“What the devil comes next?” she muttered in vexation. “I’ll muff this, I know I will, and then I’ll be sunk.” Grinding her teeth, she pressed a palm to her forehead. “Sunk like a damned ship. What am I going to do?”
With her words, the spell was broken, for no fairy-tale heroine would make use of such language. But the girl did seem to be in some sort of distress, and Aidan stepped forward.
“Good afternoon,” he said, emerging from amid the trees. “Are you in need of assistance?”
She gave a gasp at the sound of his voice and looked up. “Damn and blast!” she cried, pressing a hand to her chest. “How you startled me!”
He stopped at the foot of the bridge, and as he studied her face, his initial impression faded even more, for now that Sleeping Beauty had awakened, he was more inclined to think of street urchins than storybook heroines. Her heart-shaped face was lovely, but in a rakish sort of way, with big, violet-blue eyes, sooty lashes, and a pointed chin. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, not in perfect, picture-book waves but a riot of rebellious curls.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he apologized, giving her a bow. “I didn’t mean to startle you. My only excuse is that I was a bit shocked myself. I thought for a moment you were Sleeping Beauty.”
Her frown transformed at once into a grin, revealing a pair of dimples and a streak of impudence. “That’s the idea.”
He frowned, puzzled by this cryptic reply, but before he could ask what she meant, she reached into the pocket of her skirt and spoke again. “That is,” she said, pulling out several folded sheets of paper, “if I can manage to remember my lines.”
She unfolded the papers and scanned the top sheet, and as she did so, her legs swayed idly back and forth, her toes skimming the water, and Aidan froze, suddenly riveted.
In the entire seventeen years of his life, he’d never observed a woman’s bare legs. As a young boy, he and some of his friends had stumbled upon a group of girls their own age bathing naked, but since they’d all been about nine years old at the time, that hardly counted. During the years since, he’d caught occasional glimpses of stocking-clad ankles when gusts of wind sent the skirts of young ladies whipping up. He’d even been given a view of the shadowy contours of a courtesan’s body not long ago, in the dim light of a brothel after a somewhat disillusioning first coupling. But he’d never before been given a view like this—a view of shapely calves, delicate ankles, and slender feet boldly displayed in broad daylight. Adolescent lust began coursing through his body in the space of two heartbeats, a sudden, powerful wave that disconcerted him, embarrassed him, and robbed him of the ability to think or even breathe.
She wiggled her toes in the water, pretty pink and white toes that splashed the surface, and he began to feel a bit desperate, not sure if he’d be able to hide or suppress what was rapidly overtaking him. Ever since he could remember, Aidan had taken great pride in having a well-disciplined body and mind, of always being in complete control of himself and any situation. But this unaccountable slip of a girl was testing his notions of self-discipline in a way he’d never had to overcome before.
Striving to think of things like honor and good breeding and gentlemanly codes of conduct, he tore his gaze away from her naked legs and forced himself to remember what they’d been discussing. “Lines? Are you in a play, then?”
“Heavens, no!” she answered at once, looking up from her sheet of paper. “I go about the forest in my blue velvet gown all the time. And my spinning wheel? I cart it along everywhere I go.”
He grinned at that. She certainly was a saucy creature.
She laughed, watching him. “There!” she cried, sounding triumphant. “A smile. I was beginning to think you had no sense of humor. I mean, any other bloke who’d run across this situation would have been laughing long before now, in disbelief, if nothing else.”
“Forgive me. I didn’t realize a woman in distress was something to smile about,” he said with a polite bow.
“Oh, don’t!” she cried, sounding vexed and frowning again. “Don’t turn all stiff and formal on me, not now, not when we’ve begun to be friends.”
He doubted he and this wild girl could ever find the common ground to be friends. She seemed to be some sort of actress, and he was a duke, and the only friendship that could come from that sort of situation was a rather unsavory one. Still, it would be unseemly to express that thought aloud. “So,” he said instead, “you are an actress?”
“No, no, but I am in a play.” She caught his puzzled look and laughed. “It’s just a skit, really, to raise money for the orphanage fund. All the events today are for the orphanage.”
“Ah,” he said, a bit more enlightened. “So there’s a fete on?”
“This afternoon.” She waved the sheaf of papers in her hand again. “I have only a bit of time left to learn my lines, so I decided to find a nice quiet spot and see if I can memorize enough to keep from making an utter fool of myself today. I fear it’s hopeless, though, for I’ve left it too late.”
Aidan, who never made a fool of himself if he could avoid it, and who never left anything until the last minute, felt impelled to point out the obvious. “Wouldn’t it have been wise to spend more time preparing for your part?”
“Well, yes,” she conceded with another grin, “but why do today what one can put off until tomorrow?”
“You don’t seem to be taking your role very seriously.”
“Petal, I don’t take anything seriously.” She cast him a shrewd glance. “You, I’ll wager, have the opposite problem. Do you drink?”
He blinked, taken rather aback by this seemingly irrelevant question. “No,” he answered with a decided shake of his head. “I don’t. Why do you ask?”
“You should drink, at least a little. You’re wound a bit tight. A drink now and again would loosen you up.”
“It did, I’m afraid. With disastrous results.”
“Really?” she exclaimed with lively curiosity. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I was sixteen. I, along with my friends, raided my father’s wine cellar, and we drank his entire stock of French champagnes.”
“Oh my.” She chuckled. “I’m beginning to like you.”
“The next thing I remember was waking up in a room at the local inn without any idea how I got there. It was morning, and I don’t remember much of anything about the night before, but from the accounts of my friends, it seems I let all my father’s dogs out of the kennels, rode horseback into the village, serenaded the vicar around three o’clock in the morning, and tried to seduce the innkeeper’s daughter—” He stopped, astonished he was telling such embarrassing things to a complete stranger. “It was stupid.”
“So why did you do it?”
The question made him grimace. “I don’t know.”
“Of course you know. You did it because you wanted to.” She tilted her head to one side, studying him thoughtfully. “You’re one of those dutiful sons, I’ll wager, the sort who never causes his parents any anxiety, who always does the right thing, obeys the rules, works hard, is determined to make good.”
He stared at her, shocked by this seemingly haphazard but astute guesswork. “What are you, miss? A Gypsy fortune-teller?”
“That’s not fortune-telling. It’s common sense. And experience.”
“Your own experience?”
“Heavens, no! I’ve been rebelling since birth. My parents, I fear, have nearly given up on me. But my cousin Trix is like you—all about duty and responsibility. Ugh. It’s so tiresome being good all the time. One of these days, she’s going to burst out, break free, go on a tear, and then . . . whew, who knows what will happen?”
“And what about you?” he asked. “Being a rebel carries consequences, does it not?”
Her expression darkened a little and she looked away. “So it does,” she murmured. “And I’m about to pay the piper, I’m afraid. But,” she added, looking at him again, her face lighting with a dazzling, unexpect
ed smile that made him think of the sun shining out between storm clouds, “we’re not talking about me and my beastly past. We’re talking about you and your desire to rebel against authority.”
That mention of her past made him curious, but he was reluctant to pry, and besides, he felt compelled to protest her words about him. “I don’t wish to rebel.”
“You already did. And probably had a hell of a good time in the process, even if you can’t remember most of it. Why not just admit you wanted to do it?” She shook her head. “No wonder you’re wound so tight, if you can’t even admit you wanted to carouse and have a bit of fun. And why shouldn’t you? You’re young, you’re handsome, you’re obviously wealthy, if your clothes are anything to go by. Why not enjoy yourself?”
He thought of his father, who’d done enough carousing for both of them. The late duke had caused both his wife and son a great deal of pain in the process, and the last thing Aidan wanted to do was be like that.
“If you went on a tear more often,” she added, “you’d be less of a prig. Happier, too.”
He frowned, not liking this assessment of his character at all. “You offer your advice to strangers very freely, miss.”
“You think it’s cheek? It is, rather, but if you knew me better, you wouldn’t be surprised.” She looked at him with an expression of mock apology, but there was an unmistakable glint of mischief in her violet-blue eyes. “I’m very cheeky. My greatest flaw, I fear.”
“That,” he countered with a nod to the paper in her hand, “or procrastination, perhaps.”
“Now you’re teasing! But I can’t contradict you, for I do procrastinate, which is why I’m in the suds today. I fear I shall truly embarrass myself in front of my fiancé, and his mother, too. She wrote the skit, and if I bungle it, I shall fall even more in her estimation, though I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“You are engaged to be married?”
She wrinkled her pert nose at him. “Your surprise is hardly flattering, sir.”
He wasn’t surprised by her engagement, but by his own disappointment at the news of it, a disappointment that was all out of proportion to the situation. He didn’t even know this girl, and from what he could discern so far, she was not his sort at all. In fact, he’d never met anyone quite like her. Being disappointed made no sense, and he tried to dismiss it. “My congratulations,” he said instead.
“Don’t congratulate me yet.” She gave him a wink. “If I do make an utter fool of myself this afternoon, my fiancé might jilt me at the altar.”
The careless, offhand way she spoke of a circumstance most people would deem calamitous seemed quite odd to him, but it would be rude to inquire about such an intimate topic. “I should be on my way,” he said instead, “so you can be alone to study your part.”
“Perhaps it would be better if you stayed.”
Against his will, his gaze slid down over her knees and along her bare shins to her toes idly skimming circles on the water. “I don’t think so.”
“You could read the lines with me, which would help me enormously.”
He set his jaw. “It wouldn’t be proper. There’s no chaperone.”
“Well, it isn’t as if we’d be doing anything naughty! And I fear you’re too much of a gentleman to even attempt to take advantage of me. Rather a pity, that,” she added with a glance over him. “You’re terribly good-looking.”
He realized, much to his chagrin, that he was blushing. Not because of the compliment, but because images of “being naughty” with her were going through his mind.
She perceived his embarrassment, though he hoped not the reason for it. “La, la,” she said, laughing, “see how the boy blushes!”
“You, miss,” he said stiffly, “are a flirt and a tease.”
She didn’t seem in the least offended by his reproof. But after a moment of silence, her amusement faded and she said in all seriousness, “You don’t like to be teased, do you?”
“No. Nor do I like to be flirted with by a girl about to marry someone else.”
“Flirtation is harmless. You should try it sometime. Although,” she amended, “perhaps that wouldn’t be wise. A handsome prince shouldn’t flirt, I suppose. Too much risk to the hearts of girls in the kingdom.”
He didn’t know how to respond to such nonsense. “Thank you for the compliment,” he said, taking refuge in good manners, “but I’m not a prince. Merely a duke.” He bowed. “Aidan Carr, Duke of Trathen, at your service.”
“A duke?” She laughed merrily, not seeming the least bit impressed by his rank. “Well, I was right then, for a duke’s very close to a prince, isn’t it? I’m so glad we met. Sleeping Beauty does need a prince, although you seem to have woken me without even giving me a kiss.” She sighed. “I feel thoroughly let down.”
He had no talent for flirtation, and he decided it was wise not to try. “You hardly need me for that role. Your fiancé,” he added as she gave him a puzzled stare. “Isn’t he your prince?”
Something he couldn’t quite fathom came into her face, something that was like a shadow. It made him uneasy. “Oh yes,” she agreed, an odd inflection in her voice, “he’s my prince.”
“You say that as if he isn’t.”
She shook her head and laughed again, dispelling his uneasiness. “He isn’t a prince, not really, nor even a duke. Merely a baron.”
“A baron?” He eyed the urchin before him with doubt. “Your fiancé is a baron?”
She drew herself up as if affronted, but she was smiling. “What, do you think I’m not good enough to marry a peer?”
“I didn’t mean it that way—” He stopped and gave a sigh. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. You’re quite right about me, you know,” she added softly, her smile twisting a little. “I may be the niece of an earl and the daughter of a squire, but despite what my parents want for me, I’m not the sort of girl who ought to marry an aristocrat. I’m more pixy than peeress, I fear.”
As if to prove the truth of that, she proceeded to shock him yet again. Turning on the bridge, she hitched her heavy skirt a bit higher, crossed her legs beneath her, and pulled a rolled cigarette and a match from the pocket of her gown.
He stared at her, surprised, though he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by anything at this point. “You smoke,” he said flatly.
“He disapproves!” she said, her dark brows drawing together in what he suspected was an imitation of his own expression at this moment. “The girl is so uncivilized! She swears. She smokes. She goes about barefoot. Deuce take it, she even whistles!”
Pursing her lips, she gave him a few bars of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,” then her impudent manner once again fell away and she assumed a crestfallen air. “You do disapprove of me. I’m hurt,” she added with a sniff. “Brokenhearted. I shall go off now and pine for you until the end of my days.”
She looked so comically tragic, he almost smiled, but then she put the cigarette between her lips and struck the match on the weathered wood of the bridge, and any inclination he had to smile vanished. “Why do you engage in such a vile habit?” he asked, suddenly angry.
It was her turn to stare. Over the lit match in her hand, her vivid eyes widened in surprise at his sudden outburst. He was rather surprised himself, for he was angry with her for smoking, and he didn’t even know why he felt that way, or why he’d been so forthright in expressing it. Whatever behavior this girl chose to engage in, it wasn’t his affair.
“Heaven bless the man, we’re not in someone’s drawing room,” she muttered around the cigarette between her lips. She lit it, then tossed the match into the water and exhaled a stream of smoke overhead. “No velvet draperies that the overworked maids shall have to shake out later,” she added, took another pull on the cigarette, and blew a perfect smoke ring in his direction. “Why shouldn’t I smoke?”
He moved aside and the wispy ring sailed past him, disintegrating on the summer breeze. “It leaves an unpleasant odor on clothes as well
as drapes and cushions,” he pointed out.
“Well, yes, I suppose it does, but it’s not as if one cigarette makes much difference there. Simply everyone smokes nowadays.” She made an up-and-down gesture at him with the lit cigarette. “Present company excepted, obviously. But unless you live like a hermit, you’re bound to smell like tobacco most of the time anyway, so what does my little cigarette matter to the scent of your clothes?”
“Women should not smoke. It isn’t decorous.”
“Decorous?” She burst out laughing. “I’ve never been decorous in my life.”
“It’s vile,” he repeated stubbornly. “And some doctors fear it has an adverse effect upon the lungs. Bad enough that men engage in it, but for women to do so is even worse.”
“How puritanical you are! You don’t smoke, you don’t drink, and you’re filled with moral rectitude and propriety.” She frowned. “I don’t think the handsome prince ought to be like that.”
“And I don’t think a baron would want his wife to smoke.”
Her violet eyes met his, and there was a cool, metallic flash of defiance in their depths as she took another pull on the cigarette and exhaled the smoke. “I already told you, I’ve been defying authority all my life. I’m about to make a respectable marriage and atone for all my sins, but I shall have my petty rebellions all the same. No other way to keep my sanity.”
“Your fiancé might cry off if he found out.”
“He already knows.” There was such hardness in her piquant face that he was startled, but when she spoke, her voice was quite cheerful. “But he’s determined to have me despite all my flaws.”
“But that’s a good thing.” He paused. “Isn’t it?”
“Of course!” She tossed her cigarette into the stream and reached for the velvet slippers beside her. “Well, handsome prince, I’d best be off,” she said as she put them on. “It’s almost curtain time, and if I’m late, they’ll be thinking I’ve done a funk. If you want to come and watch me ruin the show, we’ve set up the stage on the village green. Admission one shilling.” With that, she stood up, lifted her spinning wheel into her arms, and turned away, whistling as she started down the other side of the bridge.
Scandal of the Year Page 6