Indiscreet (6 page)

Toby!

Where was she? Lord Rawleigh looked about and saw her approaching from the direction of a stile at the far side of the
meadow. She was not hurrying. He guessed that she would have retreated if her dog had not betrayed her presence.

“Ah, Mrs. Winters's dog,” Claude said, “with Mrs. Winters herself not far behind.” He smiled and removed his hat and called out a greeting to her as she came closer.

She was dressed in a simple, rather drab gray cloak with a plain blue bonnet to match the blue dress she had worn that morning. She smiled and curtsied to Claude after she had come closer—she seemed to know unerringly which of them was which. Her dog had called off the attack and sat beside her, tongue lolling, ears cocked to give the illusion of intelligent attention. She greeted Claude just as she had greeted
him
on their arrival at Bodley, the viscount thought wryly. With a sweep of the eyes she included him in the greeting.

The viscount remembered, as she and Claude exchanged brief pleasantries and he looked silently on, that she had given him a blistering set-down this morning and that he had been unable to retaliate because Clarissa had interrupted them. She would have been an interesting mistress, he thought with faint regret. All the interest of their relationship would not have been confined to their bed.

And then she was on her way again, her terrier loping off ahead of her. He touched his hat and inclined his head to her.

“A beauty,” he said to Claude. “And she has been in residence here for five years, someone was saying? One wonders about the late Mr. Winters. Was he so good that he cannot be replaced? Or was he so bad that he
will
not be replaced?”

“I hope you will exercise the proper care in seeing that she is not compromised,” his brother said.

What the devil?

“I suppose Clarissa was convinced that if she had not entered the music room at the precise moment she did,” he said irritably, “I would have had Mrs. Winters stretched back over the pianoforte with her skirts hoisted and her body mounted? I concede that the sight would have been a trifle embarrassing for her.”

“You need not be vulgar,” his twin said.

“Perhaps you should say that to your wife,” Lord Rawleigh said.

“Have a care, Rex.” It seemed that perhaps one of their quarrels was brewing after all. “It was not wise to be alone with her even in broad daylight. But it is not only to this morning I refer. Did you visit Mrs. Winters last evening?”

Lord Rawleigh shot him a look of pure shock. Denial sprang to his lips. But there was no point in lying to one's twin. His nostrils flared. “How the devil did you know that?” he asked. “Has she lodged a complaint with the lord of the manor?”

“I have eyes in my head,” his brother said, “and this link to your mind. Your burning wish to go walking after dark on a chilly evening in early spring did not quite ring true. I'll not have it, Rex.”

“You'll— What the devil?
What
will you not have?” His heart was pounding with rage.

“Village life, in case you had forgotten,” his brother said calmly—their quarrels had always been made more infuriating by the fact that the rage of one almost invariably aroused the
opposite reaction in the other—“is impossible to live quite privately. I will not have her compromised. She is a lady, Rex. A mysterious lady, granted. She arrived here five years ago from goodness knows where and has proceeded to live a quiet and exemplary existence here ever since. No one knows anything of her background or anything of her late husband—including her feelings for him—beyond the fact that he was a Mr. Winters. But everything about her has proclaimed her the lady. I will not have her compromised.”

“The devil,” the viscount said, his voice trembling with anger. “At an educated guess, Claude, I would say she has been of age for several years. And therefore free to make her own decisions.”

“And at another guess,” Claude said, “I would say you were rejected last night, Rex. You returned too early to have been successful. Mrs. Winters
is
a lady. And not at all in desperate circumstances. Her husband must have left her with a competence. And she has not lacked for suitors. It seems to be general knowledge that she has had and rejected at least two quite respectable offers—of
marriage
—since her arrival here.”

“If she is such a lady,” the viscount said, “and if you are so certain she rejected me, then why the devil are you warning me off, Claude? You want her for yourself?”

“If you want to get down from your horse,” his brother said with ominous calm, “I will gladly knock your head from your shoulders here and now, Rex.”

“No need,” the viscount said curtly. “For that at least I am willing to apologize. It was a stupid thing to say to you of all people. Yes, she rejected me. Out of hand. I even thought her dog
was going to attack me, but he seemed to think better of it. So all this lord-of-the-manor stuff was quite unnecessary.”

“Except,” Claude said, “that I have felt your distraction, Rex. Ever since we returned to Bodley. And there was your unwise presence alone with her in the music room this morning and Clarissa's consequent suspicion. I hope that in your arrogance you have not refused to take no for an answer. I warn you that if you compromise her, you will have made yourself a permanent enemy in me.”

“That is supposed to have me trembling in my boots?” Lord Rawleigh asked, looking angrily and haughtily at his brother—at his conscience.

“Yes,” Claude said. “Having the other half of yourself as your enemy will not be comfortable, Rex. Leave her alone. Surely you are not so depraved that celibacy for a few weeks will kill you. You have Eden and Nat and me for company and the ladies for social diversion. And Daphne. It seems wonderful enough to me for the three of us to be together for a few weeks.”

“I will behave myself,” Lord Rawleigh promised, chuckling despite himself. “But you must admit she is deuced pretty, Claude. Not my type, of course, apart from the physical allure. She is a virtuous woman. I gather she spends her time doing good works—visiting the sick and elderly, teaching the children, and a thousand and one other things, all without asking for any reward. A bloody saint, in other words. Not my type at all.”

“Good,” his brother said decisively, though he was unable to suppress an answering chuckle. “Now perhaps we should change the subject?”

“She is good with children,” the viscount said. “Why the devil did Winters not give her some of her own, do you suppose? Do you think he might have been a doddering old fool? Or an impotent rake? The least a man can do when he takes a woman to wife is give her a child of her own if she dotes on them. If he were alive and in front of me right now, I would be sore put to it not to plant him a facer.”

Mr. Adams looked at his twin in some amazement and some alarm. Perhaps he was wise to hold his peace and to change the subject as he had suggested a few moments before. But his brother showed no particular interest in any of the topics that were introduced and soon they lapsed into silence.

She had taken him for Claude, the viscount was thinking. The smiles had been intended for Claude. Knowing that now, he could see that there had been nothing particularly flirtatious about the smiles. He felt a fool. An utter fool.

And quite out of charity with Catherine Winters.

Good Lord, he must be losing his touch. He had suffered nothing but frustration and humiliation at her hands. He had maneuvered a private visit with her last evening, believing that he did so in great secrecy and with admirable discretion. And yet Nat and Eden had been meeting him on his return with ribald comments on the speed with which he had concluded his business. And Claude had known where he went. And this morning
Clarissa had drawn her own conclusions from the fact that he had lingered in the music room after Daphne and the children had left it.

And yet he did not even have the satisfaction of having enjoyed some success.

The damned country. One's life was no longer one's own once one ventured beyond the confines of town.

One thing was certain. Mrs. Catherine Winters might rest assured that her virtue was safe from him forever after. He was going to stay as far away from her as possible for the remainder of his stay at Bodley.

T
HE
sun was shining persistently through the curtains onto her bed. It was early, she knew, and chilly beyond the bedcovers. But it was going to be as lovely a day as yesterday had been. And she was clearly going to have no more sleep. She stretched and then dived her arms back beneath the covers. Not that she had slept particularly well at all during the last few nights. She decided to get up and take an early walk with Toby. Some children were coming later in the morning for a reading lesson.

Toby appeared in her bedchamber as she was washing and dressing. He was wagging his tail slowly.

“You may stand there looking eager,” she told him. “I am not even going to whisper the W-word until I am opening the door to leave or I will have you prancing all about me so that I cannot move without tripping over you. Give me a moment.”

But Toby, it seemed, knew the W-letter quite as well as he knew the
walk
word. His tail became a madly waving pendulum, he whined with excitement, and then he began the anticipated prancing, dancing in circles all about Catherine and taking little rushing steps in the direction of the stairs as if to hurry her along.

She laughed.

A few weeks, she thought as she strode along the village street a short while later and smiled and waved to Mr. Hardwick, the innkeeper, who was personally sweeping the pavement before his doors. The house party could not possibly last beyond a few weeks at the longest, and one of those weeks was just about over. They were bound to return to town for the Season, Viscount Rawleigh and his friends. They were all fashionable gentlemen, after all, and there was not much to keep them here. It was true that Mrs. Adams was trying to push a match between the viscount and Miss Hudson, but there really was not much for the other two gentlemen. There was Miss Lipton. That was all.

No, there was nothing to keep them. She knew the viscount was not interested in Miss Hudson.

If she could hold out for another few weeks—and really she had no choice in the matter, did she?—then everything would return to normal and she would be at peace again. She would not have to fear every time she set foot over her doorstep that she was going to run into him.

“No, not that way, Toby,” she called as her dog turned confidently onto the driveway to Bodley. That was the route she usually took, branching off the driveway through the trees before she came in sight of the house. There was no question of trespassing.
Mr. Adams liked to have the villagers make free with his park. There was a tacit understanding, of course, that they would not stroll too close to the house and thus encroach upon the privacy of the family. But this morning she strode on along the country lane that was bordered on one side by the moss-covered wall of the park.

She had directed all her energies during the past five years into making a new and meaningful life for herself. It had not been easy. Her life before had been so different. . . . She had quelled all needs in herself beyond the need to live on. She had not even particularly wanted to do that at the beginning.

Other needs had not been persistent through the five years. She had had company, occupation, a home that she loved. For the past year she had had Toby. She had not been tempted at all by the two offers of marriage she had received, one three years ago, the other just last year, though she had respected both gentlemen and either would have been good to her. She had felt no desire for marriage. No
need
for it.

And yet now, suddenly, she felt needs she had not felt burdened with since she was a girl. Except that they were entirely different, of course. As a girl, she had known nothing about the desires of the flesh. She had felt only the need for romance, for the admiration of a handsome gentleman, for marriage. She had been so innocent. Dangerously innocent.

The cravings she had felt for the last few days alarmed her. They were purely physical. Simply put, they were the cravings for a man. For a man's body touching hers and caressing hers.
For a man's body inside hers. For an end to the emptiness and the loneliness.

The new cravings alarmed her because she had no good memories of intimacy. Only the opposite. She would never have expected to want it ever again.

And she was not lonely. Or if she was, then loneliness was the price one paid for independence and self-respect and peace of mind. It was a small price to pay. And it was not loneliness that she felt but aloneness. There was a difference. The aloneness could be alleviated by visits to her numerous friends and neighbors.

But she was afraid that she would not be able to continue to deceive herself. She was afraid that she was about to realize her own loneliness. She was realizing it already.

And all because of one arrogant, insolent man. A man who had sat in her kitchen two evenings ago suggesting that she become his mistress. A man who had tempted her despite her outrage. A man who had almost compromised her yesterday and who, before being taken away by Mrs. Adams, had raked her with his eyes, mentally removing clothes as he did so.

A man she wanted.

The admission horrified her.

And then Toby, who had been loping across a nearby field, exploring, came dashing back toward the lane, barking exuberantly. There were three horsemen approaching from a distance. This early in the morning? Her heart sank. Was there no safe time during which to enjoy a solitary walk?

From a distance, one of the riders might have been Mr. Adams. But she knew it was not he. For one thing, he was riding with Mr.
Gascoigne and Lord Pelham. There was no chance of changing direction so that she would not meet them. There was a wall on one side of her, an open field on the other. Besides, just like yesterday, Toby was streaking along the lane to meet them, David facing three Goliaths with foolhardy bravado.

Mr. Gascoigne had to work to control his nervous horse. He grinned while he did so. Lord Pelham swept off his hat and inclined his head to Catherine. Lord Rawleigh stooped down from his saddle and swept up her terrier, who favored him with one more indignant and surprised yip and then settled, panting and cock-eared and floppy-tongued, across the horse in front of the viscount. He had capitulated to the enemy that easily.

“Mrs. Winters,” Lord Pelham said, “you complete the beauty of the morning. I did not know there was a lady alive who rose this early.”

“Good morning, my lord,” she said, half curtsying to him. He had lovely white teeth, she noticed, and very blue eyes. He was quite as handsome as the viscount and certainly more charming. Why was it that she could look at him and speak with him without feeling even one irregular skip of the heartbeat? “This is the very best part of the day.”

“I shall have to trade my horse,” Mr. Gascoigne said, chuckling as he swept off his hat and made his bow to her. “I shall never live down the ignominy of having had him take fright at a mere dog. But then, if I were a dog and you were my owner, ma'am, I would bark as fiercely in your defense too.”

“Good morning, sir,” she said, laughing. “I do assure you his bark is altogether worse than his bite.” Another hand-some
gentleman, with laughing eyes and easy charm. No flutters of the heart.

She turned her head before the situation could become awkward—as it had outside her cottage two days ago. “Good morning, my lord,” she said to Lord Rawleigh, who was scratching an ecstatic Toby behind the ears. A third handsome gentleman, really no more so than the other two. Her stomach tied itself in knots.

“Ma'am.” He held her eyes as he inclined his head.

The situation was awkward after all. She should have been able to smile and walk on. But Toby was still up on the viscount's horse, looking as if he would be happy to stay there for the rest of the morning.

“I suppose,” Mr. Gascoigne said, “we cannot pretend that we are going your way, Mrs. Winters?”

She smiled at him.

“We cannot pretend we are going her way, Nat,” Lord Pelham said. “Alas. She would acquire stiff neck muscles from looking up at three horsemen while we conversed. And her dog might well frighten your horse into spasms.” He chuckled.

Mr. Gascoigne laughed with him. “One of us could offer to let her ride while we walked,” he said. “That would be marvelous gallantry.”

They were teasing her, quite lightly, quite harmlessly. Viscount Rawleigh merely gazed down at her, his hand absently smoothing over Toby.

“I came out for a walk and exercise, gentlemen,” she said. “And so did Toby.” She glanced up pointedly at him and noticed
how long-fingered and strong and masculine the viscount's hand looked against her dog's back.

He leaned down without a word and set Toby back on the road. Her dog wagged his tail and then trotted on ahead to resume his walk.

“Good day to you, ma'am,” Lord Rawleigh said. “We will not keep you.” He had not smiled or joined in the teasing.

She walked on, listening to the sounds of their horses grow fainter behind her.

Just a few weeks, she thought. That was all. And then life would get back to normal again. Or so she fervently hoped.

But she knew it would not be as easy as that.

•   •   •

“CHARMING,”
Mr. Gascoigne said. “Utterly charming. There is something to be said for unfashionable country garb, is there not? And quiet country surroundings?”

“This is not good,” Lord Pelham said. “Three of us salivating over the same female. Unfashionable country garb looks charming only on someone who would look lovely even without it, Nat. Especially without it, by God. But this place is alarmingly womanless, Rex—no offense to Claude's sister-in-law.”

“I thought that was the idea,” the viscount said. “We are all to a certain extent escaping from entanglements with females, are we not? Eden from his married lady, Nat from his unmarried one, me from—well, from a former fiancée. Perhaps it will do us good to be without female companionship for a while. Good for the soul and all that.”

“She fancies you, Rex,” Lord Pelham said. “She could hardly coax her eyes to turn in your direction, whereas she grinned and chatted with Nat and me as if we were her brothers. Now, that I resent. You did not crack a smile. The question is—do you want her or not? I would hate to see the only looker in this part of the world go to waste because Nat and I are too polite to step in on your territory.”

The viscount snorted.

“I believe,” Mr. Gascoigne said, “Rex must have had his face slapped the evening before last. Figuratively speaking even if not literally. You
did
pursue her during the evening of the walk, I presume? Were you quite gauche, Rex? Did you offer her carte blanche without even a day or two for maneuvering or courtship? We will have to give you some lessons in seduction, old chap. One does not step up to a virtuous country widow, tap her on the shoulder, and ask her if she would care to slip between the sheets with one. Is that what you did?”

“Go to hell,” Lord Rawleigh said.

“That is what he did, Ede,” Mr. Gascoigne said.

“It is no wonder he did not smile at her this morning and she could scarce look at him,” Lord Pelham said. “And is this our friend, the master seducer of Spanish beauties all those years we were in the Peninsula, Nat? It makes one shudder, does it not, to realize how fast a man can backslide from lack of practice.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Gascoigne said, “I will try my hand at her and see if I have any better results. Hard luck, Rex, old boy, but you seem to have lost your chance.”

They were both grinning like hyenas and having a grand old
time at his expense, Lord Rawleigh knew. He knew equally that if he wanted the teasing to stop, he must join in and give as good as he was getting. He could not do it. He growled instead.

“Hands off, Nat,” he said.

Mr. Gascoigne shot both hands into the air as if someone had just dug a pistol against his spine.

“She is a lady,” the viscount said. “She is not someone we take turns at seducing.”

“Good Lord,” Mr. Gascoigne said, “I do believe he is smitten, Ede.”

“I do believe you are right, Nat,” Lord Pelham said. “Interesting. Very interesting. And the death knell for your hopes and mine.”

Very often the three of them—and Ken too when he was with them—could hold lengthy and intelligent conversations on topics of importance. That was why they were friends. Often too they could exchange light banter and keep one another's spirits up. That ability had been invaluable during the long years they had spent in Portugal and Spain and again in Belgium. They could be serious together and lighthearted together. They could fight wars together and stare death in the face together.

But sometimes, just sometimes, one of them could be out of tune with the others. Sometimes one of them could tell the others to go to hell and mean it.

She was not a topic of light banter.

And yet if he could not pick up the mood of the conversation, they would never leave him alone. Or her.