Promise Me Tomorrow (17 page)

Nicola broke off a little sheepishly. “There. I’m off again. I’m sorry. Once I get started on one of my pet subjects, I am afraid I’m rather didactic.”

“No, please. I am impressed by your beliefs.”

They continued to talk—about that and several other subjects, including the charities in which Nicola was involved in the City—and by the time they reached the house, Marianne’s nerves were long since settled, and she and Nicola had become good friends.

It was with a pang that Marianne realized, as she climbed the stairs to her room, that it was not likely that she and Nicola could continue as friends. Friends, after all, exchanged visits, and Marianne felt sure that Nicola, unlike her cousin Bucky, would immediately see, as Lambeth had, how odd and unlikely her “family” was. Marianne knew that she could not allow another person to become suspicious about her. Given what she did, she could not afford to make friends among the people who were her victims. For the first time she used that word to describe the people from whom she and her group stole things, and it made her feel low to acknowledge it.

Gloomy and tired, she spent the rest of the day in her room, requesting that the evening meal be brought to her on a tray instead of going down to join the others. Penelope knocked lightly on her door in the evening, but Marianne pretended to be asleep and did not answer. In the mood she was in, she did not think that she could face Penelope’s sweet countenance. So she lay in bed, morosely considering her options, which seemed to her to be pathetically few, until at last she fell asleep.

S
HE WAS IN BETTER SPIRITS THE NEXT
morning when she got up and went downstairs. There were only two women in the dining room breakfasting when she went in. Sophronia Merridale of course proceeded to explain that Lady Buckminster, accompanied by her niece Nicola and Penelope, had gone out for a day of visiting their tenants. Most of the men, including Lord Buckminster and Sophronia’s own husband, had set out early on a daylong fishing excursion on the River Teign, near Fingle Bridge.

Marianne, foreseeing a long, boring day in the company of Sophronia Merridale and Mrs. Thurston, finished her breakfast quickly and went outside for a stroll through the gardens, hoping that the other two women would remain inside most of the day. Mrs. Thurston had not seemed a great enthusiast of the outdoors; she had not even gone on the expedition the day before. Hopefully Sophronia would decide to stay and assault that lady’s ears rather than seek out Marianne.

She had not gone very far along the path before she came upon Mr. Thurston’s secretary, seated on one of the benches and enjoying the vista of the sloping lawn, and the lake and land beyond it. He jumped up politely when she approached.

“Mrs. Cotterwood! How nice to see you. Please, sit down and join me.”

Marianne did not see how she could politely refuse, so she sat down on the bench beside him. “You did not go fishing with the others, Mr. Fuquay?”

“No. I fear I am not a keen enthusiast of fishing.” He smiled, the action lightening his long, rather somber face. “Nor hunting, for that matter. I have a few duties I need to take care of, anyway—correspondence and such.”

“Mr. Thurston must be busy indeed, to need his secretary even at a social occasion.”

He made a noncommittal gesture with his hands. “There were a few loose ends of business that needed to be taken care of, because Mr. Thurston had not planned to come until the last moment. He is not a close friend of Lord Buckminster’s. However, despite the small amount of work, I suspect that he primarily brought me along as a kindness. It is more a holiday for me than work, you see.”

Marianne did see. Though, according to Mr. Westerton, Fuquay’s lineage was as good as Thurston’s, he belonged in a sort of limbo socially. Unable to afford the life-style of his peers, he was forced to work for a living, yet he was of vastly higher social status than a servant or tutor. As a result, he did not really socialize with either group. A weeklong trip to a country estate would allow him to enjoy some of the benefits others of his station enjoyed.

“He sounds like a nice man,” she commented.

“Oh, yes, he is. Mrs. Thurston, as well, of course. He is capable, too, of being a great statesman, I think.”

“Then I hope that he gets elected.”

“Yes. I hope so, as well.” He paused for a moment, then suggested, “Would you care to take a turn around the gardens, Mrs. Cotterwood? It is a lovely morning for a walk.”

Marianne accepted. Fuquay’s company was much more enjoyable than that of Sophronia Merridale. They had not gone far, however, when there was the sound of footsteps crunching on the graveled path behind them, and they turned to see Lord Lambeth approaching.

“Hello. Saw you two walking and thought I would join you,” he said cheerfully, leaving Mr. Fuquay with little option except to invite him along.

Marianne gave him a sour look. “I would have thought you would have gone with the other men.”

He shrugged. “I had other plans.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes.” He gave her an enigmatic smile and did not elaborate, merely turned toward her companion. “Did you enjoy the visit to Lydford Gorge yesterday, Mr. Fuquay?”

“Yes. I have never been there before. I am afraid that I have had little occasion to visit Dartmoor.”

They strolled through the garden, with Lambeth keeping up polite, meaningless chatter about the Falls, the moor and other general topics, until finally Mr. Fuquay excused himself and returned to the house, saying that he had work he needed to finish.

“I say,” Lambeth remarked with an innocent air. “Did I drive the man away?”

“Apparently he found your conversation less than riveting.”

“Mmm. I rather suspect it was more that he had hoped to enjoy your company alone,” Lambeth retorted with a grin. “And he realized that I intended to stick with you for the duration. He beat a strategic retreat, with the hope of trying again at a more opportune time.”

“If you are implying that Mr. Fuquay has any interest in me, I am sure that you are wrong,” Marianne retorted, somehow nettled by his words.

“My dear Mrs. Cotterwood, surely you realize that every man at this gathering has an interest in you. He would have to be made of stone not to.”

“Very pretty flattery, my lord, but—”

“Do you not think that you could call me Justin? I get very tired of ‘my lord’ this and ‘my lord’ that.”

Marianne looked up at him. “That would be highly improper.”

“Mrs. Cotterwood…Marianne…”

“That is equally improper. We are hardly on the terms to address one another so familiarly.”

“Then we shall not do so in front of others. But when we are alone together, what would be so wrong about it?”

“Being alone together is in itself another impropriety,” Marianne pointed out.

“Damn propriety,” he growled.

“That is easy for you to say. Quite a bit less easy for a woman.”

“You are, as always, determined to thwart me.”

“I am merely watching out for myself. A woman in my position has to.”

He reached out to take her hand and pulled her to a halt. “Let us stop fencing, shall we? I want to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Nothing. Everything. I am not asking for a royal audience. I simply want to spend some time with you.” He took her other hand in his, as well, and stood, looking down into her face. “I had Cook fix up a picnic luncheon. I thought we would row across the lake to the summerhouse there. Have you seen it?”

Marianne shook her head.

“It is a charming place. And there is scarcely anyone around today. It is the perfect chance to get away.”

Marianne set her mouth. “A perfect chance for you to seduce me, you mean.”

He smiled. “You are a very suspicious woman. What if I promise that I will not do anything you do not wish me to do?” He put his hand over his heart in a gesture so theatrical that Marianne had to smile. “What would you like me to swear by? On my word as an Englishman? A gentleman?”

“How am I to know what thing you would remain true to?”

“Have I been deceitful with you? Have I done aught but tell you straightforwardly what I think or feel?”

Marianne paused, considering. “I have to admit that you have been decidedly blunt.”

“What is there to deceive you about? You know that I desire you.” His eyes darkened as he gazed down into hers, and Marianne’s loins began to warm in response. “You know that I do not want you with Buckminster. But I promised you I would not force you. I want you freely. I cannot say I would not entice you or flirt with you. But I will not do anything that you do not want me to.”

Marianne hesitated. He grinned, his eyes dancing. “Or is it that you are scared not of what I will do but of what
you
will? Perhaps you don’t trust yourself not to seduce me.”

“Don’t be absurd!” Marianne snapped, irritated by his cocky, self-sure attitude. “There is no likelihood of that, I can assure you.”

“Then why are you afraid to go to the summerhouse with me?”

“I am not afraid. When are you going?”

“As soon as I can collect our luncheon. We can take a boat from the pier at the foot of the garden.”

“I will be there.”

M
ARIANNE TRAILED HER HAND
languidly through the water, looking over the side of the boat into the calm lake water. It had taken Justin very little time to fetch a basket of food from the kitchen and meet her at the small pier at the foot of the garden. Indeed, Marianne, who had returned to her room to fetch her hat and a parasol, arrived there after he did. He had loaded the basket into the small boat and handed her in, then untied the boat and taken up the oars, propelling them smoothly across the water.

Marianne turned her head to look at Lambeth, seated across from her in the small boat. His jacket and cravat lay folded between them, and he had unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves in order to row. Marianne’s eyes could not keep from going to the strong column of his throat and the triangle of flesh below it, exposed by his opened shirt. She watched the play of muscles beneath the golden skin of his arms, the ripple that his lawn shirt only partially concealed. She could feel warmth blossoming in her abdomen, and it occurred to her that apparently he did not have to
do
anything to stir her senses; it was enough just to look at him.

She turned her face away, looking out over the blue water of the pond to the small white pavilion on the other side, so carved and ornamented that it looked rather like something that belonged on a wedding cake. But in her mind’s eye she could still see the smooth, firm flesh, the vulnerable hollow of his throat, where his pulse beat, the bead of perspiration that rolled down his skin and settled in the hollow, glistening. Marianne swallowed, thinking that perhaps she had been foolish to come.
It was all very well to trust Lambeth not to push her, but what if she could not trust herself?

She glanced at him, hoping he could not read her thoughts. He smiled at her in a slow way that made her suspect that her hope was groundless. Nervously she cast about for some topic of conversation that would take her mind off her treacherous thoughts.

“It seems an inconvenient place for a summerhouse,” she said finally. “Having to row across to it.”

“There is a path that leads to it from the house. It just takes longer. I think the seclusion was part of its appeal. The Lord Buckminster who built it apparently built it to escape from his wife.”

“You mean he used it for trysts?” Marianne looked at him suspiciously. “Is that the purpose of the place?”

“No. I don’t think he was a licentious man. According to Bucky, his lady was a shrew with a voice that would shatter glass, and everyone on the estate lived in terror of her. The Fourth Earl used to come here to read in peace, according to Bucky, as did his son. Now Bucky’s grandfather, the Sixth Earl, is another story—there is no knowing for what purpose that old roué might have used it. The family tries to ignore his part in their history.”

Marianne smiled.

“That’s better,” he said.

“What is?”

“Your smile. ‘Tis far more pleasant than that glower of suspicion.”

“I was not glowering.”

He said nothing, merely raised his brows and continued the smooth rhythmic pull of the oars. Marianne’s eyes went to his hands, large and powerful, curled around the oars. He had not worn gloves; she had noticed that he did not when he rode yesterday, either. She wondered if his palms were callused from such activities and how that roughened skin would feel sliding over her own flesh.

Again desire tingled between her legs, and a blush rose in her cheeks.
Where had all this sudden lasciviousness sprung from?

The boat glided through the water, and in a few moments they reached the shore in front of the summerhouse. Lambeth stepped out into the shallow water and pulled the boat up onto the land. Then he reached down and swept Marianne up into his arms.

She let out a squeak of surprise. “What are you doing? Put me down.”