Dark Angel / Lord Carew's Bride (34 page)

He wondered how Samantha Newman would have reacted if he had given her his full name. Would he have seen that familiar gleam of avaricious interest? She had admitted that she was four-and-twenty years old. She was somewhat past the normal marrying age for a woman. Though he could not imagine the reason, even if she was dowryless. She was so very beautiful.

Beauty and the beast, he thought ruefully, resting his left hand flat on the stone seat beside him, where she had sat.

He had not seen disgust in her face. Only concern when she had thought that he had recently hurt himself, and then embarrassment when she had realized her faux pas.

But perhaps the disgust would have been there if she
had known who he was and had seen him as someone whose favor she might court.

No. He closed his eyes and lifted his face to the lowering sun. He did not want to believe that of her. He had liked her. It was not just her looks, though his first sight of her had fairly robbed him of breath. He had
liked
her.

Ah, more than that.

He opened his eyes and got to his feet. It was time to go home. He would not after all go to the lake today to make his plans for improvement. Perhaps she would go there with him tomorrow and he could dream along with her and explain his ideas to her. If the weather held. The clouds gathering in the west did not look promising. He hoped the weather would hold. He looked forward to tomorrow more than he had looked forward to any tomorrow for a long time.

Perhaps by tomorrow she would have discovered his identity for herself. If she described him to Thornhill or his lady, they would tell her with whom she had spent an hour of the afternoon. Or perhaps she simply would not come. Perhaps the afternoon had not meant as much to her as it had to him, and she would not keep their appointment. Tomorrow, if she did come, he would tell her for himself who he was. He would take the risk of seeing her attitude change. But in the meantime he would instruct his servants not to spread the word that he had arrived home unexpectedly yesterday.

He hoped the weather would hold.

He hoped she would come.

Ah, yes. It was more than her beauty. And more than the fact that he had liked her.

He really had reverted to boyhood emotions. He was head over ears in love with her.

Beauty and the beast, indeed!

F
OR TWO DAYS IT
rained a steady drizzle beyond the windows of Chalcote. Even the men did not venture outside, though the Earl of Thornhill complained that there was estate business to be attended to.

The children were restless and even peevish, and their nurse came close to the end of her tether about how to entertain them. And so the earl, willingly abetted by Sir Albert Boyle, shocked her by taking them on his back and galloping on a cavalry charge all over the house—though she should be past shock by now, she admitted to the housekeeper belowstairs, having had five years of experience of his lordship’s unconventional behavior as a father. Lady Boyle was shocked, too, and somewhat charmed, and joined with the rest of the household in a noisy romp of hide-and-seek in which only the kitchens and the outdoors were out-of-bounds. Even Lady Brill participated—though once, when everyone had searched for her for longer than half an hour and had concluded that she must have found that one perfect hiding place none of the rest of them had yet discovered, she was finally found to be stretched out on her own bed, fast asleep.

The game lasted, with brief intervals, for two days.

There were guests for dinner on the second day, neighbors who had visited or been visited several times during the past three months. There were cards and music and conversation after dinner. It was all very pleasant. It was just a pity, the countess said afterward, that the Marquess of Carew had not yet returned to Highmoor Abbey. It would be good to see a different face for a change.

“You would like him, Sam,” she said. “He is a very pleasant gentleman, but he never seems to be in residence when you are here. We must plan more carefully next time.”

“Samantha does not need to add to her court,” the earl said firmly. “It is as large as an army battalion as it is. One more member might turn her head and make her conceited.” He winked at his wife when he knew Samantha was looking at him.

It was on the tip of Samantha’s tongue to mention the landscape gardener who was staying at Highmoor—Mr. Wade. He was a gentleman, after all. That had been very obvious from his conversation and manners. But perhaps he would be uncomfortable in such elevated company, and perhaps he did not have the clothes to enable him to dine with the likes of Gabriel and Albert. Besides … Oh, besides, she wanted to keep him as her own secret companion for the moment. She did not want to see everyone else being polite—though of course both Gabriel and Jenny would be genuinely courteous—to a gentleman who would so obviously be out of his milieu.

She enjoyed the two days. And she fretted at being
confined to the house yet again. She was severely disappointed at being denied the treat of another walk at Highmoor with Mr. Wade. She had enjoyed his company so very much. It had been a great novelty, she had realized after returning to Chalcote and looking back on the hour she had spent with him, to be treated as a person with a mind. She was so accustomed to seeing nothing but admiration and open attraction in men’s eyes. That was flattering, of course, but she often had the impression that she was seen only as a pretty face and not as a real person at all.

Mr. Wade had shown no attraction to her. He had merely enjoyed explaining his theories and ideas to her. And he had enjoyed, too, just being with her in lovely surroundings, she believed. Perhaps it was silly to feel so after merely one relatively short encounter, but she had the feeling that she and Mr. Wade could be friends. Companions. She had very few real friends, though she was fortunate enough to have hordes of friendly acquaintances. How had he phrased it? She thought carefully so that she might remember his exact words: …
a special companion, one with whom one can talk or be silent with equal comfort
.

She felt again that sense of discovery the words had brought when they were uttered. She did not want love as other women wanted it. Her one experience with love at the age of eighteen had been humiliating and excruciatingly painful. She did not want that feeling ever again. What she really wanted—and she had not realized it
until he had put it into words for her—was a special companion.

Mr. Wade could be a special companion, she sensed. Perhaps it was ridiculous to think so when she had met him only once. Perhaps he had forgotten about her as soon as he turned back from the stream that afternoon. Perhaps he would not have kept their appointment even if it had not rained. And perhaps now she would never see him again. Perhaps his work at Highmoor was complete and he had left.

She would be sorry not to see him again.

On the third day the rain had stopped. All morning low clouds threatened more, but by the afternoon they were breaking up and the sun was shining through the gaps.

The earl, with his friend in tow, had ridden off early with the estate steward to sort out some problem with a distant tenant. But they were back soon after noon and announced that it was a perfect afternoon for a family ride, since a walk would only soak boots and hems.

“Rosie will appreciate the rest, will you not, my love?” Sir Albert said, smiling gently at his pregnant wife. “Emmy will be quite safe on the pony Gabe picked out for her when we first arrived, and Jane will ride up with me.”

Lady Boyle had a terror of horses and seemed quite thankful that her delicate condition put her joining the riding party quite out of the question.

“You must insist that Michael keep his pony to a sedate walk, Gabriel,” the countess said. “Or Emily will feel
obliged to try to keep pace with him, and I shall have a heart seizure on the spot, and Rosalie will have one as soon as she hears of it.”

The earl winked and grinned at her. “Mary will be up before me begging for a cavalry charge,” he said.

His countess tutted. “Then I had better have her up before me,” she said. “Sam, you must help me keep this madman in order.”

“If you will not mind terribly,” Samantha said, “I believe I will go walking.”

“Ah, this madman has put terror into her,” the earl said. “It is to be a cavalry charge without sabers, Samantha, my dear.”

“Then it is to be a charge without purpose,” she said, smiling at him.
“Will
you mind?”

“How could you possibly not want to ride with four squealing infants, a mad cavalryman, a scold, and only one normal gentleman?” he asked her. “Some people are very strange. Of course we do not mind, Samantha. You must do what gives you the greatest pleasure. That was why you were invited here.”

“Oh, I am
not
a scold,” the countess said indignantly. “And do stop winking at me, Gabriel, or I will believe you must have a speck of dust in your eye. Sam, your feet and your hem are going to be
soaked
. But there, I will not scold. And do stop laughing, Gabriel. Sam, I have endured six years of this. Am I an angel or am I not?”

“I am,” the earl said. “The angel Gabriel.”

Samantha left them when her cousin was tutting again and then chuckling with Albert and Rosalie. She
remembered how she and Jenny had called the Earl of Thornhill Lucifer when they first knew him, because of his dark satanic looks. When they learned his given name, it had been an amusing irony, though it had not seemed so amusing at the time. He really had seemed like Lucifer, deliberately bringing to an end Jenny’s betrothal to Lionel.

Samantha shuddered. She rarely dredged up that name or the person belonging to it out of her subconscious mind. The devil in angel’s garb. The only man she had ever loved—or would ever love. That one sour experience had been more than enough for a lifetime.

She changed into one of her older dresses and pulled on her half boots, though she had hoped that with winter over she would not have to wear them again for a while. She drew on a cloak, since even with the intermittent sunshine it looked chilly outside, and tied the ribbons of a bonnet securely beneath her chin.

He would not be there, she thought as she left the house. Even if he was still at Highmoor, he would not think of keeping an appointment two days late. Besides, pleasant as the afternoon was—though definitely chilly and gusty—the grass underfoot was really quite wet.

He would not be there, but she would enjoy the walk anyway. And surely the stone bench inside the folly at the top of the hill would be dry and sheltered enough so that she could sit there enjoying the view and the solitude for a while. It was better than riding with the others, feeling her loneliness.

The word, verbalized in her mind, took her by surprise.
She was not lonely. Never that. She was almost always in congenial company. Her life was as she wanted it to be. Why had she suddenly described herself as lonely?

She crossed the stepping-stones and strode up the hill, not stopping even once to catch her breath. The air was invigorating, she thought, even better than it had been three days ago. And the sky looked lovely, with white clouds scudding across the blue. She made for the top, trying not to expect to see him there, trying to convince herself that she wanted to be alone there so that she could enjoy the view without distraction.

She stopped when she was within sight of the folly. And felt a surging of happiness, which she did not stop to analyze. She smiled brightly and stepped forward.

He was getting to his feet and smiling with his eyes at her.

“What a climb,” she said. “I may never recover my breath.”

“Please do,” he said. “I am not sure I would fancy having to carry a dead body back down such a steep slope.”

Other gentlemen of her acquaintance would have rushed to her assistance, using the excuse to touch her, to take her by the hand, even perhaps to risk setting an arm about her waist. A brisk and quite harmless flirtation would have ensued. Mr. Wade merely motioned to the bench.

“Come and sit down,” he said.

She laughed and walked toward him, a new spring in her step despite her breathlessness.

H
ER CHEEKS AND EVEN
the tip of her nose were rosy from the chill and the wind. Her curls were somewhat disheveled beneath her bonnet. The hems of her green walking dress and the gray cloak over it were darkened with moisture to the depth of several inches. Her boots were wet and blades of grass clung to them.

She was even more beautiful than he remembered.

He had been trying to convince himself that she would not come and that he would not particularly mind if she did not. He really was busy with ideas for renovations that would begin as soon as spring was more advanced. He would be able to think and work without distraction if she did not come. He would not wait long, he had told himself when he first arrived at the top of the hill. Just ten minutes.

She came at the end of fifteen. He was somewhat alarmed to realize that he had never felt happier in his life.

“Better?” he asked after she had seated herself beside him. There was a fragrance about her that he had noticed last time. Violets? It was not overpowering. It was very subtle. It seemed to be the smell of her rather than of any perfume she wore.