That Scandalous Summer (8 page)

“Thank you. But may I say, Mrs. Chudderley, I wish that someday soon we might meet on a Sunday. Our congregation misses you sorely.”

“Oh,” she said lightly, “one of these days, sir, the sinner shall return to her flock. And then you may reform me to your heart’s content! Mr. Grey, will you walk with me?”

Very bad idea.
He glanced to Pershall, who was beaming like a young boy whose cheeks had just been pinched by the most buxom dairy maid in the milking shed. No help there. “In fact, I may have patients waiting—”

“But that’s precisely my concern,” she said. “The Browards’ boy has been ailing. I’m certain they would appreciate a professional opinion.”

He eyed her narrowly for a moment, suspicious of how well she’d crafted her lure. But her smile was bright and guileless, and he’d look like an ass if he declined. Moreover, ethical obligations forbade him to do so. The avoidance of flirts and preservation of one’s virtue did not take priority over sick children.

He took a deep breath. Restraint: he would have to practice restraint. A true novelty, along with all this bleeding fresh air. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll be glad to have a look at him.”

“Lovely!” She thrust the basket into his arms and walked off without so much as a by-your-leave. The foamy gown transformed her gait into something more like a . . . strut. The wind kicked up again, and his fevered
mind thought it glimpsed the outline of a well-shaped hip, sloping inward to a shapely thigh.

Long before Alastair came calling, chastity was going to kill him.

•   •   •

Young Daniel was running a slight fever, but Michael felt it safe to declare him on the mend, particularly after the boy evidenced a healthy appetite by attacking Mrs. Chudderley’s basket of custards. Mrs. Broward, heavily pregnant, insisted on tea, and a half hour and two pots later, Michael sat on a small chair, desperately trying to rearrange his limbs in a way that did not suggest the extreme discomfort occasioned by furniture designed for a much shorter man.

Or perhaps his discomfort came from the slow dissolution of his best defense against the widow. Lady Bountifuls did not impress him; too often their good intentions were diminished by their transparent distaste for the objects of their compassion. Yet Mrs. Chudderley seemed easy in the Browards’ company, and her attitude fostered an atmosphere of informal good cheer. Mrs. Broward, one hand on her great belly, wondered if Mrs. Chudderley hadn’t any suggestions for names. Young Miss Broward solicited her opinions on London fashions. Various little ones tugged at her skirts. At one point an ominous ripping sound was heard, but while Mrs. Broward gasped and yanked the offending tyke away, Mrs. Chudderley only laughed.

This was clearly not the first time she had visited the Browards. Nor would it be the last, judging by the warm invitations that followed them as they finally took their leave, all of which centered on the prospect of her return as soon as the babe was born.

“Well,” he said as they stepped back into the village lane. So she enjoyed the company of farmers. So he rather liked her for it. No matter. Circumstances dictated that he take his leave all the more quickly as a result. “I must get to my other patients. I’ll bid you farewell.”

Mrs. Chudderley, caught in the process of untangling the ribbons of her parasol, slanted him a look. “Running off so soon?”

He hesitated. “That’s a great lot of ribbons on that parasol. Do they serve any purpose?”

She laughed. “Beauty,” she said. “That is their purpose.”

Then the ribbons weren’t required. Her eyes were the only adornment she needed. They were extraordinary, such a pale shade of green, and they tilted ever so slightly at the outward corners. They put him in mind, somehow, of the cat statues in the Egyptian wing of the British Museum. Ancient eyes, much older than the face they graced.

Out of nowhere, he recalled her tears upon waking a week ago. What, or who, had made her weep?

It is none of your business.

“Anyway,” she said, “your home and mine lie in the same direction. Shan’t we walk together?”

Shaking out the parasol a final time, she started down the road without a backward glance—assuming, as women of her beauty usually did, that he would follow.

Their respective destinations did lie down the same road. He could think of no excuse to go back into town. And so, with a sigh, he followed her—as men, he supposed, usually did.

“You seem to know the Browards well,” he said as he fell into step beside her. It struck him as unusual. Most
country gentry strove to distinguish themselves from their tenants.

“Indeed,” she said. “I fund their eldest sons’ educations. Very bright lads, one at Harrington, the other at University College in London. And I’ve known Mary and Thomas—Mr. and Mrs. Broward—since we were children.”

“Ah. You grew up in this district, then.”

“In the winters, yes. Didn’t you know?” She sighed. “And here I imagined that nobody in Bosbrea had
any
topic of discussion more interesting than me.”

Her rueful smile lent her remark a self-deprecating air, one he liked very much. His better instincts warred against habit. Habit won. “That
is
difficult to imagine,” he said.

His reward was a flutter of mink-brown lashes. “How kind of you. In fact, I’m kin to the Browards through my mother. My father bought Havilland Hall to keep her from growing too homesick.”

A mésalliance, then. Startling to hear her divulge it so casually. “I see.”

She lifted a brow. “Yes, I’m sure you do. Not the most glorious match for Papa, of course. His family was most displeased. But . . .” Her mouth pulled in a sideways smile. “Mama and Papa loved each other dreadfully. Eventually they won over even the stoniest of his relatives.”

The cynic in him rather doubted that. But it made a good tale for circulation. “So you’re related to some of your tenants. That’s bound to be messy.”

The slightest edge entered her voice. “I suppose it might be, if the landlord is unjust.”

In return, he felt mildly annoyed by her accidental
implication: that his own family behaved less than justly with their own people. Of course, she thought him a mere doctor. Nevertheless . . . “With crop prices sinking, economies become necessary. One might say that causes an inevitable tension between those who own the land and those who work it.”

She gave a little laugh. “You sound like a university lecturer.”

Good God. What he’d sounded like was
Alastair.
“Perish the thought, Mrs. Chudderley.”

“Or . . . like a man who has some personal experience of land management?” Her pause plainly invited him to elaborate. When he did not, she added pointedly, “In the north, no doubt.”

Ah. He allowed his smile to widen. Clearly his reserve had pricked her. “What an excellent memory you have. In the north, indeed.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I do believe you’re teasing me now.”

“You might be right.” It gratified something foolish in him to be the cause of her rising color—and to be studied so closely by such magnificent eyes. He lifted a brow, and watched her blush deepen.

Really, she was surprisingly easy to ruffle for a professional beauty. A man could make a hobby of it.

“Now you’re staring,” she said tartly.

“Surely you’re accustomed to that,” he said. “I imagine it’s almost obligatory.”

No false pretense of modesty from this widow: she did not even blink. “I’m accustomed to a great many things,” she said. “Polite conversation, for instance—which generally commences with a frank discussion of one’s natal place. But perhaps such niceties are only
common in the
south
of the country. I will leave it to you to enlighten me.”

Oh, but she was clever. He vaguely recalled tales of her wildness, but none of her wit. Typical unfairness, that. “It’s true, we northerners are famously reticent savages. But I promise you, we abandoned most of our more boorish customs once the Picts fell from power. You’re quite safe with me.”

“Oh, I do not think you a savage,” she said sweetly. “In fact, you seem a much more evolved specimen—a man whose favorite subjects do not include himself. Why, I’m not certain I’ve ever encountered your kind before!”

He laughed. In fact, only the barest thread of common sense leashed his tongue, for a man’s instinct, when holding such a woman’s attention, was to babble endlessly, lest she find a reason to look away.

Christ, but she was beautiful. He wondered how wild she became, exactly. He had a brief vision of her dancing atop a table, garbed only in a string of black pearls. Alas, it seemed a bit too Parisian, even for her.

“You find me amusing?” She sounded pleased by the notion.

“I find you persistent—particularly in the face of such boorishly northern company.”

Her nose wrinkled. “You are not nearly the
northerner
you claim to be. Your address shows breeding; the way you walk suggests a lifetime of sport. Cricket, I think?”

“Rugby,” he answered before he could think better of it.

“Ah.” She sounded satisfied, as well she might. Rugby was a sport most often confined to public school playing fields. But he had not given himself away.

“A common game in the north,” he said. “Mr. Pershall also played it as a boy.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it. Nevertheless . . . yes, I find your presentation suspiciously
polished
for a boor. Your apparel, on the other hand . . .” She shook her head. “You
do
know we have a very fine haberdasher in Brosbrea? You’ve just now met his wife.”

Now his laughter was full-throated, impossible to contain. “A blunt-spoken woman! Mrs. Chudderley, if my kind is rare, yours is rarer.”

Her smile widened to a grin. “Then what a pair we are! But you, I think, are determined to remain a mystery, while
I
am an open book.”

Ah, but these lies left him feeling uneasy. It was not guilt that troubled him, precisely. He undertook this masquerade as plain Mr. Grey partially for his brother’s sake: were he to use his true name, word would eventually reach London that the Duke of Marwick’s brother had abandoned the hospital to live quietly in rural Cornwall, and speculation would run rampant as to the cause. He would not make Alastair the brunt of gossip until and unless his brother left him no choice. By the same token . . . to incite such gossip would be to squander one of the only weapons he had in this ridiculous little game they were playing.

But sound motives did not make for an easy frame of mind. He ought to be in London right now. This situation was absurd in the extreme.

“On the contrary,” he said, “I am as you see me. The only mysteries in my life are medical. I did briefly entertain a different mystery last week, but in the days since, my rosebushes have disappointed me.”

He expected a coy reply, or perhaps even a retort born
of embarrassment. Instead she looked at him in surprise, and then burst into laughter—and his breath stopped.
He
nearly stopped, the better to behold her. What kind of laugh was
this
? Not a polite and controlled sound, smothered behind a palm, as society ladies favored, but a surprisingly loud bellow: a laugh without a trace of self-consciousness. She laughed like a barmaid, with her entire body.

Perhaps she
was
Parisian at heart.

For a moment, he permitted himself to feel the full effect of this possibility: the hot leap of desire, the dazzled giddiness. To be walking in the sun with a beautiful woman, who gazed on him as though he were the most fascinating riddle she had ever encountered, and then laughed as though no one could amuse her better . . .

The next moment, he checked himself. His bloody romantic temperament had gotten him into enough scrapes to last a lifetime.
Perfection,
he always decided within the course of five minutes’ conversation, only to conclude, two or four or six weeks later, that perfection was only a very good disguise for disaster. It never lasted.

Besides, she knew nothing of him. She teased and flirted by nature, and would have done so no doubt with the roughest-spun laborer. He understood that, and he approved of it. She was not a snob, Mrs. Chudderley. She took fun where she found it.

“Have you other patients to see?” she asked. “If not, I will show you around the area.”

Damn the circumstances. In any other time or place, he would have been rampantly eager to amuse her. “In fact—”

“It will work to your advantage to be seen with me,”
she said lightly. “If you wish to establish your credentials, that is. You will find that people in these parts are inclined to mistrust a stranger, even if his medical skills recommend him.”

“A very generous offer, for which I am properly grateful. But—”

“And I find myself willing, because the day is so fine, to show you one of my
favorite
places,” she continued, and something gay and carefree in her manner tugged out a similar feeling within him, leaping and laughter-prone, much younger than he felt these days. He realized that he was grinning.

Well . . . why not accompany her? He was bored; he had neither enough patients nor books here to keep him occupied. Attraction did not require him to
act.
And prolonged acquaintance with her surely would cure this budding interest he felt.

Besides, to offend her would be unwise. If Bosbrea’s most famous citizen set out to blacken his name, prospective patients would be deterred from consulting him. Then he’d truly be out of hand.

Oh, yes. Very sound logic, not at all self-serving. He bit his cheek. “Very well. If it’s near.”

“It’s all near.” They walked side by side, past the last few houses, into the open country. “In fact, my land begins at this hedgerow.”

He looked out. Havilland Hall was not visible from this vantage, but the scene had its own charms. Summer lay like a warm breath over the fields, and butterflies danced up out of the long, quivering grasses. “A lovely piece of earth.”

“More than a piece,” she said. “Nearly five thousand acres—all mine now.”

Did a trace of sadness color her words? “You have no siblings, then?”