A Summer Seduction (4 page)

The Priory, where the Morecombes lived, and St. Margaret’s Church, on the opposite side of the ruins, were the only buildings remaining intact from the large convent that had once lain there. The cloisters and various outbuildings were now nothing more than a few partial walls and jumbled heaps of stones. Beyond the ruins lay the graveyard of the church, and seeing the stone markers, Alec was reminded of his dream the other night, in which he had run after Jocelyn through the gravestones. He thought of how he had caught and kissed her, only for her to turn into Damaris in his arms.

He pulled himself from his reverie and realized that he had come to a complete stop, lost in thought. He was utterly alone, with only the sturdy old stone church looming before him. On impulse, Alec turned toward the church instead of continuing across the little bridge to the vicarage.

The ancient wooden door closed firmly behind him as he passed through the vestibule into the sanctuary beyond. It was silent inside, light filtering in through the stained-glass windows lining the outer walls, casting soft colors across the high-backed wooden pews and ancient stone floors. The church, like many other old churches, was laid out in the shape of a cross, a shorter pair of arms thrusting out to either side just before the altar.

Alec drifted into the small chapel on the left side. It was partially separated from the rest of the church by iron fretwork and contained only a few short pews. Against the far wall, beneath the windows, lay two stone sepulchers of a
long-ago lord and his lady, both topped with recumbent effigies. They were washed in the faint blue and yellow light streaming through the stained glass. On the wide wall near Alec stood a statue of St. Dwynwen, the Welsh patron saint of love, which that same medieval lord had taken from its place in Wales, along with a Welsh wife.

Damaris had recounted the legend to Alec when they were in the church for Matthew’s baptism—how the lord had credited the saint with winning his lady love for him and so had brought the statue home and built the chapel in her honor. Since that time, according to the local lore, prayers to the saint were granted if one prayed with a true and loving heart. Alec was not certain exactly what that entailed, but he noted that two candles burned in the votive stand beside the statue. Clearly someone believed.

He moved closer to the statue and stood for a moment gazing down at it. It was rough and obviously quite old, with a chunk missing here and there and a decided crack running through it. Yet there was something soothing about the crudely chiseled face, a look of peace, even love. Alec turned and sat down in the pew, gazing out across the church at the baptistry, which lay in the opposite short arm of the sanctuary. He thought about the day in February when he had stood there at the ornately carved baptismal font.

Gabriel and Thea had stood next to him, the baby in Thea’s arms, arms and legs waving about, as Daniel Bainbridge had read out the solemn words. And across from Alec, on the other side of the font, had stood Damaris Howard. She had
worn a velvet cloak in the wintry chill of the church, and its dark purple had deepened the intense color of her eyes. He remembered gazing at her, his eyes caught by the thick gloss of her black hair, the creamy softness of her cheeks, the lush curve of her lips. He had, he recalled, indulged in decidedly unholy thoughts about her in this holiest of places.

He wondered what Damaris was doing in London. Shopping, Gabriel had said; that was no surprise. Every time Alec saw her, she was dressed in the height of fashion. No doubt she was visiting the theater and the opera as well. Dancing at parties. Perhaps if he’d remained in London, he would have run into her.

Not, of course, that that mattered.

He moved restlessly on the hard wooden seat, leaning forward to brace his arms on the pew in front of him and lean his chin on his crossed hands. He thought of the baptism again, of Thea’s and Gabriel’s faces, alight with love. The love still burned in them. Of course, it had been only months, but Alec had no doubt that the emotion would continue. They would raise Matthew with happiness and care; likely there would be siblings to join the boy. They would grow old together.

He could not help but feel a twinge of envy. He did not begrudge them their joy. Indeed, he felt himself warmed by it, rather like standing beside a roaring fire. The fact that his own life seemed dry and empty by comparison was not their fault. Once, for a brief while, he had hoped that his own future would be as bright, as sweet, as theirs, but of course such hope had died almost as soon as it was born. Now, for
just a moment, before he could cut it off and lock it away, Alec felt the sharp ache of his solitary life, a brief, desperate something that yearned for that joy in his own life.

Letting out a small noise of disgust at his maunderings, he pushed himself up from the seat. It was folly to think this way. There was nothing wrong with his life; indeed, many would envy it. He was the Earl of Rawdon, and it was time to stop drifting about like a cork on the ocean. Time to get back to London. To his life.

He walked out of the church without looking back.

D
amaris twisted in front of
the mirror above the dresser, craning her neck to see the back of her dress, and gave a wistful thought for the full-length cheval glass in her bedroom at home. Madame Gaudet’s assistant had brought the first set of new dresses Damaris had ordered, and Damaris was eager to wear one of them to the theater tonight. She had chosen a silk frock in a pale blue hue, its froth of an overskirt held back with knots of seed pearls. Around the base of her throat, Damaris wore a circlet of creamy pearls to match. She only wished that she could get a complete view of the delicate demi-train that fell from just below her shoulder blades to the ground.

However, though the snug little house her man of business had found for her was fashionably located in a small crescent just off Half Moon Street, its furniture left something to be desired, at least when it came to mirrors. It was clear, Damaris thought with some irritation, that the place had been furnished and leased by men, for the few mirrors scattered about the place reflected only the upper portion of
one’s form. With a sigh, she turned toward her maid, raising her eyebrows in question.

“You look beautiful, ma’am,” Edith assured her, reaching out to twitch a fold of the skirt into the perfect place. “Just another pearl pin for your hair, I think.” She reached for a pearl-topped hairpin and slid it into position in a cluster of Damaris’s ink-black curls.

“Is Mr. Portland here?” Damaris asked, picking up her gloves and fan.

“Yes’m, these ten minutes or more. Hawley set him up with a glass of Sherry, and he seems quite content.”

“Good.” Damaris slid on her gloves as she started out the door. She did not like to be overly late—though Mr. Portland would never complain, of course—but sometimes one’s hair simply would not curl as one wished, no matter how expertly Edith twisted and pinned it.

Portland rose to his feet as she entered the small drawing room, setting aside the delicate glass of Sherry and offering a heartfelt smile and a punctiliously correct bow. “Damaris, my dear.”

“Gregory.” She smiled back at the graying gentleman and offered him her hand. It still felt strange to call her father’s friend and banker by his given name, for she had known him since childhood. However, Portland had been her banker—and friend as well—for years now, ever since her father’s death, and he had insisted that she drop the more formal appellation. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”

She had, of course, called upon him at the bank when she
first arrived in London two weeks ago. Going over various monetary matters, after all, was one of her reasons for visiting London. She had also discussed investments with her man of business and some small legal concerns with her solicitor. While she was in general able to oversee her financial affairs by mail from her home in Chesley, she thought it wise to visit her advisors in person at least once a year. The shopping and evenings at the theater were her reward for executing the more boring duties.

“I am looking forward to this evening,” she told the older man as she settled her gossamer evening wrap about her shoulders. “I have heard that Mrs. Cummings’s return to the theater is quite the event.”

“Indeed.” The banker offered her his arm, and they walked out. “She has been absent now for almost two years, and the company has not been the same without her. There were those who feared she might never return, but I never believed she would stay away. Love is all very well, but…” He shrugged eloquently.

“Yes. It rarely lasts, does it?”

There was, perhaps, something in her tone that made the older man glance at her, a faint frown forming on his brow. “My dear, I did not mean to—”

“Nonsense.” She smiled brightly. “I know you did not. It is very true, of course. Love is not enough.” Her thoughts went to her friend Thea back home in Chesley, now so happily married to Lord Morecombe and an instant mother to his sister’s child. “Well, except for a select few. I told you, did I
not, that my friend Miss Bainbridge has made a love match?”

“Yes, indeed. I have met Lord Morecombe, an excellent man.”

He handed her up into his carriage, a glossy black equipage, and they settled back into the plush maroon leather seats, chatting pleasantly as the vehicle rolled through the streets. Damaris had always enjoyed the older man’s company. Having known her all her life, he was aware of her circumstances, which made it easy to talk to him, and he treated her with both affection and respect.

He realized, for instance, that despite her pleasure in the sophisticated delights the city had to offer, Damaris was rather constrained in her opportunities to enjoy them. Her visits to the milliner’s or modiste’s and other stores could, of course, be respectably carried out with the accompaniment of her maid or even alone. However, she could hardly attend such entertainments as the theater or the opera without an escort, and the only people in London she knew were the men who handled her business affairs. Her social life since she had been in the city had, frankly, been less full than it was in the country.

She was grateful, therefore, that Mr. Portland was perceptive and kind enough to offer her his escort to an evening at the theater. If a man who was the closest thing she had to a fond uncle was not the male companion she would have most wished for, Damaris refused to let herself think about the escort she might prefer.

Damaris glanced around as they walked inside the grand theater. She was
not
, she told herself sternly, looking for anyone
in particular. Least of all the Earl of Rawdon. If it had, once or twice, occurred to her that she might run into him in London, she was not naïve enough to believe it was likely. They did not move in the same circles… or even in ones with any possibility of overlapping. Indeed, she had just received a letter from Thea, written only a week ago, which said that Rawdon was at the Priory.

It was unlikely he had even left Chesley yet. And if by chance he had arrived in London, he did not seem the sort to attend the theater tonight simply because everyone was talking about the return of a popular actress to the stage. Rather, she suspected, he was more likely to refuse to come to it simply because it was the popular thing to do.

So when she had been seated and her gaze fell upon a familiar blond head, she nearly gasped, her heart suddenly racing. It was Rawdon; she was certain of it. There was no mistaking that pale shock of hair, a trifle longer and shaggier than most gentlemen wore theirs, or the high, wide cheekbones that gave his lean face such a fierce and distinctive aspect. It was impossible, of course, to see the compelling pale blue of his eyes from this distance, but Damaris remembered it well. Indeed, his icy gaze made him almost impossible to forget.

He was seated at the nearest end of one of the loges, and beside him was a young woman whose light blond, almost silvery hair and patrician face suggested to Damaris that she was related to Lord Rawdon. To her other side was a much older woman of regal bearing—a mother, or even grandmother, perhaps.

Damaris realized that she was staring and hastily turned her gaze away. How awful if Rawdon were to catch her gaping at him like a moonstruck girl! She folded her hands demurely in her lap and turned to talk to Mr. Portland, determinedly refusing to even glance around the theater again. It was a relief when the curtain went up and she was able to focus her gaze on the stage.

All through the first act, she found it difficult to concentrate on the actors, for her mind kept returning to Lord Rawdon, and she had to fight the urge to turn and peer through the darkness at him. She wondered if he had happened to see her, too. If he had, would he approach her during the intermission? Damaris knew that her face and form attracted many men, but she was not sure that Lord Rawdon was one of them. He was a cold, proud man, and it was also clear that his heart—if he had one to give—had been claimed by Gabriel’s sister, Jocelyn.

Still… there had been a flash of something in his eyes once or twice that set her stomach to fluttering. Of course, there was always the possibility that the flutter had been only on her part. In any case, she was not about to seek him out or angle to place herself in his path. She considered not even promenading through the theater lobby during the intermission, but when the act ended and her companion offered her his arm, she took it. It would, after all, appear odd if she insisted on remaining glued to her seat. But Damaris was careful not to look around as she and the banker strolled along. If Lord Rawdon saw her, he would have to seek her out.