by Julia Ross
He laughed and his annoyance dissipated. “How can I reply to that? I may have pursued some affairs in my time, but I’ve never been a rake. I don’t make a habit of ruining young females. Meanwhile, Lottie Whitely is a shallow, self-centered creature, who’s bored to tears with her marriage. She’s flirting with me to pique her husband’s jealousy, in the mistaken belief that this will force him to love her.”
Sarah hugged her cloak about herself, as if to ward off the chill.
“You don’t think a certain amount of possessiveness is part of love? It would be more terrible if Lord Whitely were indifferent, surely?”
“It might be, but fomenting her husband’s resentment and distrust is hardly likely to bring Lottie what she wants.”
“It’s horrible,” she said. “So much dishonesty.”
“They’re two equally superficial and selfish creatures,” he said. “They didn’t marry for love. It’s simply an alliance of property and status, in which appearances are everything.”
“Yet you’re obliged to allow her to use you?” she asked.
“Everyone, including Whitely himself, would be offended if I didn’t respond to her at all, and it would be the height of bad manners to embarrass her by spurning her publicly. So it’s like walking a high wire. Whitely wants to believe that I find his wife attractive—even if I don’t—while knowing that I have no intention of acting on it. Thus, both his vanity and pride may be satisfied, but without recourse to a meeting with pistols at dawn. I also avoid hurting Annabella Overbridge, if she believes that I neglect her only because I’m required to perform such a delicate balancing act with her friend. Does that shock you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yet you think me equally shallow, Mrs. Callaway? Equally dishonest?”
“No! Not at all! I meant merely—Oh, goodness! I spoke entirely out of turn. I’m so sorry. I don’t know very much about how such affairs are conducted in high society.”
“Then thank God for that! Yet if Lottie Whitely tries to make real trouble for you, I’ll bring all the power of Wyldshay down on her head, and she knows it. She may be spiteful, but she won’t dare to spread gossip. Yet it was still very wrong of me—”
“—to offer comfort when I was so upset about Lord Berrisham?”
Guy jerked as if he were a marionette and Sarah had just pulled his strings. “Comfort?”
She clutched the front of her cloak and looked away. “Yes, I was a little discomposed, but I never thought seduction was your aim. What happened meant nothing, so I think it best that we say no more about it.”
He should have been glad that she allowed him to slip so very easily from the hook, even if she had just condemned him to swim away alone into darkness.
He could not in honor wish for anything else.
Yet how long must he fight to clear his heart of the living memory of kissing her?
“As you wish,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”
“Good. Then that’s settled.”
“I only wish I could offer you a more meaningful form of comfort about the child,” he said. “Whether Moorefield is Daedalus or not, there’s not much I can do about it.”
She glanced up at him. Her eyes were brilliant, as if they gathered and reflected all the growing daylight outside. “I know you would if you could.”
Guy stared out of the window, simply to avoid that fascinating gaze. Birds had begun rustling in the woods. Trees and shrubs were beginning to take shape. The lake gleamed like a silver platter.
“I thought about that baby for most of the night,” he said. “My aunt can still command the king, if she so chooses, but His Majesty is a very old man. The duchess can also—to a certain extent—command Wellington. But her defense of Ryder’s marriage to Miracle has cost her considerable influence in London society, and Lady Moorefield’s family is almost as highly connected. Fratherham wouldn’t take kindly to the Blackdown’s interference in his daughter’s marriage, or her treatment of her son.”
“I understand, but I’ve still not been able to get that baby out of my mind.”
“Neither have I,” he said.
It was the truth, but only a part of what he could not forget. He hated the thought of cruelty to any child, yet his mind was also filled with this bright craving—for Sarah’s touch, for her lips, for her good opinion—while his heart quailed at the impossibility of ever fulfilling it.
“You said you’d learned something from Mr. Croft,” she said, “in spite of his reticence. What was it? I thought I might faint in his hothouse from the scent of all those massed orchids. Yet you told me that Lord Moorefield was only a minor collector?”
Guy turned his back on the view and forced himself to concentrate only on the issue at hand.
“He was, until he hired Croft away from Norris—probably from pride rather than any real interest. Moorefield hates to be outdone in anything, and his new gardener has an extraordinary gift with plants, as you saw.”
Sarah relaxed visibly, setting both hands on the table. Her cloak fell open to reveal a plain, dark dress.
“And we already know that Mr. Croft went to London with Lord Whiddon’s man in May, so he fits everything we know about Falcorne. On the other hand, he really loves his flowers, or he could never have created that amazing display.”
Her face was shadowed, indistinct in the dark hut. Guy felt a moment’s resentment that dawn was lingering so long, robbing him of the sight of her freckles, her unruly red hair.
“Which is, unfortunately, enough motive for Moorefield to steal him from Norris,” he said.
“Unfortunately?”
“Yes. Otherwise, that whole business might seem a little suspicious, happening, as it did, at the critical time. Croft would probably be capable of ordering violence against your cousin, though I don’t doubt that he spent most of his time in town at Loddiges.”
“Which seems odd, doesn’t it?” She moved one fingertip over the rustic tabletop, as if tracing a maze. “It’s not a combination that makes a whole lot of sense.”
Guy watched her moving fingers as if mesmerized.
“We’re all a mass of walking contradictions,” he said. “It’s part of the human condition.”
She hesitated, as if she wanted to give this statement its proper consideration, then she looked up and smiled.
“I am, certainly,” she said. “And so are you.”
He folded his arms. “Really? In what way?”
She brushed both palms over her cheeks and shook her head.
“Please, go on, ma’am! You cannot make such a statement, then retreat from it without explanation. Anyway, I owe you the chance for quite a bit more imprudence at my expense.”
She laughed, but not with real humor. “I’m not sure that I have enough courage.”
“Courage? Mrs. Callaway, you have the nerve of the Iron Duke. Pray, fire away! In what way do I embody so much contradiction?”
“Very well,” she said. “You’re one of the most sought-after gentlemen in the kingdom, and you’re attending a house party where several very eligible young ladies are vying desperately for your attention. You’ve explained about Lady Whitely, yet you appear quite indifferent to all the others, as well.”
“Indifferent? I’ve been dancing and flirting with all of them, with exactly the correct amount of attention—”
“And so little sincerity that they’ve all despaired of you.”
“I didn’t come here to find a wife,” he said. “Though the invitation was long-standing, I came here to unmask Daedalus. So if we’re talking about our personal inconsistencies, my neglect of the marriage mart is pretty minor. What else?”
She threaded the ties at the neck of her cloak through her fingers, as if she would smooth away invisible knots.
“You truly want me to be honest?”
“I tremble at the thought of your perspicacity, ma’am. As we’ve already established, it’s essentially impossible for me to be candid with anyone els
e here. So what else have you observed?”
“I don’t bring this up lightly,” she said. “And if it were not for our extraordinary circumstances, this would all be none of my business, and I would never, never voice anything so improper. Yet I think that I must.”
“A little impropriety now is hardly likely to offend, or reflect badly on you,” he said gently. “So I would like to know what’s bothering you.”
“Then I must say this! When I first tried to find out about you in London, I learned immediately that you’ve always kept a mistress, or else you’ve pursued a very discreet affair with a married lady—”
He laughed, genuinely touched by her careful pronouncements, though a small voice whispered a deep disquiet that she might yet guess his secret.
“Not discreet enough, obviously! I enjoy the usual vices of my position, and female company is one of them, but where’s the contradiction?”
“In your original acceptance of this invitation to Buckleigh,” she said. “Lady Overbridge obviously invited you here with that express intent. She’s very lovely. She’s not unkind or unpleasant, just lonely and unhappy, and she’s genuinely attracted to you. Yet any outside observer would think that you like orchids better.”
“I do,” he said. “The orchids are both more sensual and more honest—like you.”
He immediately wished the words unspoken, but it was too late.
Sarah stared down at her hands as hot color washed up her neck.
The silence stretched.
“And this is where I prove myself equally inconsistent,” she said at last. “In spite of everything I said when I first sat down, I feared something of the kind.”
Guy glanced at his boots. Sarah was hurt, whatever she claimed to the contrary. He had kissed her without caring for the consequences, as if an exchange of such white-hot passion were trivial. With anyone else, it might be for him. It never would be for her.
“What exactly do you fear, Sarah?”
She pushed a wayward strand of hair from her forehead. “You still wish me to speak honestly?”
“God, yes! What the devil’s to be gained by prevaricating now?”
“Then, in spite of what I thought that I wished, I suppose we cannot not speak of what happened in that garden.” She took a deep breath. “Not because I want an apology, but because I don’t.”
“You don’t regret it?”
She shook her head, then dropped her face into both hands. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”
“Then what?”
“At the risk of making a very great fool of myself, I fear that you in fact have some feelings for me, though you seem to be fighting your desires very desperately. Thus, contrary to what Lady Whitely seems to believe about you, it must be that only honor constrains you.” She looked up. “Of course, I must have reservations about such an unwise relationship, but why—when you cannot hide your interest—would you? You’re not free?”
“No,” he said. “I’m not.”
“Yet you still want me?”
“Yes.”
“Then I was wrong to demand that we not speak of what happened, and I think we had better get it all out in the open, after all.”
He strode past her to the door. Black shadows beckoned in the woods, places the sun never reached, yawning like the openings to caverns that might swallow a man into darkness.
“Very well,” he said. “When a lion wakes up, it’s usually best to pay it some attention. Of course, I knew exactly why Annabella Overbridge originally invited me here. She’s even given us adjoining bedrooms. I don’t know whether I’d ever have acted on that, because instead I find you…”
He hesitated as pain knifed through his heart. Sarah dropped her head forward. Her hood muffled her voice, as if she could only speak honestly to the darkness.
“As I find you?” she asked.
“God! Attractive is too weak a word. Fascinating. Enthralling. If circumstances were different, Lottie Whitely’s warning might have proved prescient. Nevertheless I just undertook not to kiss you again, even though I don’t know if I can really promise that or not.”
“Yes,” she said. “I feel the same way. But it’s just a superficial, physical thing, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps. In which case, in the circumstances, no man of honor would ever act on it. Yet I’m standing here craving you right now, Sarah.”
“It’s an infatuation.” She cupped her forehead in one hand, as if to shield her face from the heat of his passion. “If we refuse to give in to it, it’ll pass soon enough.”
“We must hope so.”
“After all, we barely know each other, so our feelings cannot be truly personal.”
“Then why do I feel as if I’ve known you all my life?”
She looked up and her hood fell back. Her clear gaze pierced his heart, as if he were pinned to the wall with a rapier.
“Yes, and deeper strangers have shared a bed before, but there are a million reasons why it would be most unwise for me to begin an affair with you.”
“Though you wish to?”
Sarah clenched her hands together on the table. “I don’t know. Though I crave your touch as a moth craves a candle, I also know that I can’t trust the way I feel.”
“Why not?”
She sprang to her feet and gathered her cloak about her skirts, as if she would flee past him to escape outside. He immediately stepped back to allow her to pass, but she remained frozen in place, staring up at him.
He could not tear his gaze from her face. Heat passed between them in palpable waves. Her lips parted a little. A wave of desire shot straight to his groin.
Yet she ducked her head and walked straight past him to the doorway.
She stopped at the threshold and lifted her chin. “I’m a widow, sir, not an inexperienced girl. I can certainly choose to embark on an affair, if I wish. Yet I’ve known what it is to truly love a man, and these feelings are nothing like that.”
“Even though this lion is roaring from its pedestal?”
“Especially then,” she said.
Calling on every ounce of self-control, Guy took another step back, so that she could walk away from him unimpeded.
“Then, like Medusa,” he said, “we must turn our beast back into stone.”
“Thank you, Mr. Devoran. You embody such a glamorous fantasy, you see. Why should I be immune to the attraction of that flame? Yet for me to crave a gentleman’s bed, when—” She broke off and glanced back at him. Hot color scorched over her cheeks. “Now that really is unseemly of me!”
“It’s the dark,” he said lightly. “It makes it too easy to exchange confidences. Yet it’s almost dawn. Perhaps by shining the clear light of day on our problem, we’ll find that our lion’s just a toothless old pussycat, after all.”
Her skin flamed, yet she glanced back at him and grinned with glorious bravado.
“Mew?”
Cleansing laughter washed up from deep in his heart, and she walked away down the path, releasing him.
Guy leaned one shoulder against the jamb. For a few minutes he could see her in glimpses through the trees, before she disappeared from sight.
The sky was still dim, shell green at the horizon. White bryony climbed over a stump near the hut. The flowers gleamed faintly, as if they still held reflected moonlight.
He looked up as his eye caught a hint of movement in the distance.
Her cloak flying behind her, the hood down, Sarah had walked out onto the open path by the lake.
In a flash of yellow, the sun broke over the top of the next ridge to the east.
Light flooded the landscape. Colors leaped into brilliance. The leaves were emerald and verdant, the sky and water luminescent.
Her hair caught fire in bright shades of copper and gilt. Her cloak was bottle green. Her skirts fluttered like a blue flag.
As if the sun had shouted at her, she stopped to glance back up into the woods, though the hut must be impossible to discern among the tre
es. She stood and stared for a moment as if she might discover the answer to some great riddle, then turned and hurried away.
Perhaps she really believed his nonsense about pussycats. Perhaps only he heard the majestic tread of the lion padding at her heels.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SARAH AVOIDED HIM FOR SEVERAL DAYS. SHE SPENT ALL OF her time in the gardens with the young ladies, talking of stamens and sepals and bracts, and showing Miss Carey and Miss Pole—who almost seemed genuinely interested—how the calyx protected the tender bud before the flower bloomed.
Sometimes she saw him walking with Lady Whitely, who ignored Sarah entirely, or with Lady Overbridge, who seemed content to be pleasant, if only to please Mr. Devoran.
Sometimes he rode away on horseback, either in the company of other gentlemen, or alone, but not again, for some reason, with Lady Whitely. Perhaps Lord Whitely had put his foot down.
Meanwhile, Sarah was haunted: her nights restless with dreams; her days lived in nervous starts, as if a monster might leap out at her at any second from the back of the herbaceous borders.
The lion was the noble king of beasts, but she had begun this quest thinking only of the Minotaur, who ate young females alive. Absurd, of course, to refine so much about one passionate kiss.
Yet Sarah could no more forget it than she could forget that the white bryony, which she had noticed growing near the Deer Hut, bore poisonous fruit, or that she was only here in Devon for Rachel’s sake.
Guy had spoken to her only once since that last dawn meeting. A fast exchange near the rose garden, the air heady with bees, when she was hurrying in to fetch a shawl.
“You’re all right?” he had asked.
She had nodded and smiled brightly. “Yes, of course.”
“I sent a note to Whiddon, returned with a polite refusal. He doesn’t wish to see anyone. The man’s more secretive than the grave.”
And then he had walked away, just in time to avoid Lady Whitely discovering them together.
Even that, just that one short conversation, had left Sarah feeling breathless and giddy, as if she were falling from a great height with no landing visible.
As she and the girls strolled back to the house, she tried not to think of him, not to fret about how they were ever to learn the truth about Rachel.