He swiftly reviewed that initial interview, when he’d asked her to take Milly shopping a few times, and shook his head. Had he said something that had misled her?
He looked down into her earnest little face and something inside him settled. She had not brought Milly here to deliberately flout him. To show him that she would be friends with whomever she pleased and to hell with him…
Quite the reverse.
She thought she was assisting a pair of star-crossed lovers. She had spent hours teaching Milly how to look as though she was a real lady, or at least a woman who could pass as a lady’s companion…when she had not, initially, even wanted to come down here. Because she wanted him to find the happiness that had been denied her and Lieutenant Kendell.
She had put her own problems to one side in order to try and solve his.
It didn’t matter to him that she’d got hold of completely the wrong end of the stick. She’d flung herself into this madcap enterprise with the sole aim of making him happy. Nobody in his entire life had ever cared if he was happy or not. Let alone gone to such lengths to attempt to secure his happiness.
How could people think she was cold and call her such vile names? She was not cold. She was warm-hearted. And so beautiful, through and through.
There was a splash of mud on her face, and her hat had come askew at some point during her mad dash for the trees, releasing one golden curl from its confines. And there was nobody in the whole world to match her.
‘You are such a darling,’ he said huskily.
She was still looking at him warily, chewing on her lower lip.
That luscious lower lip.
Be damned to his ambition, and his search for a bride that would impress his family. Be damned to propriety, too. He wanted Jayne, and he was blowed if he was going to carry on resisting her allure for one more second.
He leaned across the space between their two mounts and before she had time to guess his intention, before she had time to object or take evasive action, he kissed her.
* * *
He only managed to brush his lips across hers before Mischief fidgeted and jolted her out of his reach, but she felt it all the way down to her toes.
She had never dreamed one such brief kiss could do that to a girl.
She couldn’t for the life of her think what on earth had prompted him to do it. But then her wits were so badly scattered that it was taking all her concentration to prevent herself from sliding out of the saddle and melting into a puddle on the forest floor.
Fortunately she was spared the necessity of having to attempt to make any kind of verbal response, because at that very moment Mr Beresford and his sister arrived on the scene.
‘I say, Lady Jayne, are you unhurt?’ called Mr Beresford.
‘You must be terribly shaken after the way that horrid horse bolted with you,’ said Lucy, looking, Lady Jayne thought, a little disappointed not to see her lying on the floor with at least one limb broken.
‘Mischief did not bolt,’ she returned coldly. ‘I gave her her head. We both enjoyed the gallop. And now, if you will excuse me, my lord…’
Completely unable to look Richard in the face after that bone-melting kiss, she simply indicated to her mount that she was more than ready for some more exercise. He would not pursue her. Not even should he want to—which she doubted. How on earth he had managed to get such a turn of speed out of the horse he was on she would never know, but of one thing she was sure. He would not be able to reproduce such a miracle.
Mischief needed very little prompting. Glancing over her shoulder as she galloped out of the clearing and onto the broad ride, she saw Mr Beresford urge his own mount in hot pursuit—determined, she supposed, to do the gentlemanly thing by sticking close and thus being able to report the spot where she finally parted company with Mischief—leaving his sister alone with Lord Ledbury.
Not that it would do Lucy any good. His heart belonged to Milly.
While hers, she realized in a moment of startling clarity, belonged to him.
That was why she could not bear to think of him being miserable.
That was why she had visions of dwindling into an eccentric spinsterhood once she’d pictured him happily married off. It wasn’t that nobody would want to marry her. It was that she couldn’t imagine marrying anyone but him.
And that was why the merest brush of his lips upon hers had been enough to have her practically swooning, when all Harry’s most vigorous efforts had done nothing but irritate her.
And was that the real reason she’d brought Milly here, too?
Was she so sure, deep down, that his family would never let him marry a girl from such humble origins that the only result of having Milly here would be to scupper his plans to marry anyone else?
Had she become so possessive of him that she could not bear to let any other woman take the place she had not admitted until this very moment that she wanted for herself?
And that awful sensation she’d had when she’d imagined him making Milly his mistress… Had that been jealousy?
She spurred Mischief on, needing speed to distract her from the dreadful pain of facing up to her deepest, most hidden desires. Desires she’d refused to acknowledge even to herself.
But now that she had acknowledged them she began to wonder when it had started.
From the first moment they had met, at that ridiculous come-out ball of Lucy Beresford’s, where she had sat sulking on one side of the dance floor and he on the other, she had felt a connection. It hadn’t been the fact that they were the only two there of comparable rank. No, she had sensed in him an irritation with the way people treated him that marched with her own.
And then he’d rescued her from Harry and taken her home when he could have landed everyone involved in hot water. And instead of bowing out he’d plunged right into the mess she’d been in with Harry and done his level best to prevent it all getting any worse. He’d been protective. And even when she’d interpreted that protectiveness as being overbearing and dictatorial, and told herself she resented him, she’d been aware of him. She always knew the moment he entered a ballroom without having to look up. And once he was there it was as if he and she were the only two people in the room. Nobody else had any real substance.
And since he’d held her in his arms as she’d gone to pieces over Harry’s brutal honesty she could not stand anywhere near him without feeling the urge to…well, to wind her arms and legs right round him.
She’d told herself it was because of the comfort she’d found in his arms. And, despising herself for being weak, thinking she needed comfort, she’d ruthlessly repressed the urges and refused to so much as examine them.
But it wasn’t comfort she wanted from him at all. The way her whole body had fizzed, then melted at the merest brush of his lips upon hers, had really opened her eyes.
Somewhere along the way she’d fallen in love with him.
She supposed she hadn’t correctly identified the nature of her feelings because she didn’t have any experience of love, first-hand. She’d thought that the fact that Richard stood in a class of his own, in her estimation, was because she’d never met anyone like him before—never had a relationship with anyone, male or female, with whom she’d shared so many intimacies or entrusted with so many secrets. She’d told herself that was why she thought about him so often. Why, when she wasn’t with him, she wondered what he was doing. Why any event he attended stuck in her memory, and when h
e wasn’t there the evening was unbearably flat.
But now that she knew the truth she did not know how she would be able to face him again.
Nor Milly. Her friend.
Her rival.
Chapter Eleven
She was avoiding him. Ever since she’d bolted from him Lord Ledbury had been kicking himself. He’d startled her with that kiss. And so, even though they were all confined to the house that afternoon because of the weather, in the end he had to recruit help to outmanoeuver her.
First he persuaded Lord Halstead that he would enjoy giving the ladies some instruction in billiards. As usual, Lady Susan and Lucy Beresford managed to exclude Miss Twining from the activity. And, after several minutes of watching from the sidelines, she was delighted to accept his invitation to take a walk in the long gallery so that he could show her the portraits of his many ancestors.
He heaved a sigh of relief as Miss Twining laid her arm on his sleeve and they set off. She was not given to conversation, which left him free to work out how to make Lady Jayne understand the almost blinding revelation that had led him to kiss her that morning. He had to explain that in that one moment he’d changed his mind about marrying some paragon who would impress his family for generations to come. He just wanted her.
No… That didn’t sound right.
He would have to marshal his thoughts into better order before blurting out something clumsy like that.
Firstly, then, he would disabuse her of the notion he was in love with, or had ever been in love with, Milly—and, while he was at it, he needed to warn her that Milly was up to something. He wasn’t sure quite what it was yet. But when he’d heard them singing that ballad he’d hardly been able to believe his ears. Oh, it was innocent enough on the face of it, but in their regiment they’d sung a version of it so bawdy it would have scandalised even the gentlemen present in that drawing room. He could have wrung Milly’s neck. How could she repay all the kindness Lady Jayne had shown her by encouraging her to sing a song that would have made her a laughing stock if anyone with a military background had been there?
Admittedly, so far Milly had not actually done anything to harm Lady Jayne. But she could. Very easily.
Once he’d warned her that she ought not to be quite so trusting where Milly was concerned, he could move on to telling her that he’d changed his mind—no, that she’d changed his mind—about what he wanted from a wife. He’d been a stranger to love until he’d met her, so naturally he had not considered it as an important ingredient in any marriage he might contract. But she’d taught him it was vital. Vital. Yes, that sounded much better.
As he mounted the stairs he repeated the phrases in his head, hoping to fix them in his memory. At times like this he could understand what Berry saw in Miss Twining. She was the most undemanding of women. They’d walked the entire way in complete silence, and she had not once attempted to interrupt his train of thought. He glanced at her as they reached the gallery, wanting to take note of her reaction when she saw Berry already there with Lady Jayne.
If he had not been paying close attention he would have missed it. It wasn’t so much that she smiled, more that her whole face softened and her eyes warmed. And her fingers tightened on his sleeve, ever so briefly.
She was more than willing to accept Berry’s suggestion that the men—as pre-arranged—should swap partners.
It was harder to read Lady Jayne’s mood. Though she voiced no objection, neither would she take his arm as they strolled along the corridor. But still, by dint of stopping at each portrait to expound that person’s life story, while Berry inexorably drew Miss Twining along to the next, it was not very long before he had managed to put some distance between himself and the other couple.
She was uneasy with him. But at least with Berry and Miss Twining within hailing distance she had no excuse for fleeing the scene altogether. And, since Berry wanted a modicum of privacy as much as he did, they were soon far enough away to converse without being overheard.
Which was good, because he had no intention of wasting this carefully staged meeting by sticking to polite nothings. He knew her well enough by now to see that the only way he would break through her reserve would be by a full frontal attack.
‘It is no use,’ he said firmly. ‘I am not going to take the hint and pretend that kiss this morning never happened. You have been so distant with me ever since that I can only assume I offended you.’
‘Offended me? Oh… No, not at all,’ she said, so politely it made him grind his teeth.
‘I must have done. It was not the act of a gentleman to take advantage like that.’
She still wouldn’t look at him.
‘Please believe me. I just couldn’t help myself. No, dammit, that’s no excuse, is it? When I saw Kendell pawing you about in the park I wanted to rip his arms off.’
They came to a standstill. He could not believe he had said that out loud.
She blushed and walked across the corridor, where she turned her back on him, ostensibly to look out of the window.
‘It…’ Eventually she managed to speak, in a very low voice. ‘…It was not at all the same.’
For one thing, she had enjoyed it. That slight brush of his lips had made her yearn for more. She had wanted him to put his arms round her and prolong the contact. She wouldn’t have fought him off the way she’d fought Harry. Because he would not have crushed her. She couldn’t imagine Lord Ledbury doing anything so maladroit when he took a woman in his arms. No, the woman lucky enough to have Lord Ledbury really kissing her would know only pleasure….
‘It is generous of you to say so,’ he replied, heartened by her verbal forgiveness, though she was still pretending to admire scenery that was scarcely visible through the rain-lashed window rather than facing him.
‘Not at all. I could tell you were just overcome by…some momentary impulse…’ A perplexed frown pleated her brow, as though she could not understand what on earth could have motivated him. ‘Whereas when Harry kissed me it was all part of a deliberate, cold-blooded scheme….’ She shuddered. ‘Looking back, I could almost wish you had ripped his arms off.’
She turned and shot him a rueful smile over her shoulder.
Well, that was better. ‘I am glad that I could not sleep that night, then, and decided to take a walk.’
He hitched his hip onto the windowsill, so that he could look at her profile, at least, since she had turned her head away again, and begun to fiddle with the tassels on the curtains.
‘Actually, Lady Jayne, this is a good time to tell you that I have long since decided I am glad the solicitousness of those London servants drove me outside to seek fresh air, or I might never have met you.’
‘I am glad, too. You came striding down upon us like some kind of avenging angel—even though, at that time in your life, you were still far from well.’ She blushed again. ‘D-do you still find it difficult to sleep? Or have you found some remedy for that particular ailment?’
Far from it. But the sleepless nights he’d suffered since had been mainly on her account.
He rubbed his hand over the crown of his head and got to his feet again. She was fencing with him. Deliberately keeping him at a distance.
‘Lady Jayne,’ he said, remembering his feeling that the only way to breach her defences was by full-frontal attack, ‘I am trying to tell you something of great importance. I am trying to explain that I kissed you because… Well, the truth is that you have sav
ed me from making a terrible mistake.’
He turned her round and took her by the hand, so that he could be sure she was attending carefully.
‘When we first met, I told you about the kind of marriage I intended to make. Thinking like a soldier, I made a list of my objectives, drew up the plan of action most likely to achieve a swift outcome, moved myself into a strategic position, armed myself to the teeth and started making forays into what I looked upon almost as hostile territory. Before I met you it never occurred to me that I ought to feel more than respect for any woman I considered marrying. But over the last few weeks, and particularly since you have come to Courtlands, I…that is… You have shown me that a marriage without affection…that is…without…love would be…a travesty. Lady Jayne, you yourself said that love is the only reason a man and woman ought to marry…’
‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’
She was pulling her hand away.
And it occurred to him that just because she wanted to make him happy, it didn’t mean she was willing to sacrifice herself. She cared enough to see him happily married to someone else…which led him to the point he ought to have made first.
‘Now, about Milly…’
She flinched, and began to chew at her lower lip.
‘No, I am not about to scold you for bringing her here. You meant only to help, and although…’
She looked so uncomfortable he couldn’t continue with the warning he’d meant to give her. In fact, it would be better to tackle Milly herself. Ask her what the devil she was playing at and warn her that if she ever did anything to harm or even embarrass Lady Jayne, their friendship, such as it was, would be at an end.
‘Well, there is just one benefit of your bringing Milly to Courtlands,’ he said, wondering where his plan to stick to his well-rehearsed script had gone. ‘My former army servant, whom I left with her to see her settled into her new house, came here hotfoot to let me know she had run off.’
An Escapade and an Engagement Page 16