Dreamspinner

by Olivia Drake

  “I give you my solemn vow not to ravish Miss Carleton on the Embankment.” He regarded the tip of Juliet’s parasol. “Besides, she’s undoubtedly quite capable of defending her own virtue.”

  Maud uttered a sound halfway between a gasp and a giggle. “How boldly you speak! Surely Juliet would prefer me to stay.” A hopeful light gleamed in her eyes.

  Smiling, Juliet shook her head. “I shan’t be long, I promise.”

  Feet dragging, Maud walked off, casting an occasional disappointed glance over her shoulder.

  “She’s quite the determined character,” Kent said as they started down the broad walkway that hugged the curving north bank of the Thames. “Is she always so difficult to dislodge?”

  “Only when she thinks she’s missing out on the excitement.”

  “Do you find me exciting, Miss Carleton?”

  The quiet question shook Juliet. Despite the barrier of his gray morning coat and her gloves, she could detect the powerful muscles of his arm beneath her fingers, and the sensation made her blood surge with unnerving heat. She could gaze for an eternity into the jet black mystery of his eyes, listen for eons to the husky cadence of his voice, inhale forever the heady spice of his scent.

  “Yes, I do,” she admitted.

  He stared. “May I presume, then, you’re not afraid of me?”

  An ironic smile touched her lips. “The only thing I’m afraid of is what my father will do should he learn I’ve come to meet you.”

  “He didn’t raise a hand to you last night, did he?” Kent stopped and gripped her arms; as it searching for bruises, his gaze raked her face. “How can I make peace with a man who mistreats you?”

  The protective menace he radiated both gratified and dismayed Juliet. “He’s never mistreated me,” she hastened to say. “He’s no monster, despite what your father might have told you. Papa forbade me to see you, that’s all.”

  “Yet you’re here.”

  Replete with dark satisfaction, his eyes glittered down at her. His hands rubbed gently over her thin sleeves. She stood paralyzed by the warmth flowing through her, sluggish as honey, pooling deep inside her belly. Even as he let her go, the phantom feel of his touch lingered on her skin.

  Somehow with Maud along, this meeting had seemed less like an act of disobedience, less like a clandestine tryst. Juliet suddenly worried that the duke might misread her unladylike eagerness to see him again.

  “Papa harbors a great dislike for you,” she said. “But I prefer to form my own opinions.”

  “Where did you tell him you went today?”

  “I didn’t... I told Mama that Maud and I were going to the glover’s shop.”

  “I’ve no wish to cause trouble between you and your parents. Yet I can’t bear to think I might never see you again.” Again he touched her, his fingertips brushing her cheek m a feathery caress. “You’re like a hothouse rose, sealed off from me.”

  His low pitched words burned into her heart. To cover her confusion, she walked to the border of the path, where a sapling stood, its trunk encircled by a wrought iron fence in figured arabesques. “Sometimes I feel like this elm,” she murmured, reaching up to finger a leaf. “Allowed to thrive, yet confined to a pretty cage.”

  “Except today,” he said, close beside her. “Today no one is fencing you in.”

  Was it only her wild fancies that imbued his voice with a suggestive undertone? Uncertain, she studied the sun bronzed angles of his face; he seemed so much older and more experienced. Did Kent Deverell understand the reckless needs churning inside her, the ache for adventure that drew her to him?

  “A lady isn’t supposed to have independent ideas,” she said. “What do you think of a woman pursuing an interest in botany?”

  “I think it’s no sin to be young and full of ideas. Do you see that statue over there?” He pointed to a sculpture of Prince Albert, standing in romantic elegance on a gray granite pedestal beyond the row of elms. “It was done by Elizabeth Ware, the Countess of Hawkesford. She’s managed to succeed in both pursuing her dream and being a lady, all at the same time.”

  Intrigued, Juliet stepped closer, leaning on her parasol as she examined the fine detailing on the bronze statue. A tiny swan imprint was stamped into the base. “I read about her latest gallery showing, though I don’t believe she socializes much. She was raised in America, wasn’t she?”

  Kent nodded, bending to pluck a blade of grass. “I’ve a passing acquaintance with Nicholas Ware, enough to know he encourages his wife’s desire to pursue art.”

  “I wish I could convince my parents that a woman can do more with her life than make a brilliant match.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, idly feathering the grass blade along her jaw, “my Lady Botanist should try to find a man as tolerant as Lord Hawkesford.”

  The caress made her shiver, made her blurt out the thought that had hugged her heart since she’d drifted into a fretful sleep the night before; “You could court me.”

  His fingers tensed; then methodically he began to shred the stalk of grass. “I believe I already am.”

  A wild flurry of longing drove her breath away. “Then you’ll call on me?”

  “You’re forgetting your father. After last night, I doubt Emmett Carleton will ever invite me to enter his house.”

  “You mustn’t give up so easily. Give me time to work on him, and he’ll come around, you’ll see.”

  “Will he?” Sounding cynical, he took her arm and guided her along the footpath curving toward the black iron expanse of the Charing Cross railway bridge. “I’ve no taste for dodging fist brawls.”

  Her fingers tightened around the parasol handle. “I’ll speak to him again, try to make him see the senselessness of the feud—”

  “No!” The word sliced through the misty air. Turning her to face him, Kent went on in a husky tone, “You’d only enrage him. He might send you away, and I couldn’t bear to lose you. Not now, Juliet, when I’ve only just found you.”

  His callused fingertips grazed the soft skin below her ear in a way that left her giddy and breathless. A few passersby glanced curiously, and she tried to summon outrage that he should take such liberties, as if she were a parlor maid accustomed to open caresses. But she could find only exhilaration within herself and a shocking desire to feel his body pressed to hers.

  “I don’t want to lose you, either,” she whispered.

  “Then let’s not chance telling your father. We mustn’t allow the shadow of family rivalry to taint our precious time together.”

  In her heart she knew he was right; she couldn’t be certain how Papa would react if she spoke in support of a Deverell. A thrill pulsated through her veins, the thrill of obeying her own instincts and learning all the secrets of this intriguing man.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll keep quiet—at least for now.”

  The vow seemed to satisfy Kent. He shifted the conversation to the plantings of shrubs and flowers in the Embankment gardens, then to speculation on the people they passed.

  “That one’s definitely a schoolmaster,” said Juliet, as a man scurried by, pince-nez glasses perched on his beak nose.

  “Then why isn’t he in the classroom? I say he’s a detective from Scotland Yard.” Kent cocked a dark eyebrow. “In disguise.”

  She laughed. “It’s just as likely he’s a musician going to rehearsal at the Savoy Theatre. His shoulders are stooped from bending over the piano.”

  “He’s heading in the wrong direction, then. The Savoy’s behind us.” His expression sobered. “Excuse me a moment.”

  Letting go of her arm, Kent veered toward a street sweeper. The white bearded man wore a turban and tattered robe as he wielded a broom, slowly and steadily cleaning the pathway beside the granite wall overlooking the river. Kent said something in a foreign tongue and pressed a coin into the sweeper’s palm. The man’s wizened brown face lit up. Chattering gratefully, he bowed.

  The duke’s humane gesture struck Juliet with a mixtu
re of admiration and chagrin. She’d walked right past the laborer without even noticing him.

  The moment Kent returned, she said, “That was kind of you. What did you say to him?”

  “Just a greeting in his native tongue.”

  “What language is that?”

  “Hindustani.”

  “Where did you learn to speak it? In India?”

  “Yes. I visited there as a boy.”

  Juliet recalled what her father had said about the ruin of the Deverell business interests. “Have you ever been back?”

  “No, never.”

  As Kent gazed toward the fog veiled spires of Westminster, his face looked somber, his features drawn tight into an expression that verged on sadness. She had the impression his thoughts had drifted to somewhere far beyond this chilly gray morning, and she ached to share his musings and ease his troubles.

  “Do you spend most of your time at Castle Radcliffe?”

  As if he’d forgotten her presence, he stared at her. “Yes. I farm my lands there.”

  “Do you live alone?”

  “My cousin and his wife make their home with me.” In a distracted voice, he added, “The Embankment will be growing crowded soon, Miss Carleton. We mustn’t risk word getting back to your father, so I’ll return you to your carriage now.”

  His sudden formality left Juliet hurt and disappointed. She sensed that any effort to probe into his confidential affairs would prove futile. If he wanted to court her, why did he shut her out the moment she asked questions about his life? Perhaps she was too impatient. Perhaps he only worried that this was too public a place for private conversations.

  He held her arm as they walked through the gardens and toward the roadway. Was the brush of his leg against her skirt by accident or design? Her heart trembled, fragile as a new blooming violet. Kent Deverell was a riddle; she wanted to probe the depths of a man who had loved and lost, a proud man who had suffered such tragic misfortune...

  “I presume that’s your carriage?”

  His note of dry humor made Juliet look down the street to see Maud, her head topped by the lavishly feathered bonnet, peeking out the brougham window in unashamed interest. Self consciously Maud whipped off her gold rimmed spectacles, then screwed up her features and strained to see.

  Juliet bit back a smile. “She’ll beg me to recount every word you and I exchanged. Not, of course, that I intend to indulge her.”

  “She won’t tell your father, will she?”

  “Not if I ask her to keep silent. Maud adores a good secret.”

  “Then perhaps we should give her something more substantial to withhold.”

  Before she could guess his meaning, Kent caught her hand and pulled her in front of him. He bent closer and brushed his lips over hers. Headier than sandalwood, his scent enveloped her; softer than an orchid petal, his mouth caressed hers. When he straightened, she felt shaken, her blood brimming with that exciting turmoil of danger and desire. No gentleman would kiss a lady on a public street, yet she wanted him to do so again, to take her into his arms and hold her close, to nurture the tender bond growing between them.

  He stood motionless, watching her, and for an unguarded moment she read the same fierce yearning in him, a yearning that enchanted her. “Have you ever been to Highgate Wood?” he asked.

  Unable to trust her voice, she shook her head.

  “Tomorrow, can you get away most of the day?”

  This time she managed to whisper, “Yes.”

  His fingers squeezed hers. Through clenched teeth, he said roughly, “My God, Juliet. You shouldn’t be so bloody agreeable.”

  The torment in his voice bewildered her. “I don’t understand, Kent. Don’t you want me to meet you?”

  “You hardly know me. You shouldn’t trust a man so readily.”

  Gentle feeling washed away her confusion; his protest stemmed from concern for her reputation. Brushing her thumb over the broad back of his hand, she murmured, “I know that a man who shows kindness to a street sweeper couldn’t possibly harm me.”

  His jaw tightened and she thought he meant to deny his considerate nature. But he merely drew a deep breath. “Tomorrow, then,” he said in a subdued tone. “Meet me here at ten o’clock.”

  Pivoting, the duke strode away, past the carriage where Maud gawked openmouthed. Juliet watched him, her spirits soaring dizzily, until his broad shouldered form disappeared into the throng of laborers and tradesmen.

  “You’ve made plans to go where?” Her fine brow drawn into a frown, Dorothea Carleton laid down her pen on the gilt edged writing desk and gazed up at her daughter.

  That displeased look made Juliet quake with guilt. What if her mother saw through the lie? Glancing out the window of the morning room at the dull gray sky, she thought longingly of Kent and gathered her courage.

  “I promised Maud I’d go with her to Wimbledon tomorrow,” she repeated, forcing her eyes back to her mother. “Her grandmother is having another of her spells, and you know how demanding the dowager Lady Higgleston can be. Maud is afraid to go alone.”

  “Lady Maud Peabody has never been afraid of anything.”

  At the suspicious tone, Juliet swallowed. “What I meant was, Maud is hoping to use my presence as an excuse to return on the late train. If she goes alone, her grandmother will coerce her into staying for weeks, and then she’d miss half the Season.”

  Dorothea pursed her lips. “Your father will be none too pleased about this. Lord Breeton left his card while you were gone. I was about to compose an invitation to tea tomorrow.”

  “Couldn’t we invite his lordship the day after? After all, you wouldn’t want him to think we’re overeager.”

  Mrs. Carleton tilted her head in resignation. “You have a point, darling. All right, then, you may go. But next time,” she added, shaking a slim finger, “do consult me before making your plans. Mr. Carleton has charged me with the task of seeing you married well.”

  “Yes, Mama. Thank you so much.”

  Awash with giddy relief, she bent and kissed her mother’s cheek. Only at Dorothea’s startled expression did Juliet recall she wasn’t supposed to act excited at the prospect of spending the day in the company of a querulous old lady. Lowering her lashes, she veiled her glorious anticipation of freedom and hugged her excitement inside her heart.

  The outing with Kent stirred her romantic dreams and fired her botanist’s blood. Highgate Wood skirted the northern edge of the city, and sheltered a vast variety of wildflowers: honeysuckle, wood violet, yellow archangel, sorrel. Few people frequented the park on this quiet Friday; a man walked a terrier, two boys stalked a fox, an elderly couple shared a pair of opera glasses to study the birds. Even though she could glimpse the red brick houses of the village, Juliet felt as if her spirit had been set free from the restrictions of an uneventful life. The warm summer day held the thrill of a treasure hunt, a search for rare species of plants, many of which she recognized only from her textbooks.

  Kent acted the consummate gentleman and the benevolent host. When she dirtied her hands, he smiled indulgently and offered her his linen handkerchief. He’d brought a picnic luncheon, which they shared beneath the spreading branches of an ancient oak. As they ate a simple meal of cheese and bread, the air sang with the mellow cooing of wood pigeons and the staccato notes of a nuthatch. Afterward, he stayed close by her side, calling her attention first to a patch of stitchwort, then to a clump of wild garlic.

  Too content to worry about her sapphire silk skirt, she knelt to examine a jagged toothed leaf. “Leucanthemum vulgare.”

  He chuckled. “A fancy name for the common oxeye daisy.”

  She smiled back. “But still an uncommonly pretty flower.”

  His relaxed mood made him all the more endearing. He crouched beside her, so close she detected the heat radiating from his body. Today no tension marred the handsome angles of his face. Even his eyes shone lighter, a mellow walnut brown beneath the slash of charcoal brows. The musky odor of
humus blended with his faintly earthy scent. How happy he made her, Juliet thought in sudden melting warmth.

  Impulsively she said, “Do you remember the first plant you grew from seed? Watching those tiny leaves push out of the soil and unfurl must be like seeing your child for the first time.”

  A shadow passed over his face. Only belatedly did she recall that his unborn baby had died, that Kent had been denied that unique joy. With a blush of dismay, she stammered, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you... ”

  His strong hand closed around hers. “Don’t apologize for opening yourself to me, Juliet. You’re right... there is a certain magic to life. A magic I’ve let myself forget.”

  “Because you’re afraid of being hurt again,” she ventured.

  His eyes devoured her, and she feared she’d touched a nerve. He looked down, studying the clasp of their hands, her skin a delicate ivory against his tanned fingers. “Yes,” he admitted quietly. “I suppose I am.”

  “What was she like... your wife?”

  “Why don’t you tell me first what you’ve heard about Emily?”

  “I know only that she fell from the parapet of the castle.”

  “Who told you so?”

  His grip tightened and she wondered at the interest burning in his eyes. “Lord Breeton, when he saw you at the ball.”

  “Breeton,” Kent said in disgust, releasing her hand. “When that popinjay’s not talking about hounds, he’s spreading more gossip than a flap jawed servant.”

  Determined not to be distracted, Juliet moistened her dry lips. “Your wife... was she at all like me?”

  He cast her an oblique look before glancing down to toy with a daisy. “Actually not. Emily lacked your frankness, your zest for life. She was shy and frail, the kindest person I’ve ever known.”

  He made her sound like a paragon of womanly virtue, the sort of woman Juliet could never tolerate being. Then why did she feel so suddenly wretched? “You must have loved her very much.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You married her, despite the circumstances of her birth.”