That Scandalous Summer (5 page)

She bit her lip, amazed by herself. But . . . why hesitate? To the devil with Nello! What she required was a distraction from heartbreak, and this mysterious neighbor might keep her
well
entertained.

Thankfully, Mr. Grey was a bachelor: that was clear from his drawing room, which was small and well dusted but spartanly furnished and barren of curios. A lady never would have allowed the appearance of that flower-patterned carpet, either. It was too thick and garishly bright to be anything but new, and factory made at that.

Yet the dearth of valuables perhaps moved his staff to a more relaxed attitude than Liza’s household adopted, for the curtains were thrown wide, allowing the light to damage what it might. As a result, the room felt cozy, sunlit and cheerful, despite the awful carpet.

Mindful of her tendency to freckle, she took a seat in the only corner where the sun did not reach, in a pretty green velveteen chair so generously upholstered that she felt as though she were sinking. Were it not for her corset, she would have slumped into a boneless heap.

Mr. Grey, standing over her with kit in hand, frowned. “You should not lace so tightly, Mrs. Chudderley. It will injure your health.”

Goodness! She swallowed a laugh at his frankness.
How endearingly naïve! Her doctor clearly did not know much of London fashions. For that matter, he didn’t seem to know of
her
. In town, men would have lined up at the door to glimpse her in this dress. She could only imagine their reactions to the notion that she would do better to expand her waistline by five inches.

Mr. Grey settled the kit on the floor and then knelt before her—and began to roll up his shirt cuffs. Her mouth nearly fell open. What a barbaric thing to do! He was a savage. A savage whose bared forearms . . . made her mouth go dry.

His wrists were broad, lightly haired. His forearms looked to be carved from pure muscle. The veins on them stood out distinctly as he unwound a length of gauze.

Adorably barbaric. She wanted to trace those veins with her fingertips. Surely his arms could not be as hard as they looked.

Her fingers curled into her palm. She could not assault innocent country doctors. She would give him the vapors. “It looks to be a . . . lovely day,” she said.

“Indeed.” Without warning, he grasped her arms—a little sound catching in her throat as he held them out for inspection.

He glanced up. “Are you all right?” he asked.

His voice was pure courtesy. But he gripped her bare skin very firmly, his palm hot and dry and a little rough.

“Yes,” she said faintly. What in God’s name ailed her? This reaction was nearly
animal
.

She forced her attention elsewhere. To the dreadful carpet. But that only brought into view his lower half. His squatting position made the lawn of his summer trousers strain over his thighs.

His thighs looked even more well muscled than his arms.

She shook her head slightly. Rustic, untutored Mr. Grey gave new meaning to the notion of a diamond in the rough.

“I see nothing that requires stitches,” he said.

She manufactured a laugh. “Lovely. I confess I’ve no fondness for needles. Why, my needlepoint would give you terrors.”

“Oh? I’d no idea I seemed so cowardly. Must work on that.”

Was that a
giggle
that slipped from her? She bit her lip, appalled. She was Elizabeth Chudderley: she did not
giggle.
“No, I assure you,” she said. “It’s dreadful. I aim at a simple flower, and I achieve a . . . well, a
blob
would be a generous description for it.”

His smile was brief, and he made no reply as he bent his dark head once again to his task.

Her mild disappointment mixed with puzzlement. Perhaps he thought himself too far beneath her to flirt. The poor dear! She must correct him.

Once again, he turned her limb without permission. In bed with a woman, would he manipulate her body in this same way? Commanding, but not cruel; he would not accept any shyness, nor any reluctance, either. He would have his way with her, calmly and deliberately.
Methodically.

With a small shock she registered her own thoughts. It was not her way to dream of such intimacy with a stranger. Why, apart from her husband, Nello was the only man—

A pang shot through her.
No. Do not think of him. He doesn’t deserve a single thought. Ass, cad, pig!

How could one’s own judgment err so terribly? She had felt so certain that at last she’d found love. So
certain
!

She should never have told him of her troubles. Never should have gotten involved with him in the first place. All her friends had warned her of his motives.
Fortune hunter. Rake.
But even fortune hunters and rakes could fall in love. So she had told herself. So she had believed.

You terrible, unforgivable fool.

His face, when she had told him of her financial troubles . . . She had never seen a sneer form so quickly.

If Nello told tales abroad, what would she do then? For there was no one less popular in society than a widow desperate for funds.

“You did not simply fall into the bushes, Mrs. Chudderley. It would appear that once there, you rolled.”

As the doctor glanced up, a trick of the light turned his eyes to a deeper blue. The effect caught like a hook in her stomach.

She stared at him. He was not handsome, precisely—but his face rewarded study. Bold cheekbones. Striking eyes and a very firm jaw. He had a cleft in his chin that begged to be touched.

Something chemical seemed to be bubbling inside her, a reaction unbalancing in its vigor. She would embrace it, gladly. It was better than weeping. “How clumsy of me,” she said. “Are you
certain
your roses didn’t suffer for it?” She could offer to replace them with something lovely from her hothouse. Could deliver them herself, in fact.

“Oh, the roses are thriving,” he said easily. “Certainly they fared better than your hands.”

“Indeed.” She tried for a teasing tone. “A lady should always wear gloves on her midnight ventures. How brazen you must think me!”

He gave her another brief lift of his brow, a look she could not read. Or perhaps she would only have preferred that it be unreadable, for it reminded her as strongly as words that he had not merely found her unconscious in his bushes, but drunk besides—a far greater brazenness than the lack of gloves.

Mortification burned through her again.

One could not blame him for condemning your behavior.

The thought seemed to announce itself in her mother’s voice. She frowned and glanced toward the window, letting the brightness of the sunshine scald her eyes until she could swallow the knot that had come into her throat.
Enough. Don’t think on that now
.

Mama would never have liked Nello. But she had liked Alan Chudderley, so her judgment, too, had not proved so sound.

What a hash I’ve made of everything.
Mama would never have foreseen it. “My golden girl,” she’d called Liza. Gentle, kind, misguided Mama. Nobody would ever again look at Liza with such faith.

The thought was too painful, and her sharp breath too loud; it caught the doctor’s attention.

“Yes,” he said, “this one is the deepest.” His low voice had a rich, soothing, almost honeyed quality to it—the voice, she supposed, of a man born to sing.

Indeed, he was very well spoken for a doctor. She could not catch a hint of his origins. “Where is your home, Mr. Grey?” She would focus not on her own wretched state, but on making him comfortable. She would show him that it was all right to address her less
professionally, more . . . flirtatiously. A distraction was what she needed.

He dabbed a length of gauze in the liquid his housekeeper had brought—sharp-smelling, almost like vinegar. “North of here.” Before she could insist on a good deal more specificity, he added, “This may sting.”

As he laid the tisane to the long scratch bisecting her forearm, she sucked in an obliging breath. It didn’t hurt, of course. Only a ninny would imagine that it hurt. But she supposed she had no cause for surprise if he imagined her an idiot.

Your recent behavior invites all manner of cruel judgments
.

Liza bit the inside of her cheek to stem the next prick of tears. Even in death, it seemed, Mama could not hold her tongue. Would this nattering voice never leave her in peace? It seemed only to grow stronger with each passing day.

Dared she ask him for a peg of whisky? It would lessen her headache. Whisky was held to be medicinal, was it not?

“The headache will diminish,” said Mr. Grey—startling her, until she realized that she was rubbing her temple. “Be sure to take fluids until it does,” he added. “Broth and tea, preferably.”

The dear, sweet bumpkin! He issued his instructions as though he imagined this was the first time she had drunk to excess. Only the kindness in his eyes stopped her from laughing at him. Indeed, as she looked into them, the ache in her heart seemed to ease a little.

“You are very decent,” she said. “A true gentleman, sir.” Perhaps they all inhabited the middling classes. That would explain their rarity in her world.

The compliment made him frown. “I’m a doctor, Mrs. Chudderley. This is what I do.”

“Perhaps you see it so.” But some men, on finding a woman unconscious in the night . . .

She laid her hand over his where it cupped her elbow. His fingers twitched, the only sign of his surprise. His knuckles felt slightly rough. Of course they did. He
worked
for his living.

The idea caused a flush to move through her. Exotic creature. Capable, skilled hands. This man did not merely know how to handle reins and hunting rifles. Pity that true gentlemen and handsome bank accounts so rarely coincided. “Thank you,” she said.

Their eyes met. That electric current seemed to snap into place again.

“My pleasure,” he murmured.

She drew in a great breath of him. He smelled so . . .
masculine.
A great, muscled laborer of a man, with no notion of proper fashions, no inkling that she might be one of the more famous beauties in the country. Ludicrous, perfectly absurd, but she felt a sudden, overpowering wave of fondness. He was just
lovely.
Pity she couldn’t keep him—simply take him back with her to Havilland Hall, and have him tend to her arms and scowl very adorably at her
every
morning she woke up with a sore head.

The door opened. He pulled free of her and pushed to his feet. Had they been doing anything remotely inappropriate, or had there been a shade less grace in his movement, she might well have characterized him as
springing away
.

“Splendid,” he said to the housekeeper, “thank you, Mrs. Brown,” and waved toward the tea table.

Clearly he was unnerved. Why else should he imagine that his servant needed direction on where to set the tray? Liza watched him with growing amusement as
he
watched his housekeeper lay out the saucers. Evidently he also felt this magnetic pull—and it rattled him.

“Well,” he said in something near to a mutter, meeting neither her nor his servant’s eyes. “I will leave you to take your tea in peace, Mrs. Chudderley—”

The housekeeper cut him a startled look.

Liza came to her feet. “Oh, no,” she said warmly as he turned away toward the door. “Please stay. I do so wish to learn more about my savior.”

For a moment it appeared he would ignore her and continue his striding escape. But then the housekeeper said, in tones of pure disbelief, “Sir?”

He stopped. His shoulders squared. When he turned, he was smiling, as though Liza’s interest suited him perfectly. “Of course,” he said pleasantly. He came back to sit across from her, that false smile still riding his lips.

Mr. Grey took his tea with no cream and two spoons of sugar. His eyes met hers over the rim of his cup, then flicked away as though hers burned.

Warmth prickled through her cheeks. The wild thought came to her to say to him:
Yes, I feel it, too. Marvelous, isn’t it?

What a mortifying gaffe that would be! She gave herself an inward shake. She had rubbed shoulders with dukes and princes, and had no cause to be disconcerted into social blunders by a country doctor—no matter how handsome his forearms.

Clearing her throat, she said, “I’m not surprised that a man so charming as you should hail from a place north of here.” When he glanced at her, frowning the slightest
bit, she offered her kindest, most encouraging smile. “There are so many lovely places in that category—why, nearly the whole country, I believe. We are, after all, in Cornwall.”

His laughter sounded rusty and surprised. “So we are,” he said.

That was not a very helpful contribution to the conversation. Luckily for him, she felt patient. “Must I guess, then, which part of our lovely north was blessed by your birth?”

“The coldest part,” he said.

The housekeeper was looking back and forth between them as though watching a tennis match. Liza could not much blame her. Mr. Grey’s elliptical replies verged on a spectacle. The dear heart was shy! “So you come to Cornwall for the warmth,” she said.