Authors: Julia Ross
There was no reason at all why this Juliet Seton
shouldn't succumb, but perhaps she was deformed or insane. Lord Edward and Sir
Reginald had no motive he could fathom for suggesting this wager, unless they
were certain it would fail. Then he faced ruin and some further, unspecified
price
- some amusing further forfeit of my own choosing -
the
most
dangerous hazard he had ever accepted.
The tabby rose and stretched.
It was time for another gamble.
Alden pushed open the gate and stepped onto the
path, just as a woman came out of the front door. She was carrying a basket. He
stopped, ha1f hidden by a great clump of hollyhocks, and watched her.
She was wearing something voluminous - like a
shepherd's smock in blue - over a white muslin dress. Keys and scissors clanked
at her waist. Like his, her hair was unpowdered. Sunlight gloried in
sumptuously rich chestnut waves, loose1y gathered in a knot at the back of her
neck: a round neck like a flower stem, leading to a tender, feminine jaw. She
walked down one of the paths and began to clip blooms. Self-contained,
absorbed, with an oddly withdrawn dignity, she moved in her own aura of concentration.
The flowers fell one after another, bowing their heads to her scissors and
falling into the basket.
His speculation collapsed into confusion.
In spite of the housekeeper's chatelaine with its
keys and small tools, her movements betrayed her: the unconscious grace, the
elegant carriage, a way of turning her head. Not simply a gentlewoman, but a
lady who had been trained from earliest childhood to grace any drawing room.
Α lady?
Every one of his planned openings seemed suddenly
fatuous. He felt at a loss for a strategy. As the innkeeper had said with
almost proprietary dismissal, she was fiercely protective of her privacy, never
known to to1erate overtures from strangers. Alden could hardly force her even
to talk to him, could he?
Α lady would indeed know how to cut a man
dead-like Medusa - with a glance.
He had five days.
Α honeybee buzzed in and out of the
hollyhocks. The insect carried little bags of pollen on its hind legs and an
additional dusting of powder about the head and body. Its wings were ragged.
This bee was already worked close to death for the sake of its colony.
Α bee sting had once almost killed him as a
child. Deliberately, Alden reached out one hand and bit back a curse as the
stinger sank into his palm.
The tabby ran off into the pea patch.
Mistress Seton looked up.
Her eyes were a deep cornflower blue under strong
brows, drawn together in a frown. She was not a classic beauty. Her features
were neither regular nor delicate. Instead she was lush. The succulent mouth
promised a profound sensuality. Like the body beneath that absurd smock, soft
and full in all the right places. Α woman made for the bedroom. Α
peach.
Heady laughter fought for release. She really was
a peach!
"Your pardon, ma'am, Ι pray," he
said with a small bow. "It would seem that your garden has vigilant
wardens to defend against intruders. Ι have been stung."
The blue eyes glared at him. "There's an
apothecary in the village, sir. Scrape out the stinger with your
thumbnail."
Her voice was golden, throaty, sensuous. Α
rich voice for a woman, with round, deep vowels.
His vision blurred. The breath struggled in his
lungs. "I’m not sure-" He sat down suddenly on the bricks. "I’m
not sure Ι can go so far, ma'am. If you will allow me a few moments?"
He dropped his head back against the gate and
closed his eyes. Α damned ignominious death-if this gamble failed - to die
of a bee sting!
JULIET HAD LOOKED UP AT Α SMALL SOUND TO SEE
HIM STANDING among her hollyhocks. Golden. Bright. Glimmering in the sunshine.
Vividly male.
Α sudden panic clamored for her attention.
Mad images - of fallen angels, of the Heavenly Host singing of glory, of the
golden band she had once worn on her finger-jostled and demanded for a moment.
Her breath came fast, shivering up from her lungs in hot, angry gasps.
But he is so beautiful!
Damnation! Another man determined to disturb my
peace!
Worse: a man of fashion - eyes exhilarated,
intelligent, wary.
His hair was tied neatly at the back of his neck,
but it rippled at the temples where a more elaborate style had been brushed
out. The blond waves framed skin with the fashionable pallor of London,
enhanced by a small patch high on one cheekbone. Arrogance was reflected in
every line of his body, enhanced, not hidden, by the full-skirted riding coat,
the tall boots, the fall of white linen at his throat.
Α town gentleman, dressed for the country.
His moment of surprised admiration had been masked
quickly enough, but it had been there. She had suffered from it all her life.
It was the way men always looked at her, as if she were fruit, and ripe, and
ready for plucking. Even after she suppressed her moment of panic, it still
filled her with fury.
In a movement of pure aristocratic grace, he held
out one hand, reddened in the palm, but his face had turned pale as death. His
eyes dark with the body's reflexive, panicked shock, he slid to the path.
Juliet dropped the basket and ran up to him.
Α damp sheen glistened on his cheekbones. He
tipped his head back, breathing hard, seemingly incapable of movement. She
knelt and took his hand. It was supple and long-fingered, with square knuckles
and beautiful nails. Α hand that further betrayed him: a hand inherited
from a long line of nobility who disdained honest labor and valued their
sensitive fingertips. Yet several rings had been recently removed. Rings he had
worn a long time by the look of the indented traces.
Α gentleman down on his luck?
An adventurer?
The stinger was steadily working itself into his
palm, automatically pumping poison. With a quick scrape, she removed it, but
his hand was swelling and the breath whistled in his throat. Alarm
reverberated. She had seen this before a few times - people for whom a bee
sting could prove fatal.
"Lie quite still where you are," she
said. "Remain as quiet as possible. Ι shall be back in a
moment."
In her kitchen she grasped a kettle of hot water.
Hefting her load in both hands, she hurried back down the path, carrying a
cushion, a blanket, some white cloth and the kettle. Fierce, exasperated anger
flamed beneath her fear - that a golden prince risked death in her garden after
first looking at her with that wicked flash of self-derision, of lust tinged
with humor, that had made her knees weaken for a moment.
Her fury was not because the admiration of men
did not affect her, but because it did. She could not afford it. She had never
understood it. Now it was an intolerable burden, when her only future lay in concealment
and denial. Yet sometimes loneliness caught her unawares, like a little beggar
child suddenly grasping at her skirt, demanding her attention with
heartbreaking need. She knew no defense against that, except anger. The world
believed her a widow. Why couldn't men leave her alone?
He lay where she'd left him, among the lazy
scents of summer.
The sunlight was broken, marking him with dapples
where it sifted through the trees, creating one moderately cool spot in her hot
garden.
He burned there like a fire.
As she approached he opened eyes blackened into
midnight pools and grinned at her. It sent creases into his cheeks, disarming,
making her anger seem absurd. The lines of his face were almost severe - clean,
hard, shaped like a sculpture, easy to barricade against - but the smile made
him human again, even frivolous.
Swallowing her uneasiness, Juliet slipped the
pillow under his neck. His hair was the color of the cowslips she used to make
wine. Silky under her fingers.
"Give me your hand." She poured hot
water from the kettle onto her cloth and wrapped the compress over the
swelling. "Now lie still until you feel stronger. The pain and the
weakness will probably pass."
"Ι can . . . stand them, ma'am."
His voice was almost strangled by his erratic breathing. "But if they do
not?"
"Then no doubt your heart will stop beating,
sir." With relief she noticed there was no feminine tenderness at all in
her voice. "However, it would be a considerable inconvenience to me if you
were to die in my garden, so Ι pray you will concentrate on maintaining
life."
She reached for the folds of his cravat and
pulled out the knots. She did not want to touch him, but his tight clothes were
a danger to a man in shock.
Her fingers felt clumsy and heavy as she
unbuttoned the front of his waistcoat, then opened his shirt at the neck. The
strong skin of his throat gleamed smooth and white in the mottled light. She
noticed the perfect shape of his jaw at the strangely vulnerable junction where
it curved up into his ear and felt a small surge of discomfort, as if she were
a young farm girl winked at by a gentleman.
How humiliating to mark such things! So the man
was handsome and golden in the sunshine. He was also spoiled by discontent
and idleness. There was a petulant scorn to the set of his lips and a permanent
disdain bred into the shape of his nostrils. Α man of leisure, no doubt,
and very probably a wastrel.
His clothes were simple, but sumptuously made,
the fabric of his coat rich and thick. Without compunction, she wrenched it
off, tugging at the arms. He was firm, superbly fit. So he fenced and rode. Of
course. Most gentlemen did, however much they disguised that strength with the
gloss of fashion.
His shirtsleeve stretched over his swollen wrist,
so she slit the fabric to the elbow with the little knife from her chatelaine.
His forearm was strong, carved with muscle beneath a masculine dusting of
golden hairs. Juliet tried to ignore the unwelcome intimacy, the unwelcome feelings,
but she held a man's naked arm in her bare hand.
The swelling blurred the fine shape, the powerful
mesh of wrist to arm.
He was ill.
Steadily, she applied more compresses. Even his
shirr was finer than anything in her wardrobe, soft and enticing to touch. So
he was - or had recently been - a wealthy man. Α little tendril of
curiosity unfurled. What was he doing in Manston Mingate?
She bit her lip and suppressed the question.
It made no difference. She would be forced into
his company for only a few hours of simple nursing-and even that was a
compromise.
Juliet wanted to be left alone, but she did not
want a corpse on her garden path.
ALDEN LAY FLAT ON HIS BACK AND STARED AT THE
MOTTLED pattern of leaves overhead as he concentrated on each breath.
In.
Out. Focus. Once again.
Had he finally gone too far? His heart rattled
erratically in his chest. Α cold sweat had broken out on his face. It had
never been this bad before. His hand throbbed like the very devil, and the
swelling had traveled up his arm.
What an insane risk to take! To die of a bee
sting. In which case, the notorious Lord Gracechurch would go to his grave without
having tasted the sweetness of Mistress Juliet Seton.
For without regard to the wager, Alden wanted
her.
Just for the sake of her eyes, damn it all!
Why did she wear that
ridiculous smock? From her face and hands, he could imagine the body that lay
under it. She would be soft and female, with generous high breasts and a
beneficent, slipping curve to her waist. Her skin was a pale cream, like a
Caerphilly cheese, but with that hair and those eyebrows she would have dark
nipples, as sweet as raspberries. If only he had a whole summer to woo her and
tempt her, and win her little by little in a game as delightful as the final
surrender!
Yet he had undertaken to bed her by Friday.
Why the devil had he lost all that blunt to Denby
and Lord Edward? But if he had not, he would never have met her. Obscure little
Manston Mingate with its impoverished, succulent widow was not on the usual way
to Gracechurch Abbey. It wasn't on the way to anywhere.
Alden closed his eyes. His head was cushioned on
something soft. Alas, that it wasn't her lap! Hot compresses were laid over his
throbbing arm. Her clothes rustled. There was a clean, flowery scent - of roses
and gillyflowers at dusk. Somewhere a cat purred. At last he felt his breathing
become deeper, almost back to normal.
So perhaps he would live after all.
Then he would win her for one night of ecstasy,
which would save him from ruin.
He glanced up.
The sun had dropped in the west. Long shadows
raced over the flowers, gilding the red brick to flame, though the air still
pressed, heavy and hot.
Her three cats sat beside his head, contemplating
him, vibrating with feline intensity.
Mistress Seton was perched on a stool she must
have fetched from the house, calmly shelling peas. The hem of her skirt lifted
a little at the front. Cheap stockings wrink1ed around her ankles. Delectable
ankles, curving up into rounded calves and descending to soft insteps that
would fit neatly into the palms of his hands. Desire stirred, then asserted
itself with considerable intensity.