The Bridal Quest (9 page)

She stopped, visibly pulling herself back under control. She took a shaky breath. "In any case, I do not imagine that it matters now. I rebuffed him last night at the dance—rather decisively. I feel sure that Lord Radbourne would no longer be interested in me."

Francesca, who had been watching Irene with a great deal of interest, opened her mouth to speak, then stopped. She paused for a moment, looking thoughtful, then went on. "Well, as to that, I do not know. And, of course, if you are so set against it, I would not push you. I would not think of asking you to do anything you would not want to. I merely thought, when Lady Odelia told me, that it might be a proposition in which you would be interested. You always were, I thought, that rare sort of woman who is more ruled by her head than by her heart."

Irene regarded Francesca narrowly for a moment. She was not sure whether Francesca was simply being truthful or attempting to maneuver her into changing her position. Francesca was correct that she was a woman who believed strongly in running her life with thoughts rather than emotions, and in that regard, she supposed it did seem a trifle peculiar that she would dismiss a practical marriage, one that others would consider a logical proposition. Could it be that she was allowing her fears to sway her from doing what was best for her and her mother?

But she quickly shook aside that thought. "I am ruled by my head. I know what can result from marriage, and so I refrain from allowing my hopes to sweep me into something foolish."

Francesca nodded. "Of course. Then let us say nothing more about it."

She then began to chat of other things, surprising Irene somewhat with her easy acquiescence in letting the topic drop. Irene joined in the conversation, thinking that it was very easy to like Francesca. She did not speak of anything serious or remarkable, perhaps, but she made conversation easy and somehow infused ordinary things with interest. Her laughter was quick and appealing, and it occurred to Irene that perhaps she had never given the other woman a chance, merely dismissed her as foolish and superficial. Though she did not touch on important issues, she was possessed of an agile wit, and there was a certain warmth about her that took away the sting from gossip.

They made their way slowly through the park, stopping frequently to talk to a rider on horseback or the occupant of another carriage. Clearly Francesca knew most of the
ton,
and everyone seemed eager to address her.

Lady Fenwit-Taylor, who was riding in a lumbering old black carriage with her timid daughter beside her, hailed Francesca, leaning out of her window to carry on a conversation in a booming voice. The woman was, it appeared, a fast friend of Francesca's mother, and it was clear that they would be stuck there for a goodly time.

Irene settled back in her seat, paying only cursory attention to the other women's conversation, and let her mind wander. It went, annoyingly, back to her encounter with Lord Radbourne the evening before, and she jerked her mind away from that subject. She would not, she told herself, allow that man to dominate her thoughts.

She heard the sound of another carriage behind them. Irene did not turn to glance back, but then a man's voice jolted her.

"Lady Irene! I have found you."

Hot, then cold, slashed through her. It seemed for a moment, absurdly, as if her very thoughts had conjured him up. She turned, her heart pounding.

"Lord Radbourne."

The darkly handsome man jumped down from his high-sprung yellow curricle and tossed the reins to his tiger before he strode toward Francesca's carriage.

Irene whirled toward Francesca, her mind filled with suspicion.

"Did you arrange this?" she hissed.

But Francesca was staring at Lord Radbourne in astonishment. "No!" She shook her head. "I swear I did not. I had no idea he would be here."

If Lady Haughston was not telling the truth, Irene thought, she was a consummate actress.

"Blast," Irene muttered under her breath. "My luck is always out."

"Lord Radbourne, I am surprised to see you here," Francesca said to him as he approached. "I would not have thought you were the sort to take an afternoon drive through the park."

"I am not," he replied shortly. "I was looking for you."

"Indeed?" Francesca's eyebrows rose a little at his words, her face assuming the sort of hauteur that was usually quite effective at dampening pretensions or reprimanding rudeness.

Her expression had no effect on the earl, however. He merely stopped beside them and, casting a short nod toward the women in the other carriage, continued speaking to Irene and Francesca.

"I accompanied Lady Pencully to Lord Wyngate's house a few minutes ago," he told Irene, skipping any form of greeting or pleasantries. "Lady Pencully came to extend an invitation to you to attend a gathering at Radbourne Park. Unfortunately, you were not there."

"No, I was not," Irene replied. Though Lord Radbourne seemed to have no care for the curious onlookers in the carriage beside them, she had no desire to give them anything to gossip about.

"Lady Wyngate told us where you had gone," he went on.

"I see." She did see, indeed. No doubt Maura, scenting the possibility of marriage in the air, had been eager to send him after her. She cast a sidelong glance at the other carriage. "Perhaps I should return home to see Lady Pencully."

"She left," he told her. "She bade me deliver her invitation to you."

"Of course. Well ..." Irene cast a look of appeal at Francesca.

Francesca, at least, quickly understood. She glanced at the other carriage, then at Radbourne, and said to Irene, "Why don't you and Lord Radbourne take a stroll while you discuss Lady Odelia's kind invitation? I believe I will be fulfilling my duties as chaperone if I watch you from here." She favored the women in the other carriage with a smile. "And I shall manage to keep myself well-occupied talking to Lady Fenwit-Taylor."

The lady in question looked decidedly let down at not being allowed to witness the rest of the conversation between Radbourne and Irene, but Radbourne, at least, seemed at last to realize that he was exposing their conversation to the ears of strangers, for he threw a quick look at the avidly waiting Lady Fenwit-Taylor, then nodded and reached up his hand to help Irene down from the carriage.

Irene put her hand in his, intensely aware of the size and strength of his hand as it closed around her fingers. The same bizarre shimmer of excitement that had seized her last night again ran through her at his touch. Though he offered her his arm as they turned to walk away, she did not take it, clasping her hands together in front of her instead.

She made her way from the wide path used by carriages and horses across the grass and onto a footpath, careful to remain respectably in sight of Francesca's brougham.

Lord Radbourne said without preamble, "I hope that you will be able to attend the party at the Park. Your friend Lady Haughston will be there, as well as a number of other people."

"A number of other young women of marriageable age?" Irene asked shrewdly. "Are you gathering all your marital prospects in one place so that you can easily compare and judge them?"

He frowned. "No, it is not like that."

Irene arched one brow. "Indeed? What is it like, then?"

"It is just ... well, it seemed an easy course to meet several people." His mouth tightened at her expression. "Yes, all right, several young women. But it is not that I am comparing or judging. It is simply a convenient way to get to know someone."

"Several someones."

"Yes. Several," he agreed impatiently.

"Thank you, Lord Radbourne. Please convey my regrets to Lady Pencully. However, I am afraid that I must decline her invitation. I have no interest in joining the competition to win your hand."

Color rose in his cheeks, and he said shortly, "It is not a competition!"

"I don't know what else you would call it," Irene replied coolly. "There will be one prospective bridegroom, you, and 'several' prospective brides from whom you will select one. Therefore, all of the women will be competing to win your favor, will they not?"

"Bloody hell! You have the most irritating ability to twist any conversation into knots." He gave her a fulminating glance.

"If you find it so difficult to talk to me, I can only wonder that you would wish me to attend this party," Irene retorted. "I wonder at it myself."

"There, you see? Doubtless you will be much more comfortable without me there."

"I am sure I will be," he agreed in a grumbling tone, and they walked on in silence for another minute.

Irene stopped and turned to look back at Francesca's carriage. "I had best turn around. We will be out of Lady Haughston's sight in a few more steps."

"Of course." His cool tone matched hers, and he started back toward the carriage. After a moment, he said, "I wonder what it is that you are so frightened of."

"I beg your pardon?" Irene turned to look at him, indignation rising in her. "I am not afraid. I cannot imagine why you should say that."

"Are you not?" He looked down at her quizzically. "What else would you call it, when you are so reluctant to even pay a visit to Radbourne Park? I am not asking you to marry me. Nor even to consider it."

"I have no interest in marrying you, so it seems quite pointless to me to attend. Let some other young woman who is more eager to marry an earl take my spot."

"Of course you don't want to marry me. Any more than I desire to marry you. We hardly know each other. But that is the purpose of this visit—to get to know one another. To obtain some better idea whether we might suit each other."

"I know you well enough already," Irene shot back, coming to a halt and turning to him.

He stopped also and faced her. "Do you? And how can that be, when we have spent no more than fifteen minutes in one another's company?"

"You showed me your nature last night," she told him, the cool calm she had tried to maintain faltering as her anger rose. "That was quite enough for me."

A light flared in his eyes, and he leaned down a little, bringing his face closer to hers. "It appeared to me that you responded to my nature eagerly enough."

The low timbre of his voice thrilled along her nerves, and Irene felt the memory of her desire the night before flutter deep in her loins once again. She stiffened in chagrin.

"It is clear that whatever your title, you are no gentleman," she snapped.

"Why? Because I bring up the bothersome matter of the truth?" he retorted. "You are right, my lady, I am no gentleman. I believe in speaking honestly. I had thought that you were of a like mind. Obviously I was mistaken."

Her cheeks were fiery, her eyes snapped, and all traces of the remote icy lady of a few minutes earlier were gone. Irene did not see, as he could, the splendid beauty she showed now, aglow with emotion. It was the wild and primitive glory of face and form that he had seen in her years earlier, and he could not help but respond inside, even as he tightened his jaw and turned away from her.

"How dare you—" she began, then stopped in astonishment as he ignored her, simply turning and walking away.

Her hands clenched in the material of her skirt as she struggled to contain her temper. She wanted, quite frankly, to shriek at him like a shrew, but that would be resorting to behavior as rude and classless as his, and she forced herself not to give in to the impulse. Instead, she swallowed hard, pushing down the heated words that surged in her throat, and stalked after him.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye but did not turn his head. For her part, Irene did not even deign to look at him. She caught up with him in a few quick strides and kept pace with him.

They soon reached Lady Haughston's brougham, and Irene climbed up into it, ignoring the hand that Lord Radbourne held out to help her. Francesca's gaze slid over his out-thrust hand and up to his face, stonily lacking in expression, his eyes cold and hard as glass. She said nothing, merely shifted her attention to Irene's equally frozen face, noting the color that stained her cheekbones and the fierce gold that shone in her eyes.

"Well," Francesca said, with a bright smile. "You are back just in time. I find that I am growing a trifle weary and should like to return home. Lord Radbourne, so pleasant to see you again."

"Lady Haughston." His tone was short, and he barely glanced at her before he turned to Irene. "Lady Irene. I trust you will think over your decision and join us at the Park."

Without waiting for a reply from her, he nodded to them, then strode away, not even looking toward the occupants of the other carriage.

It took all Francesca's considerable social skill to separate them from Lady Fenwit-Taylor before Irene lost the pretense of calm that she was clinging to, but she managed to bid the other woman a polite farewell and get her driver to pull away from the carriage with seconds to spare.

"Oh!" Irene exclaimed, bringing a clenched fist down hard on her knee. "That dreadful,
dreadful
man!"

"I take it that your conversation with Lord Radbourne did not go well," Francesca observed wryly.

"He is the most bullheaded, irritating, smug, unlikable man I have ever met! I cannot imagine his family finding any woman who would be willing to marry him. She would be letting herself in for a lifetime of—"

Francesca waited as Irene paused, groping for words. After a moment, she prompted, "Of what?"

"I cannot even imagine what it would be like," Irene said grumpily. "My wits cannot stretch that far. He would be the most awful husband, demanding and infuriating and—" Once again she broke off, releasing her breath in a low noise of frustration.

"Goodness," Francesca said mildly. "He must have said something terrible during your conversation. What was it?"

"Well ..." Irene started, then paused, and finally went on. "Well, it was not so much what he said as the way he said it. He has no manners whatsoever. And he accused me—me!—of disliking his honesty. He likes to hide his rudeness under the cover of 'truth' and seems to think that I should not take offense at what he says. Do you know that he accused me of being afraid to accept Lady Pencully's invitation? Afraid!"

Francesca. taking in the dangerous sparkle in Irene's gold eyes, replied candidly, "I cannot picture you afraid."

"Of course not! I have never— Well, of course, I have been afraid in my life. Who has not? But I have never let anyone see it! I have never refrained from embarking on a course because I was frightened of what might happen."

"I am sure not," Francesca agreed. "But of course Lord Radbourne does not know you well enough to know your true nature."

"Exactly. Yet he speaks as if he knows what I think. What I feel. It is absurd."

"Well, he is not accustomed to polite conversation. No doubt it is the result of his unfortunate upbringing."

Irene let out an inelegant snort at Francesca's offering. "I have met stableboys with better manners than he. It is his personality. He could have been reared as a prince, and he would still behave like a boor."

"Even so, I do not doubt that he will have little trouble finding a woman who is willing to put up with his manners," Francesca said. "Not someone like you, of course. But someone else who hasn't the courage to keep him from riding roughshod over her as you would. Or the wit to teach him how to act appropriately."

"No doubt," Irene replied shortly.

"She will see only the advantages of the situation, the opportunity, and none of the dangers and drawbacks." Francesca looked at Irene as she went on. "And of course, some women cannot resist the lure of a handsome man. His features are rather arresting."

"I suppose." Irene shrugged, adding. "If you like that sort of look. Personally, I find him too rugged. He is so large. And there is such a hard appearance to him. His cheekbones are so sharp, and his jaw is too square for true handsomeness. Do you not agree?"

Francesca nodded. "Yes, of course. Nor am I fond of brown eyes."

"No, his eyes are green," Irene corrected. "I find his coloring odd, for his hair and brows are black, and his skin is dark, so one would expect his eyes to be dark, as well. But his eyes are quite green. Not attractive at all."

"You are quite correct."

"And he wears his hair too long."

"Most unfashionable."

"The sort of hair you would expect a ruffian to have, not a gentleman." Irene paused thoughtfully. "And he has a scar at the corner of his eyebrow. It quite detracts from his looks."