Men! Rosalind fumed. They were all the same, pretending to be entranced with a person until business or politics or both called, and then they completely ignored one. Lord Farringdon was the worst of the lot with his charming conversation and seductive ways. At least Harold never claimed to be interested in anything else besides his blessed affairs. It was enough to make one ill. Now she was left with a house full of people and no one to enliven it for her.
It was too selfish of Alistair to go off without a thought for her safety or happiness, but then why should he be any different from any of the rest of the men in her life? They had been leaving her for as long as she could remember to go off hunting or gaming, or heaven knows what. And if they didn’t leave her, they forced her to leave them, packing her off to school in Bath as if she were no more than a parcel to be gotten rid of. However, Rosalind had had her revenge on all of them, for when she had returned from school, no man had been able to resist her, and all those who had deserted her in the past had come flocking around her begging for a word, a look. Even Richard and her father, realizing that she was a far greater draw for their cronies than anything else their hospitality could offer, had finally paid at least some attention to her.
But that was neither here nor there. Females could draw men by their beauty and their charm, but it behooved them to extract as much as they could when they could, for inevitably men lost interest and returned to their original pursuits. Rosalind sighed and headed back to join the rest of her guests in the garden. Catching sight of her sad, lovely face as she passed by the pier glass hung over a marquetry side table, she straightened her shoulders and chided herself. Feeling sorry for yourself never got you anything. Think, Rosalind, think. You can be more intoxicating than all the politics or state secrets that can possibly attract Lord Farringdon’s interest. You will not be in mourning forever, and soon you will be able to wear costumes so daring and alluring that the earl will be able to concentrate on nothing else but you. A slow, sly smile crept over her face. We shall see, Alistair, she whispered to herself, we shall see.
Chapter Twenty-five
Few witnessed Alistair’s departure sometime later. To be sure, the marchioness was there, making a graceful picture on the wide sweep of the stairs with the noble portico of Cranleigh behind her, the breeze gently waving the thin material of her gown, but Rosalind had made certain that Lucinda and Cordelia were safely off on a stroll around the garden with the chevalier when she saw that the earl was ready to leave. She had already rid herself of Sarah, who had ridden over that morning, by hinting that one of her maids had returned from the village with the news that Mrs. Walbeswick was feeling poorly.
Rosalind clung to Alistair as he climbed into his curricle, hoping against hope that a final glance into her pleading dark eyes might change his mind, but there was no stopping him. He took the reins from a groom, cracked his whip, and the curricle bowled down the drive at a slapping pace.
Once he had passed the lodge and the gates, he slowed down, scanning the fields in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Sarah, who, according to the lad in the stables, had left shortly before he had. There was no sign of her, and he tried not to notice the surprising pang of disappointment he experienced at the thought of missing a chance to say farewell. Alistair maneuvered around the stragglers from a herd of sheep that was quickly hurried out of the way by the lad tending to them, rounded a slight bend in the road, and caught sight of her ahead of him.
He urged his horses forward and soon was alongside of her, hailing her and pointing to a small lane that led off the main thoroughfare. Sarah quickly divined his purpose and turned off, riding toward a small grove of trees where she halted. The earl pulled up beside her, jumped down, tethered his team to a convenient tree, and strolled over to help Sarah dismount. “I am very glad to have caught up with you”—he reached up to grasp her waist as she slid off Ajax—“for I...” He paused as he looked into her eyes. How clear a green they were, sparkling with lively curiosity and intelligence. One had only to gaze into those eyes, fringed around with long, dark lashes to know that Lady Sarah was a very special woman. They were honest eyes, devoid of any coyness or flirtatiousness, that looked straight at you—eyes that understood a great deal about the world, eyes that were eager to see and learn more.
“You wished to tell me something?” Sarah’s low voice broke into his fit of abstraction.
“Yes ... er, well, no. I merely wished to see you before I left to ...” What was it that he had wanted to do? Standing there with his hands still clasping the slim waist, Alistair was as tongue-tied as a schoolboy. He was going away. He wanted her to realize that. He wanted her to miss his companionship the way he would miss hers—an idea that had suddenly and unpleasantly dawned on him. It was a state of mind he had never experienced before. Many times affairs had broken off; a woman had become too demanding or had found someone willing to give more of his purse or his person to her, and Alistair had bid adieu, sometimes with more regret than others, but he had always been philosophical about it, had known he would soon find someone to replace her. Now he was not so sure. Previously, the women had been virtually interchangeable; Lady Georgiana de Villiers, though a ravishing blond, had been another Rosalind, and her successor, though not as well born, had been as dazzling as those before her. They had all been sophisticated, adept at lovemaking and dalliance, but Lord Farringdon had shared nothing of himself with them.
Lady Sarah was different. She knew him. With her perceptiveness she seemed to have sensed the loneliness under his carefully constructed facade. She appeared to understand the alienation he felt from the rest of the ton, even while he participated in it by establishing himself as something of a legend with his outrageous exploits, his refusal to tie himself to one woman, his constant search for something new and exciting. She recognized his underlying boredom with it all, his yearning for something that would engage his mind and his abundant energies. She had not revealed all this in so many words, but she did not need to. He could sense that she saw all this, understood all this, had suffered many of the same things he suffered—the ennui, the corroding sense that no one else shared the same perspective on the world. When she smiled at him, as she was smiling now, he knew he was no longer alone. He knew he did not even have to say what he was feeling, for she was feeling it, too.
“What I wanted to do was to say good-bye, properly, I mean.” At last Alistair pulled himself together. “I wished to thank you for letting me impose on your hospitality, for taking care of me after my unfortunate encounter with the chevalier and his men. You have been a very good friend to me these last days; I cannot think for the life of me why, but I am most grateful for it.”
Sarah laughed. Really, the earl was most unlike himself. It was almost as though he were ill at ease, and, absurd as it seemed, it appeared that she was the one who was making him feel that way. He had helped her off her horse and then fallen into something rather like a reverie. He stared down at her in the oddest way, forgetting that his hands were still clasped around her waist. In fact, they had been there so long she could feel their warmth through the heavy material of her riding habit.
“Why, whatever else would I have done, sent you off to bleed somewhere else? Besides, it is not often that excitement comes to our little corner of Kent. It is I who should be grateful to you for allowing me to join in.” Sarah glanced up at him, suddenly serious. “And even when excitement does come, I am never allowed to be part of it; females are not supposed to know about that sort of thing. I cannot... I mean you cannot know what it meant to me to, to ...” Now it was her turn to fall silent, grappling with a variety of thoughts and emotions she could not even identify, much less express. Sarah drew a deep breath. “Well, what I wish to say is that you are very kind to treat me as something other than a female.”
Alistair threw back his head and laughed. “I had no idea that ignoring all the special claims of your sex was such an attractive proposition. You are unique among women, Lady Sarah. Usu
ally females do their very best to point all the ways in which they deserve to be honored as creatures of excessively delicate sensibilities, sensibilities so exquisite as to be far above the vulgar understanding of the rest of us poor mortals.”
“That may be, but as you ably demonstrated when explaining Rosalind’s motives to me, what else do we poor females have but our sensibilities? It is you males who have all the fun, and I thank you for sharing it.”
“I can hardly think that any other member of your sex would see it that way—a man stupid enough to be discovered and wounded blunders into your house, demanding succor— but if that sort of thing gratifies you, I am only too happy to oblige. And speaking of obligations, I fear I shall be trespassing on your good nature again by asking you to receive and relate my instructions to your sister-in-law. I dislike involving you further and possibly endangering you, but I do not know what else to do. Actually, that is what I most wished to speak to you about.”
Alistair removed one of his hands from her waist to cup her chin, tilting it up so he could look deep into her eyes, his own dark with concern. “It is a most desperate business, Sarah, and the chevalier, for all his Gallic charm, is a most dangerous fellow who will stop at nothing to gain his purpose. I beg of you to be careful. No...” He frowned at her as she opened her mouth to protest. “Hear me out. You are a very clever woman, but you are a good person. You cannot conceive of the evil that men are capable of. I am accustomed to it, and believe me, I am not being frivolous in cautioning you.”
The green eyes regarded him gravely, and the earl, without knowing what he was doing, swept her into his arms. He could not remember when a woman had gazed up at him without a calculating look in her eyes. “Oh Sarah, do take care of yourself,” he whispered against her lips, and then he was kissing her—gently at first, and then more deeply, as though all his immediate care and concern could somehow protect her against all the possible harm he was leaving her to.
Alistair could not recall a kiss that had felt like this, not even in his salad days when he had fancied himself in love with the dairymaid. Now he was acutely conscious of Sarah’s breath mingling with his, the trembling of her body, the slight hesitation of her lips before they yielded to his. He was experiencing her emotions as well as his own.
It was an overwhelming experience, to say the least, and even more so for a man who thought he had felt it all with every type of woman. As the full implications of it all washed over him, Alistair found himself as self-conscious and nervous as a schoolboy, instead of the rake whose expertise had overcome the resistance of the most unwilling young matrons or swept away even the most hardened of flirts on a tide of passion.
At last he released her, stammering slightly. “Forgive me, Lady Sarah. I had not the least intention of, of... I mean, I do not think of you as just...”
“Another flirt?” Sarah had at last caught her breath, and her composure began to return, increasing as she saw the earl’s ebbing away. It was almost amusing to watch him floundering in this manner. His ineptitude gave her a heady sense of exhilaration and, yes, a certain sense of power. The thought that this was the way Rosalind must feel all the time flitted briefly through her head before the earl replied, “Not in the least,” in such an injured tone that she stared at him. The man truly was serious!
During the entire astounding experience Sarah had kept telling herself a number of bracing home truths in order to keep herself from succumbing entirely—home truths such as this is what he does to every woman, you are just another weak female he is luring into doing what he wishes. She had been partially successful at keeping her knees from buckling under her and from casting herself with total abandon against the broad chest and winding her arms around his neck as she longed to do, but she had not quelled entirely the warm breathlessness that had threatened to overwhelm her nor the quivering in the pit of her stomach.
Her heart was pounding so loudly he must surely hear it. But she had retained her intellectual distance enough to appreciate that the earl was oddly ill at ease himself, and she had latched on to that fact as a shipwrecked man might have clasped a mast floating by. She had come up with a flippant answer to his apology in order not to reveal either to him or to herself how much his kiss had shaken her, for she was determined not to let the most notorious rake in all of London know that he had affected her in the least.
Apparently, she had been too glib, for Lord Farringdon was regarding her in a manner that could only be labeled reproachful as he reached for her again.
Oh, no. Sarah backed away. This was an exceedingly dangerous game they were playing. She had remained relatively self-possessed thus far, but she was not so foolish or so pigheaded as to think she could maintain her calm in the face of further assaults on her emotions.
“Sarah,” Alistair began hoarsely, “you must believe me. I meant no harm. It is just that I am so concerned. You are so very, so very ...” He grasped for words. The earl did not want to frighten her, yet he did wish her to understand that she meant something to him, that she was not just another woman, but something very different from that. As it was, she looked like nothing so much as a bird poised for flight, ready to escape the moment he tried to restrain her. “You are so very special to me. And I am forced into the position of taking advantage of your good nature, your intelligence, and so many other things. I would never forgive myself if anything, even the slightest thing, were to occur to upset you because of me.”
She had paused to listen to him, and Alistair let out his breath slowly and carefully. Slowly and carefully he moved toward her. “Forgive me if I was carried away. I did not intend to cause you any distress”—he smiled ruefully at the guarded expression on her face—“in fact, quite the opposite.”
Some of the wariness disappeared from her eyes, and he pressed his advantage. “Please do not let any excess of concern on my part get in the way of our friendship, for that is most precious to me. In truth, I have never encountered anyone like you, Lady Sarah, and I do find myself at a loss as to how to proceed. I do know one thing, however; you may trust me with your life as I trust you with mine.”
That appeared to reassure her, and she relaxed enough for him to offer her his hand. “Are we still friends then?”
Sarah placed her hand in his. “Friends.”
The twinkle was back in her eyes, and the moment of awkwardness was safely past. Alistair sighed in relief. “In that case, I hope you will allow me to help you up. We had best be on our separate ways. There is much to do.”
The earl assisted her into the saddle, ignoring as best he could the slimness of her waist between his hands, the litheness of her movements. He slapped Ajax on the rump and watched as she took a nearby hedgerow in one glorious bound and galloped off over the fields. What a woman she was! Untying his own horse, he climbed into his curricle, backed his team carefully around, and headed on the road toward London, doing his best to put the immediate scene from his mind and concentrate on the task ahead.
Chapter Twenty-six
Sarah rode like a mad thing until she was certain she was out of the earl’s sight. Then she slowed Ajax to a walk, a very leisurely walk. She had no desire to reach Ashworth until she had had ample time to think things through and to savor the past moments that were so precious to her, whether or not they had meant anything at all to Lord Farringdon.
So that was what it was like! Sarah had never thought to find herself in the picture she had carried so long in her mind of Rosalind crushed in the earl’s embrace, but now that she examined it, she realized that she had in fact been imagining just that all along. The quivery sensation in the pit of her stomach that always accompanied the image had been one of longing, longing to feel the strength of those arms around her and the passion in his kiss. Now she knew what it was like. It had been more, so much more than she had dreamed of, so much more thrilling. Her body had responded in ways that had never occurred to her, and she had felt treacherously at the mercy of her senses. Fortunately, it had
come about so suddenly that she had been too shocked to react at all, and the earl had come to his own senses before she had revealed too much.
The moment his lips had come down on hers she could hardly think of anything but the way he felt against her, from the mouth that caressed hers to the insistent warmth of his hands at her waist, pulling her hard against him. Sarah never wanted it to end, but at the same time she was desperate to escape the wanting that engulfed her. How she had managed to pull herself together when he released her, she still could not imagine, but thank heaven she had. This passion business was far more dangerous than she had ever expected.
It was a very good thing that the Earl of Burnleigh had gone from Kent. After all, if the picture of Rosalind and Lord Farringdon had remained so vivid for so long, how was she ever to forget this? In truth, she must throw herself into good works and political tracts with a vengeance if she was to regain anything of her sanity ever again.
Lady Sarah Melford was nothing if not a determined young woman, and by the time she reached Ashworth, she had herself well in hand. The only indications that anything at all out of the ordinary had occurred were her heightened color and a touch of breathlessness that could have been attributed to a brisk ride home from Cranleigh. Only Ajax, thoroughly put out by the snail’s pace he had been forced to maintain since leaving the earl, knew that something more unusual than violent exercise was behind these telltale signs.
During the ensuing days Sarah refused to allow herself time to drift into any dangerous reveries. She was present at Cranleigh from morning to night, conversing with Lady Edgecumbe, listening to the endless inanities of her daughters, trying to coax conversation out of Lady Amelia, and in general making herself so useful that Rosalind could not help eyeing her suspiciously. It was not like Sarah to spend so much time in the company of others, especially those who confined themselves to the most trivial of topics.
The Reluctant Heiress Page 20