Miss Delacourt Speaks Her Mind (11 page)

He groaned and rolled over. Why couldn’t he conjure up the image of Ginny throwing that book at him? Certainly it would not inspire the tender feelings raised by the memory of how she had felt in his arms. For a moment he had felt he could be happy holding her that way forever.

He rubbed the painful lump growing on his forehead. He had come to his senses just in time. Could he have actually come close to kissing her? T’was appalling. For some reason, when around her, he found it most difficult to adopt the mask of indifference that had been his longtime number one defense.

He would have to steer a wide path around her until he regained control of himself. The house was rather small and company thin, but still it should not be too difficult a task since Ginny was furious with him and no doubt would avoid him as much as possible. In the meantime, he would have to find a way to get to sleep. With a curse, he jumped out of bed, dressed, and slipped outside.

The night was soft and balmy, with a high moon, perfect for a little night riding. What sheer relief it would be to ride fast and furious through the countryside, far away from the house and everyone in it. He made his way to the stables. It was pitch black inside, and he wondered how he would find the stable boy until he tripped over him where he had made his bed in the straw.

“Owww, eee! Wot’s yer lay, there?” the stable boy cried.

“Nothing nefarious, I assure you,” Sir Anthony replied. If he were bent on villainy, he would have had no need to leave the house. “Just find me a light and you’ll see you have nothing to fear.”

There was a shuffling and scraping as the boy found his lantern and lighted it. Swinging the lantern high, he peered up at Sir Anthony, taking in his well-cut clothes and cloudy expression. “You must be one of them swells staying up at the house”

Sir Anthony sketched a bow, allowing a fraction of a smile to play about his lips. “Indeed I am, and I am in need of your services this night. Do you have a mount for me, one with a bit of a kick in his gallop?”

The stable boy led Sir Anthony down the row of stalls to the end. “This here’s Challenger.” The stable boy threw Sir Anthony an assessing glance. “You should be able to pull it off, though I’ve yet to see anyone do it.”

“The very thing. Keep him primed for me each night and your lips tightly sealed and there will be something in it for you at the end of my stay here”

The boy’s eyes grew round, eradicating every last trace of his former wariness. “Gor blimey, guv. I’ll be waiting for you every night, jus’ see if I ain’t. And mum’s the word” Then he opened the door and led Challenger out of his stall and into the night air.

Sir Anthony stepped up to the dark bay and wondered if he had taken leave of his senses. Challenger seemed much larger upon close inspection and definitely dangerous. How the petite stable boy managed to saddle the brute was anybody’s guess, but he did so with calm efficiency.

Sir Anthony regarded the rolling eyes and tossing mane and knew a qualm. He glanced back at the house and found his bedchamber window. Maybe he had exerted himself enough for one night. His gaze slipped to the opposite side of the house to a window much like his own, only he fancied someone stood looking out.

An image of Ginny, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed, filled his mind. He felt as if he had been hit in the chest and the wind knocked clean out of him. With a ragged breath, he filled his lungs and launched himself into the saddle.

Bucking about in rage, Challenger turned into a snorting, rearing, crazy-eyed piece of horseflesh. Laughing outright, Sir Anthony gave the horse his head. If he were fortunate, Challenger would give him the ride of his life, leaving him with little strength for anything.

From her bedchamber window Ginny watched Sir Anthony streak away from sight. At least she felt fairly sure it was him. She had heard his chamber door open and his firm, steady tread down the hall earlier. She had not heard him return.

Upon leaving Sir Anthony’s room she had found her own with ridiculous ease. How she had ever managed to take a wrong turn in the first place was unclear. She was mortified, angry, and hurt. Surely she had invited Sir Anthony’s improper advances with her own folly. She couldn’t expect him to believe she had come to his room in error.

How he must have laughed when she left, thinking her an inexperienced, foolish little wanton. She turned away from the window and sat on the edge of her bed. Well, she wouldn’t let that thought interfere with her having a good night’s sleep. No indeed. If anything, it would be the feel of his strong arm around her waist and his warm breath fanning her cheek that kept her head turning on her pillow all the weary night long.

Come morning, Maren drew the curtains. A shaft of yellow light filled the room, flooding Ginny’s rosestrewn counterpane. She had dreamed that she was not herself, in a place she had never been before. Now she remembered. Rose Arbor.

“Glory, I must have fallen asleep” Ginny stretched and sat up against the rose-embroidered pillows.

Maren shot her a startled look. “If you don’t mind my saying so, miss, I daresay you fell asleep some time ago”

Ginny laughed. “And precisely how did you come by that bit of information, pray tell?”

“Beggin’ your pardon, miss, but you spoke so in your sleep after such a long bout of tocsin’ and turnin’ that I couldn’t help but worry about you.”

“I spoke in my sleep? I don’t know that I have ever done so in the past.” Ginny took the cup of steaming chocolate Maren handed her and sipped meditatively. “What did I say?”

Maren, warming up to her new mistress with each hour spent in her service, was bold enough to sit on the edge of Ginny’s bed. “You spent a deal of time saying hows you’re not Kate or some such thing.”

Ginny choked on her chocolate. So that was where she had been all night, in Petruchio’s country house. Only the master of this house was a dark, blue-eyed devil who had no business laughing in her dreams.

“Are you all right, miss? You look kind of queer, like.” Maren felt the pot on the stand by Ginny’s bed. “The water t’ain’t too hot, is it?”

“No, Maren, it’s perfect. Please see to it that my blue dimity gown is put out” She wanted to be sure she looked as young and fresh as springtime. She’d much rather comparisons be drawn between her and the new day than with Petruchio’s jaded bride.

Ginny entered the breakfast room just as Sir Anthony was regaling its occupants with some anecdote or other, one most likely something having to do with last night if the guilt in his eyes when they met hers was any indication. It was difficult to determine the case, however, as he snapped his mouth shut upon her arrival.

Indeed, Lord Avery, the squire, and his wife glanced apprehensively at her when she greeted them. All except for Lucinda, who, chin in her hands and eyes sparkling, was staring at Sir Anthony with a devastated look in her eyes. “Do go on, Thur Anthony,” she cooed. “Your story is ever so funny!”

Ginny added her own protestations. “Oh, yes, do finish your story. It would seem that it was vastly amusing. Wouldn’t you say so, Lord Avery?” But it was Sir Anthony she stole a glance at from the corner of her eye. She was gratified by the deep flush that suffused his face from his collar right up to the nasty bruise on his forehead.

“Oh, yes, vastly amusing,” Lord Avery echoed. “But pray, how are you this morning, Miss Delacourt? The last we saw of you, you were in flight like the Goddess Daphne ere she was turned into a tree”

It was a comparison Ginny had not anticipated, though it was more favorable than the others she had endured of late. Unfortunately, it defied response. Taking a deep breath, she turned again to Sir Anthony. “Pray, sir, do not refrain from your tale on my account. I shall just go to the sideboard and fill my plate”

“Wonderful idea,” the squire announced. “The morning is a wonderful time, yes, a wonderful time to breakfast. Always have maintained it was so, haven’t I, wife?”

“Yes, dear,” that good woman replied. Ginny had it as a fact that Mrs. Barrington rarely took breakfast before noon. However, it seemed the presence of two eligible bachelors did wonders for her appetite. Funny, it served the opposite function for Ginny.

She returned to the table with very little more on her plate than when she took it from the sideboard, an occurrence that prompted Sir Anthony to part lips and make utterance for the first time since Ginny entered the room.

“Why, Miss Delacourt, may I persuade you to have a coddled egg or two with that slice of toast? You will need more sustenance than that will afford if you plan to make a habit of sitting up half the night reading.”

“For your information, Sir Anthony, I did not do any reading last night. I choose to spend my nocturnal hours sleeping.” At least when she was able. “I believe I heard you wandering about last night in the hall, however.” And on the stairs, right out the front door to the stables.

Sir Anthony had the grace to look a trifle discomfited. “Yes, I had an intolerable headache and thought I would go down to the library to find something to read as well”

As this communication sent the entire company into whoops, Ginny felt it best to forsake her breakfast. She didn’t really want it after having been so mortified. It was clear Sir Anthony had been humiliating her with the tale of how she had come to be in his room, the story no doubt riddled with liberal commentary on her manners, morals, and jolly good aim.

She retired to one of the trio of small sitting rooms, all of which were decorated in shades of rose. The mauve room was nearest at hand and most convenient to shedding the hot tears that scalded her eyes. Whatever else this quarantine brought after all that she had endured, she felt quite certain she would leave with a hearty distaste for pink.

“I believe I owe you an apology, Miss Delacourt” Sir Anthony stood framed in the doorway, his entire being evidence of his agitation. Even his usual carefully arranged expression betrayed a modicum of concern. She thought she could almost see it in his eyes.

“What you owe me is an explanation, sir. Whether or not an apology should be in order thereafter is yet to be determined.”

He entered the room. “May I sit?”

Ginny swept her skirts from the brocade sofa and inched to the farthest edge. “Please.”

Sir Anthony regarded the acres of distance between Ginny and the proffered seat and moved with great purpose to a delicate side chair. Placing it directly across from her, he sat. “There, that is much better.”

Ginny turned up her nose and presented him with her profile. It was bad enough he had sought her out in her private moment, but for their knees to be touching was outside of enough.

He cleared his throat. “I think you will agree that I crossed the line of decorum last night.”

Ginny sucked in her breath. She hadn’t expected him to regard her feelings in such a matter. She looked down at her hands folded primly in her lap. “I do, more than you know.”

“I realize you find my attentions distasteful. I wish you to be at ease. No such advances will be made in the future.”

“I am happy to hear you say so” That wasn’t precisely the truth, but how else to explain the mixture of relief and utter dejection now gripping her heart?

“Now I think you owe me an apology.”

Ginny turned to stare at him. “Whatever for? Surely you don’t believe that I came to your room intentionally!” Naturally, he did, but she had her pride to think of.

Sir Anthony, his eyes dancing, merely tapped his bruised forehead with exaggerated care.

Ginny could not suppress a smile. “Ah, yes, the book!”

He nodded. “And for believing I would divulge that interesting little tidbit to that crew in there.”

“You mean you did not?” Ginny was astonished. “It seemed clear from all that was said they had the whole from you even as I came into the room”

“Well, er, I had to tell them some of the truth”

Ginny narrowed her eyes. “How much of it, pray tell?”

“Never fear. I did not cast aspersions on your honor, but I had to tell them how I came about my bruise.”

“And need you bring me into it? For all I know you might have fallen off your horse”

Sir Anthony did not betray the surprise he must surely have felt. “You know I was out riding last night-and threaten me with it? That would not be wise considering that I did come by this bruise at your hand and they have yet to learn how.”

“I find that difficult to believe in light of their mirth a few moments ago. Oh, what must they think of me?”

Sir Anthony leaned back in his chair so as to afford him a better view of the lovely picture she presented. Her pink cheeks and sky blue gown were pretty as a spring day. Perhaps he would allow her to blush a bit longer. Then again, perhaps not. The lady had suffered enough embarrassment at his hands.

“Come now, they think only that you are a trifle clumsy.”

“Clumsy? Does such a fault explain how I came to be in your room or the manner in which I left it?”

“No at all. But it did explain my lump when I told them that we had met each other in the hallway and that you had dropped your book. We both bent to retrieve it and you struck me in the head with your chin in so doing.”