by Mary Balogh
“What a delightful cottage,” Lady Baird said. “It is in a quite idyllic setting, is it not, Eden?”
“There are many people in London,” Lord Pelham said, his blue eyes twinkling down at Catherine, “who would kill to have property on the river, as you have, Mrs. Winters.”
“Then I must be thankful I do not live near London, my lord,” she said.
“I do not believe such a small property would be of interest to anyone in town, Pelham,” Mrs. Adams said. “Though it must be admitted that the river makes a pleasing setting for the village. And the stone bridge is very picturesque. Did you notice it when we arrived two days ago?”
“We will ride on and pay homage to it,” Mr. Adams said, “and allow Mrs. Winters to return to the warmth of her cottage. You are shivering, ma’am.”
Catherine smiled at him, and generally at all of them as they bade her farewell and proceeded down the street toward the triple-arched stone bridge at the end of it. Yes, she had shivered. And yes, it was chilly standing outside without her cloak and bonnet.
But it was not the cold that had been her chief discomfort. It was him. Perhaps it was nothing at all. Perhaps she was being girlishly silly over a handsome man. She would be very annoyed with herself if that were really the case. She had thought herself past all that. She was five-and-twenty years old and she was living quietly in the country for the rest of her life. She had resigned herself to that, adjusted her life accordingly. And she was happy. No, contented. Happiness involved emotion, and if one was happy, then one could also be unhappy. She wanted nothing more to do with either. She was content to be content.
Or perhaps she was not just being silly. Perhaps there really was something. Certainly he had spent a great deal of last evening looking at her, even though he had made no attempt to converse with her or to join any of the groups of which she was a part—except before dinner, when he had had no choice. It surely could not be coincidence that every time she had glanced at him he had been gazing back. She had felt his eyes even when she was not looking at him. And whenever she had looked, it had been unwillingly to try to prove to herself that she was imagining things.
The same thing had happened today. He had not spoken a word to her but had hung back behind the rest of the group. While they were all glancing about them at her cottage and garden, at the village, and at her, his own eyes had not faltered. She had felt them even though she had not once glanced at him.
And that was ridiculous, she told herself, letting herself back into the house and suffering the excited assault of Toby, who had been denied the pleasure of barking at strangers. She had looked quite easily at all the others, including the other three gentlemen, and had felt no awkwardness or embarrassment at all even though Mr. Adams and Lord Pelham were equally handsome as Viscount Rawleigh and Mr. Lipton too was a good-looking gentleman. Why should she feel embarrassment? They had called on her. She had not presumed to invite them.
Why had she found it impossible to turn either her head or her eyes in the direction of the viscount? And how could she know that he had looked steadily at her with those hooded dark eyes of his since she had not looked to see? And how would he construe the fact that she had not returned his look at least once—coolly and courteously?
She felt like a girl from the schoolroom again, struck dumb and brainless by the mere sight of a handsome male face.
No one had mentioned last evening how long the guests were to remain at Bodley. Perhaps they were there for only a few days. Or for a week or two at the longest. Surely it would not be much longer than that. There was still some time before the Season started in London, but young blades would want to be there before all the balls and routs and such began in earnest. Viscount Rawleigh, Lord Pelham, and Mr. Gascoigne definitely qualified as young blades. Though not so very young either. They must all be close to thirty. The viscount was Mr. Adams’s twin, and Mr. Adams had been married long enough to have produced an eight-year-old daughter.
She tried desperately to stop thinking about the houseguests at Bodley and about one of them in particular. She did not want to do so. She liked her new life and she liked herself as she was. She made her tea, poured it after it had steeped for a suitable time, and sat down with one of Daniel Defoe’s books, lent her by the rector. Perhaps she could lose herself in an account of the plague year.
She eventually succeeded in doing so. Toby stretched out on the rug at her feet and sighed noisily in deep contentment.
• • •
SHE really was beautiful. She was one of the rare women who would look so even dressed in a sack. Or in nothing at all. Oh, yes, definitely that. He had sat his horse outside her cottage unclothing her with his eyes while she exchanged small talk with everyone else. And his mental exercise had revealed long limbs, a flat stomach that did not need the aid of corsets, firm, uptilted, rose-peaked breasts, creamy skin. And with his eyes he had let down her hair from its plain and sensible knot and watched it cascade in a dark mane down her back to her waist. It would wave enticingly—he remembered the tendrils that had been allowed to remain loose the evening before.
He had not failed to notice that she did not once look directly at him. Neither had he failed to sense that she was more fully aware of him than of any of the others, at whom she looked and with whom she conversed quite easily. There had been an invisible thread drawn tautly between them and he had pulled on it only very gently. He had no wish to be teased again by Eden. He had no wish for anyone else to notice, especially Claude, between whose mind and his own there was a strange bond.
He was glad that she was discreet. If she were not, of course, he would not pursue his interest in her. He certainly would not take her up on the invitation she had so covertly extended the evening before.
But take her up on it he would. And without delay. His stay would probably be no more than a few weeks long, and he had the feeling that there was enough about Mrs. Winters to hold his interest for a number of weeks.
There were no guests in the evening even though Clarissa appeared to find the uneven numbers an embarrassment. There were enough people interested in cards to make up the tables. He was free.
“I shall step out for some fresh air,” he announced languidly, hoping that no one else would discover any burning desire to keep him company. Ellen Hudson, fortunately, was one of the cardplayers.
“It is dusk,” Clarissa said, clearly annoyed that he had avoided partnering her sister. “You may get lost, Rawleigh.”
Claude chuckled. “Rex and I enjoyed many a clandestine nocturnal adventure here when we were boys, my love,” he said. “We will send out a search party if you are not home by midnight, Rex.”
“I shall use a ball of string if it will make you easier in your mind, Clarissa,” his lordship said, his voice bored.
He was on his way a few minutes later, blessedly alone. And he blessed too his familiarity with the estate, though he had not visited it for years. One did not easily forget boyish haunts. Even in the gathering dusk he knew unerringly the route across the lawn and among the trees and through the postern door in the wall about the park that brought him out onto the road a short distance beyond the far end of the village—Mrs. Winters’s end. He did not wish to tempt fate by striding through the village on his way to her cottage.
It was almost dark by the time he stepped through the postern door onto the road. The curtains were drawn across the windows at the front of the cottage, he could see. There was light behind one of them. She was at home, then. He must hope that she was there alone. He must have some sort of excuse to present if she was not.
He opened the gate and closed it carefully behind him. A glance along the street showed it to be deserted. He felt unaccountably nervous now that the time had come. He had never done such a thing in the country before. Certainly never at Stratton. And he had never stayed long enough anywhere else even to consider the desirability of doing s
o. It was the sort of thing one associated with the anonymity of a large place, like London.
Claude would not be pleased if he got wind of it.
Eden and Nat would be amused and would never let him hear the end of it.
He must make sure that no one got wind of it.
He knocked on the door.
He thought he was going to have to knock again, even though he could hear a dog barking with some enthusiasm inside, but he heard the key turning in the lock just as he was raising his arm, and the door opened a short way. She looked at him in some surprise. She was wearing a lace-trimmed cap, which made her look charmingly pretty instead of matronly. She wore the same high-necked, long-sleeved wool dress she had worn earlier in the day. He wondered if she realized that it emphasized her slimness and clung enticingly to her curves.
“My lord!” she said.
He could hardly hear her above the barking of the dog. He wondered for the first time how it was she could tell the difference between him and Claude. Most people could not, at least on early acquaintance.
“Mrs. Winters?” He removed his hat. “Good evening. May I step inside?”
She looked beyond his shoulder as if she expected to see someone else with him. Some seconds passed before she opened the door wider and stepped to one side so that he could move past her. A small brown-and-white terrier stepped into the breach and announced its intention of guarding its territory.
“I do not bite,” he told the dog in languid tones. “I hope you will return the favor, sir.”
“Toby,” she said, “do be quiet.”
But her words were not needed. The dog had turned over onto its back and was thumping its tail on the floor and waving its paws in the air. He tickled it with the toe of his boot and the animal turned right side up and trotted away, apparently satisfied.
He was in a narrow passageway. It seemed like a miniature house. He almost felt as if he should duck his head to avoid hitting it on the ceiling.
She closed the door and stood facing it for longer than seemed strictly necessary. Then she turned to him and looked into his face. They were a very clear hazel, her eyes, with long brown lashes.
“There is no fire in the parlor,” she said. “I was not expecting callers. I was in the kitchen.”
There was an enticing smell of baking coming from the kitchen, and sure enough he could see as he entered it a tray of small cakes resting on a cloth on the table. It was a cozy room. It looked lived in. The rocker to one side of the fire had a brightly embroidered cushion on the seat. There was a lit lamp on the table beside it and a book opened facedown. The dog was lying on the chair.
He turned to look at Mrs. Winters. She was pale. Even her lips seemed to have lost color.
“Will you have a seat, my lord?” she asked suddenly, her hand indicating rather jerkily the chair at the other side of the fire.
“Thank you.” He crossed the room to it and seated himself as she did likewise on the rocker. The terrier had jumped down at her approach. She was graceful, he thought. Her back did not touch the chair, though there was nothing stiff about her posture. Then she jumped to her feet again.
“May I offer you a cup of tea?” she asked. “I am afraid I have nothing stronger.”
“Nothing, thank you,” he said. Now that he was here with her, he was enjoying the tension between them. And she was quite as aware of it as he. It was a greater tension than he had ever experienced with a woman before.
He watched her school herself to deal with the situation as she sat back down. She rested her hands in her lap, the back of one on the palm of the other, apparently relaxed.
“Did you enjoy your ride this afternoon, my lord?” she asked politely. “The countryside around here is pretty, is it not, even at this time of year.”
“Exceedingly pretty,” he said. “One part of it more than any other.”
“Oh?” Her mouth remained in the shape of the word. He imagined setting the tip of his tongue to the small opening.
“In the village,” he said. “At this end of it. We stopped to view it. Though I suppose it cannot strictly be called countryside.”
He watched her become aware of his meaning. She was one of the few women whose blush was becoming, he noticed.
She looked sharply down at her hands. “It must be pleasant for you to see your nephew and niece,” she said. “They do not often leave here. I suppose you have not seen a great deal of them.”
“Enough to suffice,” he said. “I discovered to my cost this morning that children have a tendency to believe that uncles are to be climbed upon.”
“And you do not like to be climbed upon?” she asked.
It was just too wicked a question to have been artless, though her blush deepened in the short pause before he replied.
“It depends entirely, Mrs. Winters,” he said, “upon who is doing the climbing. I can imagine it being very pleasurable indeed.”
She reached out one slippered foot to smooth over the back of the dog, which was stretched out before her. She lowered her eyes to watch what she did. Again it was an artful action. He felt his pulse quicken. But he was enjoying himself. He did not want to hasten matters, he realized, even if a late return to Bodley drew curious questions. He waited for her to renew the conversation.
Her eyes came up at last, hesitated on his chin, and then met his. “I do not know why you are here, my lord,” she said. “It is not quite proper.”
Ah. She was not as content as he to let the situation develop at its own pace. She wished to bring him to the point.
“I believe you do know,” he said. “And I assure you that no one saw me come here. There will be no gossip.”
“Someone who passes the length of the village street rarely goes unseen,” she said.
“I came by the postern door,” he said. “Perhaps you did not know that Claude and Daphne and I spent a great deal of time here with our grandparents when we were children.”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “Why are you here now? At my cottage, I mean?”
“I am bored, Mrs. Winters,” he said. “It seems likely that I will be at Bodley for several weeks, and while I am very fond of my brother and sister, and came here in company with two of my closest male friends, I lack for congenial female company. I am bored, and my guess is that you are too. You are a widow in a place where there cannot be much in the way of social activity except when Clarissa condescends to invite you to the house. And there must be even less in the way of male company.”
Her hands were no longer relaxed. They were clasping each other. “I do not crave social pleasures,” she said. “And I have not looked for male company since—since the death of my husband. I am content as I am. I am neither bored nor lonely.”
She was going to pretend to indifference. Good. He was enjoying himself. And she was so beautiful to look at from some distance that he was in no hurry to lessen it. He did not want to touch her just yet. Anticipation brought its own pleasure.
“You are a liar, ma’am,” he said.
That silenced her for a few moments. Her eyes widened and she stared back at him. “And you are no gentleman, my lord,” she said at last.
He looked at her appreciatively, slim and prim and infinitely desirable.
“For the few weeks I am here we might as well alleviate each other’s boredom,” he said.
“By such visits?” she asked. “They are not proper, my lord. I have no chaperone.”
“For which fact we may both say a prayer of thanksgiving tonight,” he said. “Yes, by such visits, ma’am. And do we really care about propriety? You are a widow and past the first blush of youth, if I may make so bold as to say so.”
“I—” She swallowed. “I do not believe your visiting here would cure our boredom, my lord,” she said. “We appear to have very few topics of common interest on which to co
nverse.”
She was priceless.
“Then I suppose we would have to entertain each other without words,” he said.
“What are you saying?” Her lips had lost their color again. They were lips that needed to be kissed.
“Did you never entertain your husband without words?” he asked her. “Or he you? With a wife of such obvious charms, I cannot imagine that he denied himself one of life’s great pleasures.”
“You want me to be your whore,” she whispered.
“An ugly word,” he said. “Whores wander the streets, picking up random customers. I want you to be my mistress, Mrs. Winters.”
“There is no difference.” She was still whispering.
“On the contrary,” he said, “there is a great deal of difference. A man chooses a particular woman to be his mistress. If she is fortunate and is not living in straitened circumstances, a woman chooses the man who is to be her protector. It is not unlike a marriage in some ways.”
“In straitened circumstances,” she said. “Are you offering to pay me, my lord?”
He had wondered about it. He did not want to offend her, but she might be in need of more money. He was quite prepared to pay her.
“If you wish,” he said. “I am sure we can come to an amicable agreement.”
“You would pay me,” she said, “for lying with you? For going to bed with you? For allowing you access to my body?”
He could not have put it much more erotically himself.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I would pay you. Though I would consider it as much my concern to give you pleasure as yours to give it to me.”
“Get out,” she said so quietly that it took him a moment to realize what she had said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Ma’am?”
“Get out,” she said much more distinctly, the flush returning to her face, her nostrils flaring. “Get out and never come back.”