by Deb Marlowe
Damn it all to hell.
He dragged a hand through his hair and forced his mind to tamer ground.
“I’m first to go!” Miss Ruddock held up her blue ball and frolicked to her starting point. She made her first hoop and the rest of them followed, using her ball to their own advantage and moving ahead.
“Oh, dear, the gentlemen have already outstripped us, Lady Glory.” Miss Ruddock practically skipped up to her ball. He wondered if she was deliberately trying to set herself apart from Glory’s slow and careful movements. The girl took her turn, but still found herself behind, after she took aim at Glory’s ball and missed.
“Oh, this is going to quickly turn into the most boring of routs if we don’t do something to distract the men,” she said with a pout.
Lycett had moved so far ahead he had to come back to take part in the conversation. “Perhaps you should show a little ankle,” he suggested.
Keswick’s heart started to beat faster at the image that rose—Glory sliding her skirts just up, just a teasing inch or two—and then he froze as he realized—and looked to find her rising color was from defiant embarrassment instead of titillation. Damn that Lycett!
“Do not let my mother hear you suggest such a thing, sir!” Miss Ruddock’s giggle ruined her attempt to appear shocked. “I know! Let’s play the question game as we go along!”
“I don’t know that game,” Glory admitted.
Keswick rather thought Miss Ruddock had only just made it up.
“It’s easy for everyone! I’ll ask a question—a suitable question—and everyone answers. If you cannot or will not, then you must choose the next question—and it’s harder than it seems to come up with them!”
“Perfect!” Lycett declared. “I shall wiggle out all of your secrets, Miss Ruddock.”
Keswick had to fight to keep his last meal from wiggling out onto the course.
“Very well then. First, we shall all share our favorite color.” She nodded toward her ball. “I’m well known for my propensity for blue!”
“Hazel!” Lycett declared. “Just the exact color of your eyes, Miss Ruddock.”
“Chestnut,” Glory declared and Keswick had to laugh out loud at that.
They all turned to him.
He blanched. “I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about it.”
“Choose one or offer up the next question,” Miss Ruddock said in a singsong tone.
He stared at Glory.
Are you furious with me and too polite to show it?
Do you recall the feel of my hand on your naked breast?
Is your belly churning with the desire to start it all again—and take it further, higher, still?
“Green,” he said quickly. “Green like the grass of my mother’s home in Ireland.”
They played on and reached the first stake, at the far end of the course. A great plane tree stood nearby, double-trunked and spreading out over the incline that led to the hill and the plateau below. A gorgeous, stone staircase led down to the green, which had been set up with a net for battledore.
Miss Ruddock, having asked after their favorite artists and number of siblings, called for their attention. “Now, you must tell me what was the last game you played, before this one. The last one that was not cards or billiards,” she said pointedly to Lycett.
“Spillikens,” he said promptly. “With my nephew.”
“Chess,” said Glory.
“Mine was lawn bowling,” Miss Ruddock said with a sigh. “I enjoy that so much more than croquet.”
Again, they all looked to Keswick and he strained to think, to find an answer before his brainbox headed down dangerous roads again. When was the last time he’d played anything other than a hand of cards? Ah. Yes. “Street Sweepstakes,” he announced.
They all continued to look, wearing identical blank expressions.
“Well, now you must explain,” Miss Ruddock declared.
Glory watched him thoughtfully. “Yes, please do.”
“It’s nothing. Just a made-up lark.” He shrugged. “I bet a young street sweeper that I could finish my corner quicker and cleaner than hers.”
Lycett looked slightly scandalized. “What did she have to do when she lost?”
“Nothing. She won. I gave her a crown. That was the bet.”
“That doesn’t sound at all enjoyable,” Miss Ruddock declared.
Glory said nothing, but she watched him very closely. He stared back, fighting to show no emotion at all.
“Oh, dear, look what I’ve done,” Lycett said suddenly. They all turned to see two balls rolling down the incline. “How unfortunate. I’ve knocked both your ball, Miss Ruddock, and my own, a bit too hard.” As they watched, the balls picked up speed and went over the edge of the hill.
Miss Ruddock’s eyes grew huge with distress. “Oh, no! How could you have done so?” She turned on him in reprimand. “Will we have to cancel the game?”
“No, no. We shall just have to go down there and look for them.”
“Oh!” Sudden understanding dawned on the girl’s face. She looked around to see if her mother had returned. “We cannot leave them lost, can we? Lady Glory, I’m sure your leg will not tolerate that sharp incline very well. Why don’t you and Lord Keswick stay here while we search? We’ll be right back, I’m sure.”
“Perhaps not,” Lycett corrected her cheerfully. “Who knows where the balls might be hiding underneath all of that ground cover?”
“We’d better begin, then!”
Keswick snorted as the pair of them scampered down the stairs. “And we are meant to act as guards, I suppose. And after Lycett has acted such an ass. We should fetch her mama and fill her ears. T’would serve him right to be caught out.” He sighed. “Come, a couple of those branches are low enough for you to perch upon.”
But Glory merely moved closer to him, her eyes watching his face closely. He caught the first teasing tendril of her scent—lavender again, and fragrant tea and the slightest whiff of horse—and he had to fight the urge to lean in and fill his lungs.
“What happened to the girl, Keswick?”
“Nothing yet,” he said, moving away to peer down the hill. “Though she might ruin her hems, mucking about in there.”
“Not that girl. The other one.”
He didn’t turn to face her. He didn’t want to look upon her fresh beauty, or stand too close to it. Not when he couldn’t lay claim to it. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do know. But you don’t want to tell me. Why not?”
He merely shook his head.
“Where is she?”
“Who?”
“The street sweeper. You gave her a crown. And then what? Where is she now?”
He looked away. And then he lied. “In the bowels of Seven Dials? How should I know?”
“You are not telling the truth.”
She stepped nearer and he turned away.
“Why won’t you tell me?”
He followed the line of a low branch and peered again over the hill. The pair down there stood close together. Were they holding hands? He hoped so. He hoped they did something scandalous to keep his attention diverted and to prevent Glory from pursuing this line of questioning. “There is nothing to tell.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He gritted his teeth against a surge of frustration. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“The truth, for a start. Answers, too.”
He turned to her finally. “What are you doing, Glory? I thought I made it clear—”
“Oh, you did! You made it clear that I’m to leave you alone. I should listen, I know. The problem is, it’s the very last thing I want to do. I don’t know why. I didn’t expect this to happen. I don’t know how you make me feel so easy . . . and so restless at the same time. But you do. You stir me up and make me feel things I never expected to. And if I’m to ignore them, or pretend that they don’t exist, then I want to understand why, at the very least. So
, tell me about the girl.”
She made him feel every empty spot in his soul. Worse, seeing her pain, hearing her put his own thwarted feelings into words, it was as if she crawled inside of him and scraped them more hollow, still.
“No,” he rasped. “It won’t help.”
“It will help me.”
She was wrong. Baring his soul never helped anyone.
She glanced behind her to the other luncheon guests, still seated or roving among the seats and then she took the step that would place the plane tree between them.
He glanced down, but Lycett and Miss Ruddock had gone all the way to the green and were partially hidden by the stone balustrade of the stairs.
Glory moved closer still. They were entirely hidden for the moment, from everyone. And he was tempted. So very tempted. He wasn’t used to denying himself, after all. The whole point of his lifestyle was to prevent it.
Perhaps he didn’t have to.
It was the wicked whisper of the small part of his soul. The hungry part. The part that didn’t care if he’d be left alone and wanting at the end of this folly, should he embark upon it.
“You said you would not ask for what I could not give,” he said roughly.
“It’s just a simple question. Not so very difficult.”
She didn’t know. It was difficult—and he was hard. He let his gaze roam over her. Creamy skin and pink lips, plump on the bottom at just the right spot for kissing, and so often quirked in wry humor or keen observation. Why? Why did her quick wit and earnest gazes hold him riveted? She roused him in ways that the harlots and barmaids he normally indulged in did not, despite their round arses and bosoms on display.
Glory made him laugh. She made him forget. She made him talk. She woke protective instincts inside of him, urges that he’d thought had died with his mother. And then she turned around and protected him. He ached for more and now he knew how she tasted and how her breast filled his hand and he burned with the urge to discover the rest.
He could tell her.
The evil imp whispered again in his ear.
He could. He could take what she offered, take her at her word. Teach her the ways of men and women. He nearly groaned at the thought. She’d given her word, after all. Friends. And she wouldn’t expect more.
Except—she would. He knew why she asked after the street girl. He knew the story she was spinning in her head. She meant to make a hero of him.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.”
You cannot make a purse from a sow’s ear. And not even she could fashion a decent man from a broken, bitter wreck.
“You’ve changed me.” She reached out and took his hand. She held it sandwiched between her own, small, cool palms. He could feel her bounding pulse with a fingertip and wondered if she could feel his.
“I went down to the dining room this morning and the buzzing talk stopped when I stepped in,” she said in almost a whisper. “It was early. Not everyone was up. Neither Tensford nor Hope had yet come down. I stood on the threshold and looked at their faces, either quietly averted or deliberately blank, and I went and gathered up pockets full of muffins and apples. I went straight to the stables. As I left, the talking started up again.” She looked up at him and smiled. “I didn’t care. It wasn’t nearly as painful as it once would have been—because of this.” She squeezed his hand. “Because I know you see me. And you feel something for me—even if you don’t want to.”
Oh, bloody, sodding hell. She was going to kill him—or at least make him wish she had. He closed his hand around hers and tugged her closer. Their gazes met and held. His hand rose to touch her cheek. She sighed and leaned in and he lowered his mouth toward hers—
“Miss Ruddock? Lady Glory?”
He closed his eyes. For the second day in a row, Miss Munroe rescued him from folly. He should probably put her on retainer—she could keep saving him from himself until he could get back to London.
He dropped Glory’s hand and she stepped back.
Miss Munroe ducked under a branch and stepped around the first, widest trunk of the tree. “There you are.” She looked past Glory to him, wearing an odd expression. “We were looking for you.”
“We?” Glory asked.
Another young lady followed in her footsteps. She straightened and met his gaze with a wide, challenging smile.
Bloody. Damned. Hell. Fate, the gods, destiny, what have you—they’d all apparently upped the ante in this game masquerading as his life. He didn’t even have to break the rules to be punished. Apparently, all he had to do was contemplate it—and they smacked him down with a leveling blow.
“Keswick!” Miss Vernon said his name with possessive delight. “There you are, at last!”
Chapter 12
Glory bristled a little as the new arrival focused intently on Keswick and ignored her existence.
“Who would have thought that we’d be together again, and so soon?” the other girl said almost triumphantly.
“Not I, and that is a certainty,” Keswick replied. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic about seeing the girl again, despite her excitement.
“And in such rustic surroundings!” The other woman looked about her with just the slightest hint of disdain.
There was nothing rustic about her, to be sure. Tall and thin and all sharp angles, she was dressed in an elegant walking dress and striped pelisse, far more fashionable than anything else that had been worn at the house party so far. Her nose was her most striking feature, long and also elegant and pointed. Glory spent a moment wondering what Miss Myland would think of it.
“When I heard that two of my cousins were having a visit together up here in Gloucestershire, we decided we had to come.” She cast a smile on Miss Munroe. “Family is so important, is it not? And when was the last time we were all together? You and I and dear Cousin James?”
“Never, in my memory,” Miss Munroe said shortly. “Although my mama recalls a time when we were all in the nursery together, when we were very small.”
“Exactly! It has been too, too long.” She grinned up at Keswick. “And besides, all of the really interesting people had already left London.”
Miss Munroe looked as if she might debate the first part of that statement, but she turned to Glory. “Forgive my manners, Lady Glory. If I may present Miss Alice Vernon? She is a distant cousin and has arrived for a visit. Your sister very kindly included her in today’s luncheon.”
Glory curtsied. “How do you do?”
“Very well, thank you, now that I am here.” She turned back to Keswick. “And just in time too! Never fear, Lord Keswick, I am here to rescue you from such bucolic pursuits.”
Keswick glanced at Glory. “No one is in need of rescue. In fact, I’ve discovered the country has unexpected appeal.”
Now Glory had the young lady’s attention—and the full weight of her displeasure. Miss Vernon shot her a haughty glance and then simpered up at the viscount. “I am so glad to hear it. Now I will have to press you into service and ask that you convince me.”
“But you were so determined to come over at once to see Cousin James. After all, family is so important to you! I am sure you must wish to greet him before doing anything else,” Miss Munroe said firmly. She said to Glory, “He spent the night at the village with his friends instead of at our home, so Alice has yet to see him. Where is he, by the way? We thought he was out here, playing croquet with you.”
“Mr. Lycett hit a couple of balls with too much enthusiasm. He and Miss Ruddock have gone over the hill to retrieve them,” Glory told her.
“Well, then.” Miss Munroe marched over to the edge of the staircase. The rest of them trailed after her while she cupped her hands and called out. “Come up! You have a visitor, James!”
“It seems our game has come to a premature end, Lady Glory.” Keswick spoke up from behind her. “If you give me your mallet, I will return it for you.”
“No, no, you shall not get away again so easily,”
Miss Vernon admonished him. “Just allow me to greet my cousin and then I shall ask you to convert me to appreciation of the countryside.”
“What’s this?” Mr. Lycett helped Miss Ruddock up the final steps to join them. “Fresh blood to join our party?”
Miss Munroe made the introductions.
“Cousin?” Mr. Lycett said jovially. “It must be a distant relationship indeed, for me to be unaware of a connection with so fine a young lady.”
Miss Vernon preened. “It is lovely to see you again, after so long.”
Mr. Lycett looked surprised. “Have we met before, then?”
“Once, when we were all in nappies,” Miss Munroe said wryly.
“We shall just have to make up for lost time,” Miss Vernon declared, but then she grimaced. “Although the next reunion we plan, do let us meet up in London? The setting, the entertainments, the company, the fashions.” She ran an eye over Glory. “Everything is better in London. You must agree.”
“I must not,” Miss Munroe declared. “Some of us prefer the peace of a country life. And seeing as we didn’t plan a reunion, but merely a visit between two families, we have been content right here. And as Lady Tensford has been kind enough to add you to her party, perhaps you should experience one of her entertainments before you disparage them.”
“Oh, la! Pray, do not take offense! I have agreed to allow Lord Keswick to prove me wrong.” She laughed. “Although it is too amusing to think of you as a country man, my lord, when I am so used to seeing you amidst the glitter and shine of Town.”
“Not so very used to it, I should think,” Keswick said with a frown. “We travel in very different circles, for the most part.”
“Well, now is our chance to fix that. Providence has given us this opportunity, we must not waste it.” She slipped her hand through his arm. “Dear me, this is a very pretty staircase. It leads . . . where?”