The Golden Season (23 page)

He decided he could do no worse following it than he had stumbling about on his own. Eventually it would either head out of the maze or to the center to dine. He kept well back of it, fearing that if he drew too close, it would scoot into the hedge, the only current deterrent being that it was easier to follow the path than push its mammoth girth through a thicket.

Twenty minutes later he was about to give up, tired of waiting for the rabbit to stop and scratch its ear for the thirty-eighth time—the damn thing must be covered in fleas—when he spotted a patch of light issuing from one side of the maze wall. He strode past the unconcerned rabbit and stopped dead in the middle of an arch that opened right on to a small circular lawn. In the center, a giant beech tree spread its pink and cream and green-veined leaves.

He looked across the clearing to the other side of the maze and spotted another opening. There was no sign of Lydia in it. He’d won. Despite her attempt to hoodwink him, he had made it to . . .

Thirty feet north of the opening, the hedge began to shake and shed its leaves. He watched in wonder as a figure on its hands and knees struggled through a narrow gap at the bottom of the hedge pushing a squashed bonnet ahead of it. Lydia.

With an unladylike grunt she burst free of the shrubbery and clambered to her feet, spitting out a long strand of hair from her mouth and swatting at her gravel-covered skirts. She was still swatting when she looked up and spotted him.

She froze.

He smiled.

Her eyes rounded.

His smile turned into a grin. There was no way he was going to let her win after she’d—

She lifted her ruined skirts and sprinted toward the tree. He broke into a run. His legs were longer, but his breeches were damn tight and she’d raised her skirts well above her knees. They dashed toward the center like magnets to common steel, her legs flashing, his eating up the ground. She pushed hard; he pushed harder still. Ten yards, five, two. She stretched out her arm and——he looped an arm around her waist and swung her in a circle, whisking her fingers from within inches of the beech’s gray skin. She yowled in protest, but he kept her against his hip, hanging horizontal to the ground. He reached out his free hand and rapped the beech’s trunk with his knuckles.

“I win,” he said.

“That’s not fair,” she cried.

“Not fair?” he echoed. “As in, say, entering the maze before the start of the contest, or squiggling through rabbit holes instead of following corridors?”

“I don’t recall anyone saying anything that prohibited a creative strategy,” she said with as much dignity as a woman suspended in the air can muster.

He came to his senses with a jolt, realizing he was still holding her with the negligent ease of long familiarity. Gently, he swung her up more fully into his arms preparatory to returning her feet to the ground and made the mistake of looking into her upraised face. His chest tightened. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her. Instead, he lowered her carefully to her feet and reached up, ostensibly to push aside a low-hanging bough, but in reality grabbing a hard hold of the branch, physically bracing himself against the urge to snatch her up and finally discover the flavor of her mouth.

“Now there’s specious reasoning,” he said, striving for a normal tone.

Her brown silk curls tumbled in disarray around her shoulders, a leaf caught near her temple. A thin red scratch marked her cheek.

“It is the reasoning of a winner,” she countered.

“But you didn’t win,” he pointed out. He reached out with his free hand and dislodged the stowaway leaf from its berth. She kept her gaze fixed firmly on his, but a faint wash of color flowed up her neck and into her face.

“Only because you used superior physical strength to prevent me from doing so,” she said. Her breath came rapid and light. “My little maneuvers did not impede you in any way.”

“Is there any possibility I shall get the best of this conversation?”

“It’s doubtful.”

“Ah, I see. I thought as much,” he said. “And may I presume that since you are convinced that I have wronged you, you believe I should concede you the victory?”

“It would be the sporting thing to do,” she conceded.

His lips twitched. “Allow me to apologize, Lady Lydia”—her eyes brightened with anticipated victory—“for my lack of sportsmanship. But . . .” He leaned toward her, lowering his head so that they were eye level, his hands still hanging tight to the bough above him. This close, he could see the lighter striations in her amazing irises, the dark indigo and brighter, almost lavender hue.

“I still win and you still lose.”

She stared, startled, and then abruptly grinned and graciously inclined her head. “Indeed, you have, Captain,” she said. “Now what is the winner’s portion you would have from me?”

She could have demurred or refused or taken any of a dozen courses to wheedle her way out of the bargain. She instead proved herself honorable, bright, and unfortunately all too obviously innocent of man’s baser impulses. Damned innocent. God, he loved her. “Your hand,” he whispered.

She blinked, startled, and he grasped that without realizing it he’d spoken aloud his heart’s desire. But he had no right, he hadn’t told her yet that his pockets were to let, his family stood within a stone’s throw of dun territory, and that he had few prospects but many responsibilities. So he held out his free hand, holding as tight to his principles as he did with his other hand to the bough overhead, and gave his words another meaning.

Her brow furrowed as her gaze fell on his hand dividing the space between them. Her gaze rose to his face and her scowl deepened with some emotion he could not name.

“That is it?” she asked. “All you ask is a
handshake
?”

“Why, yes,” he replied with admirable aplomb. “What would you have asked for?”

She looked straight up into his eyes. “A kiss, for goodness’ sake!”

Lydia’s sorriest fear was confirmed; she was a trollop.

From the moment Ned had looped his arm around her waist and spun her off the ground, even though he was simply manhandling her in order to win the contest, the delicious ease with which he controlled her stoked her imagination with all sorts of wanton thoughts. And they, in turn, took her breath away.

So when he’d stuck out his hand and she realized the prize he meant to have was a sportsmanlike shake, a devil of disappointment and longing let loose the truth.

A deep blush stained her cheeks and her gaze dropped. She could not bring herself to witness his reaction. Ned was the consummate gentleman. At the very least, he would be embarrassed for her—

“Lydia.”

She turned and his mouth gently descended on hers. His lips were soft, much softer than she would have imagined, and firm. He angled his head so that his lips parted softly around her top one. She sighed, her eyes drifting, as the pressure increased. He tugged on her lip before releasing it and his mouth glided to her bottom lip to kiss it in the same manner.

She melted toward him and rested her palms on his chest, vaguely aware that except for his lips, he was not touching her at all. But his mouth . . . ! Oh, his mouth made up for the oversight. He lingered in the kiss, moving gently from her top to bottom lip and back again, softly exploring every inch, probing, pulling, and polishing. Her ragged breathing mingled with his and she grew light-headed under the sensual onslaught.

She swooned closer, bracing herself against his chest, her forearms resting against its heavy rise and fall. He was warm and hard, like heated stone, and she was like melted wax, pliant and yielding. The tip of his tongue slipped along the seam of her lips and her knees turned to liquid. Unmoored and incapable of pulling away, she curled a hand around the broad back of his neck and clung, her lips parting to admit his tongue.

A shudder raced through his big body. From far away she heard a feminine sound of surrender and longing, and she realized it was her own. His tongue delved deeply into her mouth, warm and muscular and forcefully masculine.

She heard something snap.

And just that abruptly, the kiss was over.

Ned lifted his head, breaking her hold on his neck and straightening. For a moment he stared past her, his breathing heavy, his nostrils flaring with each exhalation. Whatever his interior vision, it brought him no pleasure. Grave and unsmiling, he looked down at her.

“Lady Lydia—”

“Do
not
apologize,” she warned him in a soft, shaky voice.

He looked at her soberly. “But I must,” he said. “I have taken advantage of the remoteness of this place, a child’s wager, and a lamentable lack of restraint on my part to impose on you. I promised myself I would comport myself in a manner that honored you and now I have . . .” His jaw bunched and he shook his head slightly, overwhelmed by what he saw as his own objectionable idea.

God. If he thought for one moment that she had purposely maneuvered him into a situation where he would be forced to make her an offer—

“I do
not
consider myself compromised,” she blurted out.

“Nor do I,” he answered quickly, his expression frustrated and confounded. “You misunderstand me.”

“Then pray make yourself understood,” she said, substituting ire for mortification.

“Before I can speak of matters you have every right to expect me to address, and which I want above all things to frame, as a gentleman I must make certain things known to you.”

“If you feel it necessary,” she said stiffly.

He swallowed, looked away, then back at her. He squared his shoulders slightly and broadened his stance, his hands still clasped firmly behind his back, like a captain about to enter close quarters with an enemy vessel. “My circumstances are not felicitous.”

Whatever she had expected him to say, it hadn’t been that. “Felicitous?”

He nodded. “My name is an old and honorable one, which I have always borne with pride. Josten Hall, my family seat, has been a symbol of my family’s nobility and endurance. For a dozen generations, it has elicited admiration and approbation from all who have visited there.” He looked at her. “I am telling you this because I am hoping you might understand my attachment to what is just stone and mortar and earth.”

“I do,” she said. “You once said that you had come home. A home represents solace, does it not? A place from which one draws strength and security? I appreciated them very well. Those are things I depend on my friends to provide if not any one place.”

“You would do much to preserve your friendships.”

They were all she had left. “Indeed, yes. As would you your family’s home.”

“Exactly,” he agreed quietly, then shook his head at some troubling thought. He took a short, deep breath and went on. “When I arrived home from sea, I was informed that Josten Hall was endangered and unless some remedy was found it would need to be sold.”

“Endangered? By whom?”

“By extravagances and poor management, crop failures, a post-war economy, Corn Laws, and the wretched excess of my unfortunate kin,” he said calmly.

The import of his words crashed in on her. No. Oh, no.
Oh
.
No
. How bad was it? Maybe his idea of difficulty meant selling off a few carriages. . . . “Your family is . . . in financial difficulties?” It was unconscionably bold of her, but she had to know.

He smiled ruefully. “My family is flat broke.”

She had no warning. One moment she was standing facing him, the next her knees buckled and she was landing in a puff of material on the grass. He leaned over and held out his hand, but she was too intent on getting an answer to her question and ignored it.

“But you
personally
have resources at your command,” she said, looking up at him. “The captain’s share of all those ships you took, and you would be conservative in your financial dealings. . . .” She trailed off.

His hand dropped and he shifted back into that battle stance. “I am afraid that other than my name, massive financial obligations, and a disastrously profligate family, I have nothing to offer any young lady”—he paused, swallowed—“except myself.”

My God
,
he is as poor as I.
She stared up at him thunderstruck, her thoughts whirling like a gyroscope, unable to countenance how in such a few short minutes life had gone from so tantalizing to so terrible.

“I have a duty to do what is in my power to preserve that which generations of my forefathers fought and struggled to make and keep,” he said. “Still, I could not—” He broke off abruptly, other than a certain tension in the set of his jaw there was no sign his confession had been painful to make. “I cannot say more until I hear your reaction.”

Another realization broke in upon her: He did not know she, too, was “flat broke.” And why would he? She had made every effort to keep anyone, including him, from knowing. He must think her outrageously wealthy. . . . Dear God. He had been searching for a rich spouse, the same as she.

No, no, no. Her eyes closed and she started to laugh. She couldn’t stop. She buried her face in her hands and tears flowed from her eyes, and she could not tell if she was crying from the tragedy of it or the absurdity.

“Lady Lydia. Lydia,” she heard him say, concerned and confused. “Lydia?”

“I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’m fine. I . . .” She pressed her knuckles into her forehead. It had all happened so fast. The kiss, his suggestion that he would like to propose, his disclosure . . .

“Lydia.” Ned’s voice, taut with anxiety.

She opened her eyes. He hovered over her, his gaze intent but without hurt or even recrimination, only concern. She had to pull herself together. She had to say something.

“Captain,” she said from where she still sat at his feet, “I fear we have spent these weeks plotting the same course and with the same destination in mind.”