Oh, God. Her toes curled in her slippers. Her lips burned. She couldn’t seem to breathe.
“I say, Featherstone,” Hansborough’s voice drawled from the doorway to the drawing room, and it was like a bucket of ice water being thrown over her heated skin. Linnet jerked, turning toward the doors as the viscount went on, “You can’t keep Miss Holland to yourself for the entire evening.”
“You’re quite right,” he called back, but though she wasn’t looking at him, Linnet could still feel his riveting gaze on her as if he were touching her. “Fair play and all that.”
He straightened away from the railing, but he didn’t start back toward the house. “Speaking of fair play,” he murmured, pausing beside her, “I’ve answered your questions. So that means tomorrow, it’ll be your turn to answer mine.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs with such force, it was hard to reply. “Quid pro quo?” she managed.
“Just so.” He leaned close to her, smiling a little. “And then,” he whispered in her ear, “it’ll be my turn to be jealous.”
Ignoring her sound of exasperation at how easily he’d seen through her, he walked away.
Chapter 12
Despite Hansborough’s untimely interruption, Jack had no intention of letting his question to Linnet go unanswered, and the following day, he looked for an opportunity to corner her on the subject.
Belinda had promised to arrange things so that each of her suitors had time with her each day, but his turn didn’t come until late afternoon, leaving him no choice but to cool his heels while she went for a morning ride with Carrington, sat beside Tufton at lunch, and played afternoon croquet with Hansborough. He wasn’t sure Belinda hadn’t arranged things this way on purpose, deeming the suspense of waiting all day to see her as no more than he deserved. But even if that had been her intent, Belinda was a woman of her word.
While all the others began gathering on the south lawn for tea, his sister-in-law took him aside, mentioned that Linnet and her mother had decided to cut flowers for the dinner table instead, and handed him a basket. He was happy to take his cue, and five minutes later, he was in the rose garden, basket in hand, ready to give his assistance to Linnet and her mother.
As he made his offer of help, he glanced at Helen and noticed that she was already moving a discreet distance away, making for the rose bed beyond. He knew Helen favored him above Linnet’s other suitors, and though he didn’t know if that was because it was best for the girl’s reputation if he was the one to marry her, or because he’d saved her from Van Hausen’s clutches, but either way, he intended to take full advantage of the opportunity he’d been given, and he moved to stand beside Linnet, who was bent over a boxwood-edged flower bed.
She paused to glance at him. “If you came out to help, I fear you’ll be quite useless. You don’t have a pair of shears.”
He improvised at once. “I’m here to fetch and carry,” he said, gesturing to the oblong basket over her arm filled with stems and the empty one he was carrying. She handed her basket over, then returned her attention to the flowers as she moved farther along the bed.
He fell in step beside her and decided it was best to be direct, for they didn’t have much time before the dressing gong. “We never did finish our conversation from last night.”
She paused and turned away to snip off a late rose. “Didn’t we?”
“Don’t be coy. You left me in suspense, and you know it.”
“I’m sure you were awake all night as a result.”
“No.” He paused. “Not all night.”
That made her smile a little. “Far be it from me to cause you to lose any sleep,” she murmured. “Yes, I was very much in love with Conrath.” She turned away again and resumed cutting flowers. “I believe that answers your question.”
“Ah, but you didn’t ask me just one question last night,” he pointed out, moving to stand beside her. “You asked me twenty questions.”
She turned her head to give him a dubious look. “You were counting them?”
“Of course I was. Quid pro quo. That means I have nineteen questions left.”
She made a scoffing sound and cut three stems in quick succession. “So our conversations are to be games of twenty questions?”
Seduction was always a game, but he decided he’d better not point that out. “Why not?” he said instead. “Games are fun. And besides, I didn’t set the number. You did. Last night. And I answered every question you asked, so now it’s my turn. That’s only fair.”
“Yes, far be it from you to take an unfair advantage,” she murmured, giving him a wry look as she placed her flowers in the basket. “All right, ask your questions, but you can be sure I shall count them.”
“I’m sure your mother approved of Conrath, but I can’t think your father did. He doesn’t seem to hold men from my side of the pond in very high regard.”
“Yes, well, Conrath is part of the reason why.” She resumed walking, scanning the rose bed for blossoms to cut as she talked. “My mother is different. She got the notion that I ought to marry a man with a title because of Conrath. She realized soon after I met him that a peer would give me a wider world than a man in New York would do.”
“She’s right. Knickerbockers are a stodgy lot. In New York, society is very stifling, far more so than in London, or Paris.”
“I know, and when all this happened with my reputation, I decided that since I had to marry, I would marry a peer. After all, even if you can’t have a marriage based on love, you still have to base your marriage on something. Being the wife of a peer could provide a deeper purpose to my life than being the wife of a Knickerbocker. I could run charities, manage estates, be involved in my husband’s political affairs or business matters—all things that would be looked down upon in New York.”
“And do you want that kind of life?”
“I didn’t always. I mean, I didn’t think about it. Love, marriage, children . . . those are the inevitable things a woman’s world centers around, and I’ve always wanted those things, but I never thought beyond them. My mother did. When I met Conrath, my mother soon discovered that in England, marriage is more of a partnership than it is back home. Conrath made her aware of what my life would be like in England when he and I were courting, and she felt a marriage like that would make me happier.”
“And what did you think?”
“I didn’t think much about that part of it, about what our marriage would be like, or how we would raise our children, or what we would do with our life together. I was very much in and of the moment. I was just—”
She broke off, but Jack knew what she’d been about to say, and he finished the sentence for her. “You were just a girl in love.”
“Yes. A foolish one, as it turned out.” She turned and resumed walking. “I trust your curiosity is now satisfied?”
“Not by a long way. Besides, I still have eighteen questions left.”
“Oh, you do not. You’ve asked five already.”
“No, I’ve asked two. Statements don’t count.”
She gave a huff of vexation. “Is this how you play all games? Making up rules as you go along?”
“Not at all. If we count statements as questions, my quota is even higher.” He gave her a look of mock apology. “You talked a lot last night, Lioness.”
She pressed a smile from her lips, but not before he saw it. “Oh, very well,” she said. “Go on.”
“When did you meet? Where?”
“It was in Newport, two years ago, at the yacht races. He came to New York that winter, he proposed in the spring, and I accepted.” As if that dry summary was satisfactory, she turned away to resume her task.
He glanced behind them and found that her mother had wandered at least twenty yards away and was exhibiting great interest in the herbaceous border, her back to them. He took advantage of the fact at once, moving to stand in front of Linnet so that he could still keep an eye on her mother. “I want to know how he courted
you.”
“Why?” she asked, her voice light as she scanned the flowers. “Do you need pointers?”
“No, just information.” He leaned in beside her, edging his head beneath her wide-brimmed hat, moving in close enough to catch the fragrance of heliotrope on the afternoon breeze.
“So you can emulate him? Do you think that will move me to marry you?”
“My purpose is much more devious than that, I’m afraid, but if you want to know what it is, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Today it’s my turn to ask questions.”
“Very well,” she said, reaching to cup her hand over the top of a rose, “but you’ll have to ask me an actual question. As you said, statements don’t count.”
“Why did you fall in love with Conrath?”
She stilled, then her shears snapped through the stem of the rose, and she shifted the cut flower to her left hand, then she cut another. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Was it because he was charming, or serious, or intellectual, or because he made you laugh? What was it about him that you loved?”
She shot him a prim sideways glance from beneath the brim of her straw boater. “For one thing, he didn’t ask me improper questions. He was always a perfect gentleman.”
“Quite unlike me, then.”
“Quite,” she agreed with disheartening speed. “He asked me to marry him in the proper manner.”
“I asked in the proper manner, too,” he said with mock severity. “I even went down on one knee.”
She gave him a sorrowful look, shaking her head. “The fact that you can even use the word ‘proper’ in speaking of what you did amazes me.”
He grinned at that, mainly because in describing that night in Newport she sounded bemused, but not resentful, which gave him hope. “You can’t tell me that you fell in love with Conrath because he was a perfect gentleman.”
“Oh, but I did. He was the most elegant, urbane, charming man I had ever met.” She put the handful of roses in the basket, but she didn’t turn away to cut more. Instead, she stared past him into space, as if remembering. “If he looked at me, my heart would stop. If he spoke, I hung on every word. If he bent over my hand, the thrill lasted a week.” She shook her head, laughing a little. “I was crazy in love with him, and yet he never did anything untoward.”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that a man could court you for nine months and never do anything untoward.”
“Why? Because you wouldn’t?”
He decided he’d better not answer that. “Still, you’re telling me he never stepped outside the bounds. Never?”
“He did once,” she admitted. “But only once.”
“Oh, once. Well . . .” He attempted a bit of ho-hum and nodded sagely, earning himself a look of reproof for his impudence.
“It was at our home in New York. We were seated beside each other at dinner, and he took my hand in his under the table. Of course, neither of us was wearing gloves at the time. He held my fingers, and he . . . he caressed my palm with his fingers. It was so shocking, so . . . so intimate, I almost couldn’t breathe.”
Jack slid a glance over her and began imagining all the shocking, intimate things he’d like to do to her. Hand-holding wasn’t one of them, and he feared he was far more depraved than Conrath.
“I sat there,” she went on, “with my bare hand in his, everyone around me making ordinary dinner conversation, Conrath included, while I was almost swooning at the table.”
It occurred to him that if he ever met Conrath in the flesh, he’d have to stand the man a drink for having more fortitude than any other man living. Jack knew if he were forced to draw out the mating dance with Linnet for nine months without doing anything naughtier than holding her hand—once—under the table and caressing her palm, he’d never get that far. He’d have to hurl himself off a cliff.
Something of what he was thinking must have shown in his face, for she frowned a little. “What?”
“Nothing.” He glanced past her, making sure Helen was still well out of earshot as he began figuring how he could use this information to his advantage. “And once you were engaged, was he still a perfect gentleman? Even when he kissed you?”
She cast a look back over her shoulder. “I can’t tell you things like that,” she whispered, looking at him again.
“Of course you can.” He gave her a wicked smile. “We’re friends now.”
“Not close enough friends for such an intimate conversation as that.”
“Oh, come now, Linnet,” he said, laughing. “Don’t tell me that the first time Conrath kissed you, you didn’t go tearing back to your friends at the first opportunity and tell every last one of them all about his kissing ability, for I shan’t believe it.”
“Even if I did, that’s not the same thing as telling you. And, anyway, I can’t imagine why you want to know.”
“Because I want to see how I stack up, of course.” He tilted his head, still smiling a little. “How was his kiss different from mine?”
Her blush deepened, but when she spoke her voice was tart. “In every way possible.”
“Can you be a bit more specific? Let’s put it another way, then,” he added when she didn’t answer. “Why don’t you tell me how you like to be kissed?”
“I can’t tell you things like that. It wouldn’t be decent.”
“So you like indecent kisses, do you?” He grinned. “How naughty you are.”
“Stop twisting my words to make fun. You know I meant it isn’t decent to talk about kissing.”
“You’d be amazed, my sweet innocent, at the number of things people do that aren’t decent.”
She made a huff and returned her attention to the roses, clipping three off in rapid succession. “How am I supposed to answer a question like that, anyway? It’s not as if I go around conducting experiments on the subject. I’ve only been kissed twice in my life.”
It took a moment for her words to sink in.
“Wait,” he commanded, putting a hand on her arm, and when she turned, he stared into her stunning face in disbelief. “You mean to tell me that when I kissed you, it was just the second kiss you’ve ever had? Conrath kissed you once? Once?”
These questions seemed to touch on her feminine pride, for she jerked her chin and looked away. “He didn’t have much time. We were engaged just one week before he broke it off. And I don’t know why it’s so astonishing. What?” she added, as he began to laugh. “I don’t see why you’re laughing.”
“Disbelief,” he answered. “This sort of knowledge defies rational explanation. All I can think is Conrath’s a saint, all the men of New York have seriously deficient eyesight, and I’ve been a quite dissolute chap for the past two-thirds of my life.”
“Why?” She turned her head to frown at him. “How many girls have you kissed, anyway?”
“More than two.”
“How many?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Fewer than a hundred.” He paused, teasing her by pretending to consider. “I think.”
“Heavens,” she whispered, sounding quite shocked. “And I’d bet you weren’t engaged to any of them.”
He knew, of course, that most young ladies were innocent as lambs, but until now, he’d never thought much about just how innocent that was. Linnet excepted, he hadn’t kissed an innocent young lady since he was seventeen. But now, looking at her, he realized just how far outside her experience that kiss in the pagoda had been. He wanted to tell her all the other kisses he’d had were nothing like hers, and though it was true, he feared that coming off his lips, a declaration like that would sound nauseatingly self-serving. Charles, he was sure, would have found a way to say it with aplomb. He, alas, was not so glib.
Still, as he looked into Linnet’s shocked face, he couldn’t resist contemplating various ways to remedy this deficiency in her life experience. But given that her mother would be hovering nearby every time he was with her, any lessons of that sort weren’t likely to happen
unless she agreed to marry him, a prospect that was by no means a certainty. But there might be a way to whet her appetite and improve his odds.
“Linnet, when you see sense at last and agree to marry me, I can promise you that, unlike Conrath, I’ll be kissing you at every possible opportunity. In the first week, I’ll kiss you so many times, you’ll lose count.”
Her shock vanished, and she bristled. “First of all, I’ve no intention of agreeing to marry you. I’ve already turned you down twice. Second, even if I were to take leave of my sanity and accept you, you would not be kissing me at every opportunity. There are times and places for . . . for . . .” Her cheeks grew pinker. “For such things.”
“Which places for which things?” He glanced past her, and found Helen had moved even farther away, her back still to them. He returned his attention to Linnet. “If we were engaged—no need to protest,” he assured her as she opened her mouth. “We’re speaking in hypothetical terms, so just play along for a moment. If we were engaged, where and when would I be able to kiss you?”
She stirred a little in agitation, and he felt his own body responding, desire rising inside him. Her lips parted, but she didn’t answer, and he pushed his advantage while he had it. “Right now, for instance, if we were engaged, could I kiss you?”
“Here?” she squeaked, and cast a panicked glance around. “You couldn’t. People would see us!”
“Then it would have to be a very chaste kiss.” He dropped the baskets he was carrying to the ground, glanced past her to make doubly sure her mother wasn’t watching, and reached up one hand to graze her cheekbone with his fingertip. “Right there, perhaps,” he murmured.
She stiffened and turned her face away to cast a frantic glance over her shoulder. The move allowed him to slide his hand down to her slender neck, and when she looked at him again, he was able to cup her cheek and touch his thumb to the tip of her nose. “Or there.”
He heard her breathing quicken. She shook her head a little, and the delicate wisps of hair beneath her hat brim tickled his fingers where they caressed her nape.
Catch a Falling Heiress: An American Heiress in London Page 20