The Diamond Key (12 page)

The viscount held up his hand. “I do not need to hear your explanation, my lady. I, for one, assume there is a good reason that a young woman would amble off alone with a rejected suitor.” Left unsaid was her own earlier, unspoken, rush to judgment.

Boyce decided to make one last effort. “Rejected? Why, it is no such thing! Lady Victoria has accepted my suit. I fear my joy overcame my good manners. If you had not so rudely interrupted, we—

“Stubble it,” Torrie said, borrowing one of her father’s favorite expressions. “You know it was no such thing.”

Wynn reached down to take a tassel out of Homer’s mouth. He tossed it at Boyce. “You heard the lady. There is no betrothal, and there better not be a repeat of this incident. Nor, I might mention, had there better be word of it stirred into this day’s portion of scandal broth.”

“There will not be,*’ Torrie assured him. “Think how badly the scene reflects on Lord Boyce, and he would be the only one to speak of it in public. I certainly shall not. Will you, Lord Ingall?”

Wynn shook his head. What, and drag a lady’s name through the mud the way Homer was dragging Boyce’s walking stick? Was that how poorly she thought of him now? He whistled for the dog. “You should be getting back to your maid. She will be worrying over the delay.”

“Heavens, poor Ruthie, and her not feeling well. I knew I should not have gone and left her!” Without a second glance to Boyce, she turned and headed back toward the main path where the bench was.

Wynn walked beside her, easily matching her hurried strides.

“Your escort is not necessary, sir. I am certain your own companion—”

“—has left the park. I will see you back to the bench, and then walk you and your woman to your carriage or a hackney.”

He had neither asked nor offered, Torrie noted, simply issued an edict. “You need not concern yourself. Unless you think the park is littered with importunate suitors.”

“I think it is populated by squirrels, pigeons, and pea hens who do not recognize danger until it jumps out at them.”

Well, she would not have gone off with Boyce in the first place if she had not wanted to avoid Lord Ingall, but Torrie did not say so. Instead she took her ivory-handled pistol from her reticule. “I am not as foolish as you seem to believe. I realize that I owe you another debt of gratitude for coming to my rescue once again, but the situation was not nearly so dire on this occasion. I would have managed.”

He looked at the pretty but adequate weapon. “Tell me, my lady, could you have shot Boyce? Could you have put the muzzle of your little gun against his heart and pulled the trigger?”

“I ... I am not certain. If he was intent on doing me harm, I suppose. But for taking liberties?”

Wynn believed the dastard was intent on taking a great deal more than a few kisses, but he saw no need to frighten her needlessly with unfounded suspicions. He did take the gun from her with one flick of his wrist to prove his point. He put it in his pocket, after checking to make sure it was not cocked. The gudgeon could have shot her own foot off— or worse. “You see how easily a man can disarm a smaller, weaker person? What would you have done had he turned the weapon on you, threatening you with bodily harm unless you agreed to his terms?”

“Lord Boyce? Now who is being foolish?”

“A desperate man can be the most dangerous. By all reports, Boyce has reached point non plus. He needs your dowry,”

“Gammon. Boyce knows very well that my father would not let me be forced into any marriage against my will. I have only to say no in front of the vicar. Besides, Lord Boyce might be a boor, but he is a gentleman.”

And Lady Torrie was still a naive ninnyhammer. A beautiful ninnyhammer, with eyes that were bluer than this April sky, but still a cabbage-head.

He had to show her that she was not invulnerable, despite being rich and titled and pluck to the backbone. She might be a game ‘urn, as they said, but she still needed a man to defend and protect her. Wynn felt it was his duty to expose her weaknesses, so she would be more careful in the future. That’s what he told himself, anyway.

It was a good excuse for doing what he wanted, what Boyce had begun.

So he dragged her behind a small stand of trees.

“What are you doing? My maid—”

“Has waited this long.”

So had Wynn. He pulled her closer. “Now, my lady, what would you do if Boyce did this?” He pinned her arms at her sides, loosely, without force, but with enough strength to show her she could not escape unless he let her. He bent her back slightly, then brought his mouth to hers.

Torrie knew he was trying to teach her a lesson, the arrogant jackass, but she was willing to learn a few facts about him—and his kisses—while he was at it. He did not grind his lips into hers as Boyce did, thank goodness. Instead, his lips felt ...

She could not describe how they felt, cool and warm at the same time, soft and hard, giving yet taking. Just when she thought she might have a better understanding of the conundrum, he pulled back.

Torrie sighed.

“What if he did this?” Wynn asked, tenderly kissing her eyelids shut, then placing butterfly kisses on her cheeks and her neck.

Torrie sighed again.

One of his arms started stroking circles on her back, then her side, and then started circling higher, toward one of her breasts. “What if he did this?”

If Boyce’s touch had felt like this, if he had made her feel like this, with every inch of her skin aching for his attention despite the layers of her spencer and gown and shift between them, she would have married him three years ago when he first asked. But this was not Boyce holding her so gently, so cherishingly, if such a word existed. If it did not, it should.

No, this was not Boyce. This was Ingall, Wynn, who would never hurt her or steal what she refused to give. Who made her feel like a flower unfurling, like a bird getting ready to fly. Who had saved her twice, saved her for him. She was sure of it. If the Fates had not meant them to be together, they would not fit so well together, their very breaths becoming one to share. She was where she was meant to be, by chance or by a grand design, and she meant to enjoy it.

Torrie leaned closer into his hand, into his hard body, into his lips, making little mews of pleasure that drove him to deepen the kiss.

“What,” he whispered into her mouth, “if he did this?” His tongue followed the whisper, lightly touching her teeth, then her own tongue.

Torrie was on fire, and she could feel Wynn’s answering heat, despite the layers of clothing between them. They were sure to leave scorched footprints in the grass where they stood. Everyone would know, and she did not care. Torrie felt she would die if he went further— and die if he stopped.

But then Wynn recalled where he was—and who he was. No matter what the gossip-grinders murmured, no matter what his body shouted, he was a gentleman. And Torrie was a lady. He stepped back, although it may have been the hardest thing he had ever done, to the hardest he had ever been.

He said, “You see? Boyce could have had you on the ground with your skirts up to your waist, without force.”

He did not see at all, Torriethought, if he believed she turned into a smoldering ember for just any man. Boyce could never have succeeded in benumbing her defenses, not for one instant, much less long enough to tumble her to the grass. Why, she would have boxed Boyce’s ears if he had taken one of the liberties Wynn had. In honesty, she had to admit to herself that Wynn had not so much taken liberties as he had been offered them. Embarrassed, she remembered pressing herself closer and closer to him, finding proof that he was as enkindled as she had been.

Lud, did he think Boyce could do that to her? She doubted even Boyce believed he could turn her into a wanton. No, only Wynn could, or ever had, although she doubted he had expected to be as affected. Her mind might be addled, but she knew he had felt the fire, too, will he or nill he.

What had started as a lesson, that she could never defend herself against a bully, had turned into something else altogether, until he recalled his priggish point. As if she believed she could hold her own against a slavering giant with a bat. Of course, she could not, no more than he could, or one of her father’s footmen. Were someone bound on mayhem, with a knife or a rifle, say, none of them stood a chance. But Wynn had thought to make his argument with kisses, showing his superiority to her bacon-brained bravado.

Well, she had a few points of her own to make: She was not a schoolgirl he could kiss silly. She was not a piece of Haymarket ware to be handled casually for a moment’s pleasure and then tossed aside. She was not one of his women. So she kicked him, the way her father had taught her.

When Wynn recovered, Homer was licking his face, and Lady Torrie and her maid were long gone. Perhaps he should marry Rosie after all, he thought, for he might never have children of his own anyway. Then he sat up and took stock.

So far today he had promised to find a husband for a pregnant prostitute.

He had paid a fortune in reparations for his dog’s transgressions.

And he had made a dangerous enemy. Perhaps two, although he doubted Torrie would hold a grudge the way Boyce would.

Not a bad morning’s work, he told himself, and it was not even noon. He brushed himself off and started to head toward home, the dog at his side.

Oh, he recalled with a smile, and he had kissed Torrie Keyes. He had not done too poorly for a simple walk in the park, not at all.

Lord, she had kicked a man! A gentleman, who had been nothing but noble toward her. Torrie was mortified. She could have punched Wynn—she had long since stopped thinking of him as Lord Ingall; the kiss was far too personal for titled formality—instead. That was what she should have done, for her father had also taught her all about closed fists and where to aim. But the viscount’s nose was already somewhat less than perfect. If she had managed to smash it, he would begin to look like that ugly little man she had seen around Grosvenor Square a few times recently.

Lord, she had kissed a man! And what a man! What a kiss! Of course, as Aunt Ann would have said, being a proficient lover had to be a rake’s stock in trade. If Lord Ingall had been intent on seduction, though, he was right: he could indeed have accomplished it handily—the hand on her breast, the hand stroking her back. But he hadn’t. He didn’t. He wasn’t. A rake, that is.

Torrie was absolutely convinced that there was a rational, respectable reason for that scene with the burgeoning barque of frailty, just as Wynn had reserved judgment about her encounter with Boyce. He had not implied by word or expression the least condemnation of her morals, only a criticism of her intelligence in walking off with Boyce.

Even her father, when he heard an extremely expurgated account of the day’s events, demanded that she henceforth take a footman with her wherever she went. Torrie would not have mentioned the contretemps with Boyce at all except that Ruthie had seen her go off with him, and come back without him. Torrie had still been so agitated when they arrived home that she’d had to say something. She did not repeat Wynn’s suspicions that Lord Boyce was set on compromising her, lest her father forbid her to leave the house, nor did she cite Wynn’s kiss, lest her father forbid him to call at the house. She merely said that he had rescued her, again, from an uncomfortable encounter. The earl was all for inviting him to dinner, again.

“What, and have him think my niece is pursuing him like a hound on a scent?” Aunt Ann stabbed her needle through the fabric of yet another footstool cover. “Do not be a clunch, brother. We already have him escorting us to Mrs. Reese’s affair next week. Any other invitations would smack of the hunt. Nothing will make a man like Ingall run faster in the other direction.”

“Heavens, Aunt, you make it sound as though I am out to snabble the poor man against his will.”

“Aren’t you? All this talk about Fate and bargaining for your life, I swear you will be reading the tea leaves next, or casting love spells. Though what you want with a man like that I cannot imagine.”

That was because Aunt Ann had never been kissed like that, by a man like that. Or by any man, perhaps. Wynn might not be an easy husband but, heavens, he would be an exciting one. Torrie fingered the key amulet she wore at her neck. She thought her own heart’s portal could be easily breached, but had she begun to unlock his at all? Time would tell, time she meant to put to good use. If that kiss had not opened his heart, the gown she intended to have made for Mrs. Reese’s ball would definitely rattle its gates.

Torrie still needed a new habit, the green velvet she had selected at Madame Michaela’s having been destroyed by the fire brigade’s zeal in wetting down the entire shop. The mantua-maker had been fortunate enough to locate an empty store nearby and was moving her operation there, with the financial assistance of an anonymous donor. Torrie thought she should help the business recover by renewing her order—and adding one for a new ball gown. There might not be as much choice of fabric or trim in the hastily restocked store, but the gown Torrie envisioned required little of either.

Her fashionable mother would have known precisely what Torrie had in mind. Her perpetually black-clad aunt would not have the least idea. Ruthie might have been a help in selecting a pattern and material, but Torrie felt her maid should stay home and rest.

The doctor had been called, at Torrie’s insistence, because Ruthie had been ailing too long. When the Keyes’s usual physician heard that he was to attend a mere maid, however, he declared himself too busy and sent his assistant instead. The assistant instantly and enthusiastically prescribed his favorite stomach powders—the same powders he recommended for the Munson’s chef, who was too fond of his own cooking wines, and for Lady Wilsted’s dyspeptic poodle.

Ruthie seemed a bit improved, but Torrie did not think a new gown, even one so crucial, was worth chancing a setback for. She left her maid home in the care of the housekeeper and took one of the footmen instead. Henry would be useless at picking styles, but his presence would make her father happy. The gown Torrie meant to have would not.