Cook had put together a lovely spread for them, with still-warm, fragrant bread rolls, cheeses, wine, apples, cold chicken and little cakes.
Strathavon waited for Holly to fill her plate before he spoke. His voice was deceptively off-handed.
“I don’t know what game it is you’re playing with Sir John Compton, but you’ve made the poor man the talk of the town. It is beyond me how you managed it – a less likely candidate for a rakehell it would be impossible to find. And yet just this morning I was treated to the latest instalment of one of his escapades – this time involving a robbery, Hyde Park, and carrying Miss Dacre in his arms across the lawns.”
Holly appeared very pleased to hear this, he noted.
“Is that so? What an astonishing tale. I expect it just goes to show what a word or two dropped in the right direction can do – Verity had only twisted her ankle.”
“Oh?”
She refused to say any more on the subject, however, and asked instead that he pass her the clotted cream.
Occasionally their gazes would lock as they ate, and a delicious spark of something would course through them. Holly could think of nothing so pleasant as to be alone together, away from society and obligation, as though they were the only two people in the whole world.
A smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he stretched out on the blanket. He looked like a king, enjoying the glories of his domain: supremely confident, and just a little predatory.
Holly enjoyed the sight of her Sylvester lounging back on the thick picnic blanket, his expression drowsy with wine and the warmth of the sun. She had never seen him so at ease and she wished that she had a way to capture this moment forever. It was a day she would remember all her life, no matter what followed.
*
The rain began to fall, in fat persistent droplets, just as they got to the slices of fruit cake which were to be their desert.
Holly glanced up, startled, as a particularly huge one landed on her nose. The sun had disappeared in a matter of minutes. It had been too much to hope for that English weather would keep steady for entire duration of their idyllic outing.
A loud rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.
“We had better run,” she said, glancing back to the duke, her eyes dancing with amusement.
He scooped their things into the basket. “Under the tree!”
“Oh, no, not in a thunderstorm.”
Grasping his arm, she pulled him to the waiting carriage, where Peters stood holding the horses and peering at them from beneath his wet hat. He looked miserable and eager to be off.
“Home, Peters,” said the duke, helping Holly into the carriage and taking the reins as the groom leapt up to his place at the back.
“We really should have taken the landaulet,” said Sylvester as he steered the vehicle out of the park. “This folding hood isn’t any good for keeping out of the rain. You’re going to get soaked right through.”
“But the axle clip is so much weaker on a landaulet. These muddy roads may well have done it in.”
“Axle clip?” His voice was amused for a moment “I stand corrected. Either way, Peters shan’t forgive us in a hurry.”
They drove furiously through the downpour – but the faster they flew, the more rain the curricle seemed to attract.
“My poor Holly – you are drenched!” the duke exclaimed as they drove through Westminster. He shot a quick glance at her. Her hair had come nearly undone and water was cascading in rivulets down the long strands.
Holly, however, laughed with pleasure. “So I am. But it hardly matters – it is only water, after all, and I have a great many spencers. I promise I shan’t die of a bit of rain. The dress is done-for with the flying mud, however – glazed chintz can’t be laundered, I’m told. But it is worth it. What a grand adventure this is! I do so like showers. And you are soaked also, Sylvester – your valet will be very put out.”
“We can but be grateful that this coat is not a Weston, else he would have resigned on the spot. He nearly gave notice when he found your cat curled up among my cravats.”
Sylvester was amazed that he managed to sound so calm as he did, because his heart had done something rather alarming, as it did every time she called him by his given name. She had said it so casually, as though she’d been calling him that every day of her life. He wished very much that she would say it again.
When they arrived home, a very miserable looking Peters helped Holly down from the vehicle before steering it into the carriage house. They were instantly surrounded by a flutter of servants. Strathavon seemed extremely reluctant to step away from his wife, who looked diverted by all the fuss being made. She laughingly dismissed their attendants and proceeded into the parlour, where a warm fire waited. The duke followed her, shutting the door behind them.
Mittens, who clearly did not think at all highly of their adventure, gave the invaders a very disdainful look from her perch on the sofa, and stretched with leisurely, feline grace before going back to sleep.
“You had much better go up to bed, and I’ll have a warm posset sent to you,” Strathavon told Holly seriously.
She looked startled at his unmistakable concern, before fixing him with a warm smile.
“Oh, no – all I need is a change of gowns. I shall be alright after that. One almost wants to say right as rain. Don’t look so stern! I told you I never mind a slight drizzle. Life in England would be very limiting if I did.”
“Then a change of garments you shall have,” murmured the duke, his voice suddenly husky and his eyes dark. Holly’s soaked gown clung to her figure in a way that set his blood on fire on a most primal level. Rain did wonders for muslin, he decided, as he took in every ripe and tantalising inch of her.
He watched Holly like a man parched as she shook water out of her hair. The long strands had come completely undone in a glorious tumble.
Holly felt herself shivering uncontrollably when she saw the hunger written across his face. He drew nearer to her. The spicy scent of him teased her senses with every breath she took, and the way his wet hair hung about his sharp cheekbones made her long to run her hands through it, to brush it out of his eyes.
The duke’s body seemed to give off a heat of its own; a heat which had nothing to do with the fire behind them.
Holly felt his breath on her face, on her lips, and instinctively drew even closer. Her throat was suddenly dry as a pile of autumn leaves, her voice gone. Nothing existed in the world except his nearness and the pounding of her heart. Time seemed to race past and slow down all at once.
When his lips first brushed hers, with a soft, tentative warmth, it was as though the world had come undone. Holly felt herself melt like butter into his strong body, and the kiss grew in intensity as his hands ran over her back and tangled in her hair.
At last they broke apart, gasping for breath – both bewildered at the passion than had flown between them.
And yet, this passion was only a start. There was so much more yet to be explored. Strathavon’s expression said that he knew it too. His eyes had grown even darker and his breathing erratic.
“I expect they’ve already laid out a dry gown for you,” he told her in a low rumble.
Holly wondered if she ought to stay, to pull him back to her, to claim his mouth in a kiss of her own. She felt the burning urge to feel his mouth on hers once more. But, after all, a little suspense would only do him good, she decided.
With a saucy smile at her impossible duke, she left the room in search of warm clothes, feeling his eyes on her as she retreated.
*
True to her word, Holly did not become even a little ill after her adventure in the rain.
That evening, the duke left Holly to meet with Avonbury. Doubtlessly, he would hear more of his cousin’s ridiculous problems and Sir John Compton’s fictitious escapades. Her ladyship was not only in high health, but more boisterous spirits could not have been imagined.
She’d thrown him searing looks at
every opportunity, as though taking great delight in testing his resolve, and Strathavon could not recall what kept him from sweeping her directly into his bed.
Firmly, he reminded himself of all the dangers that would come from such an entanglement – because where Holly was concerned, his heart would be lost the moment he claimed her as his own. And yet, was his heart not already hers for the taking?
The duke walked down St James to find that White’s was as bustling as ever, with a number of gentlemen squabbling over some new entry in the Boodle’s Betting Book. A rowdy game of billiards took up nearly everyone else’s attention. The stakes were always high at White’s.
Handing his cloak to the majordomo, the duke hurried into the grand salon, where his cousin sat miserably over his dinner, seemingly impervious to the billiards or its impassioned audience. This alerted Strathavon to his cousin’s unusually low spirits.
“I take it Lady Charlotte is still refusing to return the emeralds?”
Avonbury looked at the duke despondently. “I have never seen her so cutting. I do believe it is her way of getting revenge on me for being on good terms with Holly – she has taken a considerable dislike to your wife after the incident at the lake. She says she is going to put them on auction. Can you imagine? The Avonbury emeralds auctioned off by a woman just this side of the demi-monde. Or perhaps she would bet them at the Faro table. She means to play at Mrs Young’s establishment this evening. Sold or lost, my mother won’t survive the shame of it either way. And now my aunt would borrow them next week – you see how impossible that is.”
He took another generous sip of his wine. “I really don’t see what else there is to do.”
Strathavon sighed. “There is nothing you can do – not while you are in your cups. Stay here. I will go to Young’s and see if I cannot talk that woman into seeing sense – or at least striking a bargain.”
This, at least, was much better than dwelling on his desire for his duchess, Sylvester told himself. He proceeded to Mrs Young’s, which was a gaming house favoured by all the most fashionable members of society as the best place to lose fortunes in the blink of an eye.
*
With Lucy’s help, Holly had already dressed for bed when an alarming knock on the front door startled the entire house. It reverberated through the marble entrance hall and carried all the way upstairs.
Holly looked at her maid a moment, wondering what this might be about, before snatching up a robe and proceeding to the landing, Lucy right behind her. Holly’s blood froze and she nearly stumbled when it dawned on her that something very terrible must have happened to cause such a disturbance. Had there been an accident?
Mrs Willan was already at the door when Holly arrived downstairs. The woman looked fierce beneath the most formidable nightcap imaginable. She held aloft a tall silver candle stick. Once she had swung open the door, she raised the candle to illuminate the face of their brash would-be caller. Holly could just imagine her expression of glacial disapproval.
“Lord Avonbury!” the woman gasped, scandalised.
Lord Avonbury swayed slightly. “G’evening, Mrs Willan. Strathavon about?”
Holly felt her anxiety drain out her. Not an accident, then. She was left feeling weak-kneed and a little giddy in her relief.
“His Grace is not home, Lord Avonbury, and I would say that in your condition, you ought to be.”
“Ah, a shame…” he looked up and spotted Holly as she stepped forward. It was obvious that Avonbury was very deeply in his cups.
“Holly, m’dear, has that husband of yours still not come back from Young’s, then? Alas, I should have known that woman would be the end of me.”
Holly knew that she ought to have been apalled at finding a relation of her husband’s thoroughly foxed on her doorstep. A lady definitely did not hold with such things. But then that kind of lady seemed to her an ineffectual creature.
“It’s all right, Mrs Willan. Do let his lordship in. And could you please ask the kitchens for some coffee? As strong a brew as they can reasonably make it.”
Avonbury lurched forward.
“Coffee? Yes – you’re a marvellous girl, Holly – marvellous.”
The earl stumbled over the threshold and Holly gestured for a sleepy footman to help steer him into the little drawing room.
“Lucy, please stir up the fire a little,” Holly said, as Avonbury settled uncertainly into an armchair.
When the room began to warm up, Lucy retreated into the background, taking up the sewing that she had left there that evening.
The coffee was brought in, and Holly poured Avonbury a large cup, carefully handing it over lest he should drop it.
“Now, Lord Avonbury, what is this about? Why has Sylvester gone to Young’s? And what is all this about a woman destroying you?”
“Woman! A right harpy she is. To think that I ever wished to make her my countess. But she would have none of me. Lady Charlotte had higher ambitions than that.”
Holly could hardly fault Lady Charlotte for her ambition, but she found that ‘harpy’ was definitely a very apt description of the woman.
But there is was! Strathavon, then, had never been the one entangled with Lady Charlotte – it had been Avonbury all along. Which explained his misery that day at the lake, and the high-handed way the woman had mocked him.
The more Holly considered it, the more sense it made. She wondered that she had not seen it before – only she had been much too blinded by the jealousy that had threatened to choke her whenever she’d thought of Strathavon with Lady Charlotte.
Holly sat very still a moment as this revelation sank in. Strathavon had let her believe all sorts of horrid things, when this whole time it was Avonbury who had been the ghastly woman’s paramour!
Her heart felt as if it were floating on a cloud of incredulity. But why had the duke not corrected her assumption? He’d known perfectly well that her accusation was off the mark. Had he been trying to make her jealous on purpose?
It was long past time she turn the tables on him. She filed away this idea for later analysis.
“But what has all that to do with Strathavon going to Young’s?”
“Everything. You see, I have some trinkets which I would very much like restored. I was hasty in gifting them,” said Avonbury, looking sheepish. “The… er… the family emeralds, to be exact. They are famous. And my sister will wear them for her coming-out, if only Charlotte agrees to return them.”
Holly frowned as she tried to piece together the story.
“I see. It’s quite a tangle. And she won’t give them back to you?”
“No! Nor marry me. She broke with me this summer. First, she said she’d be glad to return them, only deuce knows where they’d got to, but I expect she knew where they were all along. And now she just means to sell them off, or wager them. A black mark against the Avonbury name!”
“And she has definitely broken with you? You are certain that this is not some game?”
“Yes, she is finished with me,” said Avonbury miserably. “Strathavon’s gone to retrieve the jewels, but it won’t do any good, I wouldn’t wonder. He said I was too foxed to go myself. I hoped to catch him when he returned home.”
He gulped some more coffee and winced at the flavour.
“I shouldn’t have said all that! But you’re a capital girl – you won’t tell. It’s no wonder he married you. Would’ve done so myself, had I spotted you first.” He blinked a moment and Holly had to prompt him in order to return to the topic.
“These famous emeralds – you must forgive me, but I have never seen them. Will you tell me more about them? Are they easily recognisable?”
“Ah, yes. Very easily. Well, you see, I gave the lady my grandmother’s emeralds in good faith, not knowing she meant to throw me off! I am…What’s the expression? Utterly beset with sorrow. And now my sister must have them for her coming-out, and my aunt would wear them to the opera next week. She has asked especially since her own are being refitt
ed – she and my mother had identical pieces made on commission by their father. And when I tried to explain, Charlotte said that she will wear them herself before she sells them for good. Tonight, she claimed that she would gamble them! She is doing it out of sheer spite. She never liked my mother, because of some incident involving husbands and snubbings. It would be the most appalling scandal.”
Avonbury examined the carpet. “Why, what possessed me to do such a thing? I was well over the eight then, too, come to think of it, else I wouldn’t have given those away. And she was always such a pretty, lively thing. Has her eye on a viscount now – a very rich one. But since she won’t listen to me, Strathavon said he’d take care of it, even if he has to bribe her.”
Holly had no doubt that the duke would do his best to retrieve the emeralds, but she doubted very much that he’d succeed.
“Oh, I just knew that that was all fudge in the journals!” exclaimed Holly.
“You mean all the gossip? I had wondered about your dislike of Lady Charlotte. Was that your reason?”
“Lady Charlotte is a barque of frailty, sure enough – but that is not why I despise her,” Holly said. “I care nothing for her morality, not even if she were a lightskirt of the Covent Garden set. Why should I? But she was perfectly odious to me before I even knew her name, and beastly to you at the boating party – though I couldn’t have guessed the cause of it. And the way she is toying with you now is nothing if not cruel.”
Avonbury looked momentarily astonished by this show of loyal sentiment. He had always expected that any wife of Strathavon’s would be a proper, tiresome, disapproving creature. He hadn’t expected Holly – and he had taken a great liking to this young thing with her frankness of manner “I thank you! I own I did not expect you to champion me, and I will say again that Strathavon has landed himself a diamond of the first water. If only we could all be so fortunate.”
Holly laughed at that. “Better a diamond than an emerald, I suppose.”
Avonbury swayed a little, and took a swig of his coffee.
“Do you know, I feel as though I am at sea! The room is devilish unsteady. I think I would have made a fine sailor,” he declared.
Lady Adventuress 01 - His Wayward Duchess Page 22