And she looked—really looked, for probably the first time—into his face.
What she saw there caused wary reassessment and comprehension to cut across the blue field of her eyes as swiftly as a pair of hunting falcons. They were there and gone as though they had never been, leaving her eyes once again blue fields of innocence.
So she was not entirely a fool. This was a bit vexing, as he would have preferred her to become less interesting, rather than more.
“I hope you’ll forgive me, Mr. Redmond, but I’m not certain I take your meaning.”
“Oh, come, Miss Brightly,” he jollied on a murmur. “I am one of your hosts, after all. I must insist you share with me. You’re here for the eligible men, are you not? Why else would you be here in Sussex? Perhaps you even have your eye on one in particular?”
Her features were entirely still. Her eyes, however, seemed even more vivid, as though she’d focused her thoughts entirely on him, and it was a potent look, indeed. He thought he detected a rustle of nervousness. Ah, yes: a glance told him that one of her hands had burrowed surreptitiously into one of the folds of her gown.
“If you’d care to share the name of the fortunate gentleman, perhaps I can provide some insight into his pedigree?” He was as solicitous as a shopkeeper. “As host, I feel it’s my responsi—”
“Mister Redmond.” It sounded like a warning. Rather as though she wished to protect him from himself. “I would very much like to participate in a conversation with you, but I must confess to feeling excluded by my own confusion. Your conversation has taken a turn I do not understand.”
Her face was innocent. But her eyes burned. She understood very well.
He sighed heavily. “Very well, Miss Brightly. Forgive me, but I’m about to bore both of us by telling you things you already know, but do keep in mind that you have forced me to do it. Things such as: you are not without charm, but you are at present attending a country house party without a husband or even a fiancé. While you were in one possession of a rather grand fiancé last I heard—the heir to an earl? Courtland? This leads me to believe something rather unfortunate happened in London to end the engagement…” He cast his eyes toward the ceiling rosette. “A duel, perhaps?”
He returned his eyes to her.
Before his eyes, her jaw slowly set; storm clouds gathered across her gaze, and the blue went very, very dark.
Cynthia Brightly was officially angry. Unsurprisingly, anger suited her. Perversely, her anger suited him.
“I see I’ve assessed the situation correctly,” he said cheerfully. “Shall I go on?”
“Mr. Redmond—” Her eyes darted left then right, then fixed with a momentary flash of longing on the footman strolling through, bearing a tray of tiny glasses with splashes of sherry glittering in the bowls. He wondered whether the sherry or the fact that the footman was leaving the room appealed to her.
“Now, now, Miss Brightly. You did ask for clarification. As I am a man of science, I dislike cursory explanations. So let me be thorough. I imagine whatever scandal you left behind in London, if it’s the sort of the magnitude that ended an engagement, will follow you here to Sussex soon enough, for foul weather does have a way of traveling the land, and I don’t imagine Sussex will be spared it. You are, then, one step ahead of it at the moment. I suspect you wouldn’t be here at all if Sussex didn’t represent your last hope for a respectable marriage, as doubtless your reputation is growing, shall we say…rather threadbare.” He added with confiding relish, “Goodness knows you’ve certainly taxed it over the past season or so.”
And now her frown drifted into something like puzzlement. Her fine brows nearly met over the bridge of her nose. Those blue eyes scrutinized him like a jeweler bent over a suspect diamond with a loupe. Searching for provenance, character flaws, authenticity, motive.
Miles allowed her the silence; he allowed her the inspection.
He didn’t know how he’d expected her to respond, though he was thoroughly enjoying confounding her expectations.
He’d almost given up hope of her responding when she did.
“You’re opposed to ambition in a woman, Mr. Redmond?”
His head went back a little at the words. Stunned.
And then…peculiarly thrilled.
He’d never dreamed that right here, in the middle of his father’s grand Harvest Room, surrounded by cheerful guests, he would engage in the socially unthinkable:
A genuinely honest conversation with a woman.
He rewarded her with a nod, as though she were a pupil who’d passed an exam. “Oh, on the contrary,” he said softly, conspiratorially. “I applaud ambition, Miss Brightly. It’s all I’ve ever known. And marriage is in essence a business alliance, is it not? And the wisest among us approach it as such. We should all aspire to make the very best marriage our born assets and gifts will allow us to make. Wrapping it in the folderol of love and romance is a recipe for disaster. Or disillusionment. Quite unnecessary. Wouldn’t you agree? Something tells me that you do.”
A shadow of uncertainty passed over Miss Brightly’s brow, followed by a flicker of cautious optimism. He could see that she was wondering whether agreeing with him wholeheartedly might very well aid her pursuit of him.
He relieved her of suspense.
“It’s just that I’m on a bit of a hunt for a marriage myself, you see, and I thought it might be companionable for the two of us to compare notes while we’re about it. For instance, Lady Georgina is the most suitable partner for me, as she has a staggering fortune, a fine family, and a grand title, and an alliance with her would please my parents and permanently connect two great families. And as Redmond heir, I cannot possibly marry anyone other than a woman of the very finest family, fortune, and character without risking my position in my family and dishonoring my father’s wishes. Though certainly, as clever as you undoubtedly are, you already know that. Hence, we are free to compare notes upon our quest for matches this fortnight, as I’m quite out of the question for you.”
She understood. Her mouth had gone white at the corners from the strain of maintaining that smile; her breathing was shallower. Her blue eyes were dark with a very pure anger.
She turned her head away from him slowly.
A moment later she swallowed.
For a second or two, as laughter and chatter rustled around the two of them, they comprised a perfect island of stillness. He suspected she was beginning to hate him.
Hate, he told himself, was better than indifference. And she was most decidedly seeing him now. Tension banded his stomach muscles. He had the peculiar sensation he was drawing back a bow throughout this conversation, and now it quivered taut in his fingers.
“But, Miss Brightly…I could tell you things about all of these other gentlemen that would facilitate your quest for a very respectable match. I could…oh, help you narrow your choices. Focus your attentions. Deploy your assets most effectively, if you will, in order to help you achieve your aim.”
She turned her head back quickly toward him. Her gaze was flinty with cynicism.
“And you’ll do all of this out of the goodness of your…heart…Mr. Redmond?”
She enunciated the word “heart” doubtfully. Pointedly calling into question whether or not he possessed one.
He appreciated this with a nod and a pitched brow.
“I seldom do things simply out of the goodness of my heart. For where is the logic in that? I am a man of logic, of purpose, of planning, of objective. I suspect you of all people understand that, Miss Brightly.”
She was catching on; cynicism hardened her soft features. “I see. And what do you require in exchange for your valuable information, Mr. Redmond?”
Tension snapped; the arrow flew.
“A kiss.”
Chapter 4
Well, then. Judging from how still Miles Redmond had gone, he’d shocked himself as thoroughly as he’d shocked her.
But he didn’t unsay the words, or apologize. He watc
hed her.
Cynthia took the measure of her tormentor: broad-shouldered and formidably framed; not lean like his brother Lyon, but not awkward with his size, either. His hands were large; his fingers long and quiet against his thighs. Most men, she’d learned, betrayed internal preoccupation with fidgets, by fingering a coat button or drumming fingers against their thighs even as they mouthed words meant to charm her. This man was still, but not unnaturally so. It was the stillness born of focus. She was his entire focus. His attention was enveloping. It created a world of the two of them.
And then there were the spectacles, which she often found absurd on men. But the dark eyes behind his spectacles had that quality unique to doorways into mysterious darkened rooms: they beckoned, they disguised; they invited and unsettled. His face was long and his nose was…significant was unfortunately the word that seemed most apt—and his jaw a join of lines so elegantly articulated it could have been drawn with a protractor. Hair dark and fine and longer than it ought to be dropped softly down over a brow high enough to contain what surely must be his multitude of tremendously important thoughts.
She’d gone sarcastic in her thoughts out of self-defense.
But his mouth…It was a sensual tourist in that face: firm, wide, finely drawn. Like his eyes, it implied things. Specifically, it implied Miles Redmond skillfully used it for purposes besides tasting food and tormenting his guests. She thought about native women and debauchery.
He interrupted her scrutiny. “Am I correct in assuming that you have been kissed before, Miss Brightly?”
There went the mouth again: tormenting. Yet no footman extending a platter of sweetmeats had ever sounded more blandly deferential.
This must be why she never spoke to men who wore spectacles, she thought darkly. Some instinct for self-preservation. For this…scientist—she turned the word into a pejorative in her mind—this wealthy, indolent heir—this last word she faltered over, hesitating to turn it into a pejorative, as it had been one of her favorite words to date—had sniffed out unflattering truths about her.
She halfadmired it. There was something heady, a peculiar relief, in being understood.
But then she thought: if he can see it, who else can see it?
She turned her head away briefly from his dark-eyed, windowed gaze. An attempt to rally her composure. His gaze seemed to linger in front of her, the way an image lit by the glare of the sun hovers before your eyes after you close them.
She decided then: only him. Only he sees.
She would need to tread very carefully here.
“Rumor has it that you are a gentleman, Mr. Redmond. A…man of honor.” She hoped to flatter him into helping her in exchange only for the pure pleasure of helping her.
He dashed her hopes.
“‘Rumor’ does?” He sounded amused. “Oh, I hardly think I have ever inspired anything so intriguing as a rumor, Miss Brightly. Particularly regarding honor. Please don’t be tiresome. We were doing so well. Say all that you mean to say and we shall continue our negotiation.”
She sighed, and took pains to sound bored. “Very well, Mr. Redmond. This is what I mean to say. I question your motive in offering to help me. My confusion lies in the fact that we’ve just established that you are most decidedly not of a romantic or whimsical temperament. And a single kiss as payment for information strikes me as a rather romantic—even quaint—notion.”
His smile took its time forming; slowly it spread; it settled in faintly. His head tipped up a little.
“Quaint.” He repeated the word as though it had an unfamiliar taste and a texture. A whimsical one.
He returned his eyes just as slowly to her. “You have never kissed me, Miss Brightly.”
Cynthia stopped breathing.
Their eyes met and held. His words were low, matter-of-fact, comprised entirely of a terrifying confidence. His voice matched his eyes. She felt it peculiarly at the base of her spine; it had an edge that scraped pleasantly over her senses, like ragged silk or the bristly beginnings of a beard brushed against her cheek. She wanted to hear more of it, even as it said appalling things. Her breath rushed out.
And now she was afraid. For the reason she could make comparisons between Redmond’s voice and the beginnings of beards was that she’d felt bristly short whiskers brush her tender cheeks late, late at night, after balls, when young men trembling with eagerness and worship had pressed kisses upon her. But the reason Cynthia was stingy with her favors was twofold: a beautiful penniless girl could keep a man at arm’s length and hope for a good marriage only as long as her virtue was known to remain entirely intact.
And Cynthia did not precisely dislike being kissed.
But no kiss had yet been a match for her bone-deep pragmatism and sense of self-preservation.
She felt fury welling. Despite the spectacles, the verbal fencing, the penetrating observations, the fortune, and the superciliousness, this one was like all the others beneath the skin:
He simply wanted to kiss a beautiful woman. He wanted to kiss her.
And no doubt no beautiful woman would freely consent to kiss him.
She was about to call his bluff.
“Before I kiss you, I shall need proof, Mr. Redmond, of the quality of your information.”
Mr. Redmond froze as though her words were a thrust between his ribs.
Ha! She knew a moment of triumph.
But then he inhaled thoughtfully, exhaled on a nod of agreement, and gestured subtly with this chin to a ruddy, expensively clothed man so rawboned and rectangular he made the teacup he held seem crushable as an egg. He was pretending to enjoy the conversation of Lady Windermere, whose wide rubbery mouth moved and moved and moved animatedly.
“Lord Milthorpe”—Miles Redmond’s voice was quiet, laconic—“is the Marquis of Blenheim—an ancient title. Twenty thousand pounds a year.” He paused briefly, as if to allow Cynthia’s heart to skip a beat over the majesty of the figure. “Clever investor—a member of the hallowed Mercury Club—arrived expecting to find my father here, and will stay until my father returns. A widower. Two vast estates, one in London, one in Sussex. Not adverse to another marriage. A bit suspicious of fortune hunters, however. Prefers the country to the city. A blush would not go amiss. Mention dogs.”
He snapped his head back toward her with predatory swiftness.
Just in time, she knew, to see the astonishment and hope and hunger fleeing her face.
Bloody man.
This—this—was precisely the sort of thing she needed desperately to know. How much easier her task would be if she was armed with this kind of information.
They both watched Lord Milthorpe cast the china cup a wistful glance, as if he knew he was bound to crush it eventually and was issuing a silent advance apology.
“When was the last time you blushed, Miss Brightly?” Miles asked suddenly, sounding genuinely curious.
“Blushing,” she was snappish with nerves now, “is the province of naive fools.”
His brow furrowed and he nodded as though she’d said something Socratic.
She desperately wanted something to do with her hands, and cursed the fact that she’d left her own cup of tea atop one of those tiny shining tables, well out of reach. Across that thick, languidly patterned, aristocratic carpet was another small world, a world where Violet Redmond was laughing gaily about something unimportant, where the worthy-of-Miles-Redmond Lady Georgina sat looking untouched and demure, where Lady Middlebough, for some reason, was watching Miles Redmond with big dark eyes.
And where a smoldering-eyed, golden-haired man was pretending not to look at Cynthia. Lord Argosy.
Ah! Her interest perked up. She wondered what Miles knew about him.
Bloody hell.
She returned her gaze to her tormentor. Who looked intolerably amused. He’d seen the direction of her attention.
“I do not want to kiss you, Mr. Redmond.” She was appalled to hear her voice had gone threadbare.
“But I t
hink you will kiss me anyway.”
More of that soft, secretly amused, bloody, bloody confidence.
Walk away, she told herself.
Unfortunately, her feet and her brain were not in communication at present.
She looked up at him wearing a mask of a social smile. Eyes, spectacles, nose, mouth, height: the sum of his appearance meant that in another circumstance she would not have given Miles Redmond another glance. But this, too, she realized now, had everything to do with his self-possession. She understood now that if one did not notice Miles Redmond, it was simply because he did not wish to be noticed.
“I can give you such a list for every man in this room, Miss Brightly. Just imagine the use someone like you could put it to.” He was still diabolically, quietly cheerful. “It seems like such a waste not to share it. I’ve stated my price for it. Nod your assent and we shall seal our bargain straight away. Shake your head, and I shall abandon it altogether, and wish you happy hunting.”
Cynthia’s heart was kicking painfully now. Her mouth had gone dry.
One kiss. One kiss could help her secure her entire future, or permanently shatter her reputation if the man could not be trusted to stay quiet about it. She thought of her slim purse upstairs, and the angry woman in the bath chair in Northumberland, and her own pride, which refused to accept the idea of a post in Northumberland or to abandon the idea of a grand marriage.
Miles took one small, impatient, warning step away from her.
She had promised herself she would be good. She would not foment mischief when brilliant opportunities for mischief arose. She would be very careful not to encourage men to shoot each other over her. She’d promised herself she would no longer gamble with her future, regardless of past successes, as she had so very little left to gamble with. Literally and figuratively.
But was it her fault if gambles continually found her?
Don’t do it. Don’t do it.
She sealed her fate with a duck of her head.
“Alcove,” he said instantly. The word was a low command. And he turned and melted from the room.
Like No Other Lover Page 5