by Heather Boyd
She reached the next landing before her head cleared enough to consider the right reply. “And you believe you deserve me?”
“Oh, no.” He laughed and released her. “I fully expect you to toss me over as early as tomorrow. I’ll make a long face while you can claim my arrogance off-putting or something harmless. A few well-told exaggerations and all will be well.”
Esme glanced around to confirm they were alone. “Why would you do this for me?”
He sighed and set his hands behind his back while leaning forward a little to look her in the eye. “Because I remember that you once tried to prevent me from looking foolish, and I appreciate that.”
“You are not making sense, sir.”
He drew close to her ear, his breath hot against her skin. “Wouldn’t you rather have your revenge on Meriwether without risk? Would an affair with me tweak his nose?”
What Windermere suggested had merits, and if there was no risk involved…
He smiled wickedly as he drew back. “It is clear you expected the house party to proceed in the normal fashion. I thought Meriwether understood your rules. You rather famously don’t dally with married men, or engaged-to-be-married men, so his assumption shows a distinct misunderstanding of your character. He should have warned you of the impending wedding announcement and didn’t. That makes him not particularly admirable in my book. Come with me, let other’s believe we’ve patched up our differences in bed. I cannot believe I invited him.”
“Why did you invite him?”
“To make you happy, I thought.” He tilted his head to the side. “Now, instead, I think we shall have fun at his expense.”
“You seem to have a knack for revenge.”
He winked. “It is a spur-of-the-moment feeling, encouraged by your long face. We would not have to actually be intimate. Only my guests need to be convinced we are.”
Esme forced a smile to her face, but it was a brittle thing. Windermere’s plan would help her save face, and if he did not expect intimacies then their relationship would remain the same. For a change, the man made sense. “Where might your chambers be located?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” He linked their arms, drawing her closer to his side, a wicked smile playing across his lips. “This way. I claimed this part of the east wing after the redecoration last year. My brother and sister claimed everything else.”
That was a lot of manor house to have given up. “Surely not.”
He opened a door to her with a short bow. “Well, perhaps I exaggerate just a touch. A man must be allowed some idiosyncrasies.”
“You have more than a few.” Esme stepped into his apartment and gasped at the Spartan interior. She had heard some people enjoyed uncluttered spaces, but Windermere’s sitting room was bare and his bedchamber, when she reached it, held only a bed. There were no looking glasses to be found on the walls. No small furniture of any kind. Just one huge bed and a blazing fire that sent flickering light to all corners of the room.
She turned to regard Lord Windermere curiously. She’d never imagined him a frugal man.
His smile was a touch uncertain. “I prowl about in my sleep and crash into things.”
Esme frowned. Now that she hadn’t heard about him. “Really?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I’d offer you a chair if I had one, but won’t you make yourself at home?” He indicated the bed was where she should sit and with no other options available, Esme perched on the edge. Windermere loosened his cravat. “I feel compelled to apologize. I had no idea about Jane and Meriwether, though he was much in her company yesterday, come to think of it. Jane is sweet enough in her own way, but I’m rather annoyed that they announced the marriage without a word of warning or even asking my permission. I’ve no interest in turning my house party ball into their engagement celebration. I find that extremely presumptuous.”
Esme let her dancing slippers fall from her feet and then comfortably tucked her legs beneath her. She stripped off her gloves for good measure and flexed her fingers. “Yes, I can see they were extremely discourteous to you.”
He came closer. “And to you. Are you very much upset?”
The fact that she had to consider her answer before she spoke proved her heart had survived the disappointment. “My pride perhaps.”
He sighed and leaned against the bed. “Good. I—”
A discreet panel in the painted wall opened and the butler hurried in, arms full of firewood. He froze when he discovered his master wasn’t alone. “Forgive me, my lord. I had no idea you’d retired for the night.”
Windermere scowled. “Oswin, do get out. I sent you to bed, not to replace my valet.”
The butler cast a curious glance at Esme before he all but ran from his master’s presence.
Windermere pursed his lips momentarily and then laughed. “There. Any suggestion you were disappointed by Meriwether will vanish for good. By morning the talk of the house party will be of a certain fetching lady who was seen gracing my bed. Isn’t that easy?”
Esme leaped from the bed. “Then I shall see you tomorrow.”
He caught her arm. “To be convincing, you’d have to stay a bit longer. I do have a reputation as an eager lover to protect, too.”
She stilled. He did have a point, and Lord Windermere should not come out of this arrangement with his reputation besmirched yet again. They would both benefit if she stayed a little longer. “That is true.”
His grip loosened and he teased the inside of her arm with a soft caress, setting gooseflesh sweeping over her skin.
Eventually his hand fell away, his expression growing speculative. Esme was almost certain he hadn’t wanted to release her. Yet, becoming intimately involved with Lord Windermere was a ridiculous idea. She did appreciate his help tonight, but there was a limit to what she’d do for revenge. And if they were intimate, Windermere would be unbearably smug afterward.
She climbed back onto the bed and raised her hands to her hair to remove a pin that had grown uncomfortable. After further consideration, she removed all of them to let her hair tumble down her back and shook out her blonde locks. “Emerging from your bedchamber in a completely disheveled state, and needing my maid to set me to rights again, would be better than appearing barely ruffled too. If we are to perpetuate a lie, the rumors of our time together as lovers might as well be exceptional. Tell me about the paintings.”
“My sister is the artist.” Windermere held out a hand and, bemused, she dropped the pins into his palm. He strolled toward the mantle and placed them there, then shrugged out of his evening jacket. “As you can see, she’s recently found a way to decorate without giving me movable objects to damage, and simply paints on the walls.”
“This must have taken some time.” Esme admired the extraordinary work around them. “Your sister is very clever.”
“Don’t tell her,” he warned with a laugh, dropping his jacket to the floor in a careless heap. “She’ll want to paint the rest of the estate the same way and I like being the recipient of unique gifts.”
Esme fell back on the mattress and wriggled, ensuring her gown would be suitably rumpled at the back. If this were her bedchamber, she’d have Jillian paint lovely clouds on the ceiling with a cherub or two peeking from behind each one. “Of course you do. Always thinking of yourself first and foremost.”
“Not always,” Windermere murmured in a low, deep voice that sent alarming sensations racing over her skin. The next moment, he flung himself on the bed at her side. “The project kept her busy during her mourning, but I don’t want her to spend her life here, hiding from being hurt again.”
She turned her face to his. “She’ll embrace her life when she’s ready.”
His blue eyes softened. “Is that what you did when Heathcote passed?”
She grimaced and looked up again. “Heathcote and I were strangers long before then, so I…went through the motions for the sake of appearances.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that,” Windermere m
urmured, capturing her hand and squeezing. “He wasn’t a warm man, was he?”
“To his mistress he was.” She winced again. Sometimes the pain of her husband’s betrayal caught her by surprise, as it did now. “I prefer not to think about him if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” he murmured, then filled the next hour with harmless chatter about the party, their mutual acquaintances, and the entertainments organized for the coming days.
Everything but the fact they were still holding hands.
Four
Richard braced his hands on the stone bannister above the great ballroom and scanned the exuberant crowd twirling below. He had made sure he’d invited an equal numbers of ladies and gents for the ten-day house party. But to his chagrin, the ladies he’d considered his best chances for improving his acquaintance with had already paired off with other men while he’d been locked away with Esme, pretending to enjoy a jolly romp in his bed.
Damn Esme and her long face.
He hadn’t thought through his decision to save Esme from embarrassment properly and paid the price for it now. Although he had to admit that the chaste encounter hadn’t been entirely a waste time. He thought, perhaps, he and Esme had reached an accord over the past. He felt entirely better for that and looked forward to more civil conversation with the lady in the future.
“I think the party is a resounding success,” Jillian, his younger sister, murmured as she looked over the assembled guests with pride shining on her face.
A great deal of the arrangements for the party had fallen into her capable hands and he was pleased to see her in such good spirits. She’d been entirely too quiet since returning home following the death of her husband of three years. Benjamin’s death last winter had knocked the joy from her eyes and he could almost see it glimmering there again. “You’ve exceeded my expectations, little sister. Very well done indeed.”
He saw nothing but disappointment below him though. The woman he’d invited with the secret purpose of considering for marriage, Lady Beatrice Small, was dancing in the arms of someone else, and, given what he’d heard of her unguarded opinions to Esme earlier in the evening, Richard had concluded Beatrice be a great deal too much trouble as a wife.
He couldn’t marry a prudish woman. Oh, no indeed. He needed a sensible, open-minded woman who was not easily offended. His brother Avery was bound to frighten away any timid souls he might consider for his wife, so he had to choose with his head too. “I think this might be our last year. What do you say to a summer by the sea next year?”
Jillian, unaware of the source of his disappointment, laughed outright at his suggestion. “You love showing off the estate, and summer wouldn’t be the same without this event and our friends visiting.”
As he glanced down, he spotted the prickly, if occasionally lovely Esme, speaking with the friends she’d made among the locals over the past years of visits. His cousins had finally made an appearance and the pair hung on her every word. She charmed everyone she met, made them feel like wanted, desirable companions—all except him, normally.
A pity, that. He had owed Esme the favor of rescue from embarrassment.
Esme had saved him from a grievous mistake. He still felt the fool for being nearly duped into marrying a woman who pretended to be carrying his child.
He was still astonished Esme had thought him worth rescuing in the first place.
Damn Esme for revealing her hurt feelings.
His sister nudged his arm. “Don’t skulk about like this. Go and mingle with your guests.”
“Soon,” he murmured, distracted by Esme’s warm smile to Mr. Miles Hammond, who’d joined her little group. He tensed at the ease between them. Esme and Hammond were very old friends and frequent companions around London of late. He was fairly sure they’d never been lovers, but with Esme one could never be certain of anything. Until tonight’s farce with him, she’d always been incredibly discreet in her affairs. “Tell me why I invited Hammond again?”
“Because he is Esme’s friend and you thought having him here, too, would lend her support,” Jillian said with a laugh. “He’s actually very nice once you can get him to talk.”
As if sensing his scrutiny, Hammond glanced up to where they stood. He stared a moment and then nodded before returning to hang on Esme’s conversation.
Richard’s tension remained. That man. Richard could never decide whether to like Hammond or not.
When Jillian was drawn away by Lord Hogan to dance, Richard watched her go with a wry chuckle. His sister had a suitor chasing after her. Lord Hogan had been keeping a rather close proximity to her these past months since she’d packed away her black gowns and started to embrace life again. Always at her elbow, always interested in what she was doing. Richard wouldn’t mind the connection, should the man propose, which was why he’d also been invited for the week, to see what might come of the connection.
He tapped his fingers along the balustrade as he made his way to the dance floor below. He did not want to spend the night watching lovers flirt and sneak away to quiet corners. If he could not have a wife, he wanted to lose himself in the arms of someone who did not expect a commitment from him.
Or, if that were not possible, he’d rather spend the night with someone who challenged his mind. That meant his best chance of amusement tonight was sparring with Lady Heathcote.
Damn Esme for being so damn intriguing.
He’d always fought the attraction, but tonight he was feeling distinctly adventurous. Since their interlude on his bed, he’d wanted to get under her skin in the worst way, and not just to earn another scowl.
Once he reached the ballroom floor, he scanned the crowd. Esme had moved on from his cousins and was currently out of sight. Irritating woman. Why could she never be where he expected her to be? She was like every other woman he’d known. Always making him chase after them for a bit of attention.
It comforted him that she wasn’t with Hammond, who was leading some other lady to the dance floor.
Without the hope of even uncivil conversation, Richard stepped out onto the terrace to enjoy the moonlight alone.
Or so he first thought.
Ahead along the terrace, Esme stood just outside the ballroom windows, looking in through a distant set. Candlelight played over her face and he could tell by the way her head tilted that her attention followed the dancers inside. She did not turn to greet him as Richard approached her. He stopped close behind and shared her view.
Meriwether and his intended bride pranced on his dance floor, looking as smitten as young lovers were supposed to do. His cousin’s strolled past, arm in arm, with only eyes for each other.
“The party is going well,” she murmured without turning or taking her eyes from the dancers.
Jillian and Lord Hogan danced past next. “So it seems.”
“Warn your sister away from Hogan if you can.” She sighed. “He will not be good for her.”
He bristled. Although he should have listened to Esme about his last lover, there was only so much advice a bachelor could stand, particularly when it concerned members of his own family. “They’re just dancing.”
“That’s how it starts.” Esme shook her head. “He’s all wrong for her, but she likely won’t know it until it’s too late.” Meriwether and his future bride twirled past and she shook her head again. “Or she will, and won’t act on her intuition to run.”
When Esme still did not turn away, Richard caught her hand and tugged. Staring after the one you lost only led to one’s friends considering you a fool. Esme was hardly that, but in case her heart had truly been involved with Meriwether, and wounded, Richard would be the one to do the saving this time.
If she allowed him.
“Come away,” he whispered.
Her lashes lowered over her eyes and her grip on his fingers tightened.
He tugged again and thankfully she followed him toward the terrace stairs and out into the moonlit gardens without raising a fuss. A remarkab
le feat.
Richard led her away from the house, strolling through the still gardens with little thought to direction. It was blessedly peaceful after the chaos of the ball and he was glad to share a few more rare quiet moments with Esme.
Eventually they came upon the river house, clinging to the edge of the fast-moving stream, where they could talk and be comfortable. He led her to the steps.
She peered at the building then lifted her face to his. “My, my. This is intriguing.”
The timber building had once been used by boatmen on a daily basis, but had fallen into disuse long ago. Richard liked to come here to think, and especially so since his recent near brush with matrimony. He’d spent quite a lot of time in the river house and never gave the dark interior too much thought. He’d had several creature comforts installed. Esme would not find the interior too rustic. “Are you afraid to be alone with me again?”
“Hardly.”
Richard grinned. Esme was quite the adventurer and she’d never minced words. She also didn’t seem to care where they were going. This was so much better than watching couples dance and sneak away for pleasure. Perhaps he and Esme could work up the energy to have a rousing good discussion by the end of the night. He could be satisfied at least with that and looked forward to a stirringly good one.
He unlatched the door and, still holding her arm tightly, led her up the shallow steps. Inside was black as pitch. He took her with him to the shuttered river-front windows and threw them wide. Moonlight and stars gleamed, lightening the shadowed space into something remarkable. He’d thought this place fascinating as a boy, even more so with a pretty woman on his arm.
His breath caught as he stared down at Esme. Without the scowl, she really was a very beautiful woman. “What do you think?”
Esme paced the chamber, returning to the window to stare out at the fast-moving water sliding past. “Breathtaking. It’s as if no one else exists.” She leaned as far out as she could and sighed.
Fearing how far she might lean, and knowing what dangers awaited her immediately below the window, he caught her by the back of her gown and held on tightly. “Be careful.”