Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon (22 page)

Aidan walked faster—nearly taking on a
militaristic march—in an effort to reach them and discover just
what in God’s name they thought they were doing.

The laughter coming from the ladies
and gentlemen was ludicrous. They were flopping around the lawn
with that mangy mutt, even rolling on the ground as the beast leapt
over them. And the ladies! All of them were behaving with
thoroughly unladylike manners. Then Miss Hathaway stood in a
position of command, and all of the rest of them sat, eventually
including the dog.

When he sat, Miss Hathaway poured
praise down upon him and offered him something from her hand, which
he ate greedily. The sight shouldn’t have engendered any emotion in
Aidan whatsoever. But watching her laugh and smile, seeing how she
lavished praise upon the beast—it left Aidan in a far fouler mood
than it should have done.

Why should he care how she behaved
with a hound? He was a man, not a dog. There was no good reason
that such a thing should have any effect upon Aidan whatsoever, and
yet it did. Why, when she was with him, couldn’t she be as at
ease?

He was still making his way across the
lawn when Sir Henry, Mr. Deering, Morgan, and Miss Weston stood to
talk with Miss Hathaway. The baronet moved closer to Miss Hathaway
than he ought to have done, and a tight pressure squeezed within
Aidan’s chest—a fact which made even less sense than his reactions
to the chit and the dog. He couldn’t be jealous. He did not like
Miss Hathaway, so he shouldn’t care what other gentlemen paid her
any attention.

Yet, regardless of how ridiculous the
notion was, Aidan couldn’t deny the truth. He was absolutely,
unequivocally, decidedly jealous of Sir Henry Irvine at this very
moment. Hell, for that matter he was jealous of the damned
dog.

It did not sit well within him. A
slow, creeping sensation was making its way through his gut,
leaving sincere nausea in its wake.

Aidan hated it.

They kept working through the process
several times with Mr. Deering, Miss Hathaway, and Miss Weston each
taking turns giving the commands, with Aidan still crossing the
broad lawn. But then it was Morgan’s turn.

When Aidan was halfway there, she
stood and lifted her hand high above her head. This was not what
the others had done. What was she doing? Aidan didn’t like that
she’d taken it upon herself to try something different. God only
knew what the mutt would do.

“
Stand,” she said loud
enough, and with sufficient weight in her tone, that Aidan could
hear her. The dog let out a loud bark and leapt straight at
Morgan.

That was when all sense of reason fled
from Aidan—or at least any semblance of reason he might have still
had up to that point—and he took off at a run.

But when he got closer, after shouting
Morgan’s name at the top of his lungs, he drew to a sudden stop,
bewildered by what was taking place.

The dog jumped up on its rear legs,
standing tall and trying to get something from Morgan’s hands. And
all the while, she laughed. Laughed like a loon, actually, in the
way she had when they were children and something had struck her in
just the right manner, and she would giggle until she made herself
sick to her stomach from it all, and still laugh some
more.

Aidan hadn’t heard such a delightful
sound from his sister in so long he’d feared he might never hear it
again.

Miss Hathaway had turned sharply at
the sound of Aidan’s shout, and now stood staring at him in no
small amount of shock as he drew close enough he could restrain the
beast, should it be required. “Mr. Cardiff! We understood you’d
taken ill.” She looked slightly panicked at the sight of
him.

In his haste to rush to Morgan’s
rescue, he hadn’t paid even a moment’s thought to what reaction his
sudden reappearance might cause.

Her gaze roved over his person with
such great confusion it left him reeling. But he deserved no less,
not after the callous manner in which he’d handled her last night.
Indeed, he deserved far worse than her confusion.

This was unbearable, all of it. His
jealousy. Her confusion when she ought to be irate with him. The
fact that he wanted, even now, to repeat what he’d done last
night.

“
Why are you staring at
me?” he bit off, returning to the callous demeanor which had always
been comfortable for him.

“
Have you rolled around in
white powder for some reason, sir?”

Only then did he look down upon his
own person. Good God, he was covered in marble dust from his day’s
work. Despite their gowns being marred with mud and grass stains,
and the fabric clinging to Emma in a most indecent manner, he was
perhaps more disheveled than the lot of them combined.

“
White powder?” Morgan
asked, still laughing. Her eyes held a serious air when she faced
him, still holding something in her hands that the dog was trying
to reach, and her tone turned almost reverent. “Have you been
sculpting again, Aidan?”

He didn’t want anyone to know he had
been. Not yet. Aidan didn’t know why the desire to keep it a secret
was so strong in him. He just knew that it was.

And yet, how could he deny telling
Morgan when it so clearly pleased her? Under normal circumstances,
he would do anything that would cause his sister joy. Anything that
would bring a smile to her face or warm her heart.

He brushed aside the notion that
allowing her to do as she was with the dog was that very thing. But
he found he could not tell her the truth about what he’d been doing
all day, however confounding the realization may be. For so long,
he’d given up this part of himself. For her.

He didn’t begrudge her that time, but
he wasn’t ready to share his art with anyone. He needed to let it
settle over him again first, to allow it to become part of him and
he part of it.

Aidan met Miss Hathaway’s eyes when he
spoke. “Just moving some marble. Burington set it up for me, but he
had it all wrong.”

The dog finally bit into whatever
Morgan had been holding up for him, immediately lowering to the
ground and consuming his prize.

“
Good boy, Kingley!” Morgan
ruffled the fur on top of his head, then returned her attention to
Aidan. “Does this mean you plan to sculpt again soon?”

He hated the hopeful note in her
voice. It made him feel like a cad for not sharing this part of
himself with her, by keeping it only to himself. But he wasn’t
ready to share it with anyone. Certainly not Sir Henry Irvine, who
so easily earned Miss Hathaway’s smiles whilst all Aidan rightfully
earned from her was censure.

He wasn’t entirely certain he was
ready to experience it all himself—the way he would completely lose
himself within his work and forget everything else, the way the
entire world seemed to slip away, and all he could see or think
about was whatever project he’d set for himself.

“
Not any time soon,” he
said tersely. “I should go back inside. Not feeling myself.” Aidan
ignored the dejected manner in which Morgan’s eyes fell upon his
pronouncement and took several steps away from them toward the main
house. “If you let that animal hurt my sister, Irvine, you’ll
answer to me,” he called out over his shoulder.

But as he stalked away, the
only thought that continued to plague his mind with each step was
this:
How can I be jealous when I hate
Miss Hathaway? And why in God’s name do I lust after
her?

Everything about her left him more
vexed than before. Particularly this last bit.

Devil take it.

Over the course of the last three
days, Emma had spent an increasing amount of her time with Sir
Henry and Kingley. Sometimes Morgan and Serena would be with them.
Mr. Deering had become a frequent member of their party, since
Kingley seemed to react to him better than he did to Sir Henry.
Occasionally, Lord Muldaire, Lord Trenowyth, Lord Burington, or
some of the other gentlemen would take part in their training
activities. It wasn’t uncommon for a group of the ladies to bring
out blankets and parasols so they could watch the proceedings from
a shaded spot on the lawn.

The only person decidedly absent was
Mr. Cardiff.

Emma did not mind that he was not
playing a role in Kingley’s training. On the contrary, she was
delighted each time he neglected to make himself known. Every time
Mr. Cardiff did join the rest of the houseguests, he would sit off
to the side, glaring, and his demeanor as sullen and brooding
anything she’d ever experienced before.

Ever since the day he’d emerged from
the woods covered in marble dust, his demeanor had made even Lord
Jacob Deering appear the very soul of levity—which, inexplicably,
only drew her to him more than she already had been. Emma could
only imagine it was due to the fact that he was perhaps the
greatest outcast of them all.

The longer the house party went on,
the less she saw of Mr. Cardiff. Whether he was off carving his
sculptures, or chopping down trees, or simply brooding alone in his
chambers and feigning illness, Emma couldn’t care less. Without Mr.
Cardiff’s dark cloud casting a pall upon the proceedings, she and
Sir Henry had begun making excellent progress with
Kingley.

And with one another, truth be
told.

Their time spent together out on the
lawn seemed only to draw Sir Henry to her side more often than he
already had been during other events. Whenever they would split
into groups for a game or an outing, Sir Henry easily worked his
way to her side to be sure they could be together.

He sat with her in the drawing room
during tea each afternoon, listening to tales of her childhood with
Vanessa when they would help Father on the farm, or he’d wait
eagerly for her to tell him which book she’d read the night
before.

At the breakfast table each morning,
he situated himself near her, perhaps not right by her side but
close enough they could converse, always smiling at any anecdotes
she might offer and hanging upon her every word.

Just last night at supper, Vanessa had
arranged for Lord Jacob to be to Emma’s right, but Sir Henry
somehow maneuvered himself into that position, sending Lord Jacob
down to take his seat next to Morgan.

All things considered, Emma believed
Sir Henry might be forming a bit of an attachment to her—perhaps
even a tendre. Thank heavens for that. She was spending so much
time in his company that any chance one of the other gentlemen
might develop an interest in her was quickly falling by the
wayside. More and more, Sir Henry Irvine was looking to be her only
possibility at leaving Vanessa’s house party with a gentleman
admirer.

Even better than that was the fact
that Emma did not feel overly fond of Sir Henry. Not like she’d
begun to feel toward Mr. Cardiff.

Yes, she did enjoy his company. He was
a very kind man, and he’d done her an immeasurable favor by taking
on the task of training Kingley. But Emma had no fear that she’d
fall in love with him any time soon. She did not believe there to
be any great likelihood that she’d lose her head and devote herself
to him before he was well and truly her husband, if that were to
happen.

The beginnings of this relationship
couldn’t be more perfect, as far as she was concerned. He was a
baronet, and so a perfectly respectable gentleman with whom her
father would be unable to find fault, while also not being of such
a lofty position he would look down upon her family. He had a
thriving hobby with his dog breeding and training, but one would
not truly consider it to be an occupation, so he could mix within
the higher echelon of society.

It was true that Sir Henry did not
incite any great emotion within her. He didn’t stir her lust or
cause tingles to flutter through her core like Mr. Cardiff had done
when he kissed her. But that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To
have a friendship of sorts with a gentleman, to respect him and
admire him, and only after he had promised himself to her
completely, only then did she wish to have anything
deeper.

Yet, tiny seeds of frustration kept
niggling at her, trying to convince her of something else. Each
time they did, she mentally brushed them away and reaffirmed her
determination to love only after marriage.