The Beautiful One (16 page)

She looked quite fine. She
liked
the way she looked.

But she wished he hadn't done this. He'd taken away her disguises and made her feel instantly far less safe. She wanted to march downstairs and tell him just how angry she was.

But even a fight with him was time spent with him. And what she needed was to engage with him as little as possible.

* * *

Lizzie swept down Stillwell's grand front staircase, enjoying the way the white skin of her hand looked against the old dark wood of the banister. The tips of her cream calfskin boots peeked out saucily from under the draping hem of her ecru silk morning gown, a lustrous color that she knew complemented her red-gold hair and fair skin.

She only wished there were someone to admire her. She'd given up on Grandville doing so, though of course she hadn't really wanted him to admire her like that. Anyway, she was now feeling cautiously optimistic about her chances of staying at Stillwell. After all, he'd been really quite nice about the statues, and when she'd seen him in the hallway that morning, he'd actually been almost warm, and asked her how she was.

Tristan padded along next to her, his nails clicking on the marble stairs, and she reached out to pet his shining head.

“
You
want me to stay, don't you?” she said, smiling, and he gave a short bark as if in reply. She loved dogs.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard footsteps coming along the hallway, and then the surprising sound of someone whistling “Drunken Sailor,” a tune she'd heard often by the docks in Malta. It was not the sort of song she expected to hear at Stillwell Hall, and she turned to correct whatever servant it must be.

Striding toward her was not a servant but a tall gentleman, well turned out in a beautiful dark blue coat and stone-colored trousers that fit his athletic build to perfection. He was a surprising figure for two reasons. One was the streak of white hair that fell in a careless blade across his forehead in contrast to the rest of his black locks. Two was that he was undoubtedly the most handsome man she'd ever seen.

“Hello,” he said, grinning as they met at the foot of the stairs. “You must be the ward.”

She blinked. Close up he was even more striking. His eyes were a sparkling green that suggested a lively playfulness, his face was beautifully formed, and the confident spring in his step made her think of dashing princes and naval heroes.

His mouth quirked upward as he waited for her to respond, and she realized that she'd been looking at him for too long. But she was a little overcome with the realization that she had, in a manner of speaking, met her match.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “I am Lord Grandville's niece, Miss Elizabeth Tarryton. I'm afraid you have the advantage of me, sir.” It was all properly said, but something about his jaunty air made Lizzie feel faintly ridiculous, like just the kind of stuffy twit she'd hated listening to at the Rosewood School. By her side, Tristan whined softly.

“Well, hello, Miss Elizabeth Tarryton,” he said, sweeping her a bow. “And hello again, Tristan,” he continued, crouching down to greet the dog as if she and the dog were of equal interest. He lingered for several moments, fluffing Tristan's ears playfully.

“I see you two are well acquainted,” she said with creeping irritation to the top of his head.

He stood up and focused those clear green eyes on her with the trace of a knowing smile that told her he'd heard the stuffy note in her voice. “Tristan was sired by my father's favorite, Cadfael.” He bowed elegantly. “Tommy Halifax, at your service. Grandville's brother.”

Well, how wonderful! She forgot all about giving him a set-down and dipped him her best curtsy. She was pleased, on straightening, to see a glint of masculine interest in his eyes.

“And where are you off to, Miss Tarryton?”

“I was going to take Tristan for a walk.” She allowed a brief lingering of her dark lashes against her cheek as she blinked, nothing so pronounced as batting her eyelashes, but an accentuation. Anna had been saying something earlier about Lizzie not connecting with people through her appearance, but as much as Lizzie liked Anna, the woman had no notion of the advantages of beauty and feminine charms.

“Might I join you?” he said. “I haven't strolled the grounds in what seems like ages.”

“I should like that,” she said, certain that his eyes had lingered at least twice on her lips. She quite liked Tommy Halifax. He would certainly be pleasant to have around, and he might even be useful.

He was from Town, she reminded herself as they passed through the doorway and Tristan bounded ahead of them. She must let him see she was sophisticated.

“So you have come very recently to Stillwell, Miss Tarryton,” he said. “And what do you think of it?”

They stepped past a small hole in the ground and she tightened her grip on his arm; men loved these kinds of little gestures that drew attention to their masculinity. “Oh lud, Halifax,” she said. “I've never seen such grounds. And the manor!”

She sighed with extra pleasure to show that she appreciated the finer things in life. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought, strangely, that she saw him hide a smile, as though he found something about her funny, but she knew she must be imagining things.

“And you must call me Lizzie,” she said, “for are we not practically family?”

“Are we?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “Then you must call me Tommy.”

She chatted on, asking him about all the balls he'd been to and what was popular at the moment in Town in the realms of music and entertainments. His replies seemed strangely mild, as though he weren't particularly interested in such things, but she told herself she was being ridiculous. He was a fashionable gentleman, and these were the topics that fashionable men liked talking about, from what she'd heard. Well, and drinking and horseflesh, but she could hardly bring those up.

What did any of that matter, though, when she'd already caught his eyes lingering on her with the light of attraction? From her experience, men didn't care so much what a girl had to say if they admired her, and she felt certain this man did.

The only thing that troubled her, as he led her up the front steps to Stillwell, was that little secret smile she noticed again as he bowed to take his leave.

Back in her room, she sat on her bed, staring out the window at the pale late-afternoon sky and daydreaming. She
liked
Tommy Halifax. None of the other young men she'd ever met had made her heart go pitter-pat in her chest the way it had the whole time she'd walked next to him.

Her bedchamber door, which was not all the way closed, opened slowly, and she heard a clicking sound as Tristan's shining red-brown head appeared.

“Hello, you,” she said as he came to stand next to her bed. He looked at her with an expression both imploring and expectant, and she laughed softly and patted the bed. “I don't know if you're allowed on beds, but you can be on mine.”

He hopped fluidly up, which suggested that Judith indulged him in this. He was all legs on the bed next to her for a moment before executing one tight circle and curling up next to her thigh.

She began to pet him, and something nagged at her, spoiling her pleasure in her reverie.
Had
there been something too amused in Tommy's manner toward her, as though she were entertaining him in some way she didn't understand? But no, she was being too sensitive.

Under her hand, Tristan's head stirred. She smiled. “I needn't pretend to you, at least,” she said, leaning down and kissing the glossy fur on his head. “Tommy is smitten. He has to be. And for once, I'll have an admirer whose attentions I'll enjoy.”

Tristan shifted under her and she sat up. He lifted his head, and his brown doggy eyes sought hers with a soulful look. He gave a funny shake of his head from side to side.

She cocked her head at him. “Silly. I'd almost say you looked skeptical.” She was chuckling at the thought of a dog having such opinions when from Tristan's hindquarters came an unmistakable sound, followed by a small, ferocious cloud that knocked her back on the pillows, giggling.

“Exactly!” she said, laughing. “What does a dog know of the power of beauty? Tommy can be the very best sort of advocate for me with Grandville. And I needn't worry about what Anna said about scheming. Why, this isn't scheming at all; it's attraction!”

She lay back on the pillow and dreamed.

Dinner that night was the kind of rollicking good fun Anna suspected had not been had at Stillwell for some time. The viscount was out to dinner at the Chittisters', for which she was thankful, and so she escaped any discussion of his discovery that she was the daughter of Dr. Bristol.

But Tommy stayed home with the ladies, and since he gave no indication that he knew anything odd about her name, she could only think his brother hadn't let on. Tommy was as charming as Will was brooding, and already Lizzie seemed to have taken to him. She and Judith both remarked on how pretty Anna looked in her new green dress, and Tommy announced, with a roguish grin, that he couldn't imagine how his brother could forego the company of three such beautiful ladies, but that
he
was quite happy to be left alone in their charming company.

After dinner they all sat companionably in the drawing room while Lizzie read aloud from a light novel. Anna fetched her sketchbook and contentedly made a study of the scene.

As she was preparing to get undressed for bed that night, Dart knocked on her door. Apparently the master had returned. She could hardly pretend that his summons was unexpected, although the location was; he was on the terrace.

She passed through the quiet house and into the dark library, whose doors were open. She found him sitting on a backless stone bench near the weeping willow, facing away from her and out over the night-dark grounds. His arms were splayed out behind him so that he looked relaxed, but she was not fooled.

The moon was a fat crescent, and the sky was so dense with brilliant stars and so much vaster than Stillwell that for once the enormous manor seemed quaint. She drew closer to him, and he must have heard her footsteps because he said without turning, “Sit.”

She sat down on the bench next to him but facing in the opposite direction, toward the manor, which seemed less intimate. She needed it to be.

“I do not wish,” she said before he could speak, “to be used as part of your grudge against Judith. I like your stepmother very much, and I don't want to see her hurt. You do her a wrong, putting me before her as hostess.”

“I didn't call you down here to talk about her.”

She crossed her arms against the shivers that were starting in her just from his nearness. “And I am quite furious that you took my gowns. That was appallingly high-handed of you. They are my personal belongings—”

“Which were an embarrassment to my household,” he interrupted. “And you deserved something far better than what you had.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “From what little I can see of you, I'd say your new attire suits you. Now stop trying to distract me. I assume that you told me the truth when you said you've never been married.”

“I told you the truth.”

“Then why are you using a false name?”

“It's not false exactly; it was my mother's surname and is my own middle name.”

“But why didn't you tell me that you were Dr. Bristol's daughter?”

“I had adopted using my middle name when I left home because of what happened with the man I told you about. Lizzie knew me by that name too, and I could hardly change it when I got here.”

He grunted. “I guessed as much. I told Tommy some man had behaved badly toward you, and that you might have felt the need to change your name. He and I will continue to use Black.”

She felt herself sag a little in relief. “Thank you.”

“But, Anna, I'm not happy that you kept your identity from me. And I'm extremely unhappy that I've tampered with the daughter of a gentleman I respected. I feel like a scoundrel.”

She crossed her arms. “You needn't. We both made our own choices freely. And no one else will know—unless, of course, you speak of it to someone.”

“You dare,” he said in a voice of leashed menace, “to suggest that I might babble about this?” He shifted, sitting up stiffly and crossing his arms.

“You're the one who's making a fuss.”

“For pity's sake! By rights, I ought to marry you.”

His words made her heart jump.
Married
to Will, who made her heart beat faster. Will, for whom she'd already come to care so much.

Stop
it
, she told herself sternly. He's only asking because he's a gentleman and he feels he compromised you. He was the responsible viscount, who'd already insisted that she ought to let him take care of her by becoming his mistress.

He had no idea that she was a woman on the verge of scandal. He'd said he admired her—words she cherished—and she couldn't bear the thought of him discovering that she was the woman he'd been discussing with his brother when they were talking about
The
Beautiful
One
.

But she had to know if he would say words that might make all the difference.

“Get married?” she said in as light a tone as she could muster. “Are you daft?”

“This is serious! We've become entangled. What if Judith and Miranda had arrived five minutes earlier when we were at the cottage?”

It was just as she thought. He was concerned with propriety, not love. But propriety, thanks to
The
Beautiful
One
, no longer meant anything to her, and she wouldn't have this good man marry her simply to do the honorable thing.

“They didn't,” she said.

“But they
might
have, and considering what we did together, the appropriate thing for us to do is to marry.”

She hated that he was proposing to her out of obligation. “I thank you, but I do not wish to marry.”

She heard the sound of teeth grinding. “You are the most contrary woman. You're telling me that you don't want to marry me and become a viscountess?”

“I mean that I don't wish to marry anyone at all,” she said, knowing in that moment that she doubtless would never marry. What she'd tasted with him had been something rare, and if she couldn't have that, what need would she have of marriage? Even if she could outrun the scandal of
The
Beautiful
One
, she knew enough of the world to know that marriage could be a prison, especially for women. “Let us simply be friends, as we were before.”

“Friends,” he repeated in a dark voice. “
Friends
?”

But he said nothing more, and she supposed he was relieved that she'd not accepted, a thought that depressed her. She wished he hadn't proposed.

“I know I didn't behave in a way that invited your trust at first, but since that time, things have changed. You could have trusted me with the truth about your name.”

He meant that they'd grown closer.

“Perhaps,” she said, but she knew she wouldn't have. The more people who knew her name, the more chances there were that Henshaw would find her.

The sounds of night creatures filled the air, crickets, and in the distance, the bark of a fox. He uncrossed his arms and leaned back on them again, and her own arms fell gently to her lap. She ought to get up and go now—she had acknowledged what she owed him.

But it felt so right, just sitting with him. She didn't even have to look at him—just knowing he was there beside her felt so good. In the darkness, and with no one else around, they were just two people. His scent teased her nose, with its notes of strength and good soap and leather from his riding that day. She breathed it in deeply, but silently, so he wouldn't hear.

He leaned slightly backward then, so he could see her face, and darn him but his dark eyes shone softly on her, a sweet trueness flowing through them to her.

“It's best that I go,” she said, realizing she was teetering at the edge of something dangerous. She moved to stand up, but he caught her arm.

“Wait. Stay a bit. I will behave. Maybe we'll even hear a…what was it you heard the other morning?”

She should leave.

But.

Whatever stolen moments she might have here with him were precious and unlikely to come again. No, she would have this time with him and save the memory of it for later, because she saw that though she would be leaving in a handful of days, she would never be able to leave behind the memories of him.

She sat back. “
Strix
aluco
, a tawny owl.”

“You seem to have a fondness for owls.”

“I do, actually. They're my favorites among birds, which were a frequent subject in my childhood home. My father studied birds, and he wrote two books about them.”

“Yes,” he said dryly, “
Anatomy
of
a
Songbird
and
A
Study
of
Owls
. I found them in my library this afternoon. They are very fine. And the illustrations, done by one A. Bristol, were exquisite.”

His praise made something warm bloom inside her. “Thank you.”

He turned his body, swinging a leg over the bench so he straddled it and faced her. The darkness blurred the edges of his face. She told herself that the tender light in his eyes must be a trick of starlight.

“Tell me more about him,” he said. “He was such a brilliant man. What happened to him?”

She could tell him a little. She so wanted to share herself with him. “He died last year after an illness.”

“I'm sorry. You must have been very close to him.”

She could not truthfully say that she had been. “His studies of nature required much of his time. I loved doing the drawings for his books.”

“Ah.” Something told her he'd noticed that she hadn't really answered his question. “He must have had quite a passion for birds. And he was a respected doctor as well. I wonder, then, if he had much time and attention for a young lady growing up with no mother.”

He gave a light chuckle. “I can imagine you then, in a miniature dress of some indistinguishable hue, swinging from a tree branch.”

She tipped her chin up and knew that long-familiar yet uncomfortable need to justify. She had so often justified her father's behavior to herself. “I had a very good upbringing.”

“Did you? I rather suppose you raised yourself, and were allowed, through lack of guidance, to do all sorts of unsuitable things.”

“Being left to roam with my brother had many advantages. I explored the countryside and the natural world around me in ways that young ladies rarely can. I have no ill-treatment of which to complain.”

“Perhaps not,” he said in a more serious voice. “Merely, I imagine, neglect. Did it perhaps feel, with no mother, that you were almost an orphan?”

Something burned inside her, as if he'd touched a truth that dwelled there.

“He was a good man,” she said, hating the husky note that had crept into her voice. “I think he needed his studies. People were harder for him to understand than birds.”

She pressed her lips together, having said more than she'd meant to.

“You don't want him to be spoken against, do you? Which speaks to your own deep affection for him. Did it never make you angry, though, to feel of so little account?”

Anna crossed her arms. She didn't want to kindle the anger he was stirring. “Don't be absurd. How can you be angry at someone who's done nothing to hurt you? I loved my father.”

“But you might at the same time have been angry over things he should have done that he didn't.”

Well
, she thought with an inward catch. He articulated so easily what she could not allow herself to think. “I… Maybe I was a little angry. Maybe I am still. There was a chipped china bowl in my room, and I'm sorry to say I threw it against the wall the other day. You ought to take it out of my pay.”

He merely laughed. “It's nothing. I suppose men are allowed to get angry, while you women must always be yielding, the forgivers and the peacemakers. But anyone with a working brain has to be frustrated and angry sometimes.”

She felt as if he'd seen inside her, as if he knew her. In that moment, she had a fierce yearning to tell him her troubles. He would understand. He would believe that she hadn't posed for Rawlins. He was a viscount, a peer of the despicable Marquess of Henshaw. Will could help her.

No, he
would
help; she knew it. She allowed herself to imagine him tidying the whole thing up and making it go away.

No.

She was going to stop entertaining that fantasy right now. She couldn't allow herself to need his help like that.

To need him.

After yesterday, when she'd felt so open to him and then been crushed when she realized he saw her as someone else for whom he must be responsible, she knew that to accept his help would make her feel horribly vulnerable—groundless, even, like she might do anything. Like agreeing to a loveless marriage with him, or even simply asking to experience again what they'd shared the day before.

And what if she told him the truth, and he wanted to help her, and her scandal harmed him? Made him into a laughingstock if he tried to defend her honor, or even drew him into a duel on her behalf? He was too noble, and he'd feel the need to defend her. She could never allow that.

She must keep her troubles to herself. She was used to relying only on herself—her father had taught her how to do that, if nothing else. She and Will were going to go their separate ways soon, and that must be the end of it.

She turned away from the appalling hollowness that had opened up inside her and said no more.

A fox barked again, somewhere on his vast grounds, and the sound hung in the silence that stretched on for several minutes. They had said so much to one another. Shared so deeply. And they had no future together.

“Well,” he said finally. “You cannot stay. It is late.” His voice was gentle. It was not a dismissal but a recognition of the way things were.