Miss Ryder's Memoirs (11 page)

I had already disposed of his gauntlets. reluctantly, and now offered my hand to him. His grip was firm and no more insinuating than it should have been. Still, when I stood on the grassy ground, my knees did not believe they were well-supported. A flutter in my breast so distracted me that I could barely look at him. I moistened my lips and said, “If you’ll hand down the picnic basket, I’ll set things out.”

Mrs. Cooper had packed a wonderful assortment. Sir John murmured his appreciation as I unearthed the wine and settled it in the stream. While I spread the other items out on a cloth, I caught his eye on me more than once, a puzzled, almost alarmed look in the blue depths. Nervous, I kept up a running commentary.

“These tarts are not as good as the raspberry, but I think you will like them. And the chicken is so tender it will melt in your mouth. Mrs. Cooper has the idea that a meal should be either hot or cold, and not tepid as ours will be, but she makes allowances for al fresco dining. See all the cheeses? Just the sort of thing she would think most appropriate. I suppose you noticed that Amanda doesn’t care much for cheeses. I think it is because she was made to help with them when she was young and she took a great dislike to the dairy.” And so forth. Not an intelligent word in the bunch, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

His presence unnerved and captivated me. I began to notice the very intense blue of his eyes, and the rough texture of the skin on his forearms, where he had pushed up his sleeves. His lips seemed unbearably close to my face, somehow, though they were no closer than was proper. They looked so terribly tempting. Now, I had kissed a few young men. It was not that a kiss was a totally unknown thing to me. And yet, I felt breathless with the desire to kiss him, to lock my lips against his.

“Do have some of the pigeon pie,” I offered. “It’s one of Mrs. Cooper’s specialties.

He made no move to take anything from me, or to do anything else, for that matter. His eyes were so entrancing that I found myself sitting there stunned. I think I shivered with the force of my desire to press myself against his chest, to kiss him, to touch his skin. I don’t know how long we sat that way, staring at each other. And yet he said nothing.

Finally, he took a piece of chicken. Took it and brought it to his lips, tasting the smallest bit, before offering it to me, right at my lips. It was as intimate as a kiss, and yet not satisfying. My hands fluttered uneasily in my lap.

When he spoke, I barely recognized his voice. Ordinarily he had a rather sophisticated drawl. Now his voice was rough with intensity. “I had never seen a woman swimming naked before. You were a vision of graceful innocence. But I’m far from innocent and you have no idea of the fleshly desires such a sight can inspire.”

“Don’t I?” I said it softly, but I wanted him to hear. When he made no further move toward me, I added, “I’m not totally innocent, you know. I’ve kissed several gentlemen in my life.”

An amused skepticism appeared on his charming countenance. “There’s kissing and there’s kissing,” he said. “I doubt if you’ve really been kissed.”

“Well, of course I have!”

He moved closer to me. “Then perhaps I should show you the potential dangers. There are dangers, dear Catherine. Kissing can lead to the most astonishing feelings.”

Suddenly his lips were on mine and I discovered immediately that he was right. I was feeling something quite different than I had experienced before. For one thing, those other men hadn’t the slightest knowledge of how to kiss properly. Well, actually, they weren’t men at all, but neighborhood boys I’d known my whole life.

Sir John knew how to kiss. He didn’t kiss you like your mother did before you went to bed at night, as some of the boys had. And he didn’t try to crush his mouth against mine in an urgency only likely to bruise my lips. His lips were so astonishingly delicious that I could barely believe anything could taste so good. They were soft and firm, warm and startlingly icy. He played along my lips with a motion that rubbed and teased, tasting me and tempting me. Within moments my breathlessness increased, to say nothing of the turbulence that rose in me and threatened to overtake me entirely. My body went through wild fluctuations of heat and cold. After a moment I was forced to pull back.

“You see?” His eyes held mine with glowing intensity. “There is a great deal of danger in kissing, Catherine. Do you feel the temptation?”

My name on his lips gave me gooseflesh. There was a roughness to the way he said it that roused an excitement in me with which I was totally unfamiliar. It made me feel almost cross with him. “I’m not in danger of giving in to temptation,” I informed him crisply. “You don’t need to think you can toy with me just to teach me a lesson. I’m sure I’m no different than any other young woman of my upbringing.”

“Now there I think you are quite wrong. Most young ladies have the temptation bred out of them.”

“You needn’t make sport with me, Sir John. I may not be as meek as a country schoolgirl or as sophisticated as a London mistress, but I am the happier for it. Not for me whiling away every day going to parties and wearing fine dresses.”

His hands moved to my sides, almost as if he were attempting to measure me. I felt I could while away a few hours just with them there. “How do you spend your time? Other than swimming, that is?”

I colored. “I ride and drive, and I walk and read, and I help Mama and Amanda run the household, as well as doing my share of the parish chores and the visiting of the estate sick or injured. It’s the country life, and I am more than content with it. What use is there in flirting with a group of silly men and gossiping with insipid misses?”

“I certainly can’t think of any.” His hands moved ever so slightly upward and I could feel my breathing increase. My heart pounded harder, too, and I was sure he must feel it, if not hear it. “How did you learn to swim?” he asked.

“Oh, Papa taught Robert, and Robert taught me.” At his startled look, I added, “We were very young then. You needn’t act the prude for my benefit.”

“You’re quite right. But I could help you improve your swimming style.” His hands smoothed the fabric over my back, gliding up to my shoulders. “You need to lift your arms completely over your head, to get the most powerful stroke. You were just paddling along, which will keep you afloat, but won’t take you any distance. Like this.”

Instead of showing me by lifting his own arm over his head, he took hold of mine, both of them, and lifted them one at a time over my head. It was a strange sensation. With my arms that high over my head, the gown stretched tight across my bust. He brought the arms up again in a rhythm that made my heart pound hard.

“And you turn your head, like this, to breathe,” he explained. This time he moved his own head, inhaling to the side and blowing out when he put his head down. My eyes were locked on his mouth, pursed and ready for air—or for a kiss. “Try it,” he said.

I felt like a fool, with him watching me that way. He urged me to use my arms and try the breathing at the same time. “Good, good,” he encouraged me as I followed his example. Suddenly his lips were there at my breathing-out place and he brushed mine lightly, not quite a kiss. I was so shaken that I paused; he insisted that I must keep up the rhythm or lose my chance to learn how to do it properly.

Nonsense, of course, but I did as he said. Each time my mouth reached its apex, his lips were there, gently urging me on. His hands were high on my sides, in an effort to keep me in a more-or-less horizontal position, I suppose. All I could think of was that they were so close to my breasts, and for some reason I had an overwhelming need for him to touch me there. He didn’t. And my body ached for something more, something to relieve the inner tension that was building inside me.

“You’ve got it,” he said in that soft, rough voice of his. “You’re a quick learner, but it’s different out of water. Tomorrow we could go to the pond . . .”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Though I meant it to sound determined, my words came out totally lacking in conviction. I could indeed picture myself in the pond, practicing my swimming, with his hands on my naked body, supporting me, his lips rewarding my efforts. In fact, I felt naked just sitting there beside him. My shallow breathing increased once again when he drew me to him and held me in a tight embrace, his lips firm on mine, his own heart hammering against my breast.

“What would be the harm in it?” he whispered. “It’s not as though I hadn’t already seen you . . . in that condition. I promise you I would not behave in any way that you disliked.”

I moistened my lips and drew back from him. “It’s out of the question. You would have to swim without your clothes, and I don’t think I should see you without your clothes, any more than you should see me. You shouldn’t have seen me the other day."

“But I did.” I felt his hands run down my back, farther than I should have liked, except that I did.

“Your skin glowed like alabaster in the water. I could see every womanly curve of you. And your face. I don’t think I shall ever forget the look on your face when you became aware of me."

He laughed with a charming ruefulness. “I didn’t wish to alarm you, but it was beyond my powers of abstinence to leave before I had to. I should have known then who you were. Your swimming fit quite well with what I’d heard of you in London. A truly spirited young woman. I think that was half the reason I agreed to come here.”

“What was the other half?”

He frowned and shook his head, as though to free it from some distraction. “Why, to buy the horses, of course. Why else would I have come?”

I had broken the spell that surrounded us. He drew back from me, his hands leaving my body slowly, but completely. He picked up a chunk of bread and spread it with the golden butter Mrs. Cooper had sent in a crock. “I’m starved,” he admitted. “We should get on with our meal, don’t you think?”

I didn’t agree one bit, but I pretended that I did. With fingers that still shook slightly, I chose an orange and began to peel it. Sir John wasn’t looking at me then. He retrieved the wine from its cooling place and expertly wielded the corkscrew. I could picture him doing this dozens of times, on dozens of picnics, with dozens of voluptuous women. Not all at the same time, of course. When he spoke, it took me a moment to bring my wandering attention back to where we were.

“Have you heard about the highwayman who’s been working the Newmarket Road?”

Several people had been held up at pistol-point by a highwayman over the last few weeks, but there was surprisingly little talk of the matter. Not that it was a common occurrence in our neighborhood. There hadn’t been so much as a robbery on the high road for a good ten years before this.

“There have been murmurings,” I admitted. “I daresay our constable will manage to catch the fellow one of these days, as he doesn’t seem to have much sense about who he waylays. Lord Ekton was robbed last week, and though he’s a wretched human being, he’s rich as may be, and usually has several outriders with him. Lucky for the highwayman that his lordship happened to be riding alone instead of in his carriage.”

“Lord Ekton is only one of several people who have come under attack from the fellow. I myself was robbed a fortnight ago.”

“A fortnight ago?” I was astonished. “I had no idea you were in this area a fortnight ago."

“I was coming from the Newmarket races and I have to admit it sounded the most colossal nonsense when someone yelled, ‘Stand and deliver!’ At first I couldn’t even see the fellow. He was hidden behind some rocks to the side of the road. But he meant business and insisted on my purse."

He was pouring wine into my glass, but his eyes were on me. “And you gave it over?” I asked.

“Of course. I would far rather lose a few pounds than have a bullet through my skull, Miss Ryder. Perhaps you would have preferred the latter fate for me.”

“Not at all.” Though I have to admit it seemed rather tame of him to hand over his purse without a struggle. I said as much.

“Well,” he said, his eyes full of mischief, “perhaps I would have put up more resistance if I’d been alone. But the highwayman was waving his pistol most menacingly at my charming companion.”

I might have known: he had been with his mistress. Suddenly I felt so dispirited that I took an enormous gulp of the wine, forgetting everything that Mrs. Cooper had told me.

Sir John shook his head in a disparaging sort of way. “You really shouldn’t swill it down that way, my dear. It’s quite a decent wine.”

I was torn between wishing to toss the rest of it in his face and “swilling” it down my own throat. In the end I managed to knock it over, so I ignored him and helped myself to more food as consolation.

Chapter 8

Amanda awaited our return in the side garden. Sir John made for her like a bee to a flower. He didn’t have to desert me so rapidly after he handed me down from the curricle. Obviously he was a very fickle fellow. I hurried into the house to have a word with Mama.

She was in the summer parlor gazing absently at the open door. I could tell she wasn’t in one of her “states,” though, because she looked up when I entered, and smiled. “Did you have a nice day, my sweet?” she asked.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I declared. What a liar I could be. “Sir John bought a handsome pair of bays. He’s with Amanda in the arbor now, you will be pleased to know.”

Her brow puckered. “Why should I be pleased about that?”

“I can see that you are determined to marry them off. And the more time he spends with her, the more likely that eventuality will become."

Mama gave a charming laugh. “It seems to me he’s spending just as much time with you as he is with Amanda. I’ve known men to do that before. Unable to make up their minds between two delightful sisters.”

“Oh, I doubt if that is Sir John’s problem,” I said. “Besides, he spends very little time with me.”

“That’s not how Amanda sees it. She said that he often goes off to consult with you, or walk with you, or sit in the arbor. And then there was your drive today, with a picnic. Oh, yes, I think we shall have to consider him smitten with the both of you.” She brushed her hands briskly down her skirts. “Which is probably no real help, so far as finding each of you a husband is concerned. He will doubtless take off for London after a while, simply to escape his confusion."