Her faded blue eyes twinkled a bit, indicating that despite her firm mouth and unassailable aura of propriety, she had a sense of humor and was well acquainted with Joanna’s willful streak. “It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Your Grace, and no apology is necessary, I assure you.” She gestured to the table, where tea things had been laid out over a pristine white tablecloth. “Shall I pour you a cup of tea?” she asked.
“Thank you, yes. I’d love one.”
“Did you see Edie?” Joanna asked. “Is she coming down to join us?”
“She’ll be here in a moment. No sugar, Mrs. Simmons,” he added as he watched the governess pick up the sugar tongs. “And no milk or lemon, either. I like my tea plain.”
“Without even any sugar?” Joanna asked, looking at him askance.
“I grew accustomed to drinking it plain while I was in Africa,” he explained. “We couldn’t very well cart milk, sugar, and lemons into the bush. But mostly, I drank coffee, for it was far easier to obtain.”
“Joanna and I read about your expedition in the Congo,” the governess said, placing his filled cup in its saucer and handing it across the table. “Didn’t we, Joanna?”
“We read all about it in the newspapers,” the girl said as she slathered cream onto a scone. “It sounded terribly exciting.”
“More disastrous than exciting, I fear,” Stuart said, taking a sandwich from the tray. “It’s amazing we were able to complete the expedition, for everything that could possibly go wrong did so. We lost a cartload of supplies, including medicine, powder, and shot, all my men were laid low with a bout of fever for three weeks, and we were attacked twice by marauders. And, if all that wasn’t bad enough, we had both English and French cartographers. It was to be a cooperative expedition, but there was little cooperation about it. The rivalry was fierce, and because I was the guide, I was expected to keep the peace.”
“The same sort of rivalry exists in matters of religion, it seems,” Mrs. Simmons told him. “Our vicar, Mr. Ponsonby, is very committed to missionary work, as I’m sure you know. He mentioned once how terribly difficult it is for Anglican missionaries to operate in the French territories because the Catholic officials and guides are so unhelpful.”
Stuart shifted in his chair, and he couldn’t help rolling his eyes at the mention of the vicar. Ponsonby was a self-righteous windbag who knew nothing about Africa or its people. Fortunately, Mrs. Simmons was occupied with pouring herself a second cup of tea, and by the time she looked up, he’d managed to conceal his distaste for the man. “Yes, Mr. Ponsonby is quite committed to missionary work,” he said, trying out of sheer politeness to keep his negative opinion out of his voice. “But the Congo is a bit savage, even for men of . . .” He paused and coughed. “Men of the cloth.”
“Which, in his view, makes what you did all the more splendid. He said that cartography expedition provided maps and information that have proved invaluable to the missionary work.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” he said, and he feared he had been unable to inject the proper amount of enthusiasm into his voice. “Still, after that trip, I decided to conduct future expeditions exclusively within the British territories. It’s far easier to arrange, and I find Kenya and Tanzania much more pleasant than the Congo.”
“We saw the butterfly you discovered,” Joanna told him. “It’s on display in the British Museum. We saw it last year.”
“I didn’t know they’d put it on display. Last I’d heard, they were only considering it.” He glanced at Mrs. Simmons. “I’m glad to see you are taking your pupil on outings such as the British Museum. My sister’s governess thought French and how to curtsy were enough for a girl.”
“I don’t agree with that sort of limited education, it’s true,” Mrs. Simmons said, “but I can take no credit for that particular outing. Her Grace took Joanna to see your butterfly.”
A flash of white caught his eye, and he looked up to find Edie standing in the French door to the library. “Did she, indeed?” he murmured. “How gratifying.”
She had changed into a tea gown of white lawn and Battenberg lace, and the bright, white color made her seem radiantly lovely as she stepped out into the sunlight. The image of her naked amid white sheets flashed through his mind just as it had the last time they’d taken tea together, and his throat went dry.
“Actually, I didn’t,” she said as she came out onto the terrace. “I took her to see the paintings. There was a Monet exhibition, and Joanna loves art. The butterfly happened to be on exhibit at the same time.”
“But you wanted to see it, too,” Joanna said with an unmistakable, impish glee. “You told me so.”
“Did I?” Her face was smooth and cool as marble, not even a blush to indicate what she might be thinking. “I don’t remember.”
Stuart stood up, and as he watched her cross the terrace, he fancied he could see the lithe, slim outline of her body beneath the loose layers of white fabric, and desire began flooding his body. He tried to stop it, telling himself that what he saw beneath the layers of white fabric was his imagination, but that didn’t seem to help much, and he was relieved when she sat down, for he could then do the same and allow the table to conceal, at least partly, what he felt.
But he couldn’t conceal the look on his face, apparently, for she paused in the act of reaching for the teapot, looking at him across the table. “Is something wrong?”
He shoved imaginings of her naked amid the sheets out of his mind and hastily invented an excuse. “I’m stunned, Edie. You went to see my butterfly?”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she bent her head to pour her tea, and the hat she’d donned, a wide-brimmed straw affair trimmed with white ribbons, successfully shielded her expression. “Joanna and I both wanted to look at it,” she said. “Everyone was talking of it at the time.”
“It was a lovely thing,” Joanna put in. “Bright, bright blue, with yellow dots. I did a watercolor of it.”
“Did you, petal? I should like to see that.”
Joanna paused, her scone halfway to her mouth. “Would you, truly?” She tossed aside her napkin, dropped her scone back onto her plate, and stood up. “Edie had it framed and put it in the drawing room. Come and I’ll show it to you.”
“Really, Joanna,” Edie said without looking up, displaying a great fascination with the choice of cakes on the tea tray. “Allow the man to at least drink his tea first.”
“I’ll look at it after dinner, petal,” he promised, and settled back in his chair to enjoy the view he had right in front of him.
Pity about that hat, he thought, studying his wife across the table. He understood the protection a hat afforded her fair skin, but he still wished she’d take it off, for he’d have liked to see her bright, brilliant hair in the sunlight as he had that afternoon five years ago. Still, it was probably for the best that she kept it on since the added distraction would hardly be helpful to keeping his desire in check.
And it was important that he do so. For it to count, Edie had to kiss him, not—alas—the other way around. Thanks to his consultation with Dr. Cahill, he now had a strategy by which he might bring that about, but to implement it would require quite a measure of control and self-discipline. That wouldn’t be easy if he was going to become aroused simply by watching her walk across a terrace.
Still, before he even worried about that particular problem, he had another to solve. He controlled two hours a day of her company, but he couldn’t force her compliance with what he had in mind. To gain her willing cooperation would be a bit tricky, for she was bound to perceive his true intentions straightaway.
By the time she finished her second cup of tea, Stuart had managed to put his desire aside, at least enough that it would not be painfully obvious the moment he stood up. When she set down her cup and put aside her napkin, he spoke before she could rise from her chair. “Shall you be wa
nting any more tea, Edie, do you think?”
“I don’t believe so. Why do you ask?”
“Because if you’ve finished, I think you and I should take the dog for a walk. He could do with a walk after being cooped up for hours on that train, don’t you think?”
“I’m sure Snuffles would love a walk. Perhaps you and Joanna—”
“Joanna hasn’t finished her tea,” Stuart cut in before Joanna could speak. “No, Edie, I fear it’s up to us.”
He ate the last bite of his sandwich, grabbed his walking stick, and stood up. “Come on. You can spend the next two hours showing me what you’ve done to the gardens while I’ve been away.”
The moment he mentioned the time frame, she understood. She gave a nod and rose to her feet, albeit a bit reluctantly, as he came around and unhooked the loop of the leather lead from the back of her chair.
“Come on, old boy,” he said to the dog as they started across the terrace toward the steps down to the south lawn. “I refuse to call you Snuffles. Why your mistress would ever give a ripping terrier like you such a ridiculous name, I can’t think.”
“Don’t blame me,” Edie said, as they turned onto the gravel path that led across the lawn to the gardens. “Joanna named him.”
“And you allowed her to give that name to a Norwich terrier with over a century of impeccable breeding behind him? Edie, really!”
“Well, she was only eleven at the time, and she had recently lost her cat. Under the circumstances, I just couldn’t bear to say no. I spoil her, I know,” she added with a sigh.
“Raising a child is never an easy thing, I imagine, especially when you seem to be doing it all yourself. What of your father?”
“I prefer having Joanna with me, and my father finds it convenient to oblige. It’s a common enough thing for a widower to feel. Raising a daughter would rather impinge on the life he leads, you see.”
He did see. He saw more than she probably realized. But then, his impression of her father had always been that of a man who liked to arrange his life for his own convenience. Her next words rather confirmed it.
“Daddy comes every year to visit, assures himself that we’re getting on all right, then happily goes back home to his mistress and his business deals. He adores his life—drinking at the Oak Room, playing cards at the House with the Bronze Door, yachting at Newport . . . all that sort of thing.”
“He owns racehorses, too, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Something in that curt, clipped answer startled Stuart. He cast a sideways glance at her, but he could see nothing amiss in her profile. She looked as coolly unflappable as usual, and he concluded he’d imagined the sharpness of her reply.
“And you don’t mind?” he asked, curious. “It’s a big responsibility, having full charge of Joanna, and not really yours to assume.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love Joanna, and I like having her with me, not only because she’s my sister but also because she’s quite good company. And—” She broke off, her steps slowed. And then she stopped.
“And?” he prompted, halting on the path beside her.
“I hate the idea of handing her care over to anyone else,” she said slowly. “I want to watch over her myself every minute. I want to be sure always that she’s happy, well looked after, and safe.”
“Of course. I should feel the same in your place. Although I’m not sure I would have been quite so torn over sending my sister off to school,” he amended with a laugh. “We are talking about Nadine, after all. I fear I’d have had to send her to be finished well before her fifteenth birthday unless I wanted to go mad. My sister is a breathtakingly lovely, very sweet featherbrain, as you have no doubt observed for yourself.”
Edie laughed, too. “A younger sister with intelligence isn’t necessarily a good thing, you know. Joanna’s too clever by half.”
“Yes, so I’ve noticed,” he answered. “Which is why you really shouldn’t procrastinate about sending her to school.”
She shot him a wry look. “Why do you say so? Because I might choose to use her as a chaperone?”
“No, Edie. I’m saying it because I genuinely think school would be good for her. And Willowbank is an excellent institution for both academics and the arts, and it would be challenging enough to keep her occupied. It would also prepare her to enter society. They call it a finishing school for that reason, after all.”
“I know, and I am not procrastinating. I’m not,” she insisted in response to his skeptical look. She resumed walking. “It’s just that she won’t be attending to Willowbank now, since we’ll be going to New York.”
He didn’t debate the point. Instead, he tugged at the terrier’s lead, and the dog, which had been burrowing amid a mound of the lady’s mantle that lined the path, moved to join him as he resumed walking by Edie’s side. “Let’s go down to the Roman Temple,” he said, nodding to a flagstone path nearly covered with creeping thyme and bordered by clumps of fennel and spires of mullein. “Flagstones are a bit easier for me to walk on than this gravel.”
“Of course. You should have said something sooner,” she admonished, as they veered onto the other path. “Are you certain you want to spend our two hours together walking?”
“At least part of it. Unless—” He broke off, glancing at her profile, liking the pretty, golden freckles scattered across her nose and cheek, noting with masculine appreciation the luminous quality of her skin and the delicate shape of her ear below the wide-brimmed hat. “Walking seemed the best thing, but if you’ve a more enticing suggestion to offer, I’m listening.”
Soft pink bloomed in her cheeks, and he liked that, too. Her tendency to blush was one of the few things that enabled him to gauge what she was thinking, and he needed all the indicators he could find right now.
“I only meant that I shouldn’t want you to be in pain,” she said primly. “And I was under the impression that walking was painful for you.”
“It is, but my leg always feels better afterward. I like walking with you, by the way,” he added. “You don’t rush me, and I appreciate it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, but I hardly think that’s something for which you need to thank me. Anyone else would surely do the same.”
“No, I’m afraid you’re quite wrong, there. Most people tend to go too fast, then have to stop and wait for me, and it always makes me feel terribly self-conscious, so I usually walk alone. But you don’t rush me or display any impatience, and I appreciate it.”
They emerged into the Roman Garden. Designed to resemble a Pompeii courtyard, it had a central fountain, bordered on three sides by a strip of turf and a thick wall of trees and shrubbery. Along the fourth side stood the marble temple built by his great-great-grandfather, a wide limestone structure fronted by marble columns and topped with a slate roof. Beneath the pediment, a wrought-iron bench looked out over the fountain.
He decided now was as good a time as any to broach the subject he’d brought her out here to discuss. “Still, I wouldn’t mind sitting for a bit,” he added, pointing to the bench. “I’ve always liked this bit of the garden. It’s one of my favorite places. I used to come here to read.”
“You did?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am, rather, because I like to read here, too. I know it’s called the Roman Garden, but I call it the Secret Garden because it’s tucked back in this isolated corner. It’s quiet here, peaceful. And I find the sound of the fountain soothing.”
“I feel the same, so we have something in common, then.” He smiled. “A good thing for husband and wife, don’t you think?”
She didn’t reply, but being an optimistic fellow, he decided to take that as a good sign. They walked up the limestone steps, where he looped the handle of the terrier’s lead beneath one leg of the bench. Snuffles immediately bega
n rooting around amid the lady’s mantle and lamb’s ears at the edge of the steps, while he spread his handkerchief across the seat for Edie.
They both sat down, and Stuart immediately grimaced as he leaned against the ornate back of the seat. “If we both intend to come here and read, I say we invest in a more comfortable bench. This one’s a bit hard for sitting.”
“True. I never thought about that, for I always lie in the grass when I read.” She pointed to a patch of turf in the shade of a gnarled oak. “Just there.”
“I used to do the same.” He set aside his stick and stretched his leg out in front of him, relieved that the tightly cramped muscles had been loosened by their walk. “But nowadays, lying on the ground is a bit tricky.”
“Your leg feels better now than it did when we started, though, I hope?”
“Yes, it does, thank you.” He paused a moment, then added, “I consulted a doctor in London yesterday, by the way.”
“Did you? You seemed dead set against it when I suggested it.”
He met her surprised look with a rueful one. “It was Lord Trubridge’s doing. While you were having tea with Lady Trubridge, her husband was dragging me off to Harley Street.”
“And did the doctor prescribe a course of treatment?”
“Yes.” He turned toward her on the bench. “But to follow his prescription, I need your help.”
“My help?”
“Yes. The doctor recommended daily walks, followed by exercises to stretch the muscles of my injured leg, and lastly, a massage with a special liniment. For that, I shall require an assistant.”
Her eyes went wide as she appreciated what he was asking of her. “You want me to . . . to massage your leg?”
She made it sound as if he’d just asked her to jump off a cliff. “Yes. The stretching is also more effectively done with the aid of another person, so I shall need your help for that, too.”
How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days Page 14