Jilting the Duke (16 page)

Against her better instincts, she nodded agreement. They walked the rest of the way silently, and at the door to her garden, she bid him good-bye and slipped inside. Leaning back against the closed garden door, she shut her eyes, recalling every moment from the time he'd knocked her to the ground.

She shook her head, willing the tears of recrimination from her eyes. How could she? What had she been thinking? She'd been exhilarated by her dream, not considering Aidan might be home, might find her, might misunderstand her intentions. But what else could he think? Finding her in his garden in the half-light, how could he not think her a light-skirt?

He'd offered to make her his lover.

She should be insulted. And yet, the worst part was that she wanted to say yes. Even if it only lasted for a few months, to have him once more, to hold him and breathe in the musk of his skin. Phineas was right: Aidan wouldn't marry her, and if they were discovered, she'd be ruined. But she was a widow. . . . If they were discreet? When it ended, she would simply withdraw to the country, leaving London to him and his next mistress and eventually to his bride. All paths led to sorrow: If she rejected his offer, she would regret it for the rest of her life, and Aidan was not a man to give her another chance. If she accepted . . .

Troubled, she entered the library. She could hear the house coming awake. She set her cloak and bonnet aside and walked to the pier glass between two bays of windows to examine her reflection. Would the flush on her cheeks tell of her indiscretion?

In the window's reflection, she could see a package on her desk and walked to examine it. From Mr. Murray. She flexed the edge of the package. Paper, not books. Tom's fair copy returned from the printer—something to take her mind off the persistent problem of Aidan and her passion.

But first she had to focus on putting her plans for Aidan's garden into effect. She drew up instructions for Perkins, complete with plant lists and diagrams of the plantings as she had dreamed them. In the light of day, the design was still exhilarating. Even if it hadn't been, she couldn't retreat now.

As she wrote the plans, however, she found herself constantly distracted by the smell of grass on her skirt, the hint of Aidan's scent on her neck, the remembered taste of his kiss on her lips. No, she would never be able to concentrate with such reminders, and she withdrew to her room to change into a more suitable morning dress.

* * *

Returning to the library some time later, she turned to Tom's fair copy. Placing the pages next to the proofs, she began to compare.

Soon it became clear that Mr. Murray did not have a malicious printer: the proofs were set exactly as Tom's fair copy had indicated they should be, errors and all. She could not imagine why Tom would have made such mistakes. But perhaps as she made the corrections, Tom's intentions would become clear.

That left only one task: to recreate the book she and Tom had worked on in Italy, using the messy manuscript pages she'd recently had bound. It would take hours, but it had to be done.

* * *

She was only one-hundred pages from the end when Ian's tutor, Mr. Grange, tapped on the library door. A slight man in fashionable clothes, Mr. Grange was a contradiction, self-important in his speech but self-effacing in his carriage.

“Her ladyship summoned me to an audience.” Grange stood in the doorway, looking at his shoes.

“Please come in and sit. I have a favor to propose.” She motioned to the chairs before the fireplace. The tutor flipped the tails of his coat over the sides of the chair, and sat between them as precisely as if he had studied his movements in a mirror.

Sophia chose the chair opposite him. “My brother has asked me to host a dinner for his political associates next Thursday. My sister-in-law in Kensington has invited Ian to visit her son Nate for the evening of and the day after the party. I was hoping you might be free to take Ian to his aunt's house and remain at her home supervising Ian and his cousin. In all, two days.”

“I typically teach other boys when I'm not with his lordship. My days are quite full.” Grange crossed his legs, one ankle to the other knee, his back perfectly erect. His eyes focused on a point somewhere around the tips of his toes.

“I understand that you might not be able to alter your other obligations.”

“It will be difficult; my services are highly valued by my patrons across Mayfair. I would not wish to give preference to one child over the others.” Never looking up, Grange rubbed a smudge on his shoe with his thumb until it disappeared.

Sophia noticed a hole in the shoe's sole. She looked away.

“Of course, Mr. Grange, I understand that might be awkward. But if you were able to open your schedule, my sister-in-law and I would recompense you for the loss of the other income, and I would provide a bonus for the additional time spent accompanying Ian to and from her home.”

“Precisely what services would her ladyship expect? I am not adequate to the task of playing nursemaid.” Grange took a small notebook and stub pencil from his upper coat pocket and began to make small unreadable notations in a crabbed hand.

“Ian will have Sally for his nurse. He would need his lessons, but perhaps an excursion in the countryside, looking for botanical or mineral specimens, would offer a diversion from his more traditional studies. His cousin might choose to accompany you . . . for an additional fee, of course. My sister-in-law's son is also somewhat boisterous.”

“I could provide them with adequate exercise to check their exuberant spirits.” Grange looked up from his notebook only for a moment, blinked, then returned to writing.

“If you deem it appropriate or necessary.”

“Excellent. And what arrangements will be made for lodgings?” He paused in his notes, and without looking up, waited until she began speaking, then returned to his scribbles.

“You will be the guest of my sister-in-law and her husband, the Masons, taking your meals with the family.”

“I will not be lodging in the nursery.” Grange looked up; his large eyes, owl-like, stared for a minute, blinked twice, and stared again.

“No, you will be provided with one of the guest rooms.”

“Excellent.” He returned to his notebook. “I assume we will be traveling in your carriage rather than in a hired hackney.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Excellent.” He licked the tip of his pencil and began writing again. “I will need an advance of funds, should any unexpected expenses arise in delivering his lordship's studies.”

“Of course. Will you require anything else?”

“No, that will be sufficient.” Grange snapped the notebook shut. “I will inform you on Monday if I am able to arrange my schedule to suit your request.” He placed both the pencil and the notebook back in his pocket. “With your permission, my lady, I take my leave.”

“Of course.”

Grange stood up as precisely as he had sat and walked swiftly to the door.

She watched Grange go, always surprised at their interactions. But if she knew the tutor at all, she knew he would agree on Monday. As much as he loved teaching, he loved money more.

She looked up at the clock. She'd already been working longer than she'd hoped, and she was still not finished.

* * *

Hours later, Sophia finally finished marking all the corrections to the proofs. She rose from the desk and walked around the library, stretching her arms in front of her and stretching her neck to one side then the next.

Aidan walked into the library. Unannounced. Again.

“I looked for you in the greenhouse.”

“I wasn't there.” She could hear the irritation in her tone, and it galled her. This morning in his garden had shown her how little control she had in his presence. Her ability to remain calm, a trait that had served her so well in the last year, had deserted her. At the same time, she had been more than generous with Aidan's lack of propriety, arriving and interrupting as he wished. Perhaps it was time to be less generous.

“Dodsley said that you've been working all day, and it's after four. Your man has made quite a bit of progress in my neglected garden. We thought you might like to inspect it. But”—his eyes followed her gaze to the papers on the desk—“if you are engaged . . .” He walked behind the desk and picked up a sheath of the pages. Then he leaned back against the edge of the bookcases, turning the pages slowly. Sophia tried to focus on his face and his words, not to look at his body, not to look at his hands, turning the pages slowly . . . not to remember the feel of those hands against her skin.

“I was working, but I'm just finished, and I'm about to go out.” Her voice was determined and stern. Reaching past him, she set about returning the stack of paper to its former order.

“Out?” Something in his tone made clear that he expected an answer, and it rankled her.

“Yes. Out.” Impatient and annoyed, she took the pages from his hands, confirming that he had only the printed proofs from volume one, not any from volume two. “I will be unable to inspect Perkins's progress today.” She began to rewrap the proofs in their brown paper covering. However, when she reached for the twine to tie it up, Aidan's hand covered hers, stopped her from wrapping the package.

She turned, fully intending to ask him what he thought he was doing.

But she hadn't realized how close he was. She turned without meaning to along the curve of his arm, into the space before his chest. She could smell the scent of the afternoon rain still on his clothes, feel the warmth of his body so close to hers, and she suddenly longed to lean into him, let his heat once more dispel the chill in her bones.

He leaned to kiss her, and she realized that after the garden, she would be lost if she allowed it. Instead, she bit her lip hard, recalling herself to sense. He leaned closer. She twisted to face the desk, putting her back to him and pulling her hand from beneath his.

“No, Aidan. This is not the time.”

Undaunted, he breathed against her neck, then brushed the hair on the side of her face with his face, and whispered in her ear, “Wait here. I will return.” He was gone as abruptly as he had arrived.

Sophia stared at the library door, stunned. She felt a complicated mix of emotions: anger, relief, and frustration. Angry that he assumed she would do as he said and wait. Relieved that he had left before she'd given in to her desire and responded to his kiss. And frustrated . . . with the errors in the proofs, with the time (and money) it would take to repair them, and most of all with Aidan, for entering and leaving her life as he always had . . . on his own terms. She pulled the twine tight, breaking off the ends with her hands. Then, picking up her cloak, she turned to escape through the long glass door behind her desk.

“Don't go.” Aidan's voice was soft.

She turned to object, hot words ready to spill out. But she caught them just in time.

Looking cautious, Aidan stood in the doorway, holding a tray on which he'd assembled a feast: Cook's sweet Scottish scones, butter and cream, Sophia's favorite orange marmalade, some slices of apple, and a triangle of cheddar.

“I thought it was music that soothed the savage beast,” she offered in half-conciliation. How could he, after all these years and her marriage to Tom, be so thoughtful of her needs?

“In your case, food has always worked best. But since Cook appears to be off for the afternoon, I had to make the tray myself,” he offered with a shrug. “I hope it's acceptable. Dodsley will bring a pot of tea when it's hot. But of course, if you must go, I can return all this to the kitchen.”

It was his acknowledgment that he couldn't stop her if she chose to leave that made all the difference. That, and the grumble in her stomach. “No, I can stay—at least for some tea.” She made a space on the desk for the tray.

Setting the tray beside the proofs, he pulled a chair to the side of her desk and stretched his legs into the space beside her chair. “Now, tell me what's so important about these papers that you haven't time to see your plans for my garden come alive. Perhaps I can help.”

“I can't imagine that you are interested in this.”

“There's no way to know until you tell me, and you are clearly frustrated. Ian says you and Tom often worked alongside one another. I cannot replace Tom, but perhaps I can serve as a poor substitute.”

The thought of Aidan's helping her was more appealing than she wished to admit, even in her most private moments.

“These are the printed proofs for volume two of Tom's last book.” She pointed at the printed pages partially wrapped in the brown paper. “I was about to return them to the publisher with my corrections.” She held her hand over a second stack of paper. “These are the pages of Tom's manuscript that he prepared for the printer and I delivered to his publisher. And this”—she placed her hand on the third set of pages—“is the bound
original
manuscript of Tom's book, the one we finished while in Italy and he copied out fair. Or at least I thought he'd copied it.”

She explained it all to him, the perfect clarity of volume one, the odd errors in Latin in volume two....

“And this.” She reached for her reticule and removed the misidentified engraving. She unfolded it. “This isn't one of my illustrations.”

“Looks deadly. What is it?”

“It's an agave, an American plant. Tom must have drawn it for the engraver, but he wasn't particularly careful, and this is an odd illustration.”

“Why?”

“Well, it's just wrong for the book. Tom was writing on Mediterranean plants that would do well in an English garden, and so it's not even from the right part of the world. Even if it was, it's wrong as a botanical illustration.”