Clandestine (23 page)

She stepped forward. Her silhouette mutated into a warm, living woman as she sat down.

He propped his hip on the windowsill and studied her face, pale and indistinct. Her hair was braided into a simple knot. In the dim light the color was muted, like tarnished bronze.

Folding her hands in her lap, she smiled quickly, then glanced away.

Her mouth enticed like
Eria rosea
.

The memory of kissing her would haunt him till death, yet her nervous discomfort eddied through the dawn air.

“It's not very wise for me to spend much time with you, sir,” she said. “I must get back as soon as possible—”

“No one else will be out of bed for hours yet,” he said gently. “We're safe enough.”

“I don't fear discovery.”

“Then you fear that our stone lion is now here in this hut with us?”

Her head snapped up. “Our lion?”

He deliberately kept his voice free of passion. “We cannot pretend it didn't happen, and so I must apologize for so abusing—”

“Please, don't!” she said. “There's nothing to apologize for. No harm was done.”

“Lottie Whitely hasn't tried to make you uncomfortable?”

She smiled with real courage. “I'm so far beneath her notice that Lady Whitely would never deign to mention it, though she very kindly warned me against you.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Warned you? Of what?”

“You're a duke's nephew and I teach in Bath. Even though my father was a gentleman and I was raised as a lady, you and I don't move in the same social circles. Thus, Lady Whitely felt obliged to mention that superior young gentlemen such as yourself will always find amusement in the ruin and abandonment of inferior young women like myself.”

A flash of real anger surged through his blood. “Did she elaborate?”

“No,” Sarah said with a sudden dry humor. “Other than telling me that I was—and I quote—‘playing with fire,' should she have?”

He laughed and his annoyance dissipated. “How can I reply to that? I may have pursued some affairs in my time, but I've never been a rake. I don't make a habit of ruining young females. Meanwhile, Lottie Whitely is a shallow, self-centered creature, who's bored to tears with her marriage. She's flirting with me to pique her husband's jealousy, in the mistaken belief that this will force him to love her.”

Sarah hugged her cloak about herself, as if to ward off the chill.

“You don't think a certain amount of possessiveness is part of love? It would be more terrible if Lord Whitely were indifferent, surely?”

“It might be, but fomenting her husband's resentment and distrust is hardly likely to bring Lottie what she wants.”

“It's horrible,” she said. “So much dishonesty.”

“They're two equally superficial and selfish creatures,” he said. “They didn't marry for love. It's simply an alliance of property and status, in which appearances are everything.”

“Yet you're obliged to allow her to use you?” she asked.

“Everyone, including Whitely himself, would be offended if I didn't respond to her at all, and it would be the height of bad manners to embarrass her by spurning her publicly. So it's like walking a high wire. Whitely wants to believe that I find his wife attractive—even if I don't—while knowing that I have no intention of acting on it. Thus, both his vanity and pride may be satisfied, but without recourse to a meeting with pistols at dawn. I also avoid hurting Annabella Overbridge, if she believes that I neglect her only because I'm required to perform such a delicate balancing act with her friend. Does that shock you?”

“I don't know.”

“Yet you think me equally shallow, Mrs. Callaway? Equally dishonest?”

“No! Not at all! I meant merely—Oh, goodness! I spoke entirely out of turn. I'm so sorry. I don't know very much about how such affairs are conducted in high society.”

“Then thank God for that! Yet if Lottie Whitely tries to make real trouble for you, I'll bring all the power of Wyldshay down on her head, and she knows it. She may be spiteful, but she won't dare to spread gossip. Yet it was still very wrong of me—”

“—to offer comfort when I was so upset about Lord Berrisham?”

Guy jerked as if he were a marionette and Sarah had just pulled his strings.
“Comfort?”

She clutched the front of her cloak and looked away. “Yes, I was a little discomposed, but I never thought seduction was your aim. What happened meant nothing, so I think it best that we say no more about it.”

He should have been glad that she allowed him to slip so very easily from the hook, even if she had just condemned him to swim away alone into darkness.

He could not in honor wish for anything else.

Yet how long must he fight to clear his heart of the living memory of kissing her?

“As you wish,” he said. “It won't happen again.”

“Good. Then that's settled.”

“I only wish I could offer you a more meaningful form of comfort about the child,” he said. “Whether Moorefield is Daedalus or not, there's not much I can do about it.”

She glanced up at him. Her eyes were brilliant, as if they gathered and reflected all the growing daylight outside. “I know you would if you could.”

Guy stared out of the window, simply to avoid that fascinating gaze. Birds had begun rustling in the woods. Trees and shrubs were beginning to take shape. The lake gleamed like a silver platter.

“I thought about that baby for most of the night,” he said. “My aunt can still command the king, if she so chooses, but His Majesty is a very old man. The duchess can also—to a certain extent—command Wellington. But her defense of Ryder's marriage to Miracle has cost her considerable influence in London society, and Lady Moorefield's family is almost as highly connected. Fratherham wouldn't take kindly to the Blackdown's interference in his daughter's marriage, or her treatment of her son.”

“I understand, but I've still not been able to get that baby out of my mind.”

“Neither have I,” he said.

It was the truth, but only a part of what he could not forget. He hated the thought of cruelty to any child, yet his mind was also filled with this bright craving—for Sarah's touch, for her lips, for her good opinion—while his heart quailed at the impossibility of ever fulfilling it.

“You said you'd learned something from Mr. Croft,” she said, “in spite of his reticence. What was it? I thought I might faint in his hothouse from the scent of all those massed orchids. Yet you told me that Lord Moorefield was only a minor collector?”

Guy turned his back on the view and forced himself to concentrate only on the issue at hand.

“He was, until he hired Croft away from Norris—probably from pride rather than any real interest. Moorefield hates to be outdone in anything, and his new gardener has an extraordinary gift with plants, as you saw.”

Sarah relaxed visibly, setting both hands on the table. Her cloak fell open to reveal a plain, dark dress.

“And we already know that Mr. Croft went to London with Lord Whiddon's man in May, so he fits everything we know about Falcorne. On the other hand, he really loves his flowers, or he could never have created that amazing display.”

Her face was shadowed, indistinct in the dark hut. Guy felt a moment's resentment that dawn was lingering so long, robbing him of the sight of her freckles, her unruly red hair.

“Which is, unfortunately, enough motive for Moorefield to steal him from Norris,” he said.

“Unfortunately?”

“Yes. Otherwise, that whole business might seem a little suspicious, happening, as it did, at the critical time. Croft would probably be capable of ordering violence against your cousin, though I don't doubt that he spent most of his time in town at Loddiges.”

“Which seems odd, doesn't it?” She moved one fingertip over the rustic tabletop, as if tracing a maze. “It's not a combination that makes a whole lot of sense.”

Guy watched her moving fingers as if mesmerized.

“We're all a mass of walking contradictions,” he said. “It's part of the human condition.”

She hesitated, as if she wanted to give this statement its proper consideration, then she looked up and smiled.

“I am, certainly,” she said. “And so are you.”

He folded his arms. “Really? In what way?”

She brushed both palms over her cheeks and shook her head.

“Please, go on, ma'am! You cannot make such a statement, then retreat from it without explanation. Anyway, I owe you the chance for quite a bit more imprudence at my expense.”

She laughed, but not with real humor. “I'm not sure that I have enough courage.”

“Courage? Mrs. Callaway, you have the nerve of the Iron Duke. Pray, fire away! In what way do I embody so much contradiction?”

“Very well,” she said. “You're one of the most sought-after gentlemen in the kingdom, and you're attending a house party where several very eligible young ladies are vying desperately for your attention. You've explained about Lady Whitely, yet you appear quite indifferent to all the others, as well.”

“Indifferent? I've been dancing and flirting with all of them, with exactly the correct amount of attention—”

“And so little sincerity that they've all despaired of you.”

“I didn't come here to find a wife,” he said. “Though the invitation was long-standing, I came here to unmask Daedalus. So if we're talking about our personal inconsistencies, my neglect of the marriage mart is pretty minor. What else?”

She threaded the ties at the neck of her cloak through her fingers, as if she would smooth away invisible knots.

“You truly want me to be honest?”

“I tremble at the thought of your perspicacity, ma'am. As we've already established, it's essentially impossible for me to be candid with anyone else here. So what else have you observed?”

“I don't bring this up lightly,” she said. “And if it were not for our extraordinary circumstances, this would all be none of my business, and I would never, never voice anything so improper. Yet I think that I must.”

“A little impropriety now is hardly likely to offend, or reflect badly on you,” he said gently. “So I would like to know what's bothering you.”

“Then I must say this! When I first tried to find out about you in London, I learned immediately that you've always kept a mistress, or else you've pursued a very discreet affair with a married lady—”

He laughed, genuinely touched by her careful pronouncements, though a small voice whispered a deep disquiet that she might yet guess his secret.

“Not discreet enough, obviously! I enjoy the usual vices of my position, and female company is one of them, but where's the contradiction?”

“In your original acceptance of this invitation to Buckleigh,” she said. “Lady Overbridge obviously invited you here with that express intent. She's very lovely. She's not unkind or unpleasant, just lonely and unhappy, and she's genuinely attracted to you. Yet any outside observer would think that you like orchids better.”

“I do,” he said. “The orchids are both more sensual and more honest—like you.”

He immediately wished the words unspoken, but it was too late.

Sarah stared down at her hands as hot color washed up her neck.

The silence stretched.

“And this is where I prove myself equally inconsistent,” she said at last. “In spite of everything I said when I first sat down, I feared something of the kind.”

Guy glanced at his boots. Sarah was hurt, whatever she claimed to the contrary. He had kissed her without caring for the consequences, as if an exchange of such white-hot passion were trivial. With anyone else, it might be for him. It never would be for her.

“What exactly do you fear, Sarah?”

She pushed a wayward strand of hair from her forehead. “You still wish me to speak honestly?”

“God, yes! What the devil's to be gained by prevaricating now?”

“Then, in spite of what I thought that I wished, I suppose we cannot
not
speak of what happened in that garden.” She took a deep breath. “Not because I want an apology, but because I don't.”

“You
don't
regret it?”

She shook her head, then dropped her face into both hands. “Yes. No. I don't know.”

“Then what?”

“At the risk of making a very great fool of myself, I fear that you in fact have some feelings for me, though you seem to be fighting your desires very desperately. Thus, contrary to what Lady Whitely seems to believe about you, it must be that only honor constrains you.” She looked up. “Of course, I must have reservations about such an unwise relationship, but why—when you cannot hide your interest—would you? You're not free?”