The Golden Season (16 page)

“Thank you,” Ned told her softly and only then shut the carriage door before going round to the other side and climbing in.

Halfway to St. James Street, Lady Lydia abruptly asked whether Ned had been to see some fellow named Gunter.

“No. I am unfamiliar with the gentleman,” he said.

Her eyes lit with mischief. “No? We mustn’t let that stand,” she proclaimed. “I cannot in all conscience allow you, as a relative newcomer to London, to continue without a visit. Say you will allow me to introduce you?”

“Of course,” he said. He would have agreed to go St. Helena to visit Napoleon to see her look so pleased.

She slid open a small window in the carriage wall behind them and called up to the driver, “Gunter’s, please.”

She turned back to him, smiling mischievously, and her glance fell on his cuff, from which a pretty bit of handkerchief sprouted. Heat rose up his neck.

Ever since Lady Pickler’s luncheon he had been inundated with handkerchiefs. Some came from matrons with marriageable daughters, some from hostesses, and others anonymously. It was all a trifle disconcerting and he wasn’t sure what to do with the things.

“A new handkerchief, Captain?” she asked with wide-eyed innocence.

“Hm.” On occasion, to lend verisimilitude to the claim he’d made at Lady Pickler’s luncheon, he felt obliged to wear one in public, but he felt like a fool doing so. He would feel like an even greater fool trying to explain this to Lady Lydia, who would find it monstrously amusing. Except that as he watched, the impishness left her expression and her face softened with understanding. She caught his eye and gave him a smile of breathtaking loveliness.

“You are very kind, Captain Lockton. And most chivalrous.”

He swallowed, unable to look away and incapable of finding a reply to such an overblown compliment. If he discounted it, he discounted her and yet he could not accept such fulsome praise.

She was watching him closely and as if she could read his thoughts, her face lit with merriment. “Poor Captain Lockton,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking. You don’t deserve my commendation.”

He glanced at her a little helplessly.

“Because,” she went on with feigned gravitas, “you actually
do
like fancy handkerchiefs. And you aren’t sporting this one just to give credibility to your claim at Lady Pickler’s. In fact, you ought to thank the lady for providing you just the excuse you’ve been looking for to indulge your taste for fine linen. Indeed, you have been entirely self-serving in this.”

She was teasing him, he realized, delighted.

No one, not even in his own family, maybe most especially in his own family, had ever shown such immediate and easy insight into him. It was a little disconcerting.

“Exactly, ma’am. Most perceptive of you,” he said with false gravitas.

A short while later the carriage pulled to a stop hard against the rail surrounding the green space in the center of Berkeley Square and parked beneath the tall maples. He noted other carriages loitering nearby, open curricles and barouches, dogcarts and phaetons.

He looked at Lady Lydia askance. She pointed at a stocky, balding fellow in an apron and stained waistcoat dodging through the traffic toward them.

“Ah, Lady Lydia!” the man puffed on making the side of the carriage. “A pleasure to see you, milady. It’s been too long. A whole week, if I have me dates right.”

“Thank you, Sam,” she replied comfortably. “I’ve brought you a new votary.”

The man craned his neck, peering in. “Ah. Good day, sir. Welcome to Gunter’s Tea Shop.”

“Tea Shop?” Ned echoed. They were parked in the road.

Lady Lydia laughed. “It’s over there.” She pointed to a shopfront from which a steady stream of men in aprons entered and left, some with trays and others without.

“It’s the custom at Gunter’s for the waiters to bring the service out to the carriages. I suggest the ices,” she confided. “They are sublime.”

“And so they are,” Sam confirmed proudly. “What might be your pleasure this day, milady?”

She leaned over the side of the carriage, her expression growing serious. “What do you suggest, Sam?”

Clearly this was a well-established routine. The servant donned an equally serious mien, puffing out his lower lip thoughtfully while Lady Lydia waited, looking intensely interested. They might have been discussing vintages from a superior vineyard rather than ices.

“Well, we have a Parmesan crème that is most unique. But in my opinion it’s a mite early in the day for something so savory. The ratafia is very nice. And we have the
neige de pistachio
, always popular. And an
ambergris fromages glacé
.”

She did not look much impressed and the waiter obviously felt the burden of her disappointment.

“But no,” he said dramatically. “Something a little richer, sweet but with sophistication, simple but unexpected. For you, milady, I suggest the burnt cream.”

At once, Lady Lydia’s face cleared. “That sounds just the thing, Sam.”

“And you, sir”—he turned his physic’s eye on Ned—“you must try the bayberry ice.”

“Then I must,” he agreed.

“Five minutes!” the servant vowed and scurried back across the congested street, barely missing being run over by a curricle.

As soon as he’d gone, Lydia laughed. “I fear I have maneuvered you here under a false impression, Captain. But truth be told, I never can pass within a quarter mile of Berkeley Square without stopping for one of Gunter’s creations.” She settled back. “It is lucky I leave London at the end of the Season or I’d be fat as a pullet. I do love a sweet.”

“Perhaps your chef can prepare some ices?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t keep a chef. Only a cook. A single lady does not have the opportunity to entertain much. I am afraid I am dependent on my friends for my gourmand experiences.”

He did not point out that she was having friends to dine that very evening because he doubted there was any such plan. She’d forgotten the ruse. That she had designed one and that he had occasioned it, humbled and flattered him.

“Besides,” she went on, “nothing seasons food better than good company.”

Though she made this comment lightly, Ned’s interest sharpened. Lady Lydia was renowned for her independence and yet she clearly felt herself vulnerable in some ways. Of course, he could be reading too much into a simple phrase. But he did not think so.

“Pardon my ignorance on such matters, but as a captain of a ship, did you not often dine alone?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “My officers always joined me.”

“That must have proved convivial.”

He lifted a shoulder. “During sea crossings and in good weather. But many times we were too tired to converse and we simply fed the body to maintain the soul.”

“During battle?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” he said. “But often the lulls between engagements were the most exhausting.”

She tipped her head. “I can see how that would be so, how the lulls would be as testing as the actual confrontations. Imagination can be one’s most formidable foe.”

“Very true, Lady Lydia,” he said, once more intrigued by her perceptiveness.

He would have been honored by her interest in him, but he intuited that it was not exceptional. It was her nature to try to comprehend, to seek the heart of a thing—or a man—and know it. They had met but a few weeks ago and already she understood more about him than men who had shared his ship for years.

“Sorry it took some time.” The waiter appeared at the side of the carriage. He had a small tray on which balanced two frosted pewter bowls brimming with iced concoctions. “Took a bit to find your spoon, Lady Lydia.”

Ned turned to her. “The establishment holds for you your own spoon?”

She blushed and cleared her throat, but before she could answer, Sam did. “Ach, yes. And her own bowl, too. A proper sweet tooth has Lady Lydia,” he said proudly.

Ned took his cue from the other gentlemen in the park and quit the carriage, taking the ice Sam handed him, tipping him generously, and going round to the other side of the vehicle. There he leaned against the rail, one knee bent so that his boot heel notched on the curb. Now they could converse more freely and he would not have to turn to gaze at her.

He looked up at Lady Lydia just as she took a spoonful of ice into her mouth. Her eyelids slid closed in luxurious gratification. “Oh, my,” she purred in ecstasy.

And just that easily his appreciation pitched from cerebral to acutely physical. His throat went dry as his body clenched with abrupt, intense desire. Watching Lydia Eastlake eat iced crème was as carnal an act as he’d engaged in for months. He could not tear his gaze away from her lips, riveted by the way they surrounded each spoonful of the creamy concoction with languorous deliberation before she put the spoon fully in her mouth and then slowly, excruciatingly slowly, withdrew it.

He was no saint, but he had never been at the mercy of physical desire. He thought he knew himself well. But she tested that supposed self-knowledge. His self-possession was formidable, his ability to sublimate heated passion to reason the thing that made him a superior captain. In battle, only reason must be allowed to guide a man, not passion, no matter what the provocation. But this was provocation of a different sort. What he felt at the instant was not respect or admiration; it was pure lust.

Once more, she slipped the silver spoon between her lips, capturing another morsel of the burnt caramel ice and sighed. He swallowed, praying she did not notice the very physical effect she was having on him. The woman made an art of pleasure and damned, but he could not help the images rocketing through his mind’s eyes.

“What is it, Captain?” she suddenly asked.

He dragged his gaze from her mouth. He couldn’t stand here staring at her like a predator watching a particularly toothsome morsel.

“I’ve made a glutton of myself, haven’t I?” she asked worriedly. “I hope I have not shocked you.”

He tried to find an easy answering smile. “Not at all, ma’am,” he said. “I was just admiring your . . . technique.”
God! What an oaf!
Hastily he dug a spoonful of his own ice out of its bowl and shoveled it into his mouth.

“No, no, oh, Captain!” she yelped in dismay. “Don’t just gobble it down. This isn’t porridge. This is an experience!”

Luckily his sense of humor came to his rescue. “Forgive me. I’m afraid I haven’t a connoisseur’s palate,” he said. “Alas, perhaps I simply do not have your capacity for enjoyment?”

“Oh, no!” She refuted this idea soundly. “I refuse to believe that. Perhaps you have simply forgotten how to enjoy things.” She grinned, gaminlike. “Or better, are simply unfamiliar with certain pleasures.”

Not nearly as familiar with some as he currently wished himself to be.

“I,” she went on with another smile that caused his pulse to thicken, “intend to remedy that.”

God save him. He nodded.

“Now,
regarde-moi, s’il te plaît
, while I instruct you in the fine art of enjoying an ice.” Very deliberately, she shaved a curl of ice off the top of her dish onto her spoon. She brought it to her lips, closed her eyes, and inhaled, her nostrils flaring delicately.

“Caramel,” she said, her eyes still closed. “You can smell the burnt sugar, but it’s not pungent. It’s like a perfume, promising the sweet to come.”

“I see.”

“Now taste it, but just a taste, mind, to whet the appetite.” She opened her mouth a little. He could just see the pink tip of her tongue dart out to touch the melting ice. Very carefully, she slipped the confection between her lips and then pulled the spoon back. She opened her eyes, tucked her lips together, and surreptitiously swiped them clean with her tongue.

She had no idea what she was doing to him.

“And now,” she said instructively, “you allow yourself a full spoonful. Don’t swallow it at once, however. Let it melt against your upper palate and fill your mouth with its flavor. Indulge in the sensation of it. Stretch your enjoyment out for as long as possible. Do not think past this spoonful to the next spoonful or behind to the last one. Make this moment, this spoonful, the only one you have known or will ever know.”

She put her words to practice and her eyes narrowed blissfully. With difficulty, he managed to maintain his pose of mild affability. He was not given to impulse, but he wanted very much to lean in the carriage, cup the back of her head in his hand, and pull her toward him so he could lick the ice from her lips and then explore the flavor of her open mouth far more thoroughly.

A little desperately, he sought some way to distract himself from her “education.”

“Who taught you to enjoy the moment so fully?”

She opened her eyes and regarded him thoughtfully for a moment before answering. “Both my parents, but I suppose my mother most of all.”

“How so?”

She gave the spoon a delicate catlike lick. He kept his gaze determinedly fastened on her eyes.

“She impressed upon me how uniquely privileged I was to be able to see so much of the world and meet so many people. She did not want me to take anything for granted.”

“Laudable.”

“She led by example. But sometimes . . .” She trailed off thoughtfully.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“But sometimes I’ve wondered whether or not she offered experiences as a substitute for their not being able to provide me with a permanent home. Or maybe it was compensation.”

“Why didn’t you have a permanent home?” he asked, curious.

Her glance was quick, a touch skeptical. “Because of their marriage.”

He gazed at her uncomprehendingly.

She frowned. “You really do not yet know? I thought by now the gossips . . .”

“Pray, know what?”

“My mother was married to my father’s older brother.” Her gaze met his levelly, assessing, without a modicum of embarrassment. “It was, I am told, a great scandal.”