Lovers and Ladies

by Jo Beverley

  “Perhaps he did. Despite what you think of yourself, you are not hard on the eyes, my dear, especially when you are out of your somewhat strange London outfits.” Lucetta sighed. “You must not blame Marco too much for flirting with you, Deirdre. He has inherited the tendency just as he inherited his brown eyes.”

  Deirdre faced the dowager. “He makes me most uneasy, Lucetta, and it is merely a game to him. Surely he will desist if you ask him to.”

  Lucetta studied her. “Are you sure that is what you want, Deirdre? It is, after all, just a game, and one he is very good at. I’ll stand guarantee that he would never take it too far. Once you are married to your Howard, the time for such games will be over.”

  Deirdre bit her lip. It was a silly fear, but she worried that in some way this would all prevent her marriage to Howard. “Yes, I want him to stop.”

  “Then I will do what I can.”

  When Deirdre left, however, the dowager looked very thoughtful indeed.

  Deirdre discovered that Lord Everdon was awaiting her in the stables, and so she went directly there. She came upon him making the acquaintance of Henry’s fine gray gelding, and took the opportunity to study the enemy.

  He’d been startlingly handsome in evening clothes and in day wear, but he suited riding clothes, too. The brown jacket and buckskin breeches toned with his skin and hair. They robbed him of some of his fanciful elegance, but replaced it with practical strength.

  As if feeling her eyes on him, he turned and smiled a welcome. “Your brother has offered me this fine fellow, Deirdre. I hope your mount will be able to keep up with him.”

  “Oh, I think so,” she said dryly as the groom led out her own gelding, Charlemagne, a black every bit as big and strong as his mount.

  She saw the flicker of surprise on Everdon’s face, but he came over and tossed her into the saddle without comment. She appreciated the fact that he didn’t make any conventionally stupid remarks about Charlemagne not being a lady’s mount, or protest that she would not have the strength to control him.

  She led the way out of the stables and down a lane to open ground. “We’ll warm them up as we go down to the river, my lord, then have a gallop over to the eastern boundary. I’m afraid we have no romantic features here, though. No monasteries, magic streams, or caves.”

  Everdon looked around. “Just hundreds of acres of well-tended land. Better than romance any day. I note you do not have much of a park here.”

  “Mother wanted it, but Father put his foot down. Wouldn’t have acres of good land given over to ornamental deer, and artificial lakes and gardens.”

  “Very wise.”

  Deirdre glanced at him, aware again that his smooth social manners were disarming her. It was hard to stay wary with someone so courteous. “What is your estate like, my lord?”

  He raised a brow. “I have been calling you Deirdre with great boldness. Do you not think you could call me by my given name? We are, after all, conspirators.”

  She flashed him a look. “Very well. What is your estate like, Don Juan?”

  Humor flickered in his eyes. “Don will do. It’s what most people call me. Everdon Park, I’m afraid, was extensively improved by my father, but I hesitate to put the ornamental gardens and obligatory deer park to the plow. It’s a pleasant place, in fact, but the house is a trifle small. I’m thinking of building an extra wing when I marry.”

  The word “marry” caused a little frisson in Deirdre, but she reminded herself sternly that she wasn’t the bride-to-be. “You should wait and seek your bride’s advice on the matter.”

  “That is my intent.”

  They progressed along a narrow lane between hedges, heading down toward the river. The sun brightened the scene obligingly, but was not particularly hot. It was a good day for riding. An unwary rabbit hopped into the lane, froze, then darted off. Charlemagne pretended to take offense and sidled. Deirdre saw Everdon come alert, ready to assist her, but he held back, and she controlled the horse without difficulty.

  She had to like the fact that he showed some trust in her abilities.

  They speeded a little until they came close to the water, silvery-smooth and overhung by trees.

  “Your brothers promise me fine fishing,” he said.

  “They seem to do well enough here.”

  “You don’t care for the sport?”

  Deirdre smiled apologetically. “I don’t like killing things. I know it’s foolish when I’m perfectly happy to eat the trout, or even the roast lamb, but…”

  “It’s a foolishness many share. I can’t say killing animals is a favorite pastime of mine, though I have no trouble with fish. Or wasps, for example.”

  “I can’t even face the wasps,” she confessed. “I trap them and let them free outside. Everyone thinks me very foolish.”

  “And so you are, but it’s a charming foolishness all the same.”

  Something changed between them. Deirdre couldn’t say what it was, but she felt as if a connection had been made. She knew she would never forget him. When he strolled out of her life, there would be a space—a small space, but one that would never adequately be filled by another.

  It was most alarming.

  He made no other personal comment, however, but looked around. He gestured to a grassy hill a field away. “What is that mound over there?”

  Deirdre grasped the subject with relief. “It’s said to be a barrow, an ancient burial site. There may be bones inside, or even pots and such. No one has dug to find out.”

  “And you said you had no romantic features,” he protested. “Can we ride over there? I’d like to investigate.”

  She obligingly turned and they cantered to the mound, some forty feet long and twenty feet high. The dun-colored cows in the field ambled resentfully away from the invaders.

  “I’m going to climb it,” he said. “Are you coming?”

  “No, I’ll wait here.” Despite her firm tone, Deirdre couldn’t help but remember how much she had loved to be on top of the little hill in her youth. It was hardly an activity for a mature person, however.

  He dismounted and tossed her his reins, then went to investigate. Soon he had scrambled up the slope. “It’s certainly a man-made shape,” he called from the flat top. “If this were my land, I’d get someone in to excavate.”

  Deirdre suddenly wanted to be up there with him.

  Impulsively she slid off Charlemagne, led the horses to the gate, and tethered them there. Then she picked up her skirts and ran over to climb up after him. Halfway up, she discovered that it wasn’t as easy as she remembered. Last time she’d done this, her skirts had been shorter, and she’d felt no self-consciousness about revealing her legs. Now her trailing habit tangled her feet, but she couldn’t gather it up without being indecorous. She found she was embarrassingly stuck betwixt and between.

  He knelt and stretched out a helping hand. After a momentary hesitation, Deirdre took it. His grip was firm, and he pulled her up the last few feet without difficulty, steadied her, then let her go.

  Deirdre caught her breath. “Oh, I haven’t been up here for years! I used to love to come here as a girl. I felt on top of the world.”

  “It is not so very high. Perhaps I should take you to the Lakes.”

  Deirdre hardly paid attention. She stretched her arms out and slowly turned. “I always felt special here. Tall, strong, powerful. Queen of the world…”

  She kept turning, faster and faster, allowing the world to spin around her and carry her off to dreams…

  He caught her hands and jerked her to a stop. She fell dizzily into his arms.

  “Oh, don’t!” she cried.

  “You were going to spin off.”

  The world was still turning around her, but Deirdre said, “Let me go!”

  “Wait a moment.”

  “Let me go!” she cried, panicked by his arms, and the look in his eyes.

  He did so cautiously, warning, “If you try to walk, you’ll fall over, and end u
p back in my arms. I’d really have to kiss you then, you know.”

  She stood there, begging the world to stay still. When she was younger and had done this, she’d collapsed onto the ground afterward and let the sky turn and turn above her. Nothing would induce her to collapse at the feet of Don Juan. “I do wish you’d stop this,” she fretted. “You don’t really want to kiss me.”

  “How can you know what I want?”

  The world began to settle, and she met his amused eyes. “I’m not the sort of woman you like to kiss.”

  “Aren’t you? In fact, I like to kiss most women.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Do you want to kiss my mother, for example?”

  He grinned. “I didn’t say I wanted to kiss all women. Those that want to be kissed, I want to kiss.”

  “But I don’t want to be kissed. At least, not by you.” She ignored his arrogantly skeptical look and added, “Besides, that policy sounds highly dangerous, my lord.”

  “True, but it wasn’t when I was married.”

  Deirdre nodded. “Ah, I see. And now you are in peril, but like an opium eater, you find you cannot break the habit.”

  “Precisely. I thought you would be kind enough to let me blunt my appetite by occasionally kissing you, since we are agreed we wouldn’t suit.”

  Perhaps she was still dizzy after all. Deirdre felt most peculiar. Her senses were being deliberately tangled in knots, up here where reality seemed so far away. “But I don’t want to be kissed by you,” she repeated firmly.

  Or at least, she intended it to be firm, but it didn’t come out that way.

  “Why not?”

  “Why on earth should I?”

  “It would be fun.”

  Deirdre took refuge in primness. “Kissing should never be fun.”

  He laughed. “Now, that’s ridiculous.” He stood, hands on hips, beaver at a jaunty angle, making the world spin again.

  “It is not ridiculous,” she defended desperately. “Kissing is for holy purposes. For marriage and procreation…” She bit off what she had been about to say, realizing where her unwary tongue was leading her. She knew her face was red and wanted to wipe the amusement off his all-too-handsome face. She could see he was trying not to laugh, but his lips were twitching anyway.

  “I hadn’t actually intended to go so far so fast…” he murmured, and walked toward her.

  Deirdre pushed him off the mound.

  With a cry, he tumbled over and over down the steep slope and lay still.

  With a gasp of horror, Deirdre slid and scrambled her way down to his side, not caring if her habit was soiled or her legs were showing. Her heart thudded madly and chills shook her. What would become of her if she’d killed him?

  She landed by his still body. He didn’t look dead but his olive skin made it hard to tell. Hesitantly she reached to touch his cheek. At the last moment she saw the flicker of his eyelids as he peeped at her.

  She leapt to her feet and backed away, her anger returning in full force. “Get up, you wretch. I know you’re shamming it!”

  With a laugh, he rose and brushed himself off. Then, without warning, he grabbed her, imprisoned her competently in his arms, and kissed her. She tried to kick and twisted her head, but he held her still and laid his lips against hers.

  That’s all it amounted to, and yet their subtle movements sent a weakness through her. Her limbs lost their strength, her eyes drifted shut, and the world started spinning again…

  His lips released hers. “Now,” he said softly, “I wish to point out that you hit me first. I was merely claiming that for which I’d paid.”

  Her eyes flew open. “That isn’t fair!”

  “Is it not? I would have thought I could claim a great deal more for a life-threatening attack like that.”

  Deirdre decided it would be much wiser to accept his terms. “Yes, damn you, it is fair. Now, let me go.”

  “Such language,” he teased as he released her.

  He started to brush off her habit. She pushed him away.

  “And that wasn’t a hit,” she warned him quickly, “so don’t pretend otherwise. When I do hit you, Don Juan, you’ll know it. I’m going to knock your block off. I’ve been practicing.”

  Devil lights appeared in his eyes. “Then I must certainly make sure the kiss is worth the price.”

  Deirdre wished she’d learn to keep her mouth shut.

  She also wished there were a way of getting back on Charlemagne without him touching her, but she had to allow him to toss her into the saddle.

  He took no advantage.

  What she disliked most about Don Juan, thought Deirdre, was that he was so devilishly upredictable. What would he do, or not do, next?

  As they resumed their ride, Deirdre knew she had just escalated their teasing contest. The terrible thing was that she was beginning to enjoy the game.

  When she remembered that she’d asked Lucetta to call him off, she actually felt a tickle of disappointment.

  Lucetta requested that her son visit her in her room before dinner that evening. He arrived looking carelessly, perfectly elegant and kissed her cheek. “Let me hazard a guess. Deirdre has asked you to tame the savage beast.”

  She shook her head fondly. “Something like that. Marco, what are you about? She has told me that your engagement is a sham. I confess I am disappointed, but if she has another love, I can accept it. Why cannot you?”

  “Do you conceive of me fighting for her heart? Hardly.”

  She watched him carefully. “Then what are you doing?”

  “Amusing myself,” he said flippantly, but then sobered. “No, that is not quite honest. It is true that I find it compulsively amusing to challenge Lady Deirdre’s spirit. Do you know she is something of a spitfire? I suspect you do. But she is a banked fire. I am just stirring her up, summoning some flames. I won’t hurt her.”

  Lucetta frowned. “Can you be sure of that, Marco? I suspect she is somewhat vulnerable. She does not think too highly of herself as a woman. Lady Harby is in many ways an admirable lady, but her fearsome efforts to turn Deirdre into a beauty have served instead to convince her that she is a hopeless case.”

  “Then she needs to be shown otherwise. Physical beauty is not particularly important in a woman.”

  “Strange,” mused the dowager. “I have not heard your name linked to any except beauties.”

  “But what of my more discreet adventures…?” His smile was secretive and, she thought, the kind that would ignite the iciest female heart. It made her want to slap him.

  “Don’t play your games with me,” she said briskly. “I will not tell you to leave Deirdre alone, but I do tell you to watch what you are about with her.”

  “I don’t hurt women, Madrecita. Except Genie, of course.” Before Lucetta could comment on that, he asked, “Do you know why Deirdre wants to marry this Howard Dunstable?”

  “She has hardly spoken of him. Before your betrothal, she never mentioned him or I would hardly have put forward her name. I suppose she must be in love.”

  He picked up a black silk rose from her dressing table and contemplated it. “Do you really think so? She does not appear to me to be a woman in love. My instincts tell me that he hasn’t warmed her soul.” He studied his mother, then fixed the rose in the black ribbons of her cap and frowned slightly. “I wish you would wear colors. I remember how beautiful you looked with a red rose in your hair.”

  “I was more than ten years younger then, dearest. Besides, I will mourn your father all my days, and why would I want to look beautiful except for him?”

  He leaned down and hugged her. “So be it. Perhaps I just don’t understand the true dimensions of love. As for Deirdre’s mathematician, I reserve judgment until I meet him, but I suspect her marriage to him would be an error.”

  Lucetta shook her head. “How can you make such a judgment, Marco?”

  “How can I not? Does she appear to you like a woman afire with love?”

  The dowager ha
d to admit that Deirdre didn’t. “But, dearest, you must realize some women simply do not have those fires within them.”

  “Nonsense,” he said crisply. “And if there are such women, Deirdre Stowe is not one of them. I am already toasting my toes.” At the look in his mother’s eyes, he shrugged. “I simply intend to open her eyes to life, so she will look at Dunstable and make a clear-sighted decision. She is far too fine to be wasted on a selfish nod-cock.”

  “He’s supposed to be a brilliant mathematician,” she pointed out.

  “Perhaps he is, but in all other ways I am sure he is a nod-cock.”

  Lucetta turned away to hide her amusement, and some burgeoning hopes. “But think, dear. If you should manage to shake Deirdre free of her attachment to this man, what can you do but marry her yourself?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” he remarked carelessly. “She still seems as good a choice of bride as I am likely to find.”

  “Quiet, plain?” Lucetta queried. “An adequate lottery ticket?”

  He grinned. “Well, plain at least. And highly likely to win me at least a minor prize in the lottery of life.”

  As he escorted her down to dinner, Lucetta enjoyed the realization that her handsome son was experiencing the first twitches of jealousy. It was so strange an emotion to him that he hadn’t even recognized it as yet.

  5

  THE NEXT DAY Deirdre took swift action to ensure she couldn’t be dragooned into another outing with Everdon. She rose early and announced she was visiting Anna. The truth was, she intended to visit Howard “on the way.” She needed a practical antidote to Latin charms, and the three-mile walk to the village of Missinger St. Mary would not come amiss either.

  Her mother had never made objection to her visiting Howard as long as his housekeeper was present, and Deirdre chose to assume that the rules had not changed. She knew that the latest housekeeper, Mrs. Leadbetter, was likely to be there. The taciturn woman never left the house except on market day.

  It was this matter of housekeepers that had first brought Deirdre and Howard Dunstable together.

  They had met at a musical evening at the Durhams’, where she had seen him sitting alone. Deirdre was not in the habit of approaching handsome young male strangers, but she felt sorry for his isolation and so sat beside him and engaged him in talk. She discovered he had just moved to Missinger St. Mary, where he had inherited a cottage from an uncle. The uncle had also left Howard sufficient income to pursue some mathematical inquiries close to his heart.