Wedding of the Season (10 page)

Aidan might not be the most demonstrative of men, or the most expressive, and he was, as her cousins were wont to say, a bit of a dry stick. But he had a loyal, faithful heart. She would always be able to depend upon him. He wouldn’t break promises. She could trust him to take care of her and their children no matter what might happen. He would never demand that she do crazy things like follow him into the desert on a bloody treasure hunt. He wouldn’t expect her to make impossible, irresponsible choices. Most important, he would never tear her heart into pieces.

She and Aidan were not passionately in love, but they suited. They fit. They both appreciated the responsibilities of their position and accepted its obligations. They both knew this was the life they’d been born to live, a life built around their estates, their families, and the carrying on of traditions that were important and necessary.

“Your happiness is important to me, too,” she answered. “And I know it would grieve you to forsake your responsibilities in Parliament for a holiday. I would not ask you to do that.”

“Those words means a great deal to me.” He smiled. It was an Aidan smile, no more than a subtle curve of the lips, and it didn’t twist her heart all around or make her stomach dip or make her giddy with excitement, but that was quite all right with her. She’d had enough of that sort of thing to last a lifetime, and she was perfectly content with what she had now.

You long to jump off, but you just can’t work up the nerve, so you tell yourself you’re content to look at the view.

It was ridiculous, she told herself, ridiculous of Will to bring up that stupid story. She didn’t want to jump off cliffs. Or ride a horse fast enough to break her neck. And if she was content to be an armchair traveler, what business was it of his anyway?

“Beatrix?”

“Hmm?” She blinked, and Aidan’s face came back into focus. “I beg your pardon?”

“You are frowning all of a sudden. Did I say something to vex you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Of course not, I was woolgathering, darling. Forgive me.”

He returned his attention to the road, and she worked to force Will’s absurd observations out of her mind. Three days back after six years away, and he thought she was the same Beatrix he’d left behind. Well, she wasn’t.

She was no longer the scared little girl who couldn’t dive off Angel’s Head. And she wasn’t a lovesick fool, either, mooning over him and waiting for him.

It was just Will, stirring up old memories. Will, who couldn’t keep commitments, who refused to honor his responsibilities at home, who went off halfway around the world two weeks before his wedding day without a second thought. Well, she wasn’t made that way.

Her life might not be very exciting. It wasn’t like jumping off cliffs, or racing along the road to St. Ives in an automobile, or treasure-hunting for Tut’s tomb, but it was the life she’d always known she would be expected to lead. And it was the life she wanted.

She glanced behind her at Paul’s carriage, which was following Aidan’s back to Danbury, and watched Aunt Eugenia smile and wave at her. She smiled back, then she looked again at the man beside her, turning her hand in his to entwine their gloved fingers. Yes, she repeated firmly, this was the life she wanted.

With that, she resolved to put Will out of her mind, and during the days that followed, she was careful to avoid any possible accidental encounters with him—she stayed away from the village, avoided the lane to Sunderland Park, and even pleaded a headache to avoid seeing him at church.

Instead, she occupied her time working with Auntie to make preparations for her wedding, and for the trip to Pixy Cove. She also took long walks with Aidan in the groves and woods surrounding Danbury, and as she listened to him describe his own estates and talk about their future together, she was able to put her priorities back in order.

After a week had passed, Will’s return began to seem like little more than a bad dream, and by the time of Marlowe’s house party, Beatrix felt she had fully regained her equilibrium. Having managed to avoid him for a full week, and relieved that it would be at least another four before she ran the risk of encountering him again, by which time he might have returned to Egypt anyway, she happily boarded Sir George’s yacht, but she had barely stepped off the gangplank and onto the ship before her hard-won equilibrium went sliding away.

Standing on the deck of the
Maria Lisa
, talking to Sir George and looking rakishly handsome in dark blue flannel trousers and buff-colored waistcoat, with the cuffs of his white shirt rolled back and his navy reefer jacket hooked by his fingertips over one shoulder, was Will. He must be accompanying them to Pixy Cove.

With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Beatrix glanced behind her, but the hands were pulling up the gangplank, and unless she wanted to jump over the side, there was no escape. For the coming four weeks, she would be trapped in the same house with him, and with that realization, the serenity Beatrix had worked so hard to regain during the past week vanished as if it had never been.

Chapter Six

S
ir George and Lady Debenham were passionate about only one thing, and that was sailing. As far back as Will could remember, their favorite entertainment during the hot days of August was to give water parties aboard their yacht, offering a select group of their acquaintances the opportunity for a tour along the Torbay coast.

As the boat skimmed along Devonshire’s stunning coastline, most guests at these affairs were content to stand at the rail and admire the view, but not Will. It had been a long time since he’d been sailing, and when Sir George offered him the helm, he was happy to take it.

Occupied with guiding the three-masted yacht across Torbay Harbor and north around the point whimsically called Hope’s Nose, Will didn’t know Trix was aboard. Being occupied with estate business during the past week, he hadn’t talked to Paul. If he’d thought about the Danbury transportation arrangements, he’d have guessed they would have come by rail, as they had usually done in past years. But after he’d handed control of the
Maria Lisa
back to Sir George, he discovered that guess would have been wrong. As he started along the starboard side of the ship toward the observation saloon where refreshments were being served, he spied Beatrix standing by the rail.

She was near the door to the saloon, leaning on the rail and staring out at the sea. The stiff breeze whipped the skirt of her white yachting suit in his direction and stirred the fat blue ribbon bow on the side of her white straw boater. One of her hands gripped the rail to keep her balance on deck. Her other hand was at her neck, and he came to an abrupt halt, transfixed by the aimless, innocuous movement of her fingertips back and forth beneath her jaw. How many times had he kissed her there? he wondered, remembering nights in the moonlight, with the scent of gardenias in the air, and her skin soft and warm against his mouth.

As he stared at her with these images of the past going through his mind, Will felt the slow burn of arousal spreading through his body. Watching her, thinking of those days, he suddenly felt like a randy, desperate youth all over again, and when she lowered her hand, exposing that tempting little bit of bare skin above her collar, his mind began conjuring up images far more explicit than anything he’d actually seen during their many midnight rendezvous so long ago.

Desperate to regain his composure, he lifted his gaze a notch to her profile. Her expression was pensive, almost dreamy, with an upward curve at the corner of her mouth that made him wonder what she was thinking about right now.

Probably her wedding to Trathen, he thought, hoping that splash of cold reality would dampen the desire for her that was now coursing through his body, but instead it only piled resentment he had no right to feel onto the fire of lust blazing inside him.

With a smothered sound, he moved, thinking to go back the way he’d come, but she caught the movement out the corner of her eye, and turned her head with a smile of greeting as if she’d been expecting someone. Not him, he knew, and stopped, speared through the chest by that smile, awash in hot desire and inexplicable frustration, and sure that what he felt was as obvious to her as an elephant in the drawing room.

Her smile faded, reminding him more forcefully than any words that he was not the man she’d been expecting to see and that smile was not for him.

Stupid to stand here, he thought. Stupid to have come back. Stupid to think it wouldn’t matter and he was over her and he could pretend to be an indifferent acquaintance for the next four weeks. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She squeezed her eyes shut, as if to blot him out, and he told himself he didn’t care, but he knew that no matter how many times he told himself that, it was a lie. He cared damnably. He always had, he always would, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it, because they moved in different worlds and she belonged to someone else who could give her the life she wanted better than he ever could.

She opened her eyes—those big, soft, dark eyes—and looked into his face. He stood there, helpless, as the past six years fell away and the layers of indifference he’d built to protect himself crumbled to dust.

Walk away
, he told himself.
For the love of God
,
walk away
. But he couldn’t. It was too late. She’d seen him. There might be other people who’d seen as well, for the windows of the saloon were directly to his left. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket, wrapping the generous folds of the double-breasted reefer forward to conceal from any curious gazes the most obvious sign of his present feelings.

Still, he couldn’t just stand here looking like an idiot. He couldn’t pretend he hadn’t seen her when it was so clear that he had. And he couldn’t turn his back and walk away. If he did that, he’d be giving her the cut direct, the greatest social snub one person could give another, and he couldn’t do that, either. Not to her.

He resumed walking toward her, pasting on another artificial, devil-may-care smile. She did the same, turning toward him, her lips tipping up just enough to show anyone who might be watching that they were on friendly, yet wholly indifferent terms. If people believed that, it might avert gossip, but Will didn’t think anyone they knew was that big a fool. He paused before her and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, painfully aware that his desire was hidden only by the generous cut of a double-breasted jacket.

He opened his mouth to offer her a good-day greeting so that he could step around her and move on, but the door to the observation saloon swung open and an elegantly dressed man came out with a plate of food in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the other. “My dear, I’ve brought you—”

The man stopped just long enough to glance at him, a quick, assessing glance, before he came forward to join them where they stood by the rail. “I’ve brought you some refreshments, Beatrix.”

She took the offered plate and glass. “Thank you, darling,” she said, causing Will to frown, not because he’d already heard that endearment to Trathen often enough in the bookshop to last a lifetime, but because he was staring in disbelief at what the other man had brought her. Lemonade? For Trix? When there was sure to be champagne on board? And what was that topping the slices of toast Melba on her plate? Caviar? Trix
hated
caviar, and always had.

He began to appreciate the oppressive silence, and he forced himself to look up. He cocked an eyebrow at her, daring her to snub him by failing to perform introductions.

Her cheeks flushed a delicate pink at this social faux pas, and she remedied it at once. “Aidan, would you allow me to introduce the Duke of Sunderland to you? Sunderland, this is the Duke of Trathen.”

“Trathen.”

“Sunderland.”

They shook hands, they both smiled politely, but Will was looking into the other man’s eyes and knew he wasn’t the only one playing the gentlemanly role expected of him.

There was another awkward pause, and it was clearly up to him to step into the breach by offering his congratulations. His innate hatred for hypocrisy urged him to rebel, but Trathen was about to be a guest in Marlowe’s home, and since Will was going to spend the coming weeks beggaring funds from Marlowe, he couldn’t afford to antagonize anyone. No, he had to put on the show of British good-sportsmanship, no hard feelings, best man won, stiff upper lip, and all that, when what he wanted to do was crush something, preferably his own skull. He should have walked away from her, social civility be damned in favor of self-preservation.

“I understand,” he said, trying not to choke on the words, “that congratulations are in order, that you two are to be married?”

“We are,” Trathen said, but though Will could feel the other man’s eyes taking his measure, he didn’t look at him. He kept his gaze on Beatrix. He watched her take a bite of caviar, and his mood lightened a bit at the grimace of distaste she couldn’t quite hide.

“What’s wrong, Trix?” he asked with a grin. “Caviar not to your liking?”

She swallowed, and he didn’t miss the tiny shiver she gave. “On the contrary,” she said, her gaze meeting his head-on. “It’s lovely stuff.”

“Beatrix adores caviar as much as I do,” Trathen said, obviously feeling the need to prove he had some knowledge of her that Will lacked.

“Does she?” he drawled. “Since when?”

The pink in her cheeks deepened, but her gaze didn’t waver. “I’ve developed a taste for it over the years,” she said.

“So, Sunderland,” Trathen put in, forcing him to give his attention to the other man, “you are attending Marlowe’s house party, I take it?”

“I have a standing invitation to Pixy Cove every August. The Marlowes are like family to me.”

“Quite. And are you staying in England long?”

Worried
,
old chap?
The words hovered on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t say them. He wanted to, wanted to say them with an arrogant smirk and a triumphant wink and a bravado that he didn’t feel in the least. But saying something like that would be ungentlemanly, and despite Trix’s words to the contrary, he did know how to be a gentleman.

“Alas, no. I’m only home a month or so, and then I return to Egypt.”

Trathen’s stance relaxed, but only a bit. “What a pity.”

“Yes, a great pity,” he lied. “I’d prefer to linger a bit longer, see some old friends in the north, do a bit of fishing . . .” He let his voice trail off, and he gave a shrug.

“But Tutankhamen awaits discovery?” Trathen finished for him with a laugh, and Will wondered if he’d only imagined a hint of ridicule beneath the words. But he laughed, too, being that he was so civilized and all. “Exactly so.”

“I wish you good luck with it.” Trathen turned to Beatrix. “My dear, I observed your aunt and cousins sitting with Lady Debenham. Shall we join them? That is,” he added with a dismissive glance at Will, “if you’ve finished here?”

“Yes, of course.”

When Trathen took her plate, she slipped her free arm through his, they both bid Will a polite farewell, and turned to go.

Will let out a long, slow breath as he watched them walk away arm in arm, and felt his earlier optimism dissolving. “Welcome to hell, Will,” he murmured under his breath. “Welcome to hell.”

H
e rejoined Sir George, and fortunately he was allowed to guide the
Maria Lisa
the remainder of the way to Marlowe’s slip in Pixy Cove without having to beg for the opportunity. Not that he’d have been above begging at this point. Sailing the yacht was a distraction, and he felt in desperate need of distractions just now.

When they docked, he lingered behind, happy to assist Sir George in supervising the hands with the cleaning of the ship, thereby saving himself the awkwardness of walking to the house with Beatrix and her fiancé. But even a meticulous captain like Sir George was eventually satisfied with the condition of his ship, and when Lady Debenham called down to them from the gazebo above that Lady Marlowe had tea waiting, Will had no choice but to follow Sir George.

Pixy Cove, Viscount Marlowe’s seaside villa, was a low, prim, sprawling cottage of yellow stucco, white bargeboards, and red brick. It was perched on a wooded headland overlooking the sea, and a sturdy set of steps led down to the boat dock and the bathing beach, where two clapboard bathing huts provided dressing arrangements for the ladies and the nearby caves sufficed for the men. The house had sixteen bedrooms, four baths with hot and cold laid on, a lawn for tennis and another for croquet, and a beautiful gazebo on the north side where the Marlowe family and their guests could take tea in the afternoon and enjoy the magnificent view.

The tea things had been set out, and a maid in striped gray dress and white apron and cap stood by ready to assist should they need anything for tea. Their hosts, however, were nowhere in sight, and Beatrix’s Aunt Eugenia sat with the teapot in hand. “Aunt Gennie,” he greeted her with the same impudent familiarity he always had, but she cast him a wary glance from beneath her bonnet as she reached for a teacup, making him want to give her a wolfish smile and assure her he wasn’t going to bite her.

Instead, he prayed for a diversion.

Even a sinner’s prayers could sometimes be answered, it seemed, for he had barely expressed his silent wish for divine assistance when it came, and from a most unexpected quarter.

The loud drone of a motorcar was heard in the distance, a sound that Will recognized quite well from his painful encounter with Beatrix and her white Daimler ten days ago. It was not the Daimler that appeared moments later, however, but a different model of vehicle, similar in style but painted a deep ruby red and boasting a black interior.

“Oh, look!” Beatrix cried as the motorcar roared into the drive, spitting gravel and dust due to the alarming speed of the driver. “Julie’s come after all. She’d written to me that she wouldn’t be coming this year. She must have changed her mind at the last minute. Oh, how lovely!”

“Yes, lovely,” Trathen echoed in a dry murmur that was polite, but unenthusiastic.

Will couldn’t help a grin. No surprise, really, that someone like Julia would rub someone like Trathen the wrong way.

The motorcar came to an abrupt stop about forty feet from the gazebo where they sat, the brake lever was pulled, the engine was silenced, and a slim woman dressed in motoring attire similar to the kit Beatrix had been wearing the day he arrived home gave them a wave as she stepped down from the driver’s seat. With her was a brown-and-white bulldog that jumped down from the passenger seat and followed her as she circled to the back of the vehicle. “Hullo, everyone!” she called as she began unbuttoning her motoring coat.