Swept Away By a Kiss (20 page)

As Steven’s hand came to rest upon the bronze knob, he saw again Valerie’s straight shoulders and high chin when she left the library. Earlier, in the drawing room, amid people who had once scorned her and confused by his arrival, she still radiated composure and grace. She was remarkable—sharp, proud, with a will of iron, and blindingly desirable. His memory had not mistaken anything in the insufferably slow months since he had seen her last.

He laughed, pretending to make light of his godmother’s comment. The sound echoed hollowly.

“No, Godmother. I would never wish the lady to suffer upon my account.”

“Your spirits seem improved, Valerie. I’m glad.”

Valerie flashed a smile at the Viscount of Bramfield across the tea table.

“Thank you. Yesterday’s long journey wore me out.” After the horrible conversation in the library she had spent an hour alone in her bedchamber, explaining away her solitude to Anna the same way. Anna looked skeptical. But Valerie had chosen to lie to her family months ago. It wouldn’t do any good to tell them the truth now.

Timothy, fortunately, believed her without question. He hadn’t any reason not to. For all his appreciative smiles and compliments, he knew very little about her. The
real
Valerie.

“I am pleased the snow did not upset your journey.” Her voice was less animated than she liked. She could practice every dissembling art she and her maid knew to appear fresh-eyed and fascinated, but she could not sham enthusiasm. Her heart was far too raw.

Timothy waved his hand in dismissal. “It was minimal until we came close to Castlemarch. Mother and my sister insisted they could not bear being stranded in some dingy inn on the road, condemned to share Christmas dinner with farmers in a taproom. They would have us drive through a blizzard rather than hazard that.” He laughed cheerfully. “I would have too.”

Valerie forced a smile. Timothy’s eyes sparkled with admiration as she leaned forward to pour out tea.

Looking well on the outside hadn’t helped the confused misery of her insides during dinner either. She had chatted and laughed her way through the living hell of remove after remove of delicacies, but now she barely remembered the faces of her dinner partners. Every fiber of her attention was wrapped around the Viscount of Ashford flirting with the women to either side of him. When the ladies had retired to the drawing room for Christmas carols on the pianoforte, Valerie breathed a lungful of relief. After taking port, a handful of gentlemen joined the ladies. The others had gone off to the billiards room, the Viscount of Ashford, apparently, along with them.

Timothy, of course, had instantly sought her out. Offering him a cup now, Valerie watched him from beneath lowered lashes.

Anna’s wisdom reigned upon so many matters. Timothy Ramsay had become an attractive, decent man, a far cry from the rowdy youth Valerie had known years earlier. Tonight he seemed infinitely dear. He was uncomplicated, and he had been a loyal friend since her return from America. She cared for him.

“Have you yet had opportunity to tour the gallery, my lord?”

His gaze met hers with frank surprise. “Not in the four hours since I have been here. But I would be very glad now to see the old curmudgeons of March ancestry, if you will show them to me.”

Valerie took the arm he offered, and as they left the drawing room he chatted lightly. She barely attended. By the time they reached the long gallery, lit dimly by wall sconces, she was regretting her invitation. The way she felt tonight, it seemed too much like a test, of Timothy or herself, she could not be certain.

He drew the door closed and joined her in the narrow, high-ceilinged chamber.

“Quite a few of these Marches, aren’t there?” he remarked. “Look at this fellow, in his helmet and gauntlets. Why, he looks like he goes right back to when the Picts painted themselves blue and the Scots didn’t yet know Latin.”

She tried to laugh, but couldn’t manage it. Gripping her fingers tight in her skirt, she searched inside herself for signs of stirring nerves. Candlelight flickered off mirrors placed at intervals between paintings. It was the perfect setting, dimly lit, sparkling, private.

She felt nothing.

Timothy placed his hands upon her waist. His mouth touched hers, then pressed closer as she accepted his advance. The kiss lasted a few moments, allowing Valerie time to feel his firm shoulders beneath her hands and take in his sandalwood and wool fragrance before he released her.

She stepped back. He drew in a deep breath before speaking.

“Valerie, you are uncertain of your feelings for me.”

She stiffened, but he continued in an unusually sober voice.

“You know my feelings for you. I assure you, I will not demand of you similar sentiments at this early date. It would not be honorable of me, given the difficult few years you have been through.” He took her hand, and his amiable blue eyes creased at the corners. “I am happy to wait for your return of my affections with hope.” His mouth relaxed into a light smile. “You will not, I trust, make that wait too difficult for me?” His fingers tightened.

Eyes widening, Valerie tugged her hand free. She never thought of Timothy that way. But he was a man, with a man’s desires. She simply did not reciprocate them. Instead, she felt them for someone else, a lying, wicked, confusing man she merely had to glance at to grow weak with longing. Guilt churned in her stomach.

Timothy chuckled and reached for her fingers again, trapping them in the crook of his arm as he led her back to the gallery doors.

“Do not fret, dear Valerie. I am well accustomed to waiting. I will not fall to pieces at the slightest touch of your lovely hand.” They exited the gallery into the corridor toward the drawing room.

“Then you are a damned fool,” Steven said into the stillness of the empty gallery. Stepping from the shadow cast by a mounted marble bust of some long-dead and best-forgotten Roman consul, he watched the pair disappear down the corridor and released a breath. It was almost ten o’clock. His informant would arrive at any moment.

He paced the length of the chamber, not bothering to glance at the dark portraits to either side.

She had invited her suitor to the gallery. That much was clear from her unusual coyness, Bramfield’s easy manner, and his quick action. But she had kissed him without enthusiasm. Steven hated that he was actually savoring his satisfaction.

The Viscount of Bramfield was a well-favored, well-heeled, and well-liked fellow. He was also her brother’s closest friend, and apparently had courted Valerie for months. Steven had learned all of this since witnessing their warm reunion in the drawing room before dinner. She was a fool not to respond to the fellow’s suit. And Bramfield was doubly a fool if he did not make that beautiful woman his as soon as she would have him.

No. Tonight she was not merely beautiful. She was breathtaking, more vibrant and sparkling than Steven thought possible for mortal woman to be. And she had offered herself to Bramfield upon a plate.

Steven tugged at his high-pointed collar, the skintight coat his valet had buttoned him into constricting his chest. He couldn’t blame his discomfort on clothing, though. He knew the name of the biggest fool at Castlemarch, and it wasn’t Bramfield. The fellow might be an amiable dupe, but he was a careful one.

Taking another deep breath to clear his head, Steven saw a servant’s door open at the end of the chamber. Moving forward in the dimness, he went to work.

Chapter 20

V
alerie waited impatiently, kneeling in the snow while her brother tied the steel blades onto her half boots.

“You are coddling me. I am perfectly able to do this myself,” she said, gazing over the treetops around the lake to the blue sky. Surrounded by tall, snow-bedecked pines, willows and nut trees, the broad expanse of frozen lake sparkled and the air smelled of fresh, sharp snow.

“Let a fellow coddle,” Valentine said, climbing to his feet and casting a glance at his wife donning her skates. “God knows you’ve had little of it in your lifetime.”

Valerie’s throat tightened. “Oh, pish,” she mumbled, and moved away. Valentine and Anna were looking at each other again in that knowing way. She didn’t want any part of it. Their love was everything to her now, but she wished they would not worry. If they looked too closely, they might see something she did not wish to reveal.

Servants had swept the ice, laying out rugs along the sloping bank, arranging benches and lighting fires to warm spiced wine and cider. Privately, Valerie thought the advance preparation was a travesty, like a pretty girl using stays to enhance her figure. But the sensation of her body moving free and swift as she set out across the lake made her smile for the first time in days.

“This is the most perfect Christmas I have ever enjoyed,” Alethea Pierce breathed as she approached. “The scenery is perfect, Castlemarch is perfect, the festivities are perfect.” She glanced at Valerie with a playful look. “The gentlemen are perfect.”

Behind them, young, flaxen-haired Lady Cassandra Fredericks giggled.

“I agree.” She took Alethea’s arm. “Are there always so many unmarried gentlemen present at house parties of this size? If so, I will ask Papa to bring me to many more.”

Alethea laughed, but Valerie only shrugged. She hadn’t really noticed the gentlemen at Castlemarch. Except one. And her brother, of course, but he did not count.

Familiar guilt prickled at her as she glimpsed Timothy at the edge of the lake. He did count, however. At least he was supposed to.

“Mr. Fenton is heavenly, isn’t he?” Alethea said upon another sigh as their skates furrowed a path around the edge of the lake, away from the other guests. “And I nearly swoon every time Lord Michaels walks into the room.”

“Your brother is absolutely delectable, Lady Valerie.”

Valerie started at the sound of the throaty voice. Sylvia Sinclaire skated forward to join their group.

“But, of course, he is already claimed. What a pity.” The girl turned her golden head to glance at the Earl and Countess of Alverston. A few locks of shining hair spilled around the edges of her hood.

“It is improper for you to say such a thing, Sylvia,” Cassandra chided softly, glancing at Valerie.

“But accurate,” Sylvia replied with a wide, thin smile.

Valerie knew that look. She had once been foolish enough to play at being wicked as Sylvia did now, before she had seen the face of true wickedness.

Alethea’s grip upon Valerie’s arm tightened. “Look. There is Lord Ashford. He skates as divinely as he flirts.”

Valerie’s heart turned over. She followed Alethea’s gaze. Not far ahead, he skated figure eights with the nursery boys and girls, their maids watching attentively from the bank. Like mice to the piper, three boys followed his lead, trying to copy his movements. One of the girls practiced the lesson too, while others moved around the group coyly, calling out praise and casting shy smiles.

“Ah, the most mysteriously delicious man of the lot,” Sylvia purred. “Isn’t he magnificent, Lady Valerie? And all the more so since it is rumored he spent most of his life in the wilds of America.”

Valerie’s spine stiffened. She must accustom herself to this sort of thing, at least for as long as he remained in society. But something foolish and weak inside her wanted to keep him secret, to believe he was her dream, a memory that tarts like Sylvia Sinclaire could not share.

That dream, of course, had nothing to do with the man now present at Lady March’s skating party.

“He is certainly handsome,” she replied, keeping her voice even with effort, “and an excellent skater.”

“I wish I were still in the nursery,” Cassandra giggled into her gloves.

Sylvia grunted her contempt and headed toward the viscount and his youthful admirers.

“Forward baggage,” Alethea muttered as the beauty arrested Ashford with a delicately gloved hand upon his shoulder. Stomach tightening, Valerie turned away. He was not her secret. Not even her dream. She did not know this man. She never had.

They had already far outstripped the other guests. Back at the other side of the lake, chilled skaters clustered by the fire. Accompanied by chaperones and gentlemen escorts, a handful of ladies pirouetted demurely about the carefully swept ice near the bank.

Valerie’s eyes narrowed. Sylvia Sinclaire might be a forward baggage, but she did not own a monopoly on provocative behavior. Valerie could still defy convention, if somewhat more gracefully than before.