"

  He stopped on the opposite side of the sundial, near enough that she could begin to make out his features. He had a half-smile on his face. "I was having dreams. Erotic dreams. What's your excuse?"

  "Certainly not that!" she answered without thinking. But an unpleasantly honest voice in her head said other wise. Perhaps her thoughts had not been erotic in the fullest sense of the word, but that was only because she was not experienced enough to imagine anything completely erotic. But she had been thinking of Ivan, and of their kiss and the way it had made her feel.

  "You wound me terribly, Lucy, for I was certain our—"

  "Don't call me Lucy! I haven't given you leave to be so familiar."

  "Your enthusiastic participation in our kiss seemed rather familiar to me. Or were you simply toying with my affections?" he added, giving her that charming half grin of his.

  Lucy's heart pounded so violently that her chest began to hurt. "You are deliberately misconstruing everything and you know it."

  He moved to his left, following the path around toward her. At once Lucy moved left too, trying to keep the ornate sundial between them. "If you have come here to irritate me, then I shall be forced to leave," she warned.

  "Does that mean you will stay if my goal is not to irritate you? For I assure you, Lucy, that irritating you is the very last thing on my mind."

  "You see? You see? You're doing it again! You're saying these... these suggestive things. You're calling me Lucy when I've told you not to. And you're stalking me like some great beast of prey!"

  He let out a noisy sigh and shook his head as if dismayed. But at least he stopped the stalking. Only then did she notice how casually he was dressed, with neither coat nor vest to cover his shirt. Nor did he wear a neckcloth. His collarless shirt was open at the throat and even in the first light of the shadowy dawn she could see the dark curls revealed by the deeply cut neckline.

  With his long hair in as much disarray as his clothing, and that damnable diamond in his left ear, he looked every bit the Gypsy he'd been born, a dark and dangerous man who set every one of her senses aflame.

  But she must take charge of those wayward senses of hers, she reminded herself. And the best way to do that was not to let him control the situation.

  "Did you find the McClendons' soiree enjoyable?" she asked, deciding to keep the conversation strictly superficial. You should go inside and end this conversation entirely, a voice in her head scolded. But the rebellious part of her soul chose to ignore that voice.

  "Enjoyable? 'Entertaining' might be a more accurate word."

  "Well, at least you took some pleasure of the evening."

  "Pleasure indeed," he replied. His eyes moved over her, taking in the wild abundance of her loosened hair, her bare arms, and her casually clad form.

  Was he remembering their kiss? Had he taken as much pleasure from it, after all, as had she?

  Lucy pulled her shawl ti
ghter. But that did nothing to counter the riot af emotions his murmured words and vivid gaze roused within her. It was not working, these feeble efforts to control her reaction to him; Her very skin seemed to tighten in his presence and become incredibly sensitive when he turned his attention on her.

  "I believe I shall return to my chambers," she murmured, hugging her arms close about her as she backed away from him.

  "Are you cold?" Before she could react he came around the sundial and its encircling bed of moss roses.

  Lucy wanted to turn tail and run. She wanted to rush into his arms and have him take her in a bruising embrace. Thankfully the one sane part left of her brain prevented her from reacting in either of those disastrous fashions.

  But simply standing there, waiting for his approach, seemed equally disastrous.

  He stopped just before her, then reached out to her.

  Lucy caught her breath. She swayed toward him and very nearly closed her eyes in anticipation of his kiss.

  But he didn't kiss her. He pulled the folds of her shawl up closer to her neck and tugged it up to better cover her chest. Then his hands fell away from her. He remained standing in the same place though, closer than was proper, but not so close as to be entirely improper either.

  But propriety was more than a matter of proximity, as his next words so rudely proved. "I know a much better way to keep warm than with an uninspiring shawl."

  She was already warm, but she would never reveal that to him. "I'm sure you do, my lord. However ... However, I find this shawl perfectly adequate to my needs."

  "And what needs are those, Lucy? You are approaching thirty, an age which will brand you forever a spinster, the dried-up maiden aunt to your brother's children. Are you telling me you have no needs as yet unmet?"

  "I really do not wish to continue this conversation. If you will excuse me?" She pushed past him on the path and marched for the servants' entrance she'd used before. Only ten more steps, she told herself. Nine more. Eight. Seven.

  He caught her just three paces from the door. He snatched up the end of her shawl and gave it a sharp tug, and she, most unwisely, turned and tried to pull it out of his hold.

  "Let go," she demanded, refusing to cower before him.

  "And if I don't?" He grinned the devil's own grin.

  "I am not about to be drawn into this silly game you play, Lord Westcott."

  "Call me Ivan."

  "Perhaps I should call you John," she said, suddenly remembering how the English version of his name had angered him when his grandmother had used it. But if it angered him now, he hid it well.

  "Ivan, John. My love," he suggested in a mocking tone. "So long as you breathe the word warmly in my ear, I don't care which name you use." He leaned nearer as he spoke, slowly gathering her poor shawl in his hands.

  Lucy couldn't help it; she panicked. She didn't mean to. Indeed, showing him how he so thoroughly unnerved her was the very last thing she wished to do. But she couldn't stop herself.

  With a cry of dismay, she let go of the shawl—the thin wool triangle she'd crocheted when she was fourteen—and did what she should have done when she'd first seen him in the garden. What she should have done the very first time she'd laid eyes on him and his Gypsy's power of se duction. She turned and she ran.

  Antonia watched Miss Drysdale's hasty exit from the garden with considerable interest. Ivan didn't follow her, to Antonia's vast disappointment. But that disappointment faded as she continued to observe him. For he stared a long while at the door the girl had disappeared through. Then he drew the shawl up to his face and held it there.

  Breathing in the scent of her, Antonia would wager. A satisfied grin broke across her face. He wanted the outspoken chit. Her plan was working.

  She let the heavy drape fall back in place and crossed to the door. Ivan wanted Lucy Drysdale. But did Miss Drysdale want him?

  Time to find out.

  When she heard the muffled sound of hasty footsteps in the hall she pushed open her door.

  "Why, Miss Drysdale," she said, feigning surprise. "What are you doing up so early? I thought it was only the aged who rose at this ungodly hour." Then she let her gaze run over the startled girl, and she forced herself to frown. "Have you been out somewhere? Is something afoot? Something I would not approve of?"

  "No. No, it's ... it's nothing like that. I... I couldn't sleep and so I thought... I thought a turn in the garden might help."

  "It's chilly outside. You ought to have brought a shawl to keep you warm."

  "Yes. Yes, I... I ought to have," the girl stammered. "I'm sorry if I disturbed you, my lady. If you'll excuse me?"

  Antonia waved her hand in dismissal. "Don't forget. My sitting room. Ten o'clock."

  Miss Drysdale nodded then without further word slipped into her room and softly shut the door.

  Well, well, and very well, Antonia thought as she let herself back into her own room. She crossed to the window and looked down at the garden again, but Ivan was gone. So was the shawl, however, and that brought a chuckle to her lips.

  Really, but she hadn't enjoyed a season in town this much since her own season, when she'd fallen so desperately in love with Gerald Thornton. It had been wonderful and terrible and exhilarating, as she recalled. Wonderful to discover such intense feelings inside her. Terrible to think they might not be reciprocated. Exhilarating to learn they were.

  Which phase of those feelings was Miss Drysdale experiencing now? The terrible part, she suspected. And Ivan?

  Her satisfaction faded just a bit. Was Ivan in the wonderful phase, for surely he recognized the effect he had on Miss Drysdale? Or was he merely stalled in the lustful stage? She would have to be very careful lest he suspect her plan.

  As for Miss Drysdale, they would have their little talk later this morning. But no matter which way their discussion turned, one thing was certain: Lucy Drysdale would be placed squarely between Ivan and Valerie, a position which would afford him plenty of opportunity to discover the wonderful feelings of love. For it was love which would catch him most securely, she'd decided.

  Still, if love didn't quite do it, she was certain lust would. It had only to push him far enough for it to result in marriage. And result in a child.

  Lucy knocked at Lady Westcott's door promptly at the tenth chime of the long clock down the hall. Had ever a day started so badly? Then again, had ever an evening gone so badly as last evening? This morning was no more than an extension of last night, both of which fiascoes were directly attributable to none other than his lordship, the Earl of Westcott. Even her sleeplessness could be charged directly to his account.

  And now she must try somehow to appease his difficult grandmother, her difficult employer. For two people so at odds with one another, grandmother and grandson were certainly cut from the same cloth: intelligent, devious, and arrogant in the extreme. They deserved one another, she decided, tugging in irritation at the embroidered trim of her waist.

  "Come in." Lady Westcott's autocratic voice carried clearly through the heavy door.

  Lucy let herself in and found her employer seated in a sunny corner of her sitting room, a silver tray of hot chocolate and muffins perched on a painted folding table before her. The older woman waved Lucy to a seat opposite her, then gestured to the tray. "Have you had breakfast, Miss Drysdale?"

  "Yes," Lucy lied. Her stomach had been far too knotted to eat anything. It still was. "Perhaps we should just get on with it," she said, deciding that forthrightness served her best. "I gather you are displeased with my performance as Lady Valerie's chaperone. On my own behalf I must tell you that I am equally displeased with your performance as my employer."

  Lady Westcott halted in the act of lifting a cup of hot chocolate to her lips. She stared at Lucy over the rim of the Sevres china. "My performance as your employer?" Her thin brows rose so high her forehead creased in a multitude of parallel furrows. "Tell me, Miss Drysdale, are you deliberately attempting to have yourself dismissed?"

&
nbsp; Lucy could have groaned out loud. She had a wretched habit of going on the offensive whenever she was put on the defensive. It worked with snarling dogs, unpleasant children, and tipsy boors. But it was the wrong tack to take with autocratic dowager countesses.

  "No, milady. I most heartily do not wish to lose my position in your household. You must admit, however, that you have not been entirely honest with me."

  Now there was a huge improvement in attitude, she immediately castigated herself. Accuse the woman of lying.

  Lady Westcott's reaction, however, was to shrug, then take a long sip of her chocolate. "I withheld some aspects of my intentions from you," she admitted. "I thought it would lend your performance more authenticity if you truly believed I did not wish a union between my grandson and my godchild."

  "They are not at all suited to one another."

  The old woman studied Lucy a long moment before answering. "Had I known you were a secret romantic I would not have hired you, Miss Drysdale, though I see now that all the signs were there. You are not a spinster because no one would have you but because you would have no one. Were you waiting for love to strike you, silly girl? It seldom works that way, you know. Not in society, anyway."

  A week ago Lucy would have laughed off such a suggestion. Now the woman's words made her wince. Once again her defense was to go on the offensive. "Did you hate being married so much that you would inflict such an unhappy existence on all the young people of your family?"

  That roused the woman, Lucy plainly saw. Lady Westcott's placid blue eyes swiftly turned a snapping ice-blue.

  "I was one of the lucky ones, miss. In ten generations of the Westcott family there has not been so fortuitous a match as my own."

  It was Lucy's turn to stare at the older woman. "Then why would you mismatch Ivan and Valerie? Why would you employ me to keep her from him, knowing it would cause him to pursue her all the harder?"

  "Because he does not know his own mind." Lady Westcott set down her cup. "If he were but to single out an acceptable young woman—any acceptable young woman— and focus on her long enough to actually come to know her, he might finally find what he needs."