An Extraordinary Flirtation (11 page)

“ ‘Cabin’d, cribb’d, confined!’ ” observed that young woman. “I know what that’s like. I never realized before, Aunt Cara, that you’re so high in the instep.”

“I’m not!” said Cara, stung, then recalled that she was supposed to be. “That is, I merely meant to warn you that you might wish to impose a check upon your natural high spirits lest they lead you to disagreeable consequences.”

“What fustian!” Zoe reached again for the marmalade. “As if you’ve never done anything you should not.”

Such as kissing Nicky? Cara opened and closed her mouth.

“I knew it!” crowed Zoe. “Tell us all. Ianthe will also like to know.”

Ianthe already had more to think about than she wished, as result of Cara’s casually uttered “Nicky.” She murmured, “No, I don’t!”

Cara rapped her fork on the table. “Never mind what I might have done! We were talking about you.”

“It probably wouldn’t be all that interesting anyway. Seeing as it happened so long ago.” Zoe lifted a knife laden with marmalade to her mouth. Ianthe protested, “Knives are for cutting, not licking, Zoe."

This was like dining in Bedlam. Cara bit back the temptation to retort that the latest thing she’d done that she shouldn’t had been just the previous night. Zoe thought her too old and stodgy to have an
affaire de coeur
of her own? Well, they’d just see about that!

Gracious! What was she thinking? Sternly, Cara banished all memory of the previous evening from her mind. “What do you think you will gain from an
affaire?”

What an absurd question. Zoe looked pityingly at her aunt. “Experience, of course. As well as considerable pleasure, if what Beau says is true.” She giggled at Cara’s startled expression. “Goose! He didn’t say it to
me.
And then, after I’ve had all the experience I want, I shall settle down and live Happily Ever After with my own True Love.”

Her niece was an innocent, Cara reminded herself, while Ianthe sighed. So innocent—or arrogant—that she thought she might arrange her life as she wished. “I’m not sure that Happily Ever After exists outside of books.”

“You have to marry the right person.” Zoe eyed her aunt. “Why did
you
marry Norwood? Everyone is asking me. It does seem a trifle queer.”

Ianthe also looked curious. Cara was about to either confess all, or tell them to mind their own business, when Beau walked into the room. “Good morning, everybody. How’s your headache, Cara? You missed an excellent play. Kemble was splendidly tortured, and Mrs. Siddons very affecting as well, Ianthe went through four pocket handkerchiefs.”

Beau looked clear-eyed and rested, as if he’d enjoyed an excellent night’s sleep, which doubtless he had, now that he’d cozened his sister into coming to London to give pointless advice to his brat. Perhaps she would empty the marmalade pot over
his
head. Cara pushed back her chair.

For the first time, Zoe noticed how her aunt was dressed. “Where are you going?” she inquired.

Cara glanced at the tall windows. If sunlight didn’t stream through the glass, it had at least made a long enough appearance to assume the absence of rain. “Squire Anderley and I are riding in Hyde Park.” She picked up her feathered hat and placed it on her head.

Looking speculative, Zoe propped her elbows on the table and dropped her chin into her hands. “Squire Anderley is very handsome. Are you going to have an
affaire
with him?”

“Nonsense!” said Beau, from the sideboard j he was loading up his plate. “Your aunt isn’t going to do anything of the sort. And you shouldn’t know about such things, puss.”

Zoe fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I don’t know how I
couldn’t
know about
affaires
when you have them all the time. I think Aunt Cara should have one. It might make her less priggish. However, you’re right, she is probably too old.”

Cara bit her tongue and wished the marmalade pot were handier. Daisy whined. Ianthe looked at her cousin sympathetically and murmured,” ‘When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain?’ Remove your elbows from the table, Zoe.”

The morning was gray, overcast, and chill, which while not an unusual event in London, was still responsible for the paucity of riders in Hyde Park. Baron Fitzrichard regretted that he found himself among them. “Are you sure,” he said to his companion, “that there ain’t insanity in your family? Some ancestor who went off his noodle? It would explain a great deal.”

“I don’t think so, although one can never be sure about these matters.” Lord Mannering refrained from quizzing Fitz about his own ancestors, although he might well have done so, for the baron had chosen to combat the morning’s gloom with a waistcoat striped vertically in bright yellow, and a jacket of equally bright green, as well as the Coup de Grace, although now that the cravat had been officially named, he was thinking of creating a different style. “What’s that on your face? I’d get my valet a pair of spectacles if I was you.”

Fitz ignored this slur upon the growth of hair that he was carefully cultivating on his upper lip. “You needn’t try and change the subject. I ain’t asked
you
about that bruise on your chin. We were talking about this damned nasty habit you’re developing of dragging me places I don’t want to be. I warn you, I’m riding in the opposite direction if I see the little Loversall! If you don’t watch your step, Nicky, that one will lead you smack into parson’s mousetrap, which would be a great pity, since you’ve managed to avoid the altar all these years.” Awkwardly, he turned his neck. “Unless—You ain’t
wanting
to get yoked?”

Gray, chill morning though it might have been, Lord Mannering’s mood was sunny. “I intend to avoid getting leg-shackled awhile longer yet. That’s where I need you, my friend. Should anyone impugn my reputation, you will swear that I behaved at all times like a perfect gentleman.”

Fitz snorted. Still, there was some truth in his friend’s raillery. ‘Twas a sad day indeed when a fellow dared go nowhere without a chaperone lest he be compromised.

If riders were scarce in Hyde Park this morning, wildlife was not. Ducks and geese and swans swam in the Serpentine, rabbits and squirrels rustled in the bushes, cows and deer grazed on the grass, and birds twittered in the trees. Nick glimpsed a pair of rabbits doing what rabbits did best. What he had wished very much to do himself just the night before, when he hadn’t behaved like a gentleman at all, and didn’t regret his misconduct a bit. Nature was a splendid thing, indeed. He wondered how his companion in debauchery fared this morning, and if she’d managed to get any more sleep than he had. And if her sleep, like his, what little there had been of it, was filled with delicious dreams. Dreams of Cara with her cheeks flushed, her hair spilling loose down her back. Her bare back, as her front was also bare, plump ripe fruit to savor to his heart’s content.

Nick saw her then, as if he had conjured her, riding toward them on a dappled mare, some distance away. She was dressed today in sapphire blue.

Not peaches today, but blueberries. Plump luscious blueberries bursting with juice. He had not realized blueberries could be so buxom. He groaned.

Fitz eyed him with concern. “Are you all right, Nicky? Because I don’t mind telling you that you look damned queer.”

Nick didn’t hear him, or if he did, Fitz’s comments were of no more significance than the buzzing of a bee. Cara looked superb on horseback, perfectly balanced in her saddle, her hands held in a natural position, her elbows close to her side.

Not that Cara didn’t look superb in everything she did. In any position she chose to assume. Such as in Nick’s bed when he managed to get her there. And if he
didn’t
get her there, Fitz would be correct in anticipating lunacy in the Mannering family, because it would be his.

Since the marquess clearly wasn’t going to answer, Fitz looked around to see what might have inspired his friend’s strange behavior. “By George, there’s Lady Norwood! Who’s that with her, do you know?”

Nick frowned. So bemused had he been by the unexpected sight of Cara that he hadn’t realized the charmer of his heart and soul was in the company of another man. A well-mounted, sun-bronzed, handsome man who wasn’t old enough to be her grandfather, like Norwood had been.

Hell and the devil confound it! Nick hadn’t expected competition, which this man obviously was, which just showed that he wasn’t thinking with his brain, because any man with even half his wits about him would have anticipated that Lady Norwood would have admirers, for she was both beautiful and rich.

As well as voluptuous. Her riding habit fitted too damned well. Whoever he was, that blasted man was practically drooling on her chest. Nick urged his horse forward. Fitz trailed after him down the bridle path.

Paul Anderley scowled at a squirrel cluttering upon a low-hanging branch. The squirrel twitched his tail and scampered up the trunk, as if he knew the squire was thinking of putting him in a stew. And well Paul might have done so, were he still in the country. Along with several of the rascal’s fellows, who were making an ungodly racket in the treetops.

Paul didn’t care for London. Nor did he like Hyde Park, and didn’t give a damn if kings had once hunted there for deer, or that William of Orange’s asthma had prompted him to move from St. James’s Palace to Kensington and build the Route de Roi across the wild and lawless space between the two palaces, so dangerous an area that George II was robbed there a century later of his purse, buckles, and watch.

Of all this, Lady Norwood had already informed the squire, and furthermore gave every indication of enlightening him more. Paul reminded himself that the hunt frequently lasted several hours, over challenging terrain. He had every intention of making Cara a formal declaration again this morning, as soon as she let him get a word in edgewise.

Cara knew what the squire intended. This required no especial prescience on her part: Paul made a formal declaration at every opportunity. However, she was in no mood for it today. “The Serpentine was created by Queen Caroline. As well as the Long Water and Round Pond, and the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. A vast collection of plants from every corner of the world is displayed there, set in an attractive historic landscape with splendid architectural features, even including the wizard Merlin in his cave. Did you know that Merlin is said to have predicted the Hanoverian dynasty?”

Merlin could have predicted the collapse of the monarchy for all Paul cared. Finally, she paused for breath. “My dear Lady Norwood—"

Nick had drawn close enough to overhear their conversation. “The menagerie at Kew is also very fine,” he ruthlessly broke in. “Exotic animals from Africa, Australia, and India. I would be pleased to escort you to Kew, Lady Norwood. From time to time the gardens are open to the public. I’ll speak to Prinny if you’d like.”

Paul had no great fondness for his regent. At the rate Prinny was eating and drinking and fornicating, he would soon need a crane to get on his horse. Nor did Paul care much for the intruder, who looked every inch the haughty gentleman, mounted on a coal black horse that stood quite sixteen hands. He especially didn’t care for the way Cara smiled at him.

Paul summoned up the air of authority that served him so well in the country.
“
And
you
are, sir?”

“Nicholas Anston, the Marquess of Mannering,” Cara said quickly, before Nicky could utter the crushing set-down which clearly hovered on the tip of his tongue. “And here is Baron Fitzrichard. Gentlemen, this is Squire Anderley, a neighbor of mine. You are very visual
today, Baron. That is an especially fine waistcoat.”

At last, someone with taste sufficiently refined to appreciate his efforts. The baron beamed at her. “And you are fine as fivepence, Lady Norwood! A spot of sunshine on a gloomy day.”

Fitz was not usually so fulsome. Nick wondered what had inspired his friend. Although Cara
was
a spot of sunshine, for not even the grayest of days could diminish her glowing hair, or her sparkling eyes, or—

Was
Fitz
gaping at her bosom? Nicky checked. The baron was not. Lord, but he was in a swivet, to be suspecting poor Fitz of lechery.

Paul stared at the baron’s waistcoat. What sort of man would adorn himself in a garment the color of ripe lemons, a gigantic bunch of seals dangling from his fob? Not to mention adding tassels to his riding boots, along with garters which attached to the boot behind and passed around the knee in front. And then there was that abominably tied neck-cloth. The sorrel horse was well enough, if a little docile-looking for Paul’s taste.

This antipathy was mutual. While Paul gawked at his costume, Fitz raised his quizzing glass and subjected the squire to a critical inspection. Blue coat with brass buttons, leather breeches, top boots, and a Belcher neckerchief—How very unimaginative. Fitz sniffed.

As the two men sneered at one another, Nick deftly maneuvered his horse next to Cara’s dappled mare. Just the night before he’d kissed her, and run his hands over her fine body, and threatened to elope with her niece. He didn’t know if she would turn away from him, or box his ears. “I’ve been reading the results of some interesting investigations made by de Saussure. He believes that plants require mineral substances to achieve satisfactory growth.”

Cara glanced over her shoulder. Paul was looking like a thundercloud. Fitz winked at her and embarked upon a lecture about costume, which in ancient Greece, had been elevated to the rank of a fine art, its principles defined, its influence appreciated, and public officers appointed to prevent the violation of its fundamental laws.

Cara could have kissed him. “How do you feel about fox-hunting?” she inquired, as she returned her attention to Nick.

Ah, the familiar obfuscation. “My sympathies are generally with the fox. Why do you ask?”

Because Cara felt like a fox that had broken from the covert and was running upwind as far as she could. “If a fox clearly didn’t wish to be caught, would you let her go?”