“Daphne is not going to object if you take a minute to set yourself to rights,” Celia said while her hands deftly worked their magic. “That is the brother of a marquess in the greenhouse. An MP too. That is right on his card.”
Since Celia did not know that Lord Sebastian was no stranger to her, Audrianna decided that silence was the best response.
“He is of great consequence and his name is in the newspapers all the time. You can’t receive him looking as if you stood on a ship’s deck all afternoon.”
Audrianna did not want to receive him at all. She prayed he had not brought bad news about that justice of the peace. What if Sir Edwin had decided that she needed to stand at the quarter sessions after all?
“It is the best I can do, unless I take it all down. It is your own fault for removing your bonnet as you walked home,” Celia said, stepping back. “We should start all over and fix it properly.”
“You will do no such thing,” Daphne’s voice responded.
Audrianna looked up. Daphne stood at the door of the sitting room, the one that opened on the corridor that led to the greenhouse. She still wore her soiled work apron and her oldest cap, but she appeared ethereal and stunning. Daphne could wear rags and look beautiful.
“You must come with me at once, Audrianna. He is determined to see you,” Daphne said.
“Did he say why he is here?”
“He only said that he has brought you something that you lost.”
“I have lost nothing.”
“It is in an oblong box. Like a glove box. A rather large glove box.”
The pistol!
Audrianna felt her face flush. Daphne leveled those gray eyes on her.
“How would Lord Sebastian Summerhays even come upon something of yours?” Celia’s sweet face puckered with a frown as she suddenly recognized the oddity of this caller.
“I have no idea,” Audrianna mumbled.
Daphne remained serene. “Has anyone seen Lizzie?”
“She was here just a few minutes ago,” Celia said.
“She has a talent for disappearing when it is least helpful. Come along, Audrianna. Your gentleman waits.”
“He is not my gentleman,” Audrianna said as they marched down the corridor.
Daphne’s eyelids lowered a tiny, eloquent fraction.
Daphne paused partway down the aisle that ran between the two rows of tables that held armies of pelagoriums, forced lilies, and hyacinths. Audrianna was only too happy to take a moment to collect herself.
From their vantage point they could see Lord Sebastian. He sat in one of the chairs at the stone table, beneath the grape arbor. His handsome profile faced them while he gazed at something on the other side of the greenhouse. Relaxed and confident, he proved as remarkable a presence in this interior garden as he had in that rustic coaching inn.
“He does not appear angry or displeased. He presents himself in the most amiable manner. And yet one can tell that he is not a man to trifle with,” Daphne said quietly.
“I have not trifled with him.”
“That goes without saying. You have no experience at trifling. He, on the other hand, is a master of it.”
“Do you know him?”
“I know of him, and we met once, long ago. He condescended to remember that. It is said he is much changed these last few years. I wonder if that is true.” Her considerations over for now, Daphne escorted Audrianna to their visitor.
Lord Sebastian stood as they approached. Daphne introduced Audrianna, then eased away. “I must finish the bulbs while there is still good light,” she said.
Audrianna waited until Daphne disappeared. She would not be far away, however. She would be able to hear everything except the quietest conversation.
Audrianna pointed to the wooden box on the table. “Is that it?”
Lord Sebastian picked up on her low tone of voice and her circumspection. “Yes.”
“Thank you for returning it. It belongs to Daphne and she noticed it missing. I expect I will now have to explain that I borrowed it, but it will be easier to do so if I have it back.”
He rested his fingertips on the top of the box. “She does not know about your adventure?”
“I hoped to spare her the details.”
“Better that the details are yours and not someone else’s.”
“Yes, I should tell her everything. I think that she already guesses part of it.”
“Which part?”
“The part about you.”
He glanced in the direction where Daphne invisibly worked on the bulbs. “There appears to be an attractive garden outside. It looks to be sheltered from the wind, and the sun is warm. Will you show it to me, Miss Kelmsleigh?”
Sebastian fell into step beside Miss Kelmsleigh as they strolled into the garden.
“Did you go to my mother’s house first?” she asked.
“I sent a messenger with a letter. I doubt that your mother knows the letter came from me, and it never left the messenger’s hand in any case.”
It appeared to please her that her mother did not know Lord Sebastian Summerhays had been looking for her. Of course it would. Not only had he been one of her father’s enemies, but his reputation with women was not one that any mother would like.
“Have you lived here long, Miss Kelmsleigh?”
“Only six months. Daphne is my cousin. She wrote to me after my father died, offering me a place to live. She guessed I might want to leave London. It was very kind of her. Much kinder than we had been when she found herself in need of a home when she was younger.”
“It is a handsome property. Do you help growing flowers?”
“We all help when we can, but mostly Daphne and Lizzie tend the flowers. I give music lessons to contribute to my keep. That is where I was when you arrived. Up the road, teaching a young girl the pianoforte.”
They strolled an informal garden, now fallow except for boxwood hedges and ivy that obscured most of the surrounding brick wall. The paths meandered through beds and around barren fruit trees. He pictured pastels in spring and a riot of color in late summer, and Miss Kelmsleigh and Mrs. Joyes sitting in the little arbor now covered by a naked rose vine.
Miss Kelmsleigh trod on with grace, her low boots crunching the twigs and dead leaves. She politely allowed him to tour the garden, but she made no effort to converse. A slight purse played at her lips, reminding him of his mother’s mouth when unwelcome calls had to be tolerated owing to the caller’s consequence.
In this raking light her maturity was more obvious than in firelight or dawn’s soft glow. Middle twenties, he was sure now. Late to be unmarried. Perhaps she had lost her intended in the war, like too many women her age.
“I brought the pistol personally for a reason,” he said, feeling obligated to excuse his intrusion. “I wanted to warn you that the first sign of bad gossip has occurred. There was a mention in a scandal sheet this morning.”
She paused and stomped her little foot in frustrated anger. Her face grimaced with worry. “Already?”
“Only the coaching inn gossip. No names. It may come to nothing.”
“Or it may get much worse, with names named, or alluded to in ways that everyone knows who it is. How soon will we know which way it will be?”
“These things have a common pattern. In four days or so it will either die away, or be much more public. If the latter happens, I will send you a warning and, of course, do what is necessary to protect your reputation as much as possible.”
“Mama will be certain to tell me first, Lord Sebastian. If she is embroiled in more scandal, I will never be able to apologize enough to her. And she will be too good to scold that my mission, although noble, was foolhardy.”
She had completely missed his reference to protecting her. Of course she would. She hated him for his role in her father’s disgrace. She would never speculate on what might be necessary, let alone agree to it. She would think social damnation preferable to accepting his protection, no
doubt.
“Foolhardy, yes. Also ill-advised, dangerous, and as it turned out, disastrous. Also—”
“There is no need to go through the entire dictionary. I have upbraided myself plenty, and do not need scolds from you.”
“Also brave. It is admirable that you wanted to be a champion for his name, mistaken though your faith may be.”
She glanced askance at him, frowning with suspicion. She no doubt thought that he was flattering her to his own ends again.
He probably was. He hadn’t decided yet.
“I have been thinking about the Domino,” she said. Mention of her father had opened a topic that made his presence tolerable, although it was the last one he would have chosen. “In my mind, I study what I remember of his appearance. He had red hair, I am almost positive. Also, I am wondering if he was a foreigner.”
Their path turned around the corner of a simple stone structure with large windows on all its walls. This was the true conservatory that Mrs. Joyes had mentioned, he guessed. They entered a little wilderness that flourished along its side, in the garden’s back corner.
“Why do you think he might be foreign?”
“His hat was odd. Soft and deeper brimmed than seen here. Perhaps his coat was odd too. The cut of it. The weight.” She shrugged. “I cannot explain it, but he just did not look English.”
“You may be correct.”
“It would make it easier to find him if I am. There are far fewer foreigners in England than Englishmen.”
“Unfortunately, men do not wear colored feathers in their hats proclaiming which they are.”
“The foreigners congregate in certain places in London, though. Certain inns and taverns. Lizzie—she is another member of our household—she says that there are hotels preferred by foreigners too. If I were to visit the places such a man might be, I could—”
He stepped ahead of her and stopped walking, requiring her to stop as well. “You must not do that. It would be unsafe.”
Her drawn expression made it clear what she thought of his command. “I will be perfectly safe. I will bring someone with me this time. And of course, I now have the pistol again.”
He could not tell if she was teasing him or if she truly intended to repeat such recklessness. “I shall instruct Mrs. Joyes to lock it away. A weapon only increases your danger. The next time you point a pistol at a man, he may not be a gentleman about it.”
“Now, that is a warning worth the words, Lord Sebastian, since you know so well of what you speak.”
Her mocking eyes arrested him. And the slight curve of her mouth. And her familiar manner, which revived memories of the intimacy that they had shared in that inn.
“You refer to that kiss,” he said, remembering it more distinctly than was wise. Arousal awoke, in a slowly tightening coil. “I am supposed to apologize now, even though you behaved in ways that begged for misunderstanding.”
“I did not beg for misunderstanding. I did nothing to encourage you to be a scoundrel.”
“You did little to stop it either. And your mere presence there alone excused my misunderstanding. However . . .” He made a little bow. “Miss Kelmsleigh, my sincere apologies for my forwardness the other evening. A lady should not have to suffer such inexcusable behavior. Please forgive me.”
Her hands went to her hips. “You astonish me. It is beyond the pale that you came here to insult me further with such ridicule.”
“I came to return a pistol that you aimed directly at me, fully loaded and hammer fully cocked,” he reminded her.
That checked her gathering ire. Her soft, pale cheeks flushed prettily, the way they would if she had been walking in the cold. Or suffering a kiss that she did not mind too much.
“That was wrong of me. It is true that apologies are due on my part as well. I admit that I must share the blame for almost everything that happened during our peculiar meeting together.”
He smiled his best smile. “I insist that you place all the blame on me. Remember the events in any way that you choose, and I will not correct them. However, do not demand that I lie to myself, even if propriety demands that you lie to yourself.”
Anger flashed again. She had a quick little temper, apparently. “I do not lie, sir. Not even to myself.”
“I think that you are talking yourself into believing a lie. You are convincing yourself that you did not enjoy that kiss, and that I importuned far more than I did. I, on the other hand, freely admit that I am not sorry for it, except that my distraction got me shot.”
She studied him with a gaze that reflected perplexity and astonishment and a touch of fear. The last reaction was for all the best reasons, although she probably did not realize that yet.
“My cousin said that you were infamous for trifling with women not long ago, Lord Sebastian. Preposterous though I find the notion, it appears that you are flirting with me now.”
He looked past her, in a vain attempt to thwart the compelling heat rising in him. He surveyed the far end of the garden. Only the corner of the house could be seen. The conservatory blocked the view of the greenhouse completely. The confirmation that they were out of sight of all the house’s occupants hardly helped matters.
“Perhaps I am flirting, Miss Kelmsleigh. Old habits die hard.”
She laughed. “I hope that in the past you did not flirt with such little hope of impressing a woman. If I was a little . . . distracted at the Two Swords, that does not signify now, so you use that smile of yours to no effect. Please remember that I did not know who you were when you importuned me.”
He turned his attention back on her. On the way the breeze plucked at the tendrils of her hair, and the way those green eyes carried the memories of that night. The cool light in this little woods gave her skin a snowy cast.
“And now you do know who I am, Miss Kelmsleigh. And I know who you are. It is odd, don’t you think, how little difference that makes?”
It made almost no difference, from the way she reacted. Not nearly as much difference as it should. She tried to maintain a pose of sophisticated indifference, but she was unpracticed in dissembling in such situations.
“It makes all the difference, for reasons that should be plain to you.” Her words faltered, and carried a tremor.
“Does it? I sense not.”
“A rock would be more moved by your flattery and flirting. I could never be distracted by you now.”
“Really?” He stepped closer, even though he knew damned well he shouldn’t. “Never? Not at all?”
Her eyes widened in charming, innocent shock. She pivoted abruptly, to bolt. He could not permit that now.
He caught her arm and twirled her into his embrace.
He intended a brief kiss, to prove his point. Nothing more. That was what he told himself at least.
She did not resist or fight. She merely stiffened for an instant of surprise, then softened under the kiss. Her body reacted as if the warmth of his arms banished a deep chill.
Soft lips. Tentative and curious and artless. He did not require that she kiss him back. Everything he needed to know was spoken by her breaths and heartbeat and pliant acceptance.
The kiss was not brief. One became two, then three. Desire’s compulsion took hold and only her innocence checked him. With another kind of woman, the usual kind, he would not have bothered with seduction, but it pleased him to tease her with lures and little pleasures, and note her astonished delight when his restrained caress moved over her back and sides.
Hotter now. Flames. Images of the possibilities. Arguments for more. A war between body and mind such as he had not fought in years occurred, except there was no real contest in such things.
His embrace encompassed her completely until her breasts and stomach pressed him and her tremors echoed into him. He closed his mouth on her neck’s pulse and listened to her bated gasps of pleasure. Their sounds sent him on a ruthless, determined climb toward satisfaction.
He held her head so he could ravish her mouth, f
orgetting she was so innocent. Shock tensed through her before she submitted to the intimacy, but submit she did. Mindless now, picturing her naked above him, straddling him and releasing the cries that she now tried to swallow, he caressed more boldly until his hand smoothed over the softness of her breast.
A cry escaped her then, a wondrous sound of female pleasure. Then another and another as he teased her hard nipple through the thin fabric of her garments.
She was with him in the delirium now, bracing herself against him for balance, arching her back to encourage him. Scattered thoughts tried to form. He needed to take her away from here and find a place, anywhere, so they could have each other. He needed to—
A howling, scorching pain suddenly blackened his mind. Then he saw red and a curse erupted out of him.
His head and sight half-cleared. His upper left arm felt as if on fire. Miss Kelmsleigh stood five feet away, her hands covering her mouth in a portrait of horrified dismay.
“I am sorry! I did not mean to hurt your arm,” she said desperately in a low rush. “When I heard the door, I just pushed to get free and . . .” She looked toward the garden fretfully. Feminine laughs and talk rode on the breeze toward them.
Another pain joined the one in his arm. A much lower pain. “No matter. It is nothing.”
“Are you sure? You appear very pale.”
Undoubtedly. His body was giving him hell. She worried while he composed himself. It took a long minute.
She calmed as she saw his progress. “It would have been horrible to be seen by Daphne and Celia like . . . like we were. I am sure that you understand. They burst from the house quite unexpectedly. Normally they do not leave the house at this hour, but work in the greenhouse.”
He imagined a very pale woman treating herself to a turn in the sunlight. He would have to remember to express his gratitude to Mrs. Joyes someday.
“We really should not have—It was very bad of you to . . .” Miss Kelmsleigh’s dismay had given way to a scold. He truly did not want to hear one right now.
“Of course we should have,” he growled. “We wanted to, so we should have, so we did. And stop pretending that I am forcing you to kiss me.”
Ravishing in Red Page 6