Pursuing Lord Pascal (10 page)

“And of course you still had your
cattle.”

“Don’t mock me,” she snapped, ripping her
hand from under his.

“I’m not.” Pascal desperately wanted to kiss
her. No, he desperately wanted to whisk her away to Richmond’s best
inn, haul her into a room, and show her the joy two people could
create out of lust and liking.

But he’d promised to behave, damn it.
Although after hearing about her marriage, he took a kinder view of
this enforced courtship. She deserved a wooing. Hell, she deserved
a lover patient enough to persuade her into surrender. Then patient
enough to show her just what she’d missed.

She rose, and he flinched when he saw her
brush away a surreptitious tear.

“I’m sorry. I’ve stirred unhappy memories.”
He stood, too, but she extended a hand to deter his approach.

“I’m fine.” Emotion thickened her voice.

“I don’t regret asking you about Wilfred,” he
said softly. “But I regret upsetting you.”

She fumbled in the pocket of her
figure-hugging green pelisse and produced a white lace
handkerchief. “I couldn’t let you think my marriage was a
disaster.”

As far as he could tell, it hadn’t been much
else, but Pascal had the wisdom to keep that opinion to himself.
“Wilfred was clearly a good man.”

Which was true, too. A fumbling dunderhead
when it came to his wife, but that wasn’t the full measure of the
fellow.

As reward for his discretion, he received a
grateful, if shaky smile. “He was.”

She’d mourned Mowbray, if only as a
colleague. However unworthy the thought, Pascal was grateful she’d
never loved before.

Did that mean he wanted her to love him?

Shock held him transfixed as he examined the
question. Over the years, many women had professed to love him,
starting with his flighty mother. A few at least must have meant
it. The mawkish emotion had always proven a poisonous gift, laced
with demands and tears, and the inevitable acrimony when the woman
realized Pascal was incapable of loving her back.

But when he imagined Amy Mowbray loving him,
that trapped, suffocated feeling was absent.

How…unexpected.

He extended his hand. “We should go back. As
it is, it will be dark when we return.”

She sucked in a shuddering breath, wiped her
eyes again, and put away her handkerchief. To his relief, she took
his hand, although she still looked unhappy. “Sally will think
we’ve eloped.”

He didn’t express his approval of that idea,
however much he liked it. Only a heartless villain would badger her
about marriage, when she remained so heartbreakingly fragile. “Not
her. She’ll just think I conspired to keep you out late.”

Amy managed another faint smile. “I haven’t
been much fun this afternoon.”

He tucked her hand back into the crook of his
elbow. As they walked toward his carriage, the shadows lengthened
around them. A breeze promised a chilly trip back to London. “It
doesn’t always have to be high jinks and champagne.”

She moved closer into the shelter of his
body. He hoped not just because the air cooled. “Thank you for
telling me about your parents.”

“It wasn’t a pleasure.”

She gave a husky laugh. “I know exactly how
you feel.”

“After today, you can never call me a
stranger again,” he said gently.

“No,” she said, and for the life of him, he
couldn’t tell whether that change left her pleased or dismayed.

For two weeks, Pascal kept to his word and
wooed Amy as he’d promised. If courtship was a new experience for
her, it was no less so for him. He soon realized quite how careless
he’d been with his previous amours. On the rare occasions when a
woman denied him, he might devote a day or two to the chase. Should
the effort prove too taxing, he’d shift his focus to someone
else.

Now he looked back on all those years of
pleasurable, but meaningless encounters, and couldn’t help feeling
they reflected poorly on him. A man shouldn’t find it easy to shrug
his shoulders and replace one woman with another. Somewhere a lover
or two should have touched his heart.

But they never had.

Until now. Until he met a clever, skittish
widow with a cloud of tawny hair and eyes that flashed between
green and gold. At thirty, he was late to his first true affair of
the heart, and the experience left him floundering.

Not least because, instead of running into
his arms, Amy became increasingly distant. The flirtation that
started with kisses and confidences became less intimate each day.
It was a damned backward way to win a bride.

There were no more passionate interludes in
the moonlight, no more shared secrets. Several times, he’d tried to
broach her defenses, but she proved adept at keeping him out. The
irony was that when all his previous lovers had sought to build
emotional closeness, he’d maintained his detachment.

Now Pascal was the one to want more than a
woman was prepared to give.

He’d wager what little money he had that the
gods were laughing their heads off at him.

Most days, he drove Amy in the park. At the
balls they attended, she always granted him two dances, including a
waltz. They went to the opera, the theatre, museums, picnics,
musicales, breakfasts, balls. Society began to treat them as a
couple, and the clodpolls he called friends snickered to see the
former libertine under the widow’s spell. The world awaited news of
a wedding for the elusive Lord Pascal and the charming Lady
Mowbray.

Pascal wondered if it waited in vain. Which
added to the comedy, given that for the last ten years, he’d had
his choice of bride. Now he wanted to marry a lady, yet he couldn’t
pin her down for a definite answer.

In the beginning, he’d assumed Amy was all
but his, and this game they played moved toward a fixed end. But as
day followed discouraging day, his prize edged further out of
reach.

Tonight, he waltzed with Amy at the Oldhams’
ball. The music was lovely. The crowd was elegant. He had the woman
he wanted in his arms. He should be in alt.

He wasn’t.

She smiled up at him. But she’d also smiled
up at every other partner with exactly the same delight and
interest. Damn it, couldn’t she see that he was special?

“Thank you for those beautiful red
roses.”

He hid a wince at her tone. Amy sounded
polite, rather than enthusiastic.

Every day since he’d met her, he’d sent her a
bouquet. “Too many flowers?”

“There’s no such thing.”

“And you’ve enjoyed the bonbons?”

“Delicious.”

He sensed he was missing something. “You
returned the diamond bracelet I gave you last week.”

Her glance was disapproving. “That was a
totally inappropriate gift for this stage of our acquaintance.”

He still had the bracelet tucked away in the
drawer of his desk. He hoped the day would soon arrive when it was
no longer inappropriate—because Amy had stooped to some
inappropriateness of her own. But that day wasn’t now. Sometimes he
gloomily wondered whether the day would ever arrive.

“It’s a highly respectable gift. The bracelet
belonged to my grandmother.”

How he’d love to shower Amy with jewelry.
Emeralds set in gold to match her changeable eyes. Pearls to shine
white against her creamy skin. Rubies to symbolize this passion
that never gave him a moment’s rest.

But when he’d set out to buy her something
sparkly from Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, his usually cooperative
conscience had shrieked. The amount he spent on a pretty bauble
would pay to reroof half the cottages on his estate.

“It was lovely.” He caught a momentary
softening at the mention of his grandmother, before she firmed that
delicate jaw in a regrettably familiar fashion. “But you know I
couldn’t accept it.”

“You can’t blame a man for trying,” he said
ruefully. “That’s why I went back to flowers and bonbons.”

“And lovely they’ve been.”

He frowned. “You don’t sound as if you like
them.”

Her expression thoughtful, she stared over
his shoulder as he twirled her around the floor in time to the
lilting music. “I said I do.”

“But?”

She gave a heavy sigh that he felt as much as
heard. “It’s just…”

When he didn’t fill the silence, she
reluctantly went on. “It’s just I can’t help feeling that I’m in
receipt of your standard mistress-catching set.”

What the devil? He was torn between offense
and laughter. “My standard mistress-catching set?”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

Unfortunately he had a fair idea, and he had
to admit her accusation was justified. A little. “Tell me.”

Another of those heavy sighs. “You decide to
seduce a woman, so you bombard her with flowers and delicacies and
gewgaws, the way you always do.”

“But I mean it when I give you presents,” he
said, cringing at how weak that sounded.

She looked unimpressed. “I’m sure you meant
it with the others—or at least you intended them to think so. Tell
me, Pascal, have you ever offered anything except flowers and
delicacies and gewgaws to a woman you want?”

He frowned, loathing how right she was. “Not
since I came to London. There was a milkmaid I fell madly in love
with when I was twelve. I gave her my best fishing rod.”

She smiled dutifully, and he loathed that,
too. “I hope she caught a trout or two, and you shared a romantic
outdoor dinner.”

“No, the faithless chit kept the fishing rod,
while throwing me over for the plowboy. Since then, I’ve stuck to
the usual tributes.” He struggled to maintain his light tone.
“Although if the battle looks lost, I’ve been known to produce a
puppy or two. You’d be astonished how much sin a puppy can
inspire.”

Amy gave a short laugh, half-shocked. “You’re
a terrible man.”

He whirled her around to avoid bumping into
Sir Charles Kinglake and Sally. “You know that.”

“I do.” She paused. “I like puppies, but I
really can’t take one on, when Sally’s putting me up.”

“Pity.” He’d already considered and dismissed
including a kitten or a dog in the avalanche of pretty gifts. “So
no more flowers?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you’d like me to put a little more
imagination into my wooing?”

“I’d like to feel that you’re trying to win
Amy Mowbray, not some generic woman lined up to become your
hundredth mistress.”

Even as secretly he squirmed, he shot her a
straight look. It was hell being in thrall to a clever woman. “I’m
not quite up to three figures.”

Something that might have been jealousy
flashed in her eyes. That pleased him, even as he wondered what the
deuce would convince her that she was unique in his existence.
“Mind you, I have high hopes that a certain widow from
Leicestershire will bring my total up.”

Her lips flattened, and her tone turned arid.
“You’ll have to work a little harder, then.”

This discussion had been dashed
uncomfortable, partly because she was right about his laziness,
much as he didn’t want to admit it. Now amusement won out over hurt
pride.

“There’s my schoolmistress again.” To his
regret, the waltz ended. Pascal held onto her until the last
possible second. This damned vexatious courtship offered few enough
opportunities to touch her. “It seems my arithmetic may need
improvement after all.”

Without shifting from his grasp, Amy narrowed
her eyes on him. “It does, if you want one and one to make two, my
lord.”

* * *

Amy sat beside Pascal as his curricle
negotiated the narrow country lanes. On this cloudy, but dry day,
they were well into Surrey. They’d passed through Epsom half an
hour ago. “This seems a long way to go for a picnic, my lord.”

He didn’t shift his attention from the
horses, but the corners of the firm mouth deepened, as if her
remark aroused some secret amusement. “I’m very fussy about where I
eat.”

They’d left London before ten, and he’d told
Sally that they’d be back late. Amy might suspect some nefarious
purpose—she hadn’t missed his increasing frustration with her
rules—if a groom hadn’t accompanied them.

Usually when they went driving, Pascal left
the boy at Sally’s. This adherence to propriety hinted that
something unusual lay ahead.

Amy just wished she knew what the devil it
was.

They hit a deep hole among all the other
ruts, and she clutched his arm for balance. Then she made herself
let go, much as she’d rather cling to him.

This decorous courtship tested her patience,
too, and several times she’d wondered if she pushed him too far,
and he’d look elsewhere for a mistress. But she had to give him
credit. For more than two weeks, he’d been the perfect suitor.

“Are you still there, George?” Pascal asked,
checking with the boy at the rear of the carriage.

“Aye, your lordship,” the young groom said
breathlessly. “These roads are a bit rum.”

“They are indeed, my lad.”

Amy had already noticed Pascal’s easy manner
with George. She liked that he wasn’t highhanded with his servants.
The problem was that she liked far too much about Gervaise Dacre,
Earl Pascal. Her resistance grew ever more threadbare, yet she
still wasn’t sure she wanted to risk an affair.

It was an effort to maintain her sardonic
tone. “You should have told me you planned dinner rather than
luncheon, and I’d have had an extra sausage for breakfast.”

This time he did look at her, the blue eyes
suspiciously innocent. “If there’s one thing our delightful
acquaintance has taught me, Lady Mowbray, it’s that patience is a
virtue.”

She gritted her teeth, as the curricle turned
between two stone gateposts and bowled along a drive considerably
smoother than the roads they’d taken to get here. “Where are
we?”

A beautiful park extended on either side,
with artfully placed follies and bridges. In the distance, she saw
a lake, with just beyond, a magnificent Portland stone country
house, built in last century’s style.