The Marriage List (7 page)

Even in the dim light he could see the color of her tan cheeks deepen.

“I certainly did not—”

He pressed a finger to her mouth and silenced her protests as he indulged in one last pleasure and caressed those apple-sweet lips.

“You certainly did,” he whispered. He could feel her skin quiver in response to his touch and the sound of his voice. A hint of milky passion returned to her gaze.

She blinked it away. “Excuse me, my lord. I will be missed.”

Miss Sheffers ducked her head away from his gentle strokes and slipped out of the library.

And his life . . .

For never again should he consider such a dalliance. Raised by a father who held honor and chivalry above all things, Radford firmly believed in a man remaining faithful to his wife—or in his case, his future wife, the lovely Lady Lillian.

Chapter 7

It was only a kiss.

May picked up her pace and tried to ignore the warmth the memory of the previous night’s surprising and wonderful encounter in the Newbury library brought to her cheeks. Aunt Winnie, feeling drained and tired after two consecutive nights of excitement, had wanted to spend the morning lounging abed. So they decided to forego their regular visit to the Pump Room.

With the morning free, May set out on a brisk walk up Beechen Cliff, hoping the fresh air and vigorous exercise would do the trick and clear her mind. For a third night, sleep had eluded her while she puzzled over her feelings toward the changes occurring in her life.

Gracious, it was only a
meaningless
kiss.

Men kissed women all the time.

Just not her.

Never her. At least, not before last night.

Not that she had minded being overlooked. Men only seemed to laud women who displayed a meek mind, spirit, and body—a weakness May loathed to feign. She was strong and healthy. Why should she slip into a fit of vapors just to win a man’s kiss?

May’s cheeks heated anew as the memory of the way the viscount’s lips had pressed against hers replayed its pleasing script. That simple brush of lips had made her tingly, alive all the way down to the soles of her feet.

But his magic had not addled her mind!

She’d seen women turn into besotted fools. An educated, independent woman such as herself must resist falling pray to such folly.

Viscount Evers displayed only too clearly his typical male character in the way he’d fawned over the simpering Lady Lillian once he’d rejoined the ball. He spent the rest of the evening laughing at her inane chatter and offering his arm when she appeared near to faint—as ladies were wont to appear after a long evening in the company of a beau. His cat-like grin was smeared with satisfaction as he supported Lady Lillian’s weaving pose. The expression told May all she needed to know.

Even though he didn’t pursue her company after stealing such a kiss, even though his gaze had never once strayed her way during the long hours that followed—he could have at least taken notice of her standing beside him while she spoke with Lady Lillian. No matter, she would have no interest in such a man, anyhow.

Mary Wollstonecraft had warned in her treatise for women’s rights how men who sought a withering woman for a wife made dreadful companions. Men such as those were only too ready to throw the yoke of servitude on the
weaker sex
.

May would never allow herself to fall prey to a man who could not respect her as an intellectual equal. Respect, Mary Wollstonecraft had written, had to come before marriage.

Gracious. Just a week ago, May would have happily considered herself a spinster—a woman well suited to live life alone or in service as a lady’s companion. But now her uncle seemed set on seeing her married. And soon . . .

Just last evening he hinted that an announcement might be made by the end of the week. The end of the week!

That was why she’d escaped the party and fled into the darkened library the night before. Everything was moving too fast. She and Winnie had always enjoyed a relatively quiet existence. When in London, suffering the droll company at teas and losing a night’s sleep when attending a dinner party or ball were once the worst of her worries. Of course that was all before Winnie had fallen ill.

Much like her parents, Winnie would not always be around.

May shuddered in the early morning breeze that whipped down from the top of Beechen Cliff. The chill passed through her like an unwelcome premonition. Uncle Sires was in the right to want to take Aunt Winnie away with him back to Redfield Abbey. He had the money and connections to see that his sister got the best care.

For May to cling to her beloved aunt would be unfair—as unfair as his uncle declaring her parents dead. There was simply no solid logic to support the decision.

The slope of the hill turned steep. May’s thoughts drifted off as her gaze turned to the ground and her concentration on keeping her balance.

“Ho there!” a voice called out as she neared the top.

May cupped her hand over her brow and peered up at the broad silhouette of the Viscount Evers standing on the ridge, his hands on his hips like a conqueror. She was only a few yards below him and could not politely turn around and pretend she hadn’t seen or heard his call.

The best she could do was curse quietly under her breath and brace herself for the encounter. A shame, really. She was looking forward to enjoying the sweeping vistas of Bath and a few blessed moments of solitude to straighten out her poor, mixed up head. Seeing the viscount, now, when she needed to forget him, could do nothing good for her nerves.

“Do you require assistance?” he asked.

“I can manage well enough,” she said through clenched teeth as her foot slipped on a rock. Her balance wobbled for a heartbeat—much too long for her pride. Belatedly she added a half-cowed “thank you”.

“I doubt I would be able to rush after you if you were to trip. You would undoubtedly roll all the way back to Bath,” he said. An unmistakable lilt of laughter moved underneath his smooth tone.

“I would never expect you to make such an effort for my sake, my lord.” She’d taken a difficult path and was forced to lift her skirts in order to make the last steep step to the top. The bounder didn’t have the good graces to avert his gaze.

A fiendish grin spanned the length of his cheeks and he crossed his arms over his chest. “I cannot tell you how glad I am that you refused my helping hand. I would have hated to miss such a view.”

“You are a cad, my lord.” May lowered her head and made a show of smoothing her skirts in an effort to hide her embarrassment.

“And you, Miss Sheffers, must be a shameless hoyden.”

May’s head came up with a snap. “A what?”

“A shameless hoyden, Miss Sheffers.” Viscount Evers held her gaze prisoner with his peculiar expression, a heady mixture of amusement and attentiveness.

The look stole May’s breath. She could only whisper, “I do not know what you could mean, my lord.”

An ebony brow rose on the viscount’s perfectly serious face as he looked around. “Perhaps you have hidden your companion or outpaced her?” he said. “For only a hoyden would venture so far afield alone. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Having been raised by a very proper aunt, she naturally agreed. May only took these occasional early morning excursions of hers to places she supposed deserted.

“My aunt is not well enough to take such a hike and our housekeeper is far too busy to be burdened with the responsibility of following me about.” It wasn’t a strong argument, but it was the best May could utter.

Blast the man. His wicked presence muddied her mind. She was an independent woman, well accustomed to free use of her thoughts. She would not let him do this to her.

“I had hoped for a few moments quiet, my lord. Your presence here intrudes on that.” She managed to say in the gentlest tone possible. She did well to keep her passions in check around a rake who could lure her into a kiss with the mere brush of his thumb against her lips.

Viscount Evers lowered himself to sit on the ground, struggling with his stiff leg. “I believe we both are looking for the same thing. Join me.” He sat with his legs sprawled out in front of him and patted the ground beside him.

May lifted her chin. “It would not be proper.”

“Because your Mr. Tumblestone wouldn’t approve?” Evers asked, his tone mocking. “He will soon be your affianced, will he not? Your name and his rose amongst the tittering last night. You should be grateful to have found a willing man, one woman said. She made some vague allusion to your family background.” He tilted his head toward her.

May’s back stiffened. Her family history was none of his business. Heaven knows she had been taught to keep quiet about it. Uncle Sires used to threaten to lop off her amber curls and make her go around as bald as a smooth marble if she were ever to even breathe her father’s name in public.

“You have no right to pry into my private business, my lord,” she bit off the words.

“Pry?” A wicked smile played at his lips. May could feel her cheeks heat as she remembered how those lips of his had touched hers. “Why no, I suppose I don’t have a right. I just was wondering who in your life would believe it improper for you to sit here . . . beside me . . . unescorted.”

A hungry gleam darkened his eyes. May took a step back.

“Perhaps
I
find it improper, my lord. There are dangers, are there not, in a lady finding herself alone with a gentleman?”

He didn’t answer right away and when he did, his tone was laced with regret. “Yes, Miss Sheffers, I believe there must be.”

* * * * *

Radford had started out at dawn without a destination. The climb to the top of Beechen Cliff had been an arduous one despite the fact that he’d forged a much gentler slope than the ridiculously steep route Miss Sheffers had taken. The effort had been worth the pains pulling through his leg.

He hadn’t lied when he’d told May that his quest was similar to hers. Up here, with the orderly Georgian city below punctuated with the medieval spires of Bath Abbey at its heart, Radford felt removed . . . free almost.

His mother had purred her delight over Lady Lillian all during the carriage ride home last night. The marriage was a
fait accompli
,
to hear her speak.

Instead of relieving his own doubts regarding the decision, her happiness only seemed to shrink the cage he’d been confined to the day his horse had been shot out from under him. He felt trapped—angry. He’d been cursing the birds in the trees when he saw
her
.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. Miss Margaret Sheffers, with her unusual wood-sprite features, would naturally be at home up here, under the gently rustling beeches. Without a care for staining her bright yellow and white striped cotton dress she climbed straight up—the most direct route, if not the most difficult.

And now that he and she were up on the hill together, Radford had to fight to keep his thoughts about her from straying from the respectable path.

“You were here first. I will leave you to your thoughts, my lord,” she said and turned to make a descent following the same steep path.

“Wait,” Radford called.

As much as her company disturbed him and his solitude, he knew her departure would leave him more miserable than before. He struggled to his feet, silently cursing all the while his foolish notion of lounging on the ground like some high-flying Corinthian. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a horridly shameful thought sprang to life. The thought whispered in a singsong voice that if he could find a way to take a tumble in the grass with this fairy creature, his weaknesses and pains would disappear—and become naught but a bad dream brought on by an overindulgence in some rich meal.

Yes, she’d chase his misery away like the sun would extinguish a nightmare. For where else should such dreaded dreams be vanquished to but to Avalon where this creature with her mysterious birth must call home?

“In good conscience, Miss Sheffers,” he said, “I simply cannot allow you to continue to traipse through the countryside unescorted. As a gentleman, I’m compelled to protect you from your imprudent actions.”

The quelling glance she sent his way could have burned the oriental paper off his parlor walls. He was glad they were in a wide-open space.

“Please, Miss Sheffers,” he said with considerably more tact, “I would suffer terribly were I to hear you’d come to harm on the long hike home. Please allow me to escort you.”

After an insufferable pause, she gave a short nod. Her lips had thinned to a mere line and resembled nothing of the swollen passionate petals he’d tasted the night before.

The kiss. There were a few things he should say to her in regard to that kiss. But where to start?

“I cannot follow you down such a steep trail,” he said instead, even though she had remained motionless, letting him take the lead and set the pace.

They walked in silence for several yards down a well-used path. He sensed her stiffen with each step until she appeared to be strung as tight as a bow ready to spring.

“I may play the part of a rake, Miss Sheffers, but I vow you are as safe with me as you would be with my old toothless sheepdog.”

“I know,” she agreed far too quickly.

“What I mean to say—” He struggled for the right words. How did he explain without scandalizing her or damaging her virgin’s sensibilities? “Although I dearly enjoyed kissing you and long to do so again, I am a man of virtue. I would never force my attentions or put you in a situation that would have your reputation questioned.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Her two-word replies dug into his gut. She wasn’t making the task an easy one. And why should she? He saw how society treated her. She was Lady Winifred’s companion, the lowest rank a young lady could hold. Most of the guests at Newbury’s party looked through her. She didn’t even seem to mind that she was expected to step back from the fashionables and fade like a servant into the wainscoting.

Radford had been about to intervene at the party last night when the bubbly Lady Iona had appeared and taken Miss Sheffers’ arm, dragging her into the middle of a crowd of women. In fact, the Newbury family, with the exception of Lady Lillian and her mother, treated Miss Sheffers as one of their own—as part of the family.

As interesting as his meandering thoughts were, they did nothing to solve how he was to address his kissing her. He should offer up some additional explanation . . . but what?

“Why do you refuse the use of a cane?” she asked in the lengthening silence.

The question stopped Radford where he stood. He wasn’t ready to speak of this. His injuries were his burden and his alone. To speak of them would only make them more real.

He truly believed that if he pushed himself, ignoring the pain and the weaknesses, he could will the damage away.

Miss Sheffers stopped on the grass path and turned to face him. “My aunt often refuses the aid of a cane. Pride, I believe, keeps her from depending on such a luxury. She leans heavily on my arm, instead.”

“That must be quite a burden. Lady Winifred must weigh at least twenty stone.”

“It’s a burden I gladly bear. My shoulders are strong.” She tilted her head up and peered into his eyes from beneath her straw bonnet. “But you don’t lean on anyone. Why?”

“I don’t need to.”

A slow smile, the closest expression to pity he’d seen on her lively features, stuck him in the belly like an icy sword. The last thing he wanted from her was pity.

“You fool yourself, my lord. Bowing to the use of a cane cannot diminish your manhood. Your injuries, no matter how fleeting, are a reality—”

“You know nothing. You cannot begin to imagine what has become of my life,” he said bitterly.

“—Now my aunt, she will never recover,” she said at the very same moment. “She will only weaken.”

Radford couldn’t miss the raw sorrow he heard in her voice.

“I am sorry,” he said. “For your aunt, I mean. She is all you have?”

“I have my parents and my uncle, the Earl of Redfield.” The words rang hollow.