An Extraordinary Flirtation (7 page)

After a brief tussle for possession, Cara threw the branch. Daisy raced happily in pursuit. The setter would need a good brushing after this adventure. Already her silky coat was tangled with twigs and burrs. Cara wouldn’t be surprised if she’d acquired some vegetation in her own hair.

Along a weathered garden wall—stone, with niches for statues that had either disappeared altogether or deteriorated sadly with time and neglect—bloomed a lone pink peony. Cara smiled, remembering Baron Fitzrichard’s waistcoat. Thought of Fitz reminded her in turn of Lord Mannering, and Zoe. As well as of her sudden role as the family expert on propriety, which was a sad comment on her life. Cara grabbed a handful of weeds, and yanked.

A pattern-card of propriety! The odious man had
laughed
at her. Zoe could hardly be blamed for setting her cap at Mannering, for the marquess was handsome as the devil, with his dark hair that gleamed gold and russet in the candlelight, his high cheekbones and chiseled jaw; the lines of laughter and sensuality around his dark eyes and wicked mouth; that muscular body that wasn’t camouflaged a whit by finely tailored clothes.

Cara decimated a passion flower. Daisy burst out of the bushes, stick clenched between her teeth. Cara reached out to throw the stick, but Daisy was off and barking before she had the chance.

Beau, who was making his wary way along one of the stone paths, heard the barking and flinched. Like Baron Fitzrichard before him, Beau had the devil of a head. His excesses of the previous evening had naught to do, however, with macao and champagne, but rather resulted from a romantic tryst. What had happened there—or rather,
hadn’t
happened—had led him to drown his disappointment, and the lady’s, in drink. Beau supposed he should not be surprised that his amatory skills had begun to fail him, though in all the history of the family such a thing had never happened before. It was just another part of the general misery that seemed determined to assail him from all sides at this stage of his life.

As Daisy seemed determined to assail him. “Down! Quiet!” he said. Daisy dashed off and returned, tail eagerly wagging, with her stick in her mouth. Gingerly he grasped the sodden thing and threw it a good distance. Daisy dashed off in pursuit.

Beau continued along the path. Widdle had informed him that “the lady” was in the garden. Beau assumed that “the lady” was Cara, since Widdle referred to Zoe as “the demoiselle” and Ianthe as “the mistress,” despite all attempts to gently persuade him to do otherwise. Even Zoe hesitated to distress Widdle lest he take umbrage, because heaven only knew what sort of butler they might end up with next.

Beau found Cara contemplating a dense and spiny evergreen shrub ripe with clusters of golden yellow flowers. “What are you doing here?” he said irritably. “Why didn’t you go with Zoe and Ianthe to visit the shops?”

Cara brushed dirt off her hands. Beau’s legendary tight-fistedness didn’t extend to his daughter, who had vowed she would expire if denied a new dress. “I sent Barrow in my place. She knows my measurements. And I suspect her tastes are more refined than mine.”

Widdle’s
tastes were more refined than Cara’s. Beau eyed her ancient morning dress. “Bad enough that you went about like a dowd in the country, but you’re in London now.”

Cara, as has been established, was in no good mood herself. She plopped her hands on her hips and glared, “Perhaps I shall introduce a haystack or a woodpile to your garden. Since my preferences are of so rustic a bent! Or perhaps I shall just take my provincial self back home.”

“Perhaps you should.” With his lower lip thrust out, Beau looked remarkably like his daughter in a pet. “You’re here to look after Zoe, are you not? A trifle difficult to do while hiding in the garden, don’t you think?”

There was truth in his accusation. Cara reined in her temper. “Please try and understand. It is very difficult for me to present myself in public when I am constantly being recognized and quizzed. People ask the rudest questions, and what they think is no doubt even worse than what they say.”

There was truth in her words also, but Beau chose to overlook it. “If you hadn’t secluded yourself in the country with your sheep and your kumquats and your blasted chickens, Zoe might not have turned into such a strong-willed minx.”

“And perhaps she would have, with you indulging her every whim!” But Cara didn’t wish to war with her brother, and so she changed the subject. “Did you know that Mannering was at Lady Miller’s rout?”

Beau didn’t wish to quarrel either, not with his last hope. “Mannering was at
Lady Miller’s?
Good God, where will he show up next?” He looked around the garden as if expecting the marquess to pop out from beneath a bush.

Daisy returned, panting, minus her stick. Both Beau and Cara ignored her. The setter dropped down on her haunches and watched them curiously.

“He also took her down to dinner. The rest of us accompanied them.” Cara hadn’t enjoyed a spoonful of the repast, even though it had included rib of lamb and mayonnaise of salmon, boiled fowl and Béchamel sauce, collared eel and lobster salad and boar’s head; charlotte russe à la vanilla; veal-and-ham pie; jellies, compotes of fruit, cheesecakes, dishes of small pastry, and blancmange, all arranged tastefully up and down the table, interspersed with flowers and epergnes; and additionally a joint of cold roast and boiled beef placed on the buffet, something substantial for the gentlemen to partake of to keep up their strength. Instead she had sat quietly, and listened to Baron Fitzrichard’s explanation that delicate colors required to be supported and enlivened, and therefore were best relieved by contrast; though the contrast should not be so strong as to equal the color it was intended to relieve, for it then became opposition, which should be avoided at all costs; while Ianthe responded with flattered interest, and Zoe fluttered and flirted and struck her attitudes.

The girl truly was shameless. Cara didn’t know what Beau expected
she
might do. Warn Zoe against coming under the gravest censure, so that Zoe might fairly say, so what? A Loversall wasn’t dissuaded by such considerations in the ordinary way of things, let alone when in pursuit of his or her True Love.

True Love! Cara wasn’t sure that there was such a thing. If she’d once had such youthful fancies herself, she’d long since set them forcibly aside. And if such fancies sometimes crept into her dreams—Vigorously, she uprooted a nettle. Perhaps Cara had scant control over her dreams, but she didn’t have to dwell upon such nonsense in the daylight hours. Then why was she sitting here, brooding about it, all the same?

If Beau had suspected that Mannering would appear at Lady Miller’s, he would have attended the damned rout himself, and consequently was glad he hadn’t suspected, for he disliked such events.

Thoughtfully, he brushed dog hair off his breeches. “Perhaps I’ve been a trifle hasty. Maybe Mannering’s interest
has
been piqued.”

Cara flung down the nettle. “You’re as mutton-headed as Ianthe if you think Zoe may bring such a man to heel.”

Mutton-headed, was he? Exposure to the sunlight, and his unusually short-tempered sister, had not helped Beau’s headache one bit. “I’ll tell you what
I
think! You’re jealous of your own niece.” Before Cara could recover sufficiently from her astonishment to reply, or box his ears, he set out in search of his valet, and a soothing tisane.

Cara scowled at her brother’s retreating back, then turned away and wandered farther along the path until she came to the neatly arranged vegetable garden, which lay near the kitchen door. This area, at least, had been tended, most likely by the cook. Potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, French beans, and spinach and carrots grew in neat rows, the beds bordered by tidy ranks of herbs. Cara knelt down and ran her fingers over slender stalks of barge and lavender, hyssop and rosemary and chervil, parsley and rosemary and sage. Marjoram, which when made into an oil warmed joints that were stiff. Lovage, when fried with a little hog’s lard, encouraged the breaking of a boil. Chamomile, “the doctor,” good for almost every ailment known to man.

Almost
any ailment. Cara spied some lurking fennel, and gave it a good yank. Daisy stopped digging in the garden to plop down beside her mistress and give her cheek a companionable slurp.

Could
she be jealous of Zoe? Cara plunged her fingers into the rich earth. Once it had been she who admirers flocked around like bees to the honey pot. Now any flocking done would be around Norwood’s fortune. His fortune, and all that lovely property. Flocking there would be, Cara knew, for she was hardly a naif. She slapped her fist on the dirt, startling Daisy. “Damn, damn, damn!”

Only then did Cara become aware that she had an audience, because Widdle cleared his throat. The butler didn’t know what to make of the lady kneeling, cursing, in the garden dirt. Not that he knew what to make of any of this household, except that he didn’t think highly of the quality of their silver plate.

Energized by the sight of the butler, Daisy leapt up and knocked him down. “Squire Anderley come to see you, Lady Norwood,” Widdle announced from his bed among the herbs. “He said
you wouldn’t mind if I brought him into the gardens, but I thought I should ask you first.”

Cara scrambled hastily to her feet and discouraged Daisy from bathing Widdle’s face. Then she pulled the butler upright, and brushed him free of dirt. “It’s all right, Widdle. Squire Anderley and I are old friends.” Widdle looked uncertain. “You may leave us alone together, you know.”

Widdle was uncertain. The lady didn’t look happy to see her visitor, and he disliked the expression in the gentleman’s eye. However, it wasn’t Widdle’s place to argue with his employers. Not that the lady
was
his employer, precisely, but he didn’t think he should argue with her either. Struggling with his indecision, Widdle walked back down the path toward the house.

Cara studied her visitor, who appeared travel-weary and cross. “Sit!” he snapped. Daisy sank down, panting, at his feet. Cara assumed he had been talking only to the dog. “Business has brought you to town?”

“Unfinished business.” Paul moved toward her. “I’ve brought your mare with me. I assumed you would wish to ride.”

“How kind of you.” How presumptuous. Cara took a prudent step backward. “Mortimer told you where we’d gone?”

Mortimer had not, despite threats, bribes, and all other manner of persuasion. “I am perfectly capable of adding two and two together and arriving at four.” Paul was further irritated to see that Cara’s hands were again grimed and her hair awry. She looked so impossibly lovely that he wanted to shake or kiss her. Since he could do neither, he looked around the garden instead.

If Norwood House was a prime example of the noble art of picturesque gardening run amok, this place was a horticulturist’s version of the nether regions. “Your gardener would succumb to an apoplexy on the spot.”

Barrow would be pleased, thought Cara, that Paul had followed her to town. She was uncertain how she felt about the matter herself. “I’ll grant that Beau’s gardens are a somewhat overwhelming task.”

Daisy reappeared, with her stick. Absently Paul took the thing and flung it. He doubted that the condition of her brother’s gardens, deplorable as they were, had brought Cara here. He doubted also that he would accomplish anything by shaking—or kissing—her.

Rather, he might accomplish something, but nothing that would advance his suit. “I know you a little too well to stand on ceremony with you. Won’t you tell me what’s amiss?”

Cara plucked an especially frothy dandelion. She understood that Paul was feeling outmaneuvered, which made him cross and out of charity with her. However, were she to reveal family problems, then Beau would be cross and out of sorts.

Beau was already cross and out of sorts, and Cara felt in need of a confidante. “You’ve come a considerable distance to become embroiled in our difficulties. I warn you that you’d be better advised to return home.”

Paul might have grasped her hands, were they not so grubby. He settled for a smile. “What fustian you are talking. You know I consider myself part of your family. What can I do to help?” He looked critically around him. “Perhaps arrange to have some bat guano brought to town?”

Cara sighed. “If I had some bat guano with me, I’d put it in my niece’s bed. Zoe has been spoilt all her life, and expects admiration from all the world, which for the most part she receives, for she is truly lovely as well as impetuous, spontaneous and gay.” She gave the dandelion an absentminded puff, scattering it to the wind. “Now Zoe has taken a fancy to a gentleman of whom her father can’t approve. At least he couldn’t approve yesterday! I can’t help but wonder if any gentleman will prove worthy enough to satisfy Beau, not that it will make the slightest difference when my niece falls madly and passionately in love.”

If only Cara would fall madly and passionately in love with
him.
Paul reached out and plucked a piece of vegetation from her hair, which led Cara to wonder if the squire felt freer in Beau’s wilderness of a garden than he did at Norwood House, and why; and if he would try and kiss her now, and if she wished him to.

“So there it is!” she said brightly, and stepped away a little farther, lest the squire decide he felt freer than she liked. “My trouble is Zoe, and I don’t see how you can help with that.”

Zoe sounded like a typical Loversall. Thank God Cara didn’t fit the mold. Surely it wouldn’t be difficult to find the chit a husband if she was the nonpareil that Cara claimed. And then Cara would return to the country where she belonged.

Before he could comment, footsteps sounded on the gravel path, accompanied by a volley of wild barking, and female voices raised in argument. For all the privacy afforded her in this ruined jungle of a garden, Cara reflected, she might as well have been at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

Zoe tripped into view, looking especially enchanting in a muslin dress with full sleeves and a high neck and a hem of colored ribbon headed by a broad lace border, its low neck filled in with a blond fichu. She eyed Paul with frank interest. “Widdle said you were here with a gentleman, Aunt Cara. Now we know why you didn’t come shopping with us, you sly thing! Barrow picked out the nicest gown for you, not that
I
would wish to wear purple, but it should do quite nicely for a person of your age. We have come to act as your chaperones, because you know it isn’t proper for you to be out here alone.”