Bret didn’t understand that, but the bitterness underlying her tone was like a lightning bolt striking into his heart. Suddenly, he was flamingly angry.
“Don’t you know... Good heavens, woman, don’t you own
a mirror?”
“Well, of course. What...”
He half turned in the pew to face her, his elbow going up on the seat back before him. He flicked his hand and rolled his eyes toward the vaulted ceiling as if to express in one gesture the willfulness of all women. “When first I saw you, I knew all your history. My aunt dinned it into my ears as soon as I came to stay as she loves to gossip. But when you walked into the room did I think, ‘ah, poor soul’? I did not.”
“Didn’t you?” She leaned toward him, eager to know if what a man thought would be so different from what Dina had told her.
“I thought that the bards hadn’t been drunk when they described the Queen of the Fairies. I had always thought the water of life must have been flowing wide an d free when they dreamed of her. But one look at you and I knew there were such women, as fair, as pure, and as cold as the stars themselves.”
Roma lost her breath as he spoke, unable to believe he addressed such words to her. But she caught at the last phrase. “Then you—a man-—also think me cold?”
His mouth tightened, as if something in her earnest question angered him. Suddenly, he seized her wrists and pulled her hands against his chest. Roma stared at him, wanting to shrink away and, at the same time, caught by the intensity of his eyes.
“What chance do you give a man to think anything else?” he said in a rasping whisper. “You’re like a wife who thinks a glance at another man means disloyalty to her husband. Have you killed every spark of desire in yourself, or is it that my selfish cousin still holds you fast in his dead hands?”
He let go of her wrists as if dropping something too hot to hold. Roma left them pressed against him for an instant, too surprised to remember propriety. She could feel his heart beating through her hands, or perhaps it was her own. One alarmed glance into his sea blue eyes and she snatched her hands away.
Roma tried to sink back into her veil of indifference, starting to turn away. Bret reached out again, murmuring, “No ...no . . .” His fingertips grazed her cheek, making her feel the smoothness of her own skin.
She was stunned that he would touch her so intimately, and a prickle of strange excitement came into being at the spot. He whispered her name, and she felt his hands trembling. Staring at him, she knew the instant his gaze flickered to her lips.
Roma knew that look-—Elliot had worn it sometimes. When she’d permitted him to kiss her, she’d borne it phlegmatically as part of being engaged. She’d always closed her eyes before he’d come near.
Now she watched in fascination as Bret laid his hands on her shoulders, drawing her close. She knew she should say something or do something to avert this kiss, but she wanted to know what it would be like to kiss Bret Donovan.
His lips were warm, warmer and more alive than anything she’d ever felt before. They moved on hers as if they wanted to learn everything about the shape and taste of her mouth. Her eyes began to drift closed, to block out the distracting world of vision in order to
feel.
Yet some niggling objection prevented her from giving herself entirely up to the moment, and it was not a revival of her conscience.
A pair of very modern gentleman’s trousering and a full sweep of dull black fabric intruded upon her view and brought her eyes fully open again.
Not a dress,
she thought fleetingly.
Someone coughed carefully. Bret jerked away, surprised, frowning.
Roma looked up, blushing hotly, and saw a man with an attractively humorous and quite tanned face smiling back. He stood next to a youthful but balding clergyman who tried unsuccessfully to look disapproving. The smile that kept twitching into life rather ruined the effect. “Oh, it’s a cassock,” Roma said almost inaudibly.
“Jasper,” Bret said. “I might have known. What are you doing here, of all places?” He stood up and shook hands with the civilian.
“Having a most pleasant and instructive morning, Bret, old man.” He grinned, his teeth a slash of white. There was a small white scar on the left side of an already-clefted chin and a slight tremor in the hand he held out to his friend.
“Mr. Morningstreet’s father made a significant contribution to the building of this chapel, Mr. . . ?”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, Dr. Maynard. May I present my old comrade, Mr. Donovan?”
Roma realized that neither of the two newcomers had acknowledged her after Mr. Morningstreet had smiled at her. She appreciated their delicacy. Even now she couldn’t think what had possessed her to behave so indiscreetly and in a chapel of all places. Why, it wasn’t in the least romantic, especially as she had not the least turn for the gothic. But then it was all of a piece with the effect Bret had on her from their first meeting. If they continued their acquaintance, heaven knew how she would disgrace herself next.
Self-consciously graceful, she rose to her feet and edged past Bret. He watched her as if he wanted to hold her back but refrained himself. “Lady Roma Yarborough, may I present Dr. Maynard and Mr. Morningstreet. Mr. Morningstreet and I served in Spain together.” He sounded proud to introduce her to his friend. It was the first time he’d mentioned his service in the army since they’d met.
Mustering her breeding, though wishing she’d stop blushing, Roma shook hands with the men. “An honor,” Mr. Morningstreet said, his voice slightly hoarse, as if from smoke or whiskey.
“Yes, indeed,” the clergyman said with an indulgent smile. “Your father would be the celebrated antiquarian earl?”
Oh, mercy. Did he know Father? “Yes,” she answered guardedly.
“Would he be interested in some writings of early English fathers of the Church, do you think?”
“How early?”
“Anglo-Saxon.”
“I can’t be certain,” she said, though privately certain that he would not. “However, he has a friend—the Duke of Wainsbury—who has a lively interest in such things. He believes himself to be the rightful heir to the throne of Wessex, if there were still such a thing in existence. He is always interested in documents relating to that period.”
The churchman brightened. “Would your father consider ... a brief introduction ...”
“Do call upon us. I know Father would be delighted to see you and to assist you if he can. Now, I must be going. No,” she said to Bret, aware of her cowardice. “My maid is waiting.”
She hurried away, but booted footsteps followed her a moment later. While struggling with the door, Roma found a strong brown hand reaching over her shoulder. “Permit me, Lady Roma,” Jasper Morningstreet said. “May I escort you home?”
She could only accept with the appearance of enjoyment. They chatted amiably on common subjects, the pleasant weather, the likelihood of further rain, and the alterations being made to the town. Roma soon realized that unlike Bret, Mr. Morningstreet did not tempt her to speak her mind or behave in any but the most proper manner. Unfortunately, this also kept her from asking any of the questions that thronged her mind.
Finally, when conversation began to hesitate, she dared to ask one. “I believe, sir, you are acquainted with a cousin of mine. Mrs. Derwent?”
His ready smile faltered. “Mrs. Derwent? Yes, I know her. That is, we are the merest acquaintances. Did she mention me?”
“Only in passing. You attended a concert party where she wore the same gown as another woman.”
“Oh, yes,” he said with a nod. “Yes, it was most embarrassing for them both. But it will soon be forgotten, I’m sure.”
“Not by Dina. Such things loom large in her life.”
“I’m sure you wrong her. She seems a most forgiving woman.”
His tone rebuked her. Roma hoped she’d not been too caustic, but who would know Dina better, her cousin or a ‘mere acquaintance’?
She changed the subject. “Have you known Mr. Donovan a long time?”
“Yes, indeed. We weren’t in the same regiment, but we saw a good deal of each other during the campaigns. Marching here and there, you know.”
“We read about it, but we cannot know what it is like.”
“It’s best that way. We ... I cannot speak for all men, but I would rather British women not know anything about the properties of war. It’s best that you stay sweet and innocent.”
Roma tried to project an image of sweetness and innocence, but it made her face ache. She couldn’t maintain the expression for long. She’d devoured every word on the Peninsular campaign, even when news sheets didn’t reach the remoter villages for several weeks. She’d even purchased an atlas to follow the troop movements. Though she would not distress a former soldier by questioning him, she did have things she wanted to know. Yet strangely, all her questions revolved around Bret. What had happened to him? She had only Lady Brownlow’s account to go by.
“Were you there ...”
“Where?”
“Talavera?” she substituted, dragging the name out of her memory.
“No, we were to the south.”
“But now you are returned home. What are your plans?”
She listened with half her attention as he spoke of his home outside Bath, his widowed mother, his friends, and his interest in politics. “But I daresay I should not make a success of that.”
“Why not?”
“One is watched so carefully. I do not think I am ready to surrender all my enjoyments quite yet. After living in a stinking hut and eating appalling food, not to mention losing considerable sums at penny-a-point whist, I am ready to enjoy the delights of English society.”
“Then you will go to London soon?”
“Not for some little time. My mother has some months yet of mourning, and I don’t want to leave her just now.”
“Would she consider joining a party of friends of mine to attend the theater? You also, of course. This week?”
Roma was thinking it would be pleasant for Bret to have a friend of his own on this excursion, but at the back of her mind was a faint idea that a pleasant widow of a certain age would be a more suitable companion for her father than a sister of one of her schoolmates.
* * * *
She did not see Bret again, though a bouquet of mixed flowers arrived that afternoon. It was so perfectly suitable for an evening at the theater that she felt certain Lady Brownlow had chosen it. The card was signed with his name, the initial letters large and flowing. Though she flipped it over twice, there was no other message.
She tapped his card against her thumbnail as she gazed out the window of the morning room at the lowering clouds. She’d expected at least a word of apology if not a letter. After all, a gentleman would naturally take responsibility for a kiss.
On the other hand, she had not beat him about the head and shoulders, neither kicked her feet nor screamed. She supposed Bret did not actually owe her an apology at all. Elliot had apologized profusely the first time he’d kissed her, so much that she’d finally had to tell him that she hadn’t minded all that much. Yet, think as hard as she might, she could not remember Elliot’s first kiss, only the apology.
“My lady?” someone said, as if they’d said it several times already. Roma, startled, came back to the present to find her housekeeper peering anxiously at her from under her cap. “The menu for tonight, my lady?”
“Oh, yes. Where were we? “
“Dressed crab or buttered lobster? They both looked eatable this morning.”
“Crab, I think. Father prefers it.”
Though she had little control over her thoughts, she forced herself to answer the housekeeper’s questions and fancied that she made sense. A woman who was about to have eight persons come to dinner at her home could not afford to be distracted.
Her father, surprisingly, had not performed his usual vanishing act upon being reminded that they were entertaining tonight. He even tried to make himself useful, though the servants were made nervous by his unexpected appearances. Finally, with real genius, Wilde isolated him in the butler’s pantry where the earl occupied himself with polishing the silver.
“Thank you, Wilde,” Roma said, pausing in her arrangement of the big bowl of flowers for the dining room.
“I believe I can persuade the parlor maid not to give notice, my lady.”
“Not before dinner at any rate, Wilde.”
“Very good, my lady.”
At last, Roma retired to her room, allegedly to rest. Her thoughts, however, were in such a whirl that she couldn’t force them to be still. Mr. Morningstreet didn’t seem like the sort to gossip about what he’d seen in the chapel. Even if he did, she could turn that off easily enough with a light laugh. But she didn’t feel like laughing about it when she was alone. Even now, she found herself touching her lips as she recalled the pressure of Bret’s upon them. She’d see him tonight. Lady Brown-low had accepted her invitation, and she was not one to venture out without a male escort.
She shook her head. What about Father? Even the servants noticed that he was not himself. He’d hardly shown any interest in the two letters he’d received from farmers regarding Roman artifacts found on their grounds. He haunted the little museum by the King’s Bath but always seemed to come home without having noticed anything,
Instead, he’d become enthralled with her forays into society. She’d return home to find him still awake and full of quick questions about who was present. Though usually he attended only the first Assembly upon their arrival, to greet friends and be known as having come to Bath, he’d unprecedentedly attended two more, though he’d not danced with a soul. It must be that Keane girl, Roma thought. She had yet to set eyes on the creature herself. She must be very fascinating, though it was hard to believe of anyone in that family.
Pigeon peered around the door and tutted to find her mistress just as she had left her, a wrap on over her undergarments and a puzzled look in her sleepless eyes. “There now,” she said, laying her ladyship’s fresh gown across the foot of the bed, “how are you to last the entire evening if you don’t rest?”
“I shall be all right, Pigeon. It’s not as if I’m going to be dancing.”