by Cheryl Bolen
Bent double and growling in fury, he stumbled backward, clutching his groin.
Ignoring his gasps of pain and vile curses, she edged away. With one eye on the laughing quartet, she crept down the stairs. Once out of their view, she flew across the lawn as rapidly as her injured leg would allow. She’d broken the limb in two places in a riding accident three years ago. The leg pained her on occasion, and she endured a permanent, though slight, limp made worse by overexertion.
She darted behind a tall rose-covered trellis. In her haste, the ball gown’s black net overskirt caught on a thorn-laden cane. Breathing labored and leg throbbing, she halted just inside the alcove and gave the skirt a gentle tug.
Dash it all. Stuck fast.
She sent a frantic glance along the footpath.
A twig snapped. Had Captain Kirkpatrick followed her?
A jolt of fright raised the hairs on her arms and stole her breath. Did she dare step outside the arbor and release the material? Would he see her if she did? She couldn’t move farther into the enclosure, though if she remained here, she risked almost certain discovery.
A sleepy dove cooed from somewhere in the garden’s trees. The night’s festivities had no doubt disturbed its slumber.
Ivonne peered through the lattice slats.
Where was he?
With her forefinger, she nudged a couple of leaves aside. Her white gloves stood out, a stark contrast against the plants. Oh, to have the mythical mantel of Arthur in Cornwall and be invisible.
A soft wind wafted through her hiding place and rustled the leaves overhead. Several spun lazily to the ground. Guests’ laughter and the lilting strains of the orchestra floated through the beveled French windows and carried to her on the mild breeze.
What possessed her to give into the impulse to venture outside alone and catch some air?
Because you dislike balls, gentlemen treating you as if you’re beneath their touch, and all the pretentious nastiness that’s generally present when the denizens of High Society gather.
Though only May, the crush of the crowd inside the mansion caused the temperature to rise uncomfortably. The heat, mixed with cloying perfumes, less-than-fresh clothing, the aroma of dozens of beeswax candles, and the occasional unbathed body, made her head ache and stomach queasy.
She’d sought a secluded niche on the side terrace to recover. Unfortunately, Captain Kirkpatrick, deep in his cups, found her there. Much like the shaggy bull he resembled, he’d stalked her at every social gathering.
A more off-putting man she’d never met.
Ivonne turned sideways and hoped the vines’ thick cover concealed her. If fear had a scent, the captain’s bulbous nose would lead him straight to her. Heavy footfalls crunched upon the gravel not more than a yard away. She closed her eyes as her heart lurched to her throat. Thank God she hadn’t tried to detach her gown. He’d have been on her like dense winter fog on the River Thames.
“Miss Wimpleton, you saucy minx, where are you?”
A low, suggestive chuckle followed. “I do like a spirited gel in my bed. I do, indeed.”
Ivonne’s eyes popped open. Captain Kirkpatrick’s gloating singsong whisper sent a shiver of loathing the length of her spine. She bit her lower lip, afraid to exhale lest he detect her presence.
He advanced another foot, pausing before the lattice.
She clenched her jaw and shut her eyes.
He stood so close, the noxious mixture of his dinner, pungent cologne, and sweat assaulted her nose. Hot bile rose to her throat, and she swallowed against the burning. Her nose twitched. Flaring her nostrils, she fought to suppress a sneeze.
If he discovered her hidden within the nook, there’d be no escaping the man’s amorous attentions. He might claim to prefer blondes, but he’d become bolder each time she encountered him. Given the opportunity, God alone knew what the foxed knave might try in this private bower. Look what he’d attempted on the veranda in full view of anyone who might have come along.
Holding her breath, she pursed her lips.
Do not sneeze.
The captain planted his hands on his ample hips and scanned the shrubberies. He turned in a slow circle. The straining gold buttons of his black tailcoat gleamed in the moonbeams bathing the path. He withdrew a silver flask from his pocket, and after a furtive glance around, took a couple of healthy gulps.
“Where are you? Come out, my sweet.” He belched and returned the flask to his pocket. “No need to be coy. I have something of importance to ask you.”
Precisely why Ivonne huddled like a timid mouse amongst the foliage outside her parents’ mansion. In the past two months, he’d asked the same question thrice before. Her firm “No” each time hadn’t deterred him in the least. In fact, her reluctance appeared to make the stocky widower more determined to win her hand.
Grimacing and cautious to keep her gown from rustling, she shifted her weight to her good leg.
Ah, much better.
Wisteria and salmon-colored climbing roses concealed the garden nook. Her favorite hideaway, normally, she would have relished the fragrant air surrounding her. Tonight, however, she could only be grateful the roses’ scent masked her perfume and hadn’t produced a fit of sneezing.
Ivonne swallowed against the tickle teasing her throat. If only she dared pinch her nostrils. She mustn’t. Her gloves against the verdant leaves might give her away. Yearning to slip into one of the nook’s inky corners, she yanked her skirt again. The fabric didn’t budge.
Captain Kirkpatrick swung his dark gaze to the trellis.
CHAPTER TWO
Petrified, Ivonne mouthed a silent prayer.
Dear God, don’t let him find me.
The distant glow pouring from the manor’s open doors bathed the captain in muted light. Kirkpatrick turned his head from side to side, a perplexed frown on his broad face.
“Where’d the chit get to?”
She nearly wept with relief. He hadn’t discovered her after all.
Muttering a vulgar curse, he scowled at the couple strolling along the path in his direction.
Bless, Edmund and Edwina. Their presence in the garden wasn’t accidental. They must have been looking for her and followed Captain Kirkpatrick. They wouldn’t leave her to his mercy.
“Mr. Linville. Miss Linville.” He offered the briefest of bows.
Edwina favored him with a tight-lipped smile. “It’s a splendid evening for a turn about the gardens. The honeysuckle there,” she pointed in the opposite direction of the alcove, “smells divine, does it not, Captain?”
“Er, indeed.” He didn’t spare the fragrant vine a glimpse. He peered behind them. “You haven’t seen Miss Wimpleton, have you?”
Edmund canted his blond head. “Why no, not since I asked her to dance.”
“She danced with you? She told me she doesn’t dance.” Scowling, Captain Kirkpatrick scratched his buttocks.
Staring pointedly at his indecorous behavior, Edwina raised a fair eyebrow.
“No, she doesn’t dance anymore, but I still like to make the offer.” Edmund flashed one of his engaging smiles. “Ivonne wanted to try her hand at cards tonight. Claimed she felt lucky.”
Cards bored Ivonne as much as French lessons or gossip of Prinny, yet she would play the entire night if she didn’t have to dance. Never nimble on her feet, with a lame leg, she’d become even less so. A blindfolded elephant in half-boots possessed more grace than she.
Creating a spectacle before two hundred guests again was unthinkable. She had done so once before and found herself plopped upon her derriere, her gown mid-thigh, exposing her legs for all to see. She no longer danced, and gentlemen rarely asked her to. Nonetheless, Edmund always made a token request at those gatherings that included dancing as part of the evening’s entertainment.
Her nostrils tingled in warning. Eyes watering, she pressed her teeth together.
Don’t sneeze. Don’t sneeze.
Do. Not. Sneeze, Ivonne Georgina Augusta Wimpleton
.
“Cards, eh?” Captain Kirkpatrick rubbed his chins. “She was taking the air on the terrace a few minutes ago. I’m positive I saw her wandering along this path.”
Lying buffoon.
“Oh, I’m sure you’re mistaken, Captain.” Edwina’s voice acquired a harsh edge. “Ivonne might be set upon by an uncouth, inebriated lout if she strolled about alone. Lord and Lady Wimpleton would be most displeased if such a thing befell their daughter.”
Brava, Edwina.
“Why don’t you accompany us inside?” Edmund turned his sister in the direction of the house. “We’ll look for Ivonne together.”
Ivonne smiled. Her cousins would have the widower examining every unused, cobwebby cranny in the manor. She held her breath against another potential sneeze. Something else must be in bloom. Roses didn’t cause her this distress.
The captain shook his oversized, red-haired head. “I’ll be along in a moment or two. It’s too hot in the house, and I need a few moments more to cool off.”
He removed his handkerchief from his coat pocket.
In the faint light, Ivonne detected thick beads of sweat glistening on his mottled features. He did rather resemble a great lathered ox. Truth to tell, everything about the man shouted brutish beast, from his thick-set build, bullish shoulders, and wide face, to his bulging round brown eyes, clomping walk, and gruff, deep-toned voice.
After wiping his damp face, he returned the sopped cloth to his pocket.
Ivonne swore Edwina slid a sidelong glance in the trellis’s direction. No surprise there. Her dearest friends, the twins had spent many hours sequestered in this sanctuary with her.
Another sneeze threatened. Ivonne wriggled her nose and twisted her lips, fighting the urge. Was there anything as annoying as trying not to sneeze?
Oh, do go along, Captain, will you?
How much longer could she keep stifling her sneezes?
“Captain, I do believe Lady Wimpleton has a delicious iced punch for the gentlemen. A cup or two of the bracing beverage ought to refresh you.” Edwina linked her arm with Captain Kirkpatrick’s.
Bold as brass was Edwina. Given the man’s malodorous form, she was stoic as an undertaker, as well.
“S’pose it would at that.” He allowed himself to be led away. Before rounding the footpath’s bend, he glanced over his shoulder. His intense gaze lingered on Ivonne’s hiding place.
Could he see her?
She retreated and gave her gown a fierce yank. The fabric tore free. The force rattled the lattice, bathing her in a lush shower of petals and leaves. Mouth closed, she sneezed into her hand. A strangled snort emerged.
“What was that?” Captain Kirkpatrick spun around. His gait unsteady, he pounded toward the arbor.
Edwina and Edmund tore along behind him.
Ivonne stepped backward.
Once. Twice. Three times. And bumped into a figure obscured at the rear of the arbor. She shrieked and lunged to flee the alcove.
Firm arms encircled her.
“Hello, Ivy,” a familiar male voice whispered in her ear.
CHAPTER THREE
Chancey Faulkenhurst inhaled Ivy’s perfume, relishing the unexpected gift of holding her in his arms. He wanted to kiss her, drink in her essence, water his parched soul with her sweetness.
God, he’d missed her.
“Falcon?” Wonder in her voice, she turned and touched his face. “Is it really you?”
He released a low chuckle. “Indeed, Ivy, it is.”
Her nickname slipped from his tongue as if, instead of six long years, he’d seen her yesterday. He’d dubbed her Ivy a score ago—whenever he and Allen came up from school on holiday, she’d clung to them as tenaciously as an ivy vine—and the pet name stuck.
She’d been infuriated and began calling him Falcon instead of Chance as his friends did. He’d rather liked the nickname until her brother started tossing it about. Now, most of Chance’s intimate friends addressed him as Falcon.
He wished he could see her features clearly. The fragmented moonbeams revealed little more than ivory skin, dark plum lips, and shiny eyes.
Ivy’s gaze sank to his cheek. Her glorious eyes widened, and her breath caught. She brushed a hesitant finger across the scar. “What’s this? You’ve been hurt? Why did no one tell me?”
The puckered inch-long streak was the least of his wounds. Nonetheless, her concern warmed his cynical heart. A heart he’d long ago given to her, though she mustn’t know.
He wasn’t free to woo her.
“Shh. It’s naught.” Chance caught her hand with his good one. He pressed her palm to his chest, the only affection he dared show. “I take it you’re hiding from that half-sprung brute?”
He tilted his head in the direction of the approaching footsteps. Ivy probably couldn’t see the movement. “That obnoxious fellow. Has he been both—”
Kirkpatrick plowed into the arbor, sending another cascade of leaves and petals down upon them. Wheezing, he swung his head back and forth like an enraged bull.
“What goes on here?” he bellowed, sounding much like the creature he resembled.
The fair-haired duo plunged into the bower’s other side.
Stifling a snicker, Chance grinned. They reminded him of a pair of fierce pugs ready to take on a bull mastiff. Kirkpatrick didn’t stand a tick’s chance in hot oil against Ivy’s two determined protectors.
The captain drew himself up, his large frame blocking what light managed to penetrate the slats. “Miss Wimpleton, as my future wife, I demand to know. What are you doing in the arms of this man?”
Chest heaving, he flicked his thick fingers contemptuously at Chance.
“Your future wife?” Ivy stiffened and whirled to face the captain. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”
She trembled. In outrage or fear? Both, perhaps.
Ivy made no attempt to step away from Chance, and he allowed himself a pleased smile.
Kirkpatrick scowled and narrowed his eyes to infuriated slits when Chance didn’t release her.
He firmed his embrace a fraction, silently challenging the ox.
The other pair stared at his arms encircling her. As one, they raised questioning gazes to his.
Were they prone to nattering? Best not to give them more juicy tidbits to spread about. He reluctantly withdrew his arms, but rested one hand on the small of Ivy’s back, as much to satisfy his need to touch her after all this time as to lend her comfort and support.
She wrapped her arms around her middle and edged a step closer to him. Odd, she’d never been one to retreat from a challenge. She did fear the man. That warranted further investigation.
Chance leveled the captain a furious glare.
Voice raspy, she said, “Captain Kirkpatrick, I have told you three times already. I do not want to marry you. I shall not marry you.”
“Three times? Persistent bloke, isn’t he?” Chance made no attempt to keep the mockery from his voice.
The twins—Edwina and Edmund Linville, if Chance recalled correctly—laughed.
Giggling, Miss Linville managed, “And those were just the formal proposals. There were at least another half dozen written ones.”
“Along with some ... ah ... creative poetry scribbled on the reverse of calling cards jammed into bouquets.” Edmund offered those morsels, seemingly unaffected by the hostile glower Kirkpatrick leveled at him. In fact, brazen as a doxy on a Saturday night, the plucky fellow winked at the captain. “Delivered every Monday and Thursday, I believe.”
Chance took the captain’s measure. “You don’t say. Perhaps persistent is the wrong word. I’d suggest obsessed might be more apt.”
Ivy nodded, the silky hairs on her crown, tickling his chin.
A good portion of the russet strands tumbled about her shoulders. How had her hair come to be in such disarray? Had that sot dared to touch her? Through a haze of ire, Chance tamped down his desire to rearrange the seaman’s beefy features. Instead, he concentrated
on Ivy’s rounded behind pressing into his groin. All sorts of distracting images soared forth as his manhood twitched in approval.
“What say you, Ivy? Have the captain’s attentions become bothersome?” Chance pressed her spine gently.
Her focus on Kirkpatrick, she tilted her head. “Yes, Mr. Faulkenhurst, though I’ve asked him to leave off several times.”
She smelled divine, a mixture of spring rain and iris. Chance enjoyed a pleasant view of the valley between the creamy bosoms swelling above her gown’s neckline. She made no attempt to put a respectable distance between them.
Then again, she regarded him as a harmless older brother. One of the reasons, at three and twenty, he’d petitioned for a transfer to India to support the East India troops. A harmless older brother didn’t harbor the sensual fantasies she elicited in him or want to step closer to enjoy her womanly curves more fully.
Though a commissioned lieutenant in His Majesty’s Regiments, as a second son of an earl, he had nothing to offer a viscount’s daughter except a hundred or so sheep and a long-neglected estate in Cheshire his mother bequeathed him. Did Foxbrooke Cottage even remain standing? When he’d last heard, the rundown house wasn’t fit for habitants other than vermin and insects.
He couldn’t claim an officer’s income anymore either. Naturally, he’d sell his commission, but at less than twelve hundred pounds, the monies wouldn’t begin to restore Foxbrooke, let alone support Ivy in the manner she was accustomed to.
He could seek a position as a steward or a secretary with one of his titled friends. However, with a hand short two fingers, writing presented a challenge. Would offers of employment be prompted by pity rather than genuine need? Heaven forbid. He continued to practice writing with his right hand but made slower progress than he wished. And truth to tell, even if gainfully employed, he’d not be worthy of Ivy.
The damnable agreement Father contrived with his crony, Lord Lambert, while Chance fought in India, presented a rather troublesome complication too. For a hefty marriage settlement, his sire pledged Chance would marry Lambert’s widowed daughter, Cornelia Washburn, when he returned to England. Eight years his senior, if Chance’s memory served correctly, she possessed a termagant’s temperament and had one eye that was wont to look off sideways.