The Summer of You (15 page)

“Then consider this as payment on any debt I may or may not owe you.” Jason smirked, his voice still low. “Being welcomed by the Marquis of Vessey goes a long way with these country folk. Perhaps you’ll survive the night for it.”

“As you once survived the night with my assistance?” Byrne drawled evenly. He caught sight of the younger man’s mouth tighten out of the corner of his eye.

“It . . . it was your duty as a tenant and a fellow gentleman,” Jason replied, “to offer me shelter.”

“As it is your duty as a fellow gentleman to welcome me here—not an averaging of debts,” Byrne countered. Jason bowed to him then, and Byrne reciprocated. “Oh, and I’m not your tenant,” he added. “You should check the terms of your grandfather’s will.”

And with that, Byrne, leaning gently on his cane, moved forward into the crowd.

Pulled by warm brown eyes, toward his destination.

She looked marvelous tonight, he couldn’t help but think. But he tamped it down—he was not here to oblige his fancy for pretty girls, no matter how pretty they happened to be, nor how focused his fancy. He was here to attempt to correct the village’s impression of him—one of the crucial steps in Lady Jane’s plan to rehabilitate him in the eyes of the town.

Although, why you agreed to this plan may have something to do with just how marvelous Lady Jane looks tonight, don’t you think?

He frowned at his own runaway thoughts, determined to ignore them.

The rust-colored dress set her hair afire, and the sparkle in the large teardrop diamonds at her ears; it matches the sparkle in the depth of those brown eyes and her smile, wide and welcoming . . .

Stop it! A distracting line of thought was one thing, he surmised, but he refused to be accused of romantically sensational description. Rust-colored dress, sparkling eyes, indeed. She looked beautiful. Which was a constant for Jane, he reminded himself. No need to be so . . . syrupy about the matter.

“I have to say, sir, that is not a terribly welcoming expression,” Jane said, her seductive alto far more welcoming than the look on his face, apparently.

He almost rolled his eyes. Seductive alto. He must be going soft in the head. But instead, he schooled his frown into a blandly neutral smile as he bowed to the good lady.

“I apologize, Lady Jane. I had no intention to approach you scowling.”

“Never mind.” She smiled at him. “You’re without it so rarely, I doubt I would recognize you otherwise.”

He acknowledged the truth of that with a smirk, his posture relaxing into something resembling ease.

“May I introduce Miss Victoria Wilton, and Dr. Berridge? I believe you already know Lady Wilton,” Jane announced to the group.

Lady Wilton’s mouth hung open, but in the presence of Lady Jane was able to do little more than give a shallow dip and a mumbled greeting. Victoria, however, did her mother better, and after a lovely curtsy, greeted the Notorious Hermit/Suspected Highwayman, saying, “How do you do? I’m so pleased to meet one of Lady Jane’s London friends.”

Byrne saw the conspiratorial look pass between Jane and Victoria and Jane’s subsequent smirk at Lady Wilton’s further drop of jaw. Good Lord, it must have unhinged, at this rate. At Jane’s raised brow, Byrne determined he must play along.

“More of a Reston friend than London now,” Byrne replied, bowing smartly over Victoria’s hand. “After all, we’ve been acquainted here almost as long as we had in London.”

“Victoria!” Lady Wilton cried, her jaw having finally found its way back to its proper place. “I must speak with you—now.” And with that, Victoria was dragged away by her mother, who swept up Penelope and Mr. Brandon in her wake and took them a solid number of steps away.

Byrne looked to Jane, who gave the smallest shrug of her slim, white shoulders. That left Dr. Berridge—and all eyes were upon him.

Thankfully, Dr. Berridge had more manners than his hoped-for mother-in-law.

“Mr. Worth, how’d you do? I apologize for not having made my way out to your little house as of yet—I’m a recent arrival myself.”

“The new doctor—yes, you ah, joined the community a few months back,” Byrne replied, as he assessed the man who stood before him. Tall, fair of face, sufficient to have the tongues of town wagging when he arrived—and wagging loud enough to reach even Byrne’s ears. There was an openness about the young doctor’s demeanor, an honesty. As if he’d listen to all sides before making a judgment. Might be useful.

If only he wasn’t a doctor.

“Might I ask you about your injury?” Dr. Berridge asked, professional curiosity radiating from his frame. Then, remembering himself, the doctor’s face turned plum. “I realize this is not the place for such inquiry,” he spoke in a rush, “and I know you’ve met with my colleague, Dr. Lawford, but I have some experience with wounds sustained in the war—bayonet and the like—and there are many therapies to strengthen the muscles—”

“I thank you, sir. Some other time, perhaps,” Byrne said evenly. He paused, before grudgingly adding, “And it was a bullet. Not a bayonet.”

Dr. Berridge nodded, and then, eager for some other subject, allowed his eyes to roam the room.

“Lady Jane, if you’ll excuse me, I think I should like to visit with your father.”

Jane’s head whipped around, finding the doctor’s line of vision. A familiar older gentleman, the one Jane had been walking with the first day he saw her at the Hampshire Racing Party, Byrne realized. The Duke of Rayne sat with a pipe in hand, his foot tapping to the music. A stout and starched middle-aged woman sat next to him, tapping, too.

To Byrne’s eye, the Duke of Rayne looked healthy enough, so his acquaintance with the young doctor might not be of a professional nature. But if not, then why, when Dr. Berridge took his leave of Jane and made his way over to the Duke, did the two of them seem such friends?

“You’ll have to forgive Dr. Berridge,” Jane said, drawing Byrne’s attention back to her. “He’s just nervous. I’m afraid you have acquired a patina of infamy. But I think he might be a good friend to have.”

Byrne looked down at Jane—his height was not as great as his brother Marcus’s, but it still gave him a worthwhile vantage, peering down into the Lady Jane’s open, mischievous face. Peering down her rather low-cut dress, the mounds of soft white flesh rising . . . no, he told himself, and forced his gaze back to her eyes.

“So,” he said, “I have arrived at the assembly.”

“And made quite an impression,” she replied.

“What do I do now to curry the village’s favor?”

She smiled. “You can dance with me.”

His neutral smile faltered. “I am afraid that is one thing I cannot do,” he replied, tapping her lightly on the foot with the end of his cane. She looked down, and caught the glint of silver in his hand, her face falling.

“Oh,” she breathed, a decided sadness in her voice.

“You’re disappointed,” he observed.

“I know you told me before that you could not dance, but I had hoped—”

“That I was being modest?” Byrne asked. “I’m afraid not. Walking is becoming easier, but I fear pivots and turns will cause me to disgrace myself. And my partner.”

She gave that artless shrug of hers, accepting this latest change of plans and adjusting to it. “It was part of my plan to have you seen dancing with me and several others.” She looked aside for a moment. “And truth be told, I like nothing better than dancing.”

“Nothing better?” he asked, a winged brow cocking up.

“To spin to the music, to step in time—to be a tiny piece of clockwork in the whole of the movement. It’s marvelous,” Jane sighed.

She said it with such reverence, such passion, that he could see it was of the plainest fact. Her eyes followed the dancers on the floor merrily, her body swayed to the music just barely, making it a part of her, as if the melody was her blood and the harmony her breath. She didn’t just like it . . . she loved it.

“I think it good to be passionate about something,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” he agreed. Truthfully, he was so swept up in her feeling that he would have likely agreed with her if she said she thought calico cats made for a good luncheon.

“Do you have anything like that?” she asked innocently. “Anything that you find wholly transformative?”

A thousand thoughts ran through his mind. Yes. He found things transformative. Automatically, he thought of his weakness: he had found opium transformative—getting lost in the smoke and slow, steady thrum of his blood had set his mind to flight . . . but it had been hell wrestling it back to the ground. But then his mind fell on more earthly delights. The transformative power of a woman to a man—falling into the warmth they held, that turned a man to a beast and a beast to a god. Hell, sometimes, not even the whole woman was needed. Just the soft skin hiding in her bodice, the rise and fall of a graceful shoulder in an adorable shrug, standing close enough to count the faint freckles that dusted her cheekbones . . .

“Swimming,” he blurted suddenly. “I . . . I find swimming very transformative.”

“Swimming,” she repeated. “With the eels.”

“I told you, the eels leave me be. And yes, swimming. Slicing through the water, moving weightlessly across the lake. I can get lost in it. I don’t often get lost.” He smiled down into her eyes. And God knows, he could do with a swim right now. A very cold swim.

“Well,” she breathed. “Since we cannot dance and we cannot swim at the moment, do you have any suggestions?”

Byrne glanced about the room. “You could introduce me to your father,” he ventured.

Jane’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I, ah . . . I think we should make a round about the room, don’t you agree? I’ll introduce you to everyone, and we can guess what color their faces will turn.”

Knowing that it was in his best interest to do so, Byrne did agree. And he focused on the task of making himself agreeable. A difficult challenge, indeed—which was just the thing to take his thoughts away from a nice cold swim.

They were quite the spectacle, Jane realized. The Duke’s daughter and the highwayman, greeting the village in their best dress. They moved in a circle of the hall, nodding or bowing to everyone they met with. A sort of strange receiving line formed, made up of the cautious, the curious, and occasionally the politely hostile citizens of the county. Sometimes there was a small bit of conversation to be had; most of the time there wasn’t. Since Byrne had Lady Jane on his arm, no one could possibly cut him, but what was that old adage? If looks could kill . . .

Jane held her breath the first few times someone looked askance at Byrne, but then she realized, she had to allow air into her lungs eventually, else perish of the heat on the spot.

But it was not the people who showed their contempt that surprised Jane. No, it was the people who welcomed him that widened her eyes.

The rector’s wife, one of the victims of Byrne’s so-called cruelty, had taken his hand in both of hers and made a point of introducing her sixteen-year-old son. The son, of course, was a bit too unformed still to smooth over his shocked silence, but his mother smiled gracefully and inquired after widow Lowe’s house.

Dr. Lawford met Byrne courteously, if a little coolly. He had greater restraint than his youthful protégé and held back from inquiring about the state of his leg.

And Mrs. Hill, the proprietor of the dressmaker shop in the village, pumped his hand like a water well—even though it was impossible that he would ever become a client.

Maybe they were simply fascinated by the idea of standing next to someone who could be a criminal, maybe they actually believed him misunderstood, innocent of the gossip—or maybe they shook his hand to gain favor with Jane. But for those few that did, they made the hard stares and whispered words from the Sir Wiltons and the Mr. Cutlers tolerable.

But even then, there was only so much one person could take. Jane watched as the corners of Byrne’s mouth, the points of his eyes, grew tighter and tighter with each person they encountered. He was tired, she realized. Hot, tired, closed in this space. Being out of practice with common niceties must have made an assembly such as this akin to climbing a mountain with a wounded leg.

“Mr. Worth, I find I could use some air,” Jane whispered when they had at last completed a whole circle. She had skillfully managed to avoid introductions to her father, skipping the corner where he sat, instead leading Byrne to another standing group. Jane knew she hadn’t the capacity to handle those two parts of her life mixing just now. How to explain one to the other? So best to leave them alone for the moment and leave herself shiny and whole for each.

Byrne shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye. “I should be happy to escort you,” he replied gratefully.

They moved out the front doors. The Assembly Hall had no terrace, or balustrade, or gardens where young couples could stroll slowly. But it did face the village square, a green expanse of lawn with tall, strong oaks that provided shade during the day, and for the revelers, a little privacy that night. The party had spilled out to the square, laughter and conversation filling the sweet summer air. Shadows moved on the lawn, ladies’ gowns catching on the grass and twigs, and gentlemen pressing them back into the trees. Farther beyond, the coachmen had abandoned their posts and raucously enjoyed a bit of ale and company, doing lively drunken steps to the music that floated out from the hall.