Then Comes Seduction

10

KATHERINE was at a garden party in Richmond the next time she encountered Baron Montford. It was two days after she and Margaret and Stephen had accepted their invitation to Miss Wrayburn’s birthday celebrations.

It was a crowded event. A large number of guests were in attendance, taking tea on the wide paved terrace before the house or moving about the lawns that stretched between the terrace and the River Thames or boating on the river. This was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Adams, who were renowned for their lavish entertainments-and for the beauty of their gardens, which at this particular time of the year were laden with flowers, all in varying shades of purple, magenta, and pink. Flowers of the same shades hung from baskets across the front of the house and bloomed in large pots along the terrace.

It was a dazzling and glorious display-and a quite irresistible one to Katherine, who was always alternately drawn to crowded social events and pulled toward solitude, preferably in a setting of natural beauty. She mingled happily with the crowds for well over an hour. But then she was assailed with the familiar need to get away from it all, to be by herself even if only for a short while.

Margaret had been borne off to one of the boats by the Marquess of Allingham, Stephen was in the midst of an animated group that consisted largely of young ladies and their twirling parasols, Vanessa and Elliott had stepped inside the house with Mrs. Adams, and Katherine was free to make her way to a pretty little glass pavilion that faced onto a rose garden.

It was a warm day when the sun was out. But there were some clouds too and a noticeable breeze, and it was during a particularly lengthy cloudy period that Katherine stepped inside, goose bumps pebbling her bare arms. The glass walls and roof had trapped the heat of the sun, and she sat down gratefully on a wrought iron seat and prepared to enjoy the roses and the warmth for a while before conscience inevitably drove her back outside to be sociable.

She was immediately aware of the heady scent of the roses, and peace seeped into her soul as she breathed in their fragrance.

Her solitude did not last long, though.

After what could have been no more than a scant five minutes, she became aware of someone striding away from the crowds on the terrace and moving in her direction. When she turned her head to look, she could see that it was Lord Montford, dressed elegantly in a dark green coat, which molded the muscles of his chest and arms, with buff pantaloons, which did the like for his legs, and shiny Hessian boots. No gentleman ought to be allowed to be so handsome-especially when he was someone of whom one could only disapprove, to say the least.

He had not been at Lady Cranford’s concert last evening. And he had not been here so far this afternoon. She had been glad of it on both occasions. There was something about him that never failed to ruffle her calm.

And she had so wanted to be alone for a little while longer.

It was not to be. His eyes met hers through the glass, and it was clear that she was indeed his destination. A glass pavilion did not, alas, provide an effective hiding place. Not that one ought to be looking for one at a garden party.

She resented the way her heartbeat quickened.

He stopped when he was in the wide doorway and propped one shoulder against the wooden frame. He crossed his arms over his chest and one booted ankle over the other. It was the way she would always remember him, she realized, apparently indolent, his eyes alert but half hidden beneath lowered lids, one eyebrow half cocked, one lock of dark hair down across his forehead.

“This has to be deliberate,” he said. “The dress to match the flowers, the straw hat to add a delicate rustic touch, the glass-walled retreat to suggest both the desire for solitude and the subtle invitation to have that solitude interrupted, the relaxed, graceful posture-it has to be deliberate.”

Only he could be so outrageous as to suggest such a thing-even if it were true.

“But of course it is deliberate,” she said. “You do not think I would attend a garden party, do you, without first consulting with the hostess to discover the color of the flowers in her garden and the existence of a glass pavilion within full sight of the terrace and lawns in which I might arrange myself for full pictorial effect. Of course it is deliberate.”

Her dress was a deep rose pink muslin. Paler pink rosebuds adorned the crown of her wide-brimmed hat.

He chuckled-a lazy, seductive sound.

“Then you have succeeded beyond your fondest hopes,” he said. “I am only surprised that gentlemen are not queued up outside for the pleasure of spending a few moments paying homage to you. But I have only just arrived. Perhaps they have been paying court to you since the party began and are only now all finished. May I?”

He advanced inside the pavilion and indicated the empty half of the seat beside her. He did not wait for her permission. He sat down, and she was instantly aware that the seat was not very wide at all. She could feel his body heat even though he was not touching her. She could smell his musky cologne.

“Do have a seat, Lord Montford,” she said crossly. “There is no need to feel that you must remain standing in my presence.”

He chuckled again.

“Prickly, Miss Huxtable?” he said. “Have I done something to offend you? Or said something?”

“You?” she said. “The soul of propriety? Tell me, was the idea of inviting me to Cedarhurst Park for two weeks in August yours or Miss Wrayburn’s?”

“Good Lord!” he said. “The day I plan the guest list for an eighteenth birthday party, Miss Huxtable, is the day someone really ought to put a bullet in my brain. It would save me from the misery and ignominy of being hauled off to Bedlam.”

Which did not really answer her question, did it? But it was not worth pursuing.

“This is a lovely garden,” she said. “It makes me miss Warren Hall. And Throckbridge too. There is nothing more desirable than being in the country, is there? Do you miss Cedarhurst Park?”

“I hated it with a passion for at least the first twenty-five years of my life,” he told her.

“Oh, why?” she asked in surprise, turning her head to look at him.

“I suppose,” he said, “because it was the visible symbol of my captivity.”

“Captivity?” She frowned at him. “I would say very few people are freer than you, Lord Montford. You must have everything you could possibly need or want.”

He smiled that lazy smile of his.

“Your brother is a fortunate man, Miss Huxtable,” he said. “Not because he unexpectedly inherited the earldom of Merton at the age of… what?”

“Seventeen,” she said.

“… at the age of seventeen,” he said, “but because he had all those years before it in which to be free to live his life as he chose.”

“We lived in a small cottage after our father’s death,” she said indignantly. “Meg had to use all her ingenuity to make ends meet so that we could eat and clothe ourselves.”

“And Con Huxtable is a fortunate man,” he said. “He somehow managed to get himself born two days before his father, the old earl, could procure a special license and marry his mother. And so, though he grew up as the eldest son of the house, he could never inherit, and he knew it from the start.”

That touched her on the raw.

“That was fortunate?” she said. “It was surely the worst thing that could possibly have happened to him. The knowledge that it did happen has dampened Stephen’s pleasure in his good fortune, I know. He has not enjoyed benefiting from someone else’s misfortune.”

“Your brother was free to dream until the age of seventeen,” he said, “and when the news of his inheritance came, then it must have seemed like a dream come true. Con has always been free to dream.”

“And you have not?” She was frowning again.

“I was my father’s eldest and only son,” he said. “He died before my birth. I was born with the title Baron Montford. Cedarhurst and all the rest of it have always been mine.”

“Most people in your circumstances,” she said sharply, “would spend their lives counting their blessings.”

“I suppose they would,” he said softly. “What I have always counted a blessing, Miss Huxtable, is that I am not and never will be most people.”

“Well, that is certainly true,” she conceded, clasping her hands tightly in her lap.

She would need time to think through ideas that had never occurred to her before now, though. What was freedom? It certainly was not poverty. That put horrible shackles upon people. She and her family had never been so poor that they must fear for their next meal, but even so she knew poverty well enough to be sure that there was no freedom in it. But in wealth and position and privilege? Were they not the very epitome of freedom? Was it not almost sinful to hate being owner of a grand house and estate and master of a fortune?

But if one had everything one could ever need or want, what was left to dream of? That question had never occurred to her before now.

Someone else had left the terrace and was approaching the pavilion, she noticed with her peripheral vision. She turned her head to look. It was actually two gentlemen-she recognized one of them as Sir Isaac Kerby. They had stopped walking by the time she looked, though. The other one had his right hand raised as if in acknowledgment of something or someone, and they both turned back toward the terrace without coming closer.

Katherine turned her head the other way in time to see that Lord Montford had one hand partly raised too and one eyebrow lofted above the other.

A signal must have passed between him and the other gentlemen. He did not want their company?

She noticed too that his other arm was spread along the back of the seat behind her shoulders though it was not touching her at all. He was turned slightly toward her.

“We all need to dream,” she said.

“Ah, but I prefer not to,” he said, his eyes heavy lidded again and half smiling and resting fully on her, “whenever there is a more congenial activity to keep me awake. At the moment I can think of nothing more congenial than sitting here tete-a-tete with you.”

Good heavens, he made it sound as if they were indulging in a secret lovers’ tryst. She ignored the alarmingly unexpected shiver of physical awareness that tightened her nipples and settled between her thighs.

“No, you misunderstand,” she said firmly. “Indulging in dreams-waking dreams-is essential to us. As essential as eating or breathing. As essential as hope. It is through our dreams that we do our hoping.”

“Stop dreaming, boy, and find something useful to do,” he said in the mock tones of a stern parent or tutor-his own from long ago, perhaps?

“I would be more inclined to tell my children the opposite,” she said. “Stop being fruitlessly busy and dream. Use your imagination. Reach out into the unknown and dream of how you can enlarge your experience and improve your mind and your soul and your world.”

He chuckled softly.

“And of what does Miss Katherine Huxtable dream?” he asked her. “Love and marriage and motherhood, I suppose?”

He did not get the point at all, did he? He might be intelligent, but there was no spark of the dreamer in him. Perhaps because there had never been anything to dream of that he did not already have. But that was absurd.

Oh, how absurd it was!

“Of flying,” she said impulsively. “I dream of flying.”

She did not, of course. Not literally, anyway. But there were no real words for dreams-even most of the ones that came at night while one slept.

“Ah,” he said, a mocking gleam in his eye. “A worthy activity to replace doing something useful.”

“Through the blueness of the sky and the rushing freshness of the air,” she said, ignoring him. “Close to the sun.”

“Like Icarus,” he said. “To have the wax of your wings melt for your presumption and to hurtle back to the earth and reality.”

“No,” she said. “Not to fall. Dreams do not recognize the possibility of failure. Only the desire, the need, to fly close to the sun.”

She was making an utter cake of herself, of course. She did not often try talking of such things, even to Meg or Nessie. Dreams were very private things.

He drummed his fingers against the wrought iron back of the seat beyond her shoulder, looking at her with narrowed eyes while she tried to focus her mind on the roses again.

“What is so mundane about your life that you wish to escape it?” he asked her.

He was turned almost entirely toward her now, and he was looking fully at her.

“Oh, I do not wish to escape,” she said, exasperated, “only to… to go beyond what I already have and know and am. It is hard to explain. But is it not the way of all humans?”

“Is it?” he asked softly.

“I think we all yearn to expand our… our souls into something… beyond,” she said. “I wish there were words. But you must have felt it too?”

“The need for God?” he said. “I was taken to call upon him every Sunday of my growing years, Miss Huxtable. But though my privileged backside was comforted by the cushions in the family pew, my mind was tortured by a whole lot of tedious and confused double-talk about love and judgment, forgiveness and damnation, heaven and hellfire. It all taught me to avoid such a confused and confusing God and be quite thankful never to look beyond myself.”

“Oh, you poor man,” she said, turning her head sharply again and tipping it to one side so that she was suddenly aware of his arm, less than an inch away from her ear. “You did not get the point at all, did you?”

“On the contrary. I believe I got it very well indeed,” he told her. “It was explained very clearly to me-repeatedly. Apparently I was headed for judgment, damnation, and hellfire. I was incorrigible. Beyond hope.”

He grinned at her and she shook her head.

“What clergyman told you that?” she asked indignantly. “My father would have given him a piece of his mind.”

“No clergyman,” he said. “There are other persons in a lad’s life who speak with even more authority for the deity.”

She gazed at him. Was he talking about his father? But his father had died before his birth. His tutor, then? Or his stepfather, Miss Wrayburn’s father?

“What is so mundane about your life as it is?” he asked her again.

“It would be ungrateful to call it mundane,” she said. “By most standards it is anything but. It is just that sometimes when I am alone-and I love to be alone-I feel a welling of something, of a knowledge that is only just beyond my grasp, of a great happiness that is just waiting to be embraced. Sometimes I try to express the feeling through poetry, but even poems require words. You may laugh at me now if you wish.”

He smiled, but he did not immediately say anything. She found herself gazing rather uncomfortably into dark eyes that were only inches from her own. She was aware again of his cologne.

She spread her fingers across her lap.

“Do you dream of marriage?” he asked her. “Do you dream of finding happiness that way?”

“Yes, I dream of marriage,” she said, “and of children and a home of my own. There is not much else for a lady, is there? Even now I worry about being a burden upon Stephen all his life. I am twenty-three years old.”

“You must have had numerous offers,” he said.

“Some,” she admitted. “Good offers from good gentlemen.”

“But-?” He raised his eyebrows.

“I want him to be very special,” she said, looking back toward the rose garden. “Heart of my heart, soul of my soul. It is foolish to wait for him, I know. Very few people actually do find that one unique mate we probably all dream of finding. But I have never yet been able to persuade myself to settle for less.”

She was assailed suddenly by a sense of unreality. Was she actually having this conversation with Lord Montford, of all people? However had they got onto such a topic?

She almost laughed.

“He is a fortunate man,” he said without any apparent irony, “or will be when he finds you. It will be a love to move mountains.”

She turned her face to him again and really did laugh this time.

“I believe it is more likely,” she said, “that he will run ten miles without stopping. Men do not think of love and marriage as women do. I have learned that in my twenty-three years. How would you react if I told you that you were heart of my heart and soul of my soul?”

She could have bitten out her tongue as soon as the words were spoken.

He regarded her from beneath half-closed eyelids.

“I believe,” he said, “I might feel my heart beat faster and my soul stir to life from its long-dormant state.”

She bit her lip.

“Or I might also,” he said, moving his head a little closer to hers so that for one startled moment she thought he intended to kiss her, “claim to have won my wager.”

She smiled again. He held his composure for a moment longer, and then he smiled too-slowly and lazily.

“But you are not going to say it?” he asked her.

“I am not,” she agreed.

“Not yet,” he said. “But you will.”

She laughed softly. No man had ever flirted with her. She had never flirted with any man. Until she met Lord Montford, that was. And why did it happen with him-every time they met? Why did he do it? Why did she allow it?

His gaze had moved beyond her again; and he raised his hand once more and executed a mock salute and a half-wave with it before turning his attention back to her.

“The esteemed Sir Clarence Forester,” he explained, “and his even more esteemed mama. They are no longer coming this way, you will be pleased to know. Probably they saw that Charlotte was not here and lost interest. They will doubtless search for her elsewhere in the garden and on the water-a sad waste of time, of course, as she is not here.”

“They have been here all afternoon,” she said.

They had pointedly avoided an introduction to Meg, Stephen, and her. Katherine had been made to feel as if going walking in Hyde Park with Miss Wrayburn the other day really had been a wicked impropriety. It was quite ridiculous. Even Elliott had said so, and he knew about such things.

“Have they?” he said. “That must have been pleasant for all the other guests.”

“You really do not like them, do you?” she said. “And yet they are your aunt and your cousin?”

“Not mine,” he said decisively. “Only poor Charlotte’s. Lady Forester is her father’s sister and Clarence her cousin.”

“Your stepfather’s relatives,” she said.

“My mother’s second husband’s, yes.”

“You did not like him either?” It was a very impertinent question, she thought too late.

“He was godly and righteous and without sin,” he said with a smile. “He was also without humor, wit, compassion, or joy. He married my mother just before my first birthday and died just after my eighteenth. I will say no more. He was Charlotte’s father. And I would not spoil this very pleasant half hour with you, Miss Huxtable.”

Had it been that long? Half an hour? Gracious! She had not meant to be away from the main party for more than fifteen minutes at most. And how must it look to anyone who had noticed them sitting alone here together for so long? Though they were in a glass pavilion and fully visible from both the terrace and the lawn.

She got to her feet and brushed her hands over her skirt. He had not moved. He still sat at his ease on the wrought iron seat-oh, goodness, it really was narrow-his arm stretched out along the back of it.

“I daresay Meg is back from her boat ride with the Marquess of Allingham,” she said. “I must go and find her.”

“You must do what you must do, Miss Huxtable,” he said, his eyes smiling at her from beneath hooded lids again. “I shall remain here for as long as the fragrance of your hair lingers and is not overpowered by the less enticing scent of the roses.”

“Oh.” She laughed. “How absurd.”

“Life is full of absurdities,” he said. “Fortunately,” he added softly.

Katherine hurried away, feeling as if he had caressed her. How did he do that, without even touching her? There was something about his voice, something about his eyes…

I believe, he had said when she had asked how he would react if she told him he was heart of her heart, I might feel my heart beat faster and my soul stir to life from its long-dormant state.

She smiled.

I might also, he had added, claim to have won my wager.

She chuckled aloud.

There was no point in denying that she had enjoyed the last half hour.

And then she spotted Vanessa and Elliott, who were drinking wine on the terrace with another couple, and waved to them as she went to join them.