Like No Other Lover

by Julie Anne Long

  Cynthia could say nothing. All around her, eyes were brilliant, glistening, watering with hilarity.

  “But everything improves with practice, Miss Brightly,” Milthorpe finally encouraged jocularly.

  “Not everything,” Lady Middlebough muttered. Lady Windermere gave a cynical snort of laughter.

  Cynthia decided to smile at Milthorpe.

  Ah, this was good. He visibly basked in her smile for a moment; he seemed helpless not to. She was sorry he was disappointed. He’d clearly been hoping that against all odds, in the most unlikely of places, he’d stumbled across the woman of his dreams: beautiful, worshipful, charming, a lover of dogs, a dead shot.

  This was when Miles stepped briskly forward and slid the musket from her grip. She looked up at him cautiously. His expression wasn’t entirely readable.

  “I’m afraid I’m calling a halt to your involvement in this shooting party, ladies,” Miles said firmly. Miles dared Violet to protest with a flick of a dark gaze. His sister’s mouth remained closed. “We’ll have grouse or some such for dinner, no doubt.” All the men nodded sagely. When it came to killing, it was better to do it in the company of men only. “If you would be so kind as to escort Miss Brightly safely to some other pastime, Lady Windermere? I don’t recommend anything involving weaponry.”

  No desert had ever been dryer than that last sentence.

  He touched his hat to them all, but in particular spared a soft apologetic smile for Lady Georgina, who doubtless never would have attempted to shoot a musket.

  The women and men parted and walked in opposite directions on the property, the women toward the house, the men toward the killing of delicious things.

  “D’yer shoot tigers in the South Seas, Miles?” Cynthia heard Argosy ask curiously and bloodthirstily.

  “Now, why would you want to shoot a tiger, Argosy?” Miles sounded patient once more. “When clearly apples are much more dangerous game.”

  Much masculine laughter echoed after them.

  Chapter 11

  “What do you know about Mr. Goodkind, Violet?” Cynthia asked resignedly as they walked back toward the house. Thinking she had better expand her options, now that she’d disappointed Milthorpe.

  “Goodkind,” Violet told her firmly, “is difficult to like. He was a soldier, but he returned from the war…well, as you see him now. Insufferably pious. But my father tolerates him because he’s respectable and very wealthy—at least as rich as Milthorpe, from what I understand. And he’s clever enough to belong to the Mercury Club along with my father, and I know they only allow in men with lots of capital and cleverness. And…well, he isn’t homely, is he?”

  She added this last part almost gently. And noticeably didn’t look at Cynthia when she said it.

  Cynthia glanced quickly at Violet, who was still looking innocently straight ahead. She’d never confided the entire desperation of her circumstances to her. Had Violet sensed them?

  Her pride gave a great, unpleasant throb.

  What must it be like to be a Redmond, with choice abounding? With safety and certainty a constant? With brothers to look after and tease you? Cynthia squelched an unworthy rush of envy, because she knew in truth Violet was attempting to be kind.

  “No. Not entirely homely,” she agreed.

  They smiled together.

  “Cynthia, where will you go when you leave the house party?” Violet sounded carefully disinterested, which only further abraded Cynthia’s pride.

  “Oh, I shall be a companion to a nasty old woman called Mrs. Mundi-Dickson in Northumberland,” she said lightly.

  Violet went utterly silent. “It will never come to that.” She was so aghast her voice was a hush.

  Cynthia produced a laugh. “I was jesting, Violet! Can you imagine?”

  “Not for even a second.” Violet shuddered.

  Ahead of them, the two cynical married ladies had sandwiched Lady Georgina, and all were talking pleasantly of mutual acquaintances in Sussex. As long as they don’t start talking about the ton, Cynthia thought.

  Cynthia and Violet were quiet together for a moment.

  “I wonder if Miles is experiencing a return of his fever,” Violet said to her, sounding a trifle worried. “They do come back now and again, you know—the tropical ones. So I’ve heard. It’s just that he’s been so odd lately. I hope he hasn’t been rude to you yet again. I saw his face when he spoke to you earlier today. He can be very strict, you know. Rank is very important to him,” Violet added, obliviously cruel. “It is to every Redmond. And ever since…” She hesitated, as though the word was difficult to pronounce still. “…Lyon left, I know Papa relies on Miles to do just the right thing. Miles has always done the right thing.”

  Had Miles been rude? Cynthia wasn’t certain it was the word she’d choose.

  “Perhaps he’s just preoccupied with thinking about his next expedition,” she offered.

  “Oh!” Violet lowered her voice. “You could be correct. And possibly his nuptials too. That could make any man jumpy, I suppose,” she said blithely.

  “Naturally.” Cynthia matched Violet’s tone. But suddenly she felt as though she’d swallowed a brick.

  She glanced at Lady Georgina. Would Miles willingly spend the rest of his life with that colorless girl?

  For heaven’s sake. Be practical. Cynthia took in a deep breath. Kitten or no, she must be practical.

  “I think I should apologize to Mr. Goodkind,” she told the ladies, and Violet gave her a knowing and encouraging glance.

  Cynthia made her way back over the green toward where Goodkind was last seen, putting her feet down lightly in an attempt to spare her boots.

  The rest of the shooting party was now long gone from view. In the distance she heard the throaty boom of a musket, saw smoke drifting upward, thought of a grouse plummeting to the earth, and shook off the thought. She found grouse delicious enough, when it came to that.

  She found Mr. Goodkind hatless and admiring a bank of heavy-headed damask roses. Their scent was powerful. Those roses would need to be topped soon, she thought. Only a week or so left before they were done for. Just like me, she thought with some grim amusement.

  When she was closer, she saw why he was hatless: he was holding his hat in one hand, and it featured a large dent.

  He turned. He was visibly surprised to see her, but visibly pleased, too. “Why, Miss Brightly!” The dark scrap of hair on his head lifted and fell in a mischievous breeze like a trapdoor.

  “I’ve come to apologize for the mishap, Mr. Goodkind. I do hope you’re uninjured.”

  “Quite sound. Quite sound. Thank you for inquiring, Miss Brightly. But why do you need to apologize?”

  “I fear I am entirely responsible. You see, I had never before shot a fowling piece quite like that one, and I missed.” She’d decided it wise to omit the bit about the dog and the nose and precisely what had struck him in the hat.

  “Well, I’m quite all right, and given that no harm was done, doubtless a valuable lesson was learned. Women should never be handed firearms. I don’t know what Redmond was thinking. I’ll have a word with his father.”

  It struck her as ridiculous that anyone would have a word about a man like Miles Redmond with his father. And she’d heard of women in America being armed with muskets, but thought it unwise to begin a debate on that particular subject.

  “You are very likely correct, sir,” she said diplomatically instead.

  He nodded, satisfied. “Do you happen to know what struck off my hat? Looks like a bit of statue.” He held up a white fragment.

  You were struck in the hat by a great marble penis.

  “Yes, part of the statue of David, I believe. Mr. Redmond assures me, however, that it wasn’t valuable. The statue. It was a replica of some sort.”

  “Ah, well. The damage to the statue will linger as a reminder not to hand firearms to women.”

  You’ve already made your point, Cynthia thought. She began to suspect Violet was quite c
orrect about Goodkind. Whereas Argosy was self-satisfied and Milthorpe was by turns shy and blustery, one’s first opinion of Mr. Goodkind was…pompous. A nice juicy word, she thought, all those bouncy p’s in it, like the cushion in that extravagantly gilded coronation carriage.

  Then again, she supposed everyone would come home from the war differently. Mr. Chase Eversea, of the delightfully controversial Pennyroyal Green clan, had come home with a limp, Violet had told her, and seemed to be drinking a good deal more than he ought. One ever found him, she’d once said, darkly satisfied, in the opposite corner of the Pig & Thistle. Sometimes completely alone. Here was another Eversea on his way to dissolution, she seemed to think. And wasn’t Chase an ironic name for a man who couldn’t run?

  Violet could be cutting on the subject of the Everseas.

  And then Cynthia recalled that the famous poet known as the Libertine, the Earl of Rawden, had returned from the war to write poetry.

  She decided—for Goodkind’s sake and her own—to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “You were very absorbed in a book when we were shooting, Mr. Goodkind.”

  “Do you read, Miss Brightly?” Mr. Goodkind seemed a tad condescending and resigned, as though he fully expected her to ask him what on earth “reading” might be.

  “Oh, at every opportunity, sir.” Which was partially true. The gaiety of the past few years had left very little time for reading.

  Mr. Goodkind produced the little dark book from his coat. It looked like a well-thumbed prayer book. Piety required constant maintenance, apparently.

  “I ask, you see, because I am publishing—at my own expense, unless I obtain funds, though I do have the cooperation of the very reputable London printer Withnail & Son—a book of essays on proper behavior for young men and women. I’ve been at work on it for the past year or so. I do feel the subject is timelier than ever. I have been recently in London among society, and it is…iniquity.” He took his time over the word’s syllables, relishing it. “Sheer iniquity among the young there. The close dancing, the horse racing, the gaming.”

  She stared at him cautiously.

  His flap of hair waved gaily at her.

  Any man can be charming, she told herself stoutly. One need only look.

  “Perhaps it is simply the nature of youth, sir,” she suggested carefully. “One can more effectively give advice on whether or not to drive a fast carriage or to gamble and the like if one has suffered the effects of such behavior, and repented.”

  He looked with sudden delight at her: perhaps the word “repent” had excited him.

  “You pose an interesting theory, my dear. Would you care to continue?”

  She had the sense he wished to take notes for his book.

  And she suddenly thought of Miles Redmond, and the spider rebuilding its broken web to be stronger than before. She knew a perfect analogy.

  “Well, do they not say that when a…tree is cut, it is stronger than ever where the branches scar over? If you do yourself an injury through”—having a wonderful time—“an inordinate amount of frivolity and recklessness, and you truly do regret it and make a choice to repent, does this not mean your soul is stronger than it was before? Does it not take more moral strength to overcome a wicked nature and transform it into a good one than it does to maintain one already good?”

  She thought of Lady Georgina. That girl would need to expend no effort at all to be good, she thought, half resentfully.

  Mr. Goodkind stopped walking abruptly. He turned to her. He seemed speechless. He was, in fact, looking at her as though she was a revelation.

  And slowly his face lit with epiphany.

  “What I am saying, sir is…perhaps there is great merit in being just a little wicked once in a while, Mr. Goodkind.”

  His head went back in astonishment. He continued to stare at her. His hair swayed to and fro now; the breeze had changed direction.

  And then Mr. Goodkind smiled very slowly, and the smile became a laugh, a sort of “Oh ho!” sound. A reluctant, if genuine, sound.

  And many, many degrees less pompous than previously.

  She smiled up at him. His eyes twinkled back at her. His eyes were pale blue, with deep lines etched into the corners, which made his smile appealing.

  She clasped her hands piously behind her back. Which, she was fully aware, had the effect of lifting her bosom just…so. Just a little movement, just enough to catch the eye of a red-blooded man. It was a test.

  Ah. He was a red-blooded man.

  His blue gaze flickered back up from her bosom to her face. He didn’t blush or even look disconcerted. He looked, in fact, downright cheerful, which reminded her that he’d been a soldier, had known blood and grit and doubtless a camp follower or two.

  “May I pay you a compliment, Miss Brightly?”

  It was the first time anyone had ever requested permission to do such a thing. She was distantly amused. But far be it for her to deny a man an opportunity to compliment her.

  “I would be honored to receive a compliment from you, Mr. Goodkind.” She said this somberly. Her eyes were glinting.

  “You could tempt a pious man into being wicked.”

  Oh! Very good compliment indeed.

  “I shouldn’t fear the temptation, Mr. Goodkind. As we’ve established, a little wickedness is good for the soul.”

  And at this he laughed genuinely, a hearty sound, and she laughed, too.

  Again, she considered the fact that nearly any man could become charming given the right encouragement.

  Cynthia returned to the house strangely weary, though she’d done little during the day but misfire a musket, converse with a handsome if pompous man—though granted, she’d convinced him that wickedness was indeed the path to virtue, no mean feat—and have her heart and mind whipsawed by a large, dark man who’d given her a kitten and didn’t know why and seemed angry about it.

  She wasn’t certain any of this constituted progress toward matrimony. And because she was practical, the first thing she did was locate a footman to ask about her mail.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Brightly,” she was told. “If a letter comes for you, you can be certain I will bring it up to your rooms straight away.”

  So she went downstairs and spent a dutiful hour in the company of ladies sewing very sedately, but contributed little to the conversation. And then she couldn’t bear it, retiring to her room, because she wanted to play with her cat, and she wanted to think, perhaps have a rare restorative wallow in self-pity.

  She took off her shoes, sat on her bed and held Spider in her lap, demanding comfort.

  Spider didn’t wish to cooperate. He squirmed out of her hands like a silky little bar of soap and attacked her toes. Cynthia gave it her best effort, but she could not be morose when she needed to defend her toes.

  By dinnertime she’d recovered her spirits and was ready to renew her campaign.

  The men did come home with grouse. And dinner was tasty and filled with talk of shooting, and everyone was well-bred enough not to tell Mr. Goodkind precisely what had struck him in the hat, and he managed to be slightly less insufferable, in large part due to Cynthia’s efforts. And Miles was encouraged again to talk about Lacao.

  After dinner, Jonathan persuaded Argosy to go with him to the Pig & Thistle to participate in an ongoing dart tournament that Jonathan intended to win. Argosy cast one brief but gratifyingly longing look over his shoulder at Cynthia, who reassured him with a smile but silently made no promises to him, as of course Lord Milthorpe and Mr. Goodkind were present and would remain so all night.

  Lady Middlebough wanted to retire early. “The third floor is always my favorite floor in a home,” she said. “And my room is four doors down from the stairs, and four is my favorite number.”

  Cynthia once again stared at Lady Middlebough, puzzled. She thought her own favorite number must be twenty-thousand.

  As in pounds.

  “Where are the family rooms, Violet?” Lady Middlebough w
anted to know.

  Violet looked baffled, too, but manners made her answer politely. “We’re on the third floor, too. But in a different wing. Well, Jonathan and I are. Miles is on the second floor. He has the only family rooms on that floor.”

  “Must be lonely to be the only one on the second floor.”

  And with that Lady Middlebough went up to bed.

  Violet decided they ought to play card games, so a game was set up out of the remainder of the party. Apart, that was, for Miles and Lady Georgina.

  “Perhaps in a few minutes,” was all Miles said. “We’ve ants and lepidoptera to discuss.” And he’d deftly steered Georgina to a striped settee, where they now sat talking in low voices. A very respectable distance of settee remained between them.

  “Oh, Mr. Redmond! How interesting!” Georgina said softly and predictably moments later.

  Cynthia supposed he was as methodical and dutiful in his wooing as he was in all things. Was this all ceremony? The walking and talking with Georgina? How would he know when Georgina was won? Or had the decision to mate already been made, and all of this was formality?

  She was thinking in terms of insects again.

  The cards were dealt, and a halfhearted game of whist began, while Cynthia tried and failed not to listen to the conversation taking place on the settee. She stared over her cards at Georgina and her perfectly round coil of pale blond hair and she felt something devilish welling up.

  “Oh, Mr. Redmond,” she mimicked under her breath. “How very interesting!”

  Lady Windermere looked up, surprised. “I beg your pardon, Miss Brightly?”

  “Have you noticed—” Cynthia stopped. Be good, she told herself sternly. You’ll cause a disaster if you can’t be good. Everything, your future, hinges on decorum, and wise choices and not toying with people.

  She shifted restlessly in her chair. But Lady Windermere had asked her a question. And it wouldn’t be polite to ignore her, would it?

  “Have you noticed…” In for a penny, in for a pound, she decided. “Well, have you noticed that Lady Georgina says”—she adopted a breathy tone—“‘Oh, Mr. Redmond. How very interesting!’ rather a good deal?”