His mother rested a hand on his sleeve. “What is it, Clayton?” she urged in the same gentle voice she reserved for any of the Kearsleys when they were sick, hurt, or sad.
He’d have been wise to summon them all later and give himself time to prepare just what to say to bring about a proper end to that connection. “I have no objections to your connection with Lady Norfolk and her society,” he finally brought himself to say. “I would just ask that, going forward, you speak candidly with me and not set out to deceive me.”
“You are a dear boy, Clayton,” his mother said, beaming from ear to ear. “Now, if there is nothing else?” She clapped once, springing all her suddenly obedient daughters to their feet. His sisters dipped a curtsy on their way past, before taking their collective leave.
Obedient, his arse.
He eyed their swift retreat with a wry grin.
The only reason for that sudden docility had to do with an urgency to flee lest he reverse course and press them on their jiggery-pokery.
Finding himself at last alone, Clayton sat back in his seat and stared distantly at the doorway his sisters and mother had just passed through.
All his earlier memories of his time at Eton and Oxford with Norfolk contained distant echoes of laughter. A free spirit who’d pulled pranks and caused harmless mischief, Norfolk had been so very different from Clayton’s dull self. Clayton had always been driven by the knowledge of the early end that awaited him. Mayhap that was why he’d appreciated the other man’s friendship as he had. Because through Norfolk, Clayton had been permitted a way to live vicariously the life that would never and could never be his. He’d admired Norfolk for being able to live as fully as he had . . . which was why it had made so much sense in Clayton’s mind that Sylvia make a match with Norfolk. There’d been no doubt that two people so passionate in life would be passionate . . . and happy . . . in marriage together.
Or that had been what Clayton naively thought. How mistaken he’d been.
All the admiration and respect he’d carried for the earl, however, had suffered a swift death, one that could be traced specifically back to the day the other man had met his end. From then on, Clayton had struggled to battle back that day Norfolk had died at Gentleman Jackson’s. Not just because of the other man’s tragic death but also because of the favor Norfolk had put to Clayton just before his fight.
Guilt.
There had been, and still was, and always would be, a searing sense of responsibility for so much where the lady and her late husband were concerned.
After all, Clayton had been the one to introduce them—a pair he’d believed had been so very much in love. A sentiment between the lovebirds that had earned equal parts horror and envy from Clayton. And that sense of responsibility for being the one to coordinate a pairing, even if Clayton’s role of matchmaker had proven accidental. Even if it had been the earl who’d all but begged for Clayton to coordinate a meeting between the lady and himself, Clayton had done so. And in the end, there’d been a lack of love and a plethora of faithlessness . . . on Norfolk’s part.
For the man Clayton had called friend for the better part of his life—nay, his best friend—had intended to leave his wife. His pregnant wife, at that.
And now Clayton’s sisters would kindle a relationship with that very woman, reminding Clayton of his mistakes and the inadvertent role he’d played in her misery.
He slumped in his chair.
Yes, his sisters’ friendship with the lady spelled the makings of disaster.
There was only one course, however, for him: to stay far, far away from Sylvia.
Chapter 8
Since Clayton Kearsley, Viscount St. John, had stormed her household and demanded a visit, seeking to school her on the purpose of her meetings, she’d not been able to stop thinking about him.
His visit, that was. His visit.
After all, it took a staggering degree of insolence and arrogance and . . . and all manner of other nasty adjectives she’d crafted about the gentleman.
And this when she’d not even known St. John to be insolent or arrogant. Always polite and respectful, and endearingly awkward. He’d been that, too.
She wrinkled her nose.
To think she’d found him endearingly anything was a wonder.
In the two days since he’d taken his leave with his sisters in tow, she’d ruminated on that exchange over and over.
Which was likely why, lying flat upon her stomach at the crest of a hill, she was seeing him even now.
Because no one was here.
And yet . . . he was.
At this early-morn hour in Hyde Park at the edge of the Serpentine River, when the sun had only just begun its slow creep over the London sky.
Sylvia squinted.
In fairness, mayhap he didn’t intend to be here?
Because he rather had the look of one who was . . . lost.
His hands on his narrow hips, the gentleman did a slow, deliberate circle.
“Are they lost?” Vallen’s nursemaid whispered with the same abject confusion as Sylvia herself.
“Shh.” Sylvia touched a silencing finger to her lips.
Not that she needed to have worried that the “they” in question would discover her and her son and nursemaid over the rise. Lord St. John and her late husband’s other friend, the roguish Earl of Scarsdale, strolled the park. As they did, they held their hands over their eyes, looking about and talking to one another. Between Clayton and Lord Scarsdale was the earl’s illegitimate son. While his father and Clayton scoured the grounds, the ten-year-old boy kept his head buried in a book before ultimately meandering away from the pair.
“I don’t want to be taking part in this,” the child said loudly enough for his annoyed tones to carry over to Sylvia and her maid.
“Seamus!” Lord Scarsdale called out. Trotting after the child, he left Clayton . . . alone in his search—Sylvia dropped back into hiding—whatever his search was.
It really wasn’t her business. He wasn’t her business. Something about Clayton, however, commanded her singular attention until the sheer curiosity of it proved too much.
Exactly what did the boy not wish to be taking part in?
She peeked her head out and did another search for just whatever it was he was looking for. Mayhap his horse?
“Haven’t heard a horse, my lady,” Marin whispered, confirming Sylvia had accidentally spoken aloud.
“Of course he has a horse. That was undoubtedly it.”
“Are you playing, too?”
They emitted matching shrieks and looked sideways to the little girl who, unbeknownst to Sylvia and Marin, had found her way to their hiding spot.
“Eris?” Lord St. John called with an urgency in his tones. “Is that you?”
Reclined on her belly as Sylvia and Marin were, the little girl—Eris?—stole a glance out and then promptly ducked once more. She favored them with a glare. “With all that caterwauling, you’re going to give us away,” she scolded.
Confusion lit Marin’s gaze as she looked hopelessly to Sylvia, who had even less clue as to the peculiar visitor they’d picked up. “Are you . . . hiding from Lord St. John?” she ventured, her protective maternal instincts kicking in.
“Oh, yes. I do it quite often.” Then placing a finger against her lips, the small girl urged them both to silence and burrowed deeper in the grass. “He makes it so very easy to hide from him, too,” the girl added for good measure in her barely audible tones.
Sylvia’s mind was sent reeling. Why would Clayton be out with Lord Scarsdale and his son—Sylvia gasped as it hit her. Clayton, too, had an illegitimate child. One who sought to hide from him? And just like that, everything she’d believed about the gentleman being polite and respectable was flipped upon its head.
Disgusted both with herself for believing he was somehow different, and with him for being like all the others, she glared his way. At some point, he’d set off in the opposite direction, heading west back t
oward Hyde Park Corner.
Good. Let him go.
Given everything she’d discovered about her own faithless husband, was there still reason to be surprised when it came to men? Lords kept mistresses . . . whom they more often than not truly loved. Those sweethearts, in turn, gave them children. And the gentlemen couldn’t be bothered with acknowledging the existence of those children.
The heel of the viscount’s boots ground up gravel as he went, his footfalls moving farther away.
“Where in hell are you . . . ?” The gentleman’s murmurings, however, reached them crystal clear.
Sylvia’s brow climbed another fraction. Scaring children. Cursing. It so happened she’d known the gentleman even less than she’d thought she had. She assessed her unlikely visitor, the girl’s brow furrowed deep with concentration, her gaze trained on the spot before her.
As if feeling Sylvia’s stare, she glanced over.
“Why are you—?”
Little Eris slapped a palm over Sylvia’s mouth, effectively cutting off the rest of the question she’d intended to put to the girl. “I said, you are going to give us . . .” Her whispered warning trailed off as she looked past Sylvia and Marin. “What is this?” The girl was already scrambling over them until she’d found a place beside Vallen. “It’s a boy child!” Excitement made the girl forget her own rules and directives on hushed voices.
Sylvia’s lips twitched with mirth.
“Shh,” Vallen ordered, slapping a tiny, dirt-stained palm over her lips and finishing the girl’s previous worrying for her. “You’re going to give us away.”
“I didn’t know you were here,” Eris said, this time quiet enough not to earn Vallen’s disapproval.
He preened; even stomach-down as he was, he managed to puff out his small chest. “I’m the best at hiding.”
The little girl scowled. “I am the best. I can remain hidden for hours on end.”
A wide smile split the boy’s chubby cheeks. “You didn’t see me.”
“Blast and damn, Eris!”
Their unusual quartet looked out at the gentleman stomping around, and scanning the area as he went.
“Oh, dear,” Eris whispered. “This is the point where he gets very, very angry.”
Sylvia saw red. This was really quite enough. There were many things she could and did and would always tolerate. Bullying gentlemen was not, however, amongst those things . . . nor was scaring a small girl.
Scrambling out from behind the rise, Sylvia collected her skirts and stomped off toward that broad figure with his back to her. “Tell me, is it your habit to go about scaring children, Lord St. John?” she shouted into the morning quiet.
Releasing a blacker curse than she’d ever heard, the gentleman turned quickly enough on his heel to unsteady his balance. He effortlessly righted himself.
Of course he did.
Sylvia finished her march, taking care to leave a pace between them so it was easier to glower up at him.
The viscount eyed her with an appropriate guardedness. “More of an owl than a lark, are you?” he said, offsetting that sardonicism with a deeply executed, respectful bow.
Or rather, attempting to nullify that insolence. She narrowed her eyes. He’d jest . . . about this?
“And I’m not in the habit of scaring children?”
She arched a single brow. “Is that a question?”
“No!” he exclaimed, a blush that under other circumstances might have been adorable climbing the harshly set, angular planes of his cheeks. “It’s a statement. I don’t go about scaring children,” he repeated.
“Don’t you?” she shot back. “What of Eris?”
“What of her?” He scoffed. “I hardly think she’s going to be frightened of me. Why, Eris could scare Satan if she so chose.”
Sylvia gasped. “Lord St. John! You would speak so about your daughter.”
His head tipped sideways. “My daughter?” he echoed back. “My daughter.” He strangled on some manner of sound that might have been a cough or a laugh.
Fury iced her vision, briefly blinding her to his smug, smiling visage. “You should think she is somehow less because she’s illegitimate.”
Confusion cleared away all hint of Clayton’s earlier mirth. “What in blazes are you speaking about? Of course I wouldn’t. If she was. But Eris isn’t my daughter.”
The scathing castigation she’d prepared in her head died. “She . . . isn’t?”
“No. Eris is my sister.”
“Your . . . ?” She tried and failed with that revelation. Why, the girl couldn’t be more than four or five.
“My sister,” he repeated. When she was capable of offering nothing more than a blank, befuddled silence, he clarified further. “As in a female offspring having both parents in common with another offspring. A female sibling.”
She lightly swatted his arm. “I know that.” Except . . . “That is to say, not that I knew the young lady was your sister, but rather I’m familiar with the definition of a sister.” And yet . . . her gaze whipped back toward the rise where the girl even now hid with Vallen. “She cannot be more than five.”
“She is four, nearly five, as Eris would happily instruct you and anyone else who dare accuse her of something as shocking as being ‘just four.’”
Oh, good God. Sylvia blanched. She’d stormed out here, calling him out, and all along the small person who’d been taking shelter over the rise was his sister? “But . . . but . . . that isn’t possible,” she blurted.
“Your reaction was much the same as mine when I learned the happy news from my then forty-eight-year-old mother and fifty-eight-year-old father, my lady.” Using the wide brim of his top hat as a shield from the rising sun, Clayton continued his search for the very subject of their discussion. “Alas, I assure you, Eris is in fact a sister, born of my mother and late father.”
And he was out here in Hyde Park at this early hour, not riding but escorting the girl about? Something shifted in her chest, something conjointly so warm, and yet at the same time so acute, it caused a tightening band about her that made it a struggle to breathe.
Envy. Regret. Those darker, deeper sentiments commanding control of the tingles of warmth that came in thinking of a man so devoted to a small child. It was a reminder she neither wanted nor had allowed herself to believe since her husband’s death . . . that there was simple good in a man.
“Where is she?” Clayton murmured distractedly. His gaze shifted, colliding with hers.
And the tension eased from Sylvia’s breast as altogether different sentiments sprang to life. More dangerous ones that she was hopeless to control.
For his eyes . . . they were an impossible shade of blue reserved for a painter’s canvas: a blend of azure and turquoise that melded with periwinkle. The glitter within their depths sent a restless little quiver through her.
How had she failed to realize before this moment the striking beauty of those irises?
A light breeze danced around them, sending the leaves overhead into a soft, quiet dance. That air, drawing the bergamot scent of him closer, flooded her senses.
His lashes swept down an almost imperceptible fraction she’d never have noticed had she not been studying him so, and yet, she could not force her gaze from him.
He lowered his head a fraction, bringing them nearer. Bringing his mouth closer to hers . . . as if he intended to kiss her.
Her heart thumped a peculiar rhythm. Or was that she who leaned nearer to him? This moment was as jumbled as the one two days ago when she’d landed upon his frame.
Oh, goodness. It was the wrong thought. It conjured the same wicked memories that had robbed her of sleep since he’d taken his leave that day.
He cleared his throat. “Uh . . . yes. I don’t suppose you might be so good as to point me to her, Sylvia?”
His mouth had moved . . . only it wasn’t on hers, and words had come out of those thin, sensuous lips.
She froze, trying to make sense of what had happ
ened. Or rather, what had not happened. A kiss that she’d been so very certain was coming. And hadn’t. And . . .
His sister. He was asking if she’d reveal the little lady’s location.
And he’d not been intending to kiss Sylvia.
Mortification scorched every last swath of skin upon her person. Her cheeks burnt up with heat at noticing this man . . . any man, in any way. Not when she’d resolved to never be so charmed or aware in a romantic way, or in any way that could only bring her more hurt. “Er . . . uh . . . right.” That she could help with. Which, considering she’d accused him of siring an illegitimate child and also neglecting said issue, was the very least she could do. Gathering the hem of her skirts, she set off back toward the rise, which she very much regretted leaving moments before. As it was, the sooner she sent him off with his young sister, the sooner she could return to a clear head. “Let me lead you to her.”
With Clayton’s long, muscular legs, he kept an easy pace beside her. “I appreciate your help. I’m usually far better at this.”
At . . . ? She stole a sideways look.
“At hide-and-seek, that is.”
That slowed her stride. “Hide-and-seek?” Consternation brought that question out haltingly.
“Indeed.” Clayton scanned the grounds, in search of his sister still. “I fear you’ve caught me at one of my least fine moments. I’m not usually one who’d enlist assistance,” he said with a self-deprecating smile that managed to elicit the same havoc within her. “That is, when it comes to hide-and-seek.”
And damn her heart for dancing once more.
It was a child’s game he’d been playing, and one she had no recollection of her father joining her in. And certainly not her brother. Wholly disinterested in Sylvia when she was carrying his child, Norman would have followed a similar suit, she knew. And before this . . . she’d simply expected his detachedness was the way of all men born to Polite Society.
The late-spring breeze toyed with Clayton’s neatly combed blond strands, and as he brushed that lone piece back behind his ear, she could not resist wondering as to whether it was as soft as it appeared, for surely nothing could be. And before she could recall the action, Sylvia stretched a hand up and tested the texture of that errant lock. Warmed velvet to the touch, it was.
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