A Kiss in the Dark (12 page)

Dauntry recognized this velvet-gloved tyranny for what it was and said, “I recommend a strong dose of laudanum.” Putting his hand under Cressida’s elbow, he led her off to the ballroom. “She spoiled dinner; I’ll be damned if I’ll let her spoil the dancing,” he said grimly. “Her concern is only tyranny disguised as responsibility.”

“She does have trouble sleeping.”

“Why don’t you hire someone to knock her over the head with a poker?” he said brusquely.

In
the ballroom, the piano player and fiddler were tuning up for a rowdy country dance. Dauntry looked questioningly at Cressida, who was peering at him in the same uncertain manner.

“Shall we wait for a waltz?” he said.

“If you like,” was her unhelpful reply.

“In that charming gown—and the skirt is rather narrow.”

“It is plenty wide enough. If you are too toplofty to join in the country dance, Dauntry, do not put it in my dish. I shall stand up with Mr. Brewster.”

When she turned to step away, Dauntry’s hand clasped her wrist and spun her back. She noticed his eyes wore a different expression, a gleam of slumbering fire. His lips were curved in an anticipatory way. She thought of the old adage, “Let sleeping dogs lie.” What had she awoken in Dauntry?

“Toplofty?” he asked. “I was merely trying to anticipate what would please you.”

“Like Miss Wantage,” she said with a quizzing grin.

“Wretch!” His fingers tightened on her wrist, then slid down to grip her fingers possessively as he led her to join the line of dancers.

Both country born and bred, they enjoyed the rowdy romp as much as their neighbors. In fact, Dauntry had not so enjoyed himself in a purely physical way since taking his seat in the House and setting up as a man-about-town. He felt youthful again as his body moved to the beat of the piano and the flying notes of the fiddle. He knew the cause of the pleasure was not mere physical exertion, but the letting down of barriers between himself and Cressida. They felt and behaved like adolescents. He had seen her perform in this manner before and had thought the worse of her for it, branding her a hoyden. What a priggish ass he had become! When the dance finished, their faces were flushed and their toilettes disarranged.

“We have earned a glass of wine,” Dauntry decreed.

Cressida glanced at herself in the mirror. “I should tidy myself up. I look as if I had just run a three-legged race.” The glowing eyes smiling back at her in the mirror looked as if she had not only run the race, but won it.

“A good thing your chaperon will be in bed when you return,” he replied, familiarly tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “Those pious females, always hawking after signs of lechery, put the worst possible construction on innocent doings.”

“I blame it on an overdose of Hannah More,” she said, reaching to straighten his cravat, which had worked loose.

Dauntry found no fault in her unbuttoned behavior on this occasion. In fact, he felt an unexpected thrill when she touched him in that intimate way, like a wife putting the final touch on her husband’s toilette before sending him into the world. “ ‘An old bishop in petticoats,’ Cobbett called Hannah More,” he said distractedly.

“We are being quite horrid, Dauntry. Let us not speak ill of the absent.”

“You are right, as usual. There are plenty of the present company for us to disparage.”

She slapped his hand playfully. “Why is it so delightful to make fun of people behind their backs? It makes us feel superior, I
suppose. I need a glass of wine before I die of thirst. And none of that salty, fishy water, mind.”

Refreshments had been set up in the morning parlor, where other thirsty dancers milled about the table. Without speaking, but as if reading each other’s minds, Cressida and Dauntry turned to leave the room as soon as they picked up a glass of wine. Peering into the saloon, they saw Lady Dauntry had had a few card tables set up, thus robbing them of privacy there. They continued walking along the long marble corridor.

“You are not at all what I thought you would be like,” Cressida said. “In London, you always looked as if you were scowling at me. I took the notion you disliked me.”

“How could I dislike you? I scarcely knew you, except by reputation.”

A shadow appeared in her eyes. “Do I have a horrid reputation, Dauntry? I know I sometimes break society’s rules, but I do not do it on purpose. If you say what you are thinking, or do what seems natural, people seem to find it odd. No one told me you had to have the patronesses' permission to waltz at Almack’s. How should I think of asking permission, when all the younger debs were waltzing?”

“A tempest in a teapot,” he said forgivingly, though that was not what he had said at the time. He had agreed with Lady Jersey that Lady deCourcy was a hurly-burly girl.

“And when Captain Maitland offered for me right after Miss Cormier had turned him down, I told him he was after only my fortune, and he was. Everyone knew it, but after I said it, Lady Melbourne told me it was farouche. That I had hurt his feelings.”

“We don’t like to hear the truth. Some thoughts are better left unsaid, or said only to close friends,”

“I didn’t say it in public. I said it only to him. Why did he have to tell people what had passed in a private conversation? I had no intention of telling anyone he had offered for me.”

“I daresay it was revenge. You called him a name; he wanted to retaliate and called you ill bred.
Entre nous,
I agree with you. It is as well-known as an old ballad that Maitland is hanging out for a fortune.”

They had reached the end of the hallway and drew to a stop. “I was surprised when your mama wrote inviting me to spend the summer at the castle,” Cressida said.

“So was I. I had no notion of it until she told me you had hired the dower house. It seems Lady Brougham mentioned your wanting to get away from society, and as Mama knew she would be missing Tony, she wrote to you.” She gave him a considering look. “I did not urge her to do it, if that is what you are asking, but I am very happy she did, and that you are here.”

“No, I did not think you could have been behind it when you were so eager to be rid of me.”

At the sound of footsteps behind them, they turned. “Brewster, I fear, is hanging out for a dance with you,” Dauntry said.

It proved to be the case. Dauntry let her go— reluctantly. She returned to the ballroom and danced with Brewster. When the piano and fiddle struck up a waltz, Dauntry appeared at her side. The ballroom, designed to hold two hundred, was sparsely populated that evening. They had several square yards of space to themselves in which to swoop and sway to the music without bumping into other dancers. It was exhilarating.

“I always thought the waltz should be like this,” she said, leaning back in his arms. The chandeliers overhead turned her raven hair to glinting gold. A faraway, dreamy expression swept across her face. She looked like a girl at her first party. His arms tightened. He had to force himself not to kiss her.

When the music was over, she said, “I really should be leaving. Miss Wantage will be wondering what has happened to me. Beau, I fear, will stay until the last dog is hung. He can walk home.”

“I shall drive you, and let him take the carriage.”

“That is too much trouble, having the horses put to for such a short drive. Beau can walk home.”

“I’ll drive you,” he repeated, and asked his butler to call his carriage.

“Very well, but you must behave, Dauntry,” she said, not in a teasing way, but with perfect sincerity.

If she had said that to a gentleman in London, it would have been repeated abroad, soon taking on the aura of an invitation to dalliance. Dauntry figured that was how she had acquired her racy reputation. “Fear not, I am a tame man in a carriage.”

“I doubt that, for you are no tame man on the dance floor. I had no idea dancing with you would be so much fun.”

“I have been hiding my light under a mask of gray eminence, as you called it. There was a facer for me! I checked my mirror that night for gray hairs.”

“How many did you find?”

“None! I am only five and thirty, after all.”

“I am five and twenty, but I would never say ‘only’ that age. As a general rule, women live longer than men. It is odd that while we are alive, we age so much more quickly, is it not?”

It seemed ludicrous for this young girl to be worried about her age. “You have lost ten years since coming here.”

“It is all the seclusion that accounts for it, and the salubrious sea air, of course.”

“I hoped your neighbors had something to do with it. And before you tell me how charming Mr. Brewster is, I shall rephrase that utterance. I hoped your landlord had something to do with your amazing rejuvenation.”

“Landlady, actually. The house is your mama’s. I had best stay clear of her in future, or I shall find myself back in short skirts with my hair down.”

“Then we can start all over, as it were, and become childhood sweet—friends.”

“I cannot picture you as a child,” she said, ignoring that “sweet.” “Yet you do look more youthful than before, and less intimidating.”

“Intimidating! Good God, you make me sound like an ogre.”

“No, only a disapproving judge.”

When he took her out to the carriage, Dauntry thought it wiser to sit on the opposite banquette, for he doubted that he would behave himself if he sat beside her. He talked pleasant nonsense for the first while, to show her how far he was from a disapproving judge. As the carriage drove past the road leading to the cottage, Cressida fell silent. He had an idea what she was thinking.

“About Amarylla, Lady deCourcy—or may I call you Cressida? Since I have known you all these years.”

“If you like.”

“About Amarylla, Cressida—”

“You don’t have to explain. I know how bachelors go on. You are not the first man to keep a mistress, and you will not be the last.”

“Perhaps I shall not have her here after all.”

Dauntry expected her to inquire why he changed his mind, which would have given him an opening to intimate his feelings for her.

She said, “I have changed my mind about the cottage, Dauntry. After being inside, I realize it is too small. The dower house is more suitable. I shall remain there.”

Her reply showed clearly she was not thinking along the same lines as himself. She was not feeling this excitement between them. He had read too much into it. “It is a wise decision,” he said.

She talked on about her reason for coming to the seaside. “I am considering buying a little cottage on the sea, and wanted to give it a try first, to see how I like it.”

“And do you like it?”

“I shall try swimming first and take a trip on Beau’s yacht. If they prove enjoyable, then I might buy a little place. It is too early to tell.”

The carriage proceeded to the dower house. When they descended, Dauntry told the driver to take the carriage back. “I shall walk home,” he said.

“You might as well have a drive home,” she said. “I am afraid I cannot ask you in. Miss Wantage will have retired. I would never hear the end of it if I invited a gentleman in without her there to glower and glare at him and make everyone uncomfortable.”

The groom waited, listening with the keenest interest to this exchange until Dauntry waved him off.

“It is a warm evening. I shall enjoy the walk home.”

“Well, thank you for a delightful party, Dauntry.” She shook his hand. When she tried to remove her fingers, he held on to them.

“I would hardly call it a party,” he said, gazing at her face bathed in moonlight.

“It was a wonderful evening, like being home at Tanglewood. A small do, just as I like. I enjoyed the large balls when I first went to London, but after tonight I find I like simple parties even better. You do get to really know—people,” she said.

“I hope that means me?”

“Yes, that is what I mean.”

“I want to tell you about Amarylla,” he said simply.

She placed two fingers on his lips. “Please don’t spoil it, Dauntry.”

“You are right. Let us end this evening as it should be ended.”

Without further speech he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She was too surprised to be angry at first, and as the kiss deepened, her surprise swelled to astonishment. It was impossible! Dauntry was not French—but he was certainly the same man who had kissed her in the cottage. She couldn’t mistake those nibbling kisses that deepened to a bruising attack on her lips, the way his strong fingers splayed on her back, pressing her against him, the heat that flared inside her.

Was she mad? This could not be her mysterious Frenchman. Was she a wanton, to enjoy the kisses of two different men so much? She was too honest to pretend she was not enjoying it. Her arms went around his neck, her fingers reveling in his crisp black hair as she returned every pressure from his lips. Then she forgot the Frenchman, and thought only of Dauntry, who was so very different from what she had expected.

Dauntry, who was bringing his mistress to the cottage ... There was no explanation for that, only excuses, and she had heard them all from her lady friends. “A gentleman has needs.” “It doesn’t mean anything to them.” How could a kiss like this not mean anything? She drew away and gazed at him with sad, disillusioned eyes.

“Good night, Dauntry,” she said in a small voice.

When he reached for her again, she withdrew.

“Please don’t,” she said in a breathless voice. “Once was bad enough.”

Then she turned and fled into the house, and Dauntry stood looking at the closed door, wondering if he had heard her aright.
“Bad
enough?” What the devil did she mean by that?

Cressida had a word with Muffet. “Beau may be out until all hours, Muffet. There is no need to wait up for him. He has his key.”

“Would you care for a glass of cocoa, missy?”

“Not tonight, thank you. I am tired. I shall go straight up to bed.”

This, alas, was impossible. Miss Wantage called her as she tiptoed past the door. “What time is it, dear?” she called.

“Not much past midnight, Miss Wantage. I am sorry if I awoke you.”