Wedding of the Season (9 page)

She should have known ignoring him would be impossible. Ignoring Will was rather like ignoring a case of the measles.

“Do you have a point?” she asked without turning around.

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
,” he murmured.

She snapped her book shut and turned to face him. “Just what is that supposed to mean?”

He had reopened his book, and he shrugged without looking up. “The more things change—”

“I know the translation, thank you,” she interrupted. “I do speak French.”

He turned a page. “Yet you never go to France.”

“Do you have a point?”

“You love reading about foreign places, yet you never go anywhere.” He shut his book and turned to shove it into the shelf beside him, then once again stepped forward. “All our lives I’ve watched you do it. Dreaming, dreaming, but never doing what you dream about.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” He leaned forward and took the book out of her hand before she could stop him. “
A Tour of Florence
,” he read aloud and looked at her. “You talked about going to Florence years ago. You were fifteen, and you wanted to go with your governess for the autumn to study art, but your father said no. You were crushed. Do you remember?”

Beatrix looked away, unable to bear letting him see that she still remembered, and that it still hurt. Her father had been terrified that she’d do what her mother had done. “So?”

“Your father said no, and that was the end of it as far as you were concerned. You never talked about going to Florence again. And a few years later when your aunt and uncle took Paul and me on a tour of the Continent, you wanted to go, too, but again, your father said no. Seasons in London were all a girl needed, he said. You pretended it didn’t hurt, but I know it did.” He held the book out to her. “It still does.”

Stung, put on the defensive and feeling prickly as a chestnut about it, she felt compelled to retaliate. “I happen to be going on a trip, soon, I’ll have you know. It’s called a honeymoon. You know what a honeymoon is, don’t you, Will?” she added, snatching back her book. “Or perhaps you don’t, since matrimony is something you seem allergic to. For our honeymoon, we were supposed to journey to Paris, and then take the Orient Express all the way to Constantinople. But we didn’t because you decided two weeks before the wedding to go to Egypt instead. Are you going to blame that on my father, too?”

He didn’t rise to the bait. “No, Trix. But you dream of places instead of seeing them. You yearn for excitement, yet you always end up playing safe. It’s understandable, given the obsessive way your father always kept you under his thumb.”

“Are you saying my father was a tyrant? He loved me.”

“In a smothering sort of way, yes. He was a great deal like my father. Both of them were autocratic and arrogant and felt their position entitled them to have control over every single thing in their petty little kingdoms, including their children. I broke away. You didn’t.”

“It’s so easy for you to talk about breaking away and being daring, Will. You’re a man. You could defy your father and go off to Egypt. You could do whatever you liked and damn the consequences, especially when you came into your own money. As a woman, I’ve never been allowed that luxury.”

“That sounds like an excuse to me.”

“It’s not an excuse! It’s the way things are. I’d give my eyeteeth to have the kind of freedom your sex takes for granted.”

“Would you? I doubt it. It’s a bit like the cliff, you see,” he added in a gentle voice. “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. Let’s not go to Florence or Egypt. Oh no. Let’s just read about it, safe and snug by the fire here at home.”

Her eyes stung, and she hated him suddenly, hated him with almost as much passion as she had once loved him. “Damn you, Will, if you say one more word, I vow I’ll—”

The shop bell jangled below, interrupting her threat to do him bodily harm before she could utter it, and when a male voice called her name, she cast a frantic glance over her shoulder.

“Aidan, already?” She groaned, knowing he couldn’t find her up here alone with Will. “Oh Lord.”

“What’s wrong, Trix?” he asked in a low, hard voice. “Not brimming over with delight to see your fiancé? Does that signify trouble in paradise?”

“If there’s any trouble here, it’s you.” She shoved the guide to Florence back in its place and started toward the stairs, but she hadn’t taken more than half a dozen steps before she realized he was following her, and she was forced to stop. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

“What do you think I’m doing?” he whispered back. “I’m returning downstairs.”

She stared at him, appalled. “You can’t walk down there with me!”

“But I want to leave. I’ve finished improving my mind through intellectual pursuits.”

“Eavesdropping, Will?”

“Hardly.” He gave her a look of mock apology. “After all, I was here first. I’d been here for well over half an hour, as a matter of fact, minding my own business, reading my book and pursuing my studies like a virtuous schoolboy when you came in.”

She gave a disbelieving sniff and resumed walking. “You weren’t virtuous even when you were a schoolboy,” she hissed over her shoulder, and when she saw he was still right behind her, she halted again, so abruptly that he almost cannoned into her. “Stop following me!” she hissed.

“But I told you I want to go downstairs.”

She cast a frantic glance around, then gestured to the back of the loft. “Take the other stairs. There’s a door at the bottom that leads out the back.”

“What’s wrong, Beatrix?” he murmured. “Afraid of what Trathen will think if he finds us alone together?”

It was absurd, she knew, but yes, that was exactly what she was afraid of. She met his gaze head on and lied through her teeth. “Of course not.”

Of course he wasn’t fooled. “I think you are. I think you’re afraid he’ll think we’re engaging in something illicit, a clandestine rendezvous in a shadowy back corner, just the way we used to do.” He lowered his gaze to her mouth. “Remember?”

She felt her cheeks heating. “Stop it.”

“Stop what? We aren’t doing anything wrong.”

She took a deep breath. She seemed to be taking lots of deep breaths nowadays. “I’m not, at least. But detaining a woman when she is unaccompanied is reprehensible. Knowing you, however, it’s not surprising.”

“Detaining you? Not at all.” He straightened and gestured behind her. “You’re free to go anywhere you like. As am I.”

“Meaning you intend to follow me despite my request to the contrary, demonstrating to Aidan that we’ve been alone up here, and encouraging him to think the worst.”

“Somehow, I just can’t work up any pangs of conscience about what Trathen thinks. Besides, if he thinks less of you for merely being in the same public place as me, then you have quite a lack of trust between you, don’t you?”

With those words, her worst fears were confirmed. “So you really do intend to cause trouble. I knew it. What’s next, Will? Shall you inform Aidan I went to see you the day you came home, or tell him a lie about how we arranged this little secret meeting?”

“I’m not the one who lies,” he reminded her in a savage whisper, but before he could say more, footsteps sounded on the stairs.

“Beatrix?” Aidan’s voice called to her. “Are you up here?”

She cast another glance over her shoulder, feeling a hint of panic, then returned her attention to the man before her. “Will, for God’s sake—”

He muttered an oath. “Go,” he ordered, much to her relief. “I’ll go down the back way. I promise,” he added when she didn’t move.

Beatrix didn’t need any further urging. When she emerged from behind the bookshelves, she found Aidan just reaching the top of the stairs. “Hullo, darling,” she greeted, rushing forward to meet him, a little out of breath. “How’s the Colonel?”

Aidan laughed. “Confounded, I fear. I checked him with a move he never expected.” He turned, offering her his arm. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Absolutely.” As she slid her arm through his, she cast a surreptitious glance behind her. Thankfully, Will had gone, but Beatrix had the uneasy feeling he had no intention of staying that way.

A
fternoon tea at the vicarage proved to be a welcome distraction for Beatrix. She managed to put Will and his ridiculous comments out of her mind, but afterward, as Aidan drove her back to Danbury in his carriage, Will’s words insisted on going through her mind.

Dreaming, dreaming, but never doing what you dream about.

“Is something wrong, my dear?”

Aidan’s voice intruded on her thoughts, and when she glanced at him, she found his hazel eyes on her, his expression troubled.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she assured. Aside from being all mixed up and turned upside down from Will’s blasted return, she was just shipshape and Bristol fashion. She forced herself to smile. “Why do you ask?”

“You scarcely said a word at the vicarage this afternoon. In fact,” he added, “you’ve seemed in a pensive mood for several days.”

Ever since Sunderland arrived home.

Aidan didn’t say those words, of course. He knew Will was here, he must have heard, yet he was too much of a gentleman, far too correct and proper, to make mention of her former fiancé. But what was he thinking? Was he the least bit jealous? If he was, he’d never show it. She had feared what conclusions he might draw if he’d seen her in the loft with Will, but whatever those conclusions might have been, he would never have revealed them. He was a very private man.

“Aidan?” She turned impulsively toward him. “I was wondering . . . do you think we might reexamine our plans for our honeymoon?”

“Reexamine our plans? In what sense?”

“I know we had decided to take a tour of your estates. But I was wondering if we might take a holiday somewhere instead?”

“A holiday?”

“Yes. Somewhere cozy and intimate.” She moved a bit closer and looked up at him. “It will be just the two of us, you know.”

“Ah, I am beginning to understand the interest in Baedeker.” He smiled a little. “Do you have a particular place in mind?”

Images ran through her head at once, images of red tile rooftops and cobblestone streets, of a quaint pensione with a view of the Arno. She could see herself and Aidan sipping espresso in the Piazza del Campo, or walking through the churches and museums, or picnicking in the Tuscan countryside where he would read and she would paint. So captivating were these images, she could almost hear the sonorous notes of a Puccini aria playing in her head as if on a gramophone.

“Yes,” she breathed with a hint of reverence. “I want to go to Florence.”

“Florence?” He gave a slight laugh, clearly surprised. “When you said a holiday, I was thinking the Isle of Wight, or possibly Calais. We only have two weeks set aside, remember, and Florence is so far away. It just isn’t possible.”

Those words were like the sound of the gramophone needle slicing across the disk of her imagination, and the lilting music of Puccini ended in a screeching dose of reality.

She fought it. “I know it’s a long way. But we could extend our honeymoon a bit longer, couldn’t we? It would be wonderful to see the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio and Michelangelo’s
David
, wouldn’t it?”

“Delightful, I agree. But as for extending our honeymoon, we simply can’t, my dear. What of Parliament? Our wedding is October 2. The House of Lords sits on October 16, and it’s a special session that day, very important. I must be there for the vote.”

With those words, Beatrix felt images of Florence fading away into oblivion. “I’d forgotten about Parliament,” she admitted, trying to hide her disappointment.

“For us to tour Florence for our honeymoon, I would have to abandon my Parliamentary obligations.”

“I know.”

“We discussed a honeymoon abroad, if you remember, and we decided time prohibited it. We arranged to tour my estates instead so that you would have the opportunity to see them all, something we have not yet done.”

She kept her gaze fixed on the road ahead, for she did not want him to see the disappointment in her face if he happened to glance at her. “I remember.”

“And the tenants would be so let down if they did not have the opportunity to meet you straightaway. Why, I believe the children at Trathen Leagh are even planning some sort of welcoming song to greet their new duchess. We have a duty to our people, my dear. We cannot let them down.”

“I know.”

“If it means anything to you, I wish I could take you to Florence.” He put his gloved hand over hers, and it was such an uncharacteristically open display of affection, it caught her by surprise. Aidan was not that sort. He had kissed her only once, quite properly, upon her acceptance of his proposal, and he was certainly not one for holding hands. “Your happiness is important to me, my dear, and you have been unhappy in the past, I know.”

He wasn’t looking at her, but as she studied his grave, boyishly handsome profile, she felt a powerful rush of fondness and affection.