Edith Layton (15 page)

Drum raised an eyebrow. “Your pardon, sir. In the last century things were different. We’re not required to marry from the cradle anymore.”

His father seemed genuinely amused. “Actually dear boy, you were born in the last century too. By the by, I hadn’t realized. Are you still sleeping in a cradle?”

“No,” Drum snapped. “I cut my eyeteeth a while ago.”

“So I thought,” his father said with a slight smile, glancing over at Lady Annabelle, who was raptly listening to their conversation.

Drum looked at her too. She stood next to his father and he couldn’t help seeing they made a handsome pair; his father tall and straight, Annabelle so curvaceous and petite. She looked even better now because her eyes were sparkling, her lips curled in delight.
No wonder,
Drum thought with sinking heart.
We must seem like two rams locking horns over her. Just the sort of thing she’d adore. I’ve spurred her interest, damn it!

His father had loved his wife deeply, Drum knew, and the temporary liaisons he’d indulged in since her death had never involved his heart. It would be good he found a lifemate. Drum loved and respected him even though they didn’t always agree, because for all of the duke’s coolness and irony he was a man of depth and honor. Drum might consider his father to be too proud and haughty, but he’d never known him to be cruel or dishonest.

It wasn’t that Drum thought Annabelle would cheat and deceive an older husband by taking a younger man as a lover. It was that he was fairly sure she couldn’t be anyone’s lover in more than the physical sense. His father deserved more. He could be interested in having a new heir, and who could blame him? But his current heir thought he deserved more than that too.

Who was the lady set on charming now? Drum wondered. She stayed to chat and laugh, and he had to admit her conversation was light without being stupid, and her laughter appropriate and pleasant to hear. He saw the worried looks his friends shot at him from various parts of the room. He also noticed his father’s considering glances as he gazed down, bemused, at the lovely Annabelle too. Even so, Drum felt a little let
down when she left to give others a chance to talk with him. She could be good company when she set her mind to it, in spite of the fact that her quizzical smile hinted that she knew exactly how he felt about her.

By the time his father politely suggested to the company that his son was looking a bit peaked, Drum’s mouth ached from the stiffness of his artificial smiles. When Drum’s best friends moved toward the door with the rest of the company, he signaled them to stay. “I’d like a word with all of you,” he told Rafe. “Wait a moment longer please.”

“But if you’d give me a moment alone with my son first?” the duke asked.

Drum’s friends retreated to the hall, Lady Annabelle and her mama told the duke they’d wait for him in his coach.

“You’ve done well,” the duke told Drum when they were alone. “You’ll have abundant company now. It would please me if you admitted them even when I wasn’t here.”

Drum groaned. “If it pleases you, I will, but I can’t guarantee what will happen when I have the use of my legs again.”

“I won’t ask you to,” the duke said. He hesitated, then abruptly asked, “What do you think of her?”

Drum’s face went still. He couldn’t mean any other woman. But why didn’t he name her? And did he mean to ask what Drum thought of Annabelle for himself? Or for his son? More than that, this was very unlike his father—it was too blunt.

“I’m not sure yet,” Drum said, carefully giving a vague answer for a nebulous question. “This needs time, don’t you think?”

“Of course,” the duke said in his usual cool tones. “We have that. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, clapping on his high beaver hat. “Give you good day,” he told the Ryders and the Daltons as he strolled out of the house. “Thank you for watching over my son.”

“
He
needs watching!” Gilly exclaimed when she came back into the salon. “Did you see the way he was eyeing her?” Belatedly, she realized she’d spoken out of turn. She looked stricken. “That wasn’t for me to say,” she added humbly.

“I don’t see why not,” Drum said with a smile. “You’ve always said anything you wanted to me, and always should. I value that and you know it, though I pity Damon for it,” he added to make them laugh. “He did look upon Annabelle fondly. It may be no more than that. It may only be that he yearns for her for me. Whatever it is, there’s nothing I can do about it yet. But I earnestly wish you would not say one word against her in front of him,” he added, shaking a finger at her, “because that would do nothing but make him want to protect her. He has an incongruous streak of gallantry.”

Drum fidgeted, and looked even more glum. “But what I wanted to talk to you all about was that seeing those eager young creatures here today set me to thinking. And not about what their mamas most wished I would.” His long fingers tapped against the arm of his chair as he tried to frame his thoughts. He’d be pacing now if he could.

He was never at a loss for words. His friends knew he must be considering something momentous. They listened closely.

“There’s no reason a charming, bright, good person like Alexandria Gascoyne shouldn’t have an opportu
nity to marry too,” Drum finally said. He glowered down at his splinted leg. “The fact that she has no title or money might not matter so much here; London’s filled with all kinds of men, there must be some who’d find her marriageable. She certainly has other assets. Surely we can put our heads together and think of a way to get her here, to repay her for her kindness to me? That’s the only way she’ll find herself a husband and a better life, because she’ll find nothing but time flying by in that backwater she lives in.”

He looked up to see them gaping at him.

“
That’s
what’s got you upset?” Rafe laughed. “Your father isn’t the only one with a streak of gallantry!”

“I pay my debts,” Drum said.

Then he sat back with a smile, and listened to them fight for the right to take in a foundling. As to that, her history was hers to tell them if she chose, he decided, but her future was now his to sort out for her. He might be immobilized, he might be powerless over anything his father did, but this was something he could do.

It was the first time he’d felt good about himself in days.

I
T WAS A WARM EVENING AFTER A PARTICULARLY
rare early summer’s day. Eric Ford stood at the garden gate and watched the woman at his side lift her head to breathe in the fragrances of the garden and fields around them. He eyed Alexandria’s lovely profile, from her fine little nose down to her shapely breasts. She’d drawn the masses of her hair up because of the warmth of day, and now he saw a few sunset-tinted slips had come loose to lay against her neck. She didn’t notice his appraisal, expect perhaps in that tangential way in which people feel a prickling awareness of someone’s eyes on them. She ran a hand along the back of her neck to smooth those tendrils as though she felt his eyes on them.

The work of the day was done, dinner had been eaten, the horses were in the barn, and the children were in the cottage. After the efforts of the day a sense of accomplishment and peace was falling over them, along with the night. It didn’t take much of a leap of
fancy for him to imagine this was his cottage, they were his children, and this woman, his wife. Or that after a moment, they’d exchange a secret smile, then an embrace. After that, they’d wait until they could go inside and close their bedroom door to exchange much more as the coming night darkened around them. It was how his parents behaved. He firmly believed it was what made sense of a man’s life.

The lady he wanted would never be his. He didn’t have a title and she wanted a husband of rank. He had too much pride to offer her less or to take less for himself. He did like Alexandria, though, and he was lonely. But he’d get no encouragement from her. He knew women so he knew that. His fantasy might match hers, but they both wanted another who didn’t want them. It paired them, life wouldn’t. That saddened him, not because he’d lost his heart to her, though he liked her very well, but because he was fairly sure she’d lost hers. And where his dream of love might have been possible, hers was not and never could be, and he didn’t know how to tell her that.

He’d seen how she had looked at Drum, and how often she’d tried not to. It was clear she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. He’d heard the note that changed in her voice when she spoke about Drum too.

“I wrote to Drum today,” he said.

She turned to look at him and he saw the interest leap to her eyes.

“I’ve discovered some things he wanted to know and I hope soon to know more,” he went on. “There’s something I have to know from you too. I have to ask you if only because I promised to be Drum’s ferret and I must be thorough, but also because I don’t think he
ever wanted to ask you himself. It may be important. Were you aware of Mr. Gascoyne’s political leanings?”

She startled, her eyes flew wide and searched his. “Politics? Oh! Was someone really trying to kill Drum…the earl?”

“As I said, I don’t know yet. But I did find out a few things about your father’s opinions. He admired Napoleon?”

She turned her head and looked away. He had his answer, but waited patiently for her to speak.

“Mr. Gascoyne was—rather radical,” she said, gazing at the ground. “An admirer of the French Revolution, actually. Silly, really, since revolutionaries preach sharing and he wouldn’t share a cup of water, much less his money. They also teach the brotherhood of man and he thought no one was his equal. It was the theory that interested him.”

She raised her eyes to him again. “But if you mean was he radical to the point of putting himself or anyone else in any danger? Oh no,
that
he was not. He lost his position at Eton for simply expressing such views, and that was the end of his expressing them. Someone overheard something he said and told someone else, so he was dismissed because he was considered a dangerous teacher for the sons of aristocrats. He made sure never to voice any political opinions again.”

She cocked her head to the side, then laughed. “You ask because you think his ghost attacked the earl? I don’t think even his departed spirit would dare. The only ghost hereabouts is the next town over and he’s only a muddled old monk who seems to want to say vespers, they say, but his monastery is gone so he walks the road at twilight, muttering. He might
frighten a horse, but he couldn’t shoot at one.”

“I mean that maybe your father had friends who were less fearful than he was. Friends with the same convictions.”

Her smile vanished. She looked at the setting sun and nodded. “That’s possible. He wrote to some. I met a few. I was very grateful he didn’t encourage them to visit. In fact, their interest in me made him lose interest in them, I think. He had few illusions about friendship and those few he had were easy for him to shed.”

“And his friends at the school where he last taught?”

She shook her head. “He had none. He kept to himself.”

Now Eric nodded. “And he saw that you did too. Are you going to continue keeping to yourself even now that he’s gone?” He asked because it was a warm and fragrant evening and she was lovely and he couldn’t help himself. “It would be a shame,” he said when she didn’t answer right away.

He dared more. He trusted her intelligence and regretted her state of mind. His friend was a powerful man and a fascinating one, Eric had seen how women reacted to him before. He’d seen how Drum reacted to her too. Drum was luckier. He’d never be without company, left alone to agonize over what might have been, as this lovely woman was doing. But Drum
was
a friend as well as being a sensitive man, and so Eric felt sorry for them both—Alexandria for her obvious feelings and Drum for his obvious disregard of his own.

“Drum thought it would be a waste for you to remain alone,” Eric said carefully.

He saw her nostrils pinch as she took in a sharp breath.

“He admires you tremendously,” Eric went on. “He mentions you in his letters, always asking how you are, how you’re doing now. He can’t do more. You met his father, and his father means the world to him. With all his coldness the duke’s a good man, and Drum’s a good son.”

“I don’t expect more,” she said woodenly.

“Then I repeat, it’s a waste.”

“Thank you for that.”

He looked out at the fields. “Now’s not a good time for me to try to win another thanks from you, I think, though I’d certainly like to. But times change, don’t they?”

She turned a sad but smiling face to his. “Oh, Eric,” she said on a gust of a laugh, “I certainly hope so.”

She stood in silence a moment, wondering if she should stay and enjoy the evening with him now that difficult things had been said. But it was too lovely an evening, still and serene, with perfumes floating on a soft breeze, a fleeting time that held promises and threats and made people do impetuous things.

“Good-night,” she said softly, and turned away from him, leaving him alone to stare into the growing night.

She forced herself to go into her house, though the stars were coming out in a sky so huge and brilliant it made the cottage seem even smaller and more confined than it was. She could have stayed at his side, but she knew what it might lead to, and she was confused and unhappy because she wasn’t prepared for that.

Eric Ford actually seemed interested in her. She’d known few strangers, but he was so open and kind, she felt she knew him. He had so much to offer her, the most welcome right now that feeling of security she felt in his
presence. He was so large, friendly, and sympathetic. He was also a staggeringly handsome man and anyone could see his heart was as big and warm as his personality, so he might not care that she had nothing to offer him but herself. Maybe he only wanted friendship, but his eyes told her more, and he wasn’t the sort of man who trifled with a woman.

Alexandria stood in the kitchen and looked at the empty hearth. If she had a brain in her head she’d get on her knees and thank God for sending him her way, and then stand up, turn right around, and go back to him.

But she kept thinking about another man who was in no way handsome, and so she hardly understood why she thought he was twice as attractive. A man with a quick sense of humor and a fine sense of irony. A clever, learned, high-born man whose heart was generous too; but that heart was totally locked and bent to his purposes. And that purpose was to find a wife of his same class and condition. He made no excuses for it. Such was his pride in his name and his reverence for his haughty father that he probably felt he didn’t have to. The truth was, Alexandria thought unhappily, he didn’t, because the world utterly agreed with him.

More than all that, though Eric was a radiantly handsome man, and Drum was not, nevertheless, her
skin
reacted differently when she was in the room with Drum. It was the most peculiar thing. He had only to look at her and she’d feel the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up and her heart begin to gallop. Such a thing had never happened to her before.

Eric was a good man and she knew she could trust him. She didn’t trust the Earl of Drummond at all. How
could she? She didn’t know him. She didn’t know if anyone ever could. He was a mass of contradictions, and she reacted to him the same way. He was too remote and yet the expression in his eyes was too warm for her comfort, and sent chills down her back. His presence in a room took all the air out of it too, making her both lightheaded and exhilarated. There was no understanding it, but no denying it. Even worse, now that he was gone the air didn’t seem quite so important to breathe anymore. It was ridiculous, but she could no more help it than help breathing. Clearly, he’d bewitched her. She had to let time pass to see if she could escape his spell.

Alexandria went up the stair, moving as though her damp little cottage had already given her the rheumatics in her bones that it doubtless would one day. When she opened the door to her bedchamber, she almost expected to still see Drum there, sitting in a chair or lying on her bed, looking at her with that chilling, burning look in his knowing eyes. She’d said there were no ghosts in the neighborhood; now she knew she lied. She’d never seen the ghost of the cold man who’d owned this place, but she couldn’t stop seeing the afterimage of the cool man who’d come to stay here, and had left with her heart.

Alexandria sank to the bed and bowed her head. There! She’d admitted it. That tall man with the absurdly long nose and beautiful azure eyes had come into her life and now she wondered if he’d ever leave it. She’d never been so smitten before. She smiled sadly, because she knew very well that the sum of her acquaintance of handsome, available gentlemen was now precisely two of them. So, she thought hopefully, it
was possible this fixation might only be a passing thing.

She frowned. Even if this were a temporary madness, it would probably be long enough to ruin any chance she might have with Eric. If she really had a chance at all. He might not mind her lack of history and…But
might
was too big a word. And even if she could one day respond to him, by then he’d doubtless have already found a wiser woman, one eager to return his interest and engage his affections, because he was so very attractive and obviously ready to fix his interest with someone.

Alexandria lay back and closed her eyes. Drum was gone, but he’d ruined her chances for Eric, and maybe all men—how should she know?

She’d been visited by a comet. The Earl of Drummond was from another world, as remote from hers as the moon or stars. She had to get over the shock and grandeur of his sudden appearance and disappearance and then, and only then, could she get on with her life. Maybe if fate finally decided to be kinder to her, she could get on with another love as well. Maybe.

She sat up, pulled off her clothes, and lay back again, burrowing her face into the pillow. Her eyes opened again in shock. She hadn’t put on her night-dress. She was naked, and she had never gone to bed like that! It was an outrageous, wanton thing. The foundling home sent children to bed dressed from neck to toes. When Mr. Gascoyne was here she’d dressed the same way. Even now that she finally was alone, she never dared sleep as God made her. The boys might wake, she might have to leave the room in a hurry…

But tonight was different. Tonight she fought with
herself to stay in her room. The sky glittered with stars, the leaves on the tree outside her window fluttered against it the way her heart was knocking against her chest, filling her soul with dares and options, making her yearn in heart and body. A strong handsome man stood at her gate, perhaps looking up at her window with desire and warm welcome in his eyes, waiting for her to come down to him again.

But tonight another man’s spirit roved the room on the soft breeze too, running cool fingers over her heated skin, stirring the hair at the back of her neck with his breath, chuckling at her confusion, whispering impossible things into her ears. She turned, and turned again, shamed and excited by her own body and the possibilities the tingling sensations were hinting at.

She couldn’t cover herself because she’d never been so conscious of her own body, so terrified and enticed by its power and potential. She’d never realized how smooth her skin was. She ran her hand over it, from where it stretched over her stomach, up the arch of her ribs, noting how soft and yet firm her breasts felt, how hard and pebbled their tips became under her palm, how her palm felt in response to that…She thought of hands, Drum’s long, restless hands…

She dropped her hand and turned over with a muted groan.

She used all her control to settle her questing spirit. Her desires tugged at her like a kite trying to escape on the wind. She tried to anchor it with all her hard realities. She wanted to get up and fling on a long night-dress to conceal her expectant body even from herself. But she loved the breeze on her skin too much.

It was a long time before she slept.

The letter came the next morning. Alexandria’s life was in chaos by that evening. Because that was when she showed to letter to everyone at the table.

“Can we come too?” Rob yipped after he’d had his chance to read it.

“Knothead,” Kit said affectionately, ruffling his brother’s hair, “absolutely not! It’s Ally’s treat, a vacation for her. She deserves some time without chores.”