Indiscreet (2 page)

“It might have been as well if one lady had not found your eyes so irresistible, Eden,” Lord Rawleigh said dryly. “If I had been in town, perhaps she would have looked into mine instead and you would not have been forced to rusticate for a few months, including the whole of the Season.”

Lord Pelham winced while Mr. Gascoigne threw back his
head and laughed. “A hit, Ede,” he said. “Come, you must admit it.”

“She was new to town,” Lord Pelham said, scowling, “and had a body to die for. How was I to know that she was married? You two may find the idea of being discovered in bed by a husband and in the act, so to speak, to be uproariously hilarious, but I did not and do not.”

“In truth,” Mr. Gascoigne said, one hand to his heart, “I feel for you, Ede. The timing was wretched. He might at least have had the decency to wait in the shadows until you were properly—or improperly—finished.” He threw back his head and laughed again. Fortunately they were beyond the confines of the village street and in progress up the oak-lined driveway that led to Bodley House.

“Well,” his friend said after pursing his lips and deciding against taking up the gauntlet—after all, he had been putting up with this ribbing for several weeks now, “I am not the only one forced to rusticate, Nat. Shall I drop the name Miss Sybil Armstrong onto the breeze?”

“Why not?” Mr. Gascoigne said with a shrug. “You have done so often enough lately, Ede. A Christmas kiss, that was all it was. Beneath the mistletoe. It would have been churlish to have resisted. The chit was standing there deliberately, pretending she had not noticed either it or me. And then brothers and fathers and mothers and cousins and uncles and aunts—”

“We see the picture with painful clarity,” the viscount assured him.

“—coming through doorways and walls and ceilings and
floors,” Mr. Gascoigne said. “All looking at me in expectation of an imminent declaration. I tell you both, it was enough to put the wind up a fellow. Make that a hurricane.”

“Yes, we already have on more than one occasion before today,” the viscount said. “And so you descended upon me, the two of you, like a pair of frightened rabbits, and I am expected to rusticate with you and miss the Season myself.”

“Unfair, Rex,” Mr. Gascoigne said. “Did we say anything about you missing the Season and all the young hopefuls and their mamas? Now, did we? Tell him, Ede.”

“We offered to keep Stratton warm and lived in while you were gone,” Lord Pelham said. “Come, you must admit it, Rex.”

The viscount grinned. “It serves you both right,” he said, “that my sister-in-law invited us all here and that I decided we would come rather than stay at Stratton and be dull. And it serves you right that the village appears to boast only one looker and that she fancies me.”

There was a chorus of protests, but they were incoherent and quickly silenced by their arrival at the house. They dismounted and handed their reins to waiting grooms and proceeded to help the ladies down from the carriages.

She certainly
was
a looker, Viscount Rawleigh thought, though she was no young girl and looked rather too genteel to be a milkmaid or a laundry maid or someone else who might be tumbled for a few coins. She had been standing in the garden of a small but respectable-looking cottage. The odds were high that there was a husband to go along with that cottage and to lay claim to that beauty.

A pity. She was definitely a beauty, with her dark hair and regular features and creamy complexion. And she had a pleasing figure, neither too thin nor too voluptuous. Unlike most men of his acquaintance, he did not favor voluptuous women. Neither was she all crimped and curled and frilled. She allowed her beauty to stand on its own merits, unassisted by art. And her beauty had many merits.

Of course, she was a bold woman. His eyes had found her when she was nodding to Clarissa. He had not failed to notice, then, how her eyes had passed over Eden and Nat before coming to rest on him. She had smiled and curtsied, the baggage, quite pointedly and exclusively for him.

Well, he was not averse to a little discreet dalliance if it should happen by some miracle that there was no husband to find them in compromising circumstances, as poor Eden had been found. Certainly he was not interested in either of the two unattached ladies who were part of Claude's house party, one of them Clarissa's sister. Or in any other matrimonial prospect. If Clarissa only had a brain in her head, she would realize that it was more in her interest to keep him single than to foist her sister on him. Claude was, after all, his heir, and after Claude, Clarissa's own son.

But perhaps she feared that he would allow himself to act on some whim and take on a leg shackle with some other female while she was not present to keep a proprietary eye on him.

She need not entertain any such fear. His one close brush with matrimony had been quite enough to last him a lifetime as well as all the raw and painful emotions that had been part of the experience. Miss Horatia Eckert might go hang for all he cared
now, though he had cared a great deal once upon a time. And she had made overtures recently—another reason why he was quite content to come to Bodley with his brother and his friends rather than go to town for the Season. His jaw hardened for a moment.

“Rawleigh.” His sister-in-law rested a hand on the sleeve of his greatcoat after he had handed her down from her carriage. She always addressed him by his title, although he had invited her to use his given name. He believed it gave her a greater feeling of consequence to be closely related to a title. “Welcome to Bodley. Do escort Ellen inside. She is very fatigued. She is of such a delicate constitution, you know. Mrs. Croft will be waiting to show you to your rooms.”

Clarissa appeared to be of the firm opinion that the more delicate the female, the more attractive she must be as a prospective bride. Certainly she had spent the last couple of weeks, ever since Miss Hudson joined her at Stratton at his suggestion, describing her sister thus to him.

“It will be my pleasure, Clarissa,” he said, turning to offer his arm to the younger sister. “Miss Hudson?”

Miss Ellen Hudson was afraid of him, the viscount thought with some irritation. Or in awe of him, which was more or less the same thing and quite as annoying. Yet Clarissa seemed to believe that the two of them would enjoy being irritated and awed together for a lifetime.

Was
she married? he wondered, his thoughts straying from the young lady on his arm.

And how soon could he decently find out?

•   •   •

MRS.
Clarissa Adams's cup of joy was running over. There were guests at Bodley for an indeterminate length of time—eleven in all, and there were no fewer than three titles among them, four if she considered her sister-in-law Daphne, whose husband, Sir Clayton Baird, had made her into Lady Baird.

There were Rawleigh and his two friends; his and Claude's sister and her husband; Ellen; Clarissa's dear friend, Hannah Lipton, with Mr. Lipton, their daughter, Miss Veronica Lipton, who was one year longer in the tooth than Ellen and not nearly as pretty or of as delicate a constitution, and their son, Mr. Arthur Lipton and his betrothed, Miss Theresa Hulme. Miss Hulme was only eighteen, a dangerous age, but she was unfortunately quite insipid with her pale auburn hair and pale green eyes. But then, she was safely betrothed to the younger Mr. Lipton, and one did not wish to be unkind.

There was only one fact to mar Mrs. Adams's joy. They were an uneven number. All her hints to Mr. Gascoigne, Rawleigh's
untitled
friend, had gone for naught and he had accepted the invitation she had felt compelled to extend to him as well as to Baron Pelham. And her attempt to persuade a young widowed friend to be taken up in their carriage as they returned to Bodley had failed when an answer to her letter had brought the news that the friend was newly betrothed and was to be married within the month.

And so Mrs. Adams felt all the embarrassment of being a hostess who had so mismanaged matters that she had an uneven number of ladies and gentlemen. It was most mortifying. She racked her brains for some suitable female not too far distant from Bodley to be summoned as a houseguest for a few weeks, but there
was no one. And so she had to fall back upon the expedient of issuing frequent invitations to some unattached local female who could not reasonably be asked to stay. There was no point in considering with any care who that might be. There was really only one possibility.

Mrs. Catherine Winters.

Mrs. Adams did not like Mrs. Winters. She put on too many airs, considering the fact that she lived in genteel poverty in a small cottage and had a wardrobe of extremely limited size. And no one seemed to know quite where she had come from five years ago or who her husband had been. Or her father, for that matter. But she assumed an air of quiet refinement and her conversation was equally refined and sensible.

It annoyed Mrs. Adams that everyone should assume the woman was a lady merely because she behaved like one. And it irritated her to have to invite Mrs. Winters to dine or to make up a table of cards occasionally when she was the children's music teacher. Not that she would accept any remuneration for that task, it was true, but even so it was lowering to have to consort socially with someone who was almost, if not quite, a servant.

If Mrs. Winters did not dress so unfashionably and style her hair so plainly, she might almost be called handsome. Not as handsome as Ellen, of course. But there were those airs she put on. And Rawleigh's mind must not be distracted from Ellen. He had shown some well-bred interest in the girl during the last two weeks, she was sure.

Interestingly enough, she was never too worried about Claude's eyes straying. Claude was devoted to her. She had had some
misgivings about marrying such a handsome and charming young man nine years before, being a girl with some sense as well as a measure of vanity. She did not believe she was the type to smile and affect ignorance while her husband took his pleasure with whores and mistresses. And yet it was such an advantageous match for her—he was after all heir to a viscount. And she liked his looks. And so she had decided to marry him and to hold him too. She had deliberately become both his wife and his mistress, encouraging him to do with her in the privacy of her bedchamber what would have caused most wives of tender sensibilities to die of shock. And she had shocked herself—she liked what he did.

No, Mrs. Adams was not afraid of losing her husband to the likes of Mrs. Winters, even though she did not encourage the woman to get too close. But she would have liked a female who was somewhat—plainer to invite to make up numbers with her guests.

Unfortunately there was no one else.

“I shall send for Mrs. Winters to come to dinner tonight,” she told Mr. Adams the morning after their return home. “She will be grateful enough to elevate herself in society for an evening, I daresay. And she can be depended upon not to disgrace the company.”

“Ah, Mrs. Winters,” her husband said with a warm smile. “She is always agreeable company, my love. Did I keep you awake too late last night after such a long journey? My apologies.”

He knew that none were necessary. She crossed his study to his side of the desk and bent her head for his kiss.

“I shall seat her beside Mr. Gascoigne,” she said. “They can
entertain each other. I do think it provoking of him not to have returned to London after imposing on Rawleigh's hospitality for all of three weeks.”

“I think it's a splendid idea to seat them together, my love,” he said. There was amusement in his smile. “But I think you waste your efforts trying to pair Ellen with Rex. He is not to be had, or so he says. I begin to believe that he is serious. He was badly hurt by Miss Eckert, I am afraid.”

“No man is to be had,” she said scornfully, “until he is made to see that a certain lady was made for him. The first one was simply not the right one.”

“Ah.” He smiled again. “Is that what you made me see, Clarissa? That you were made for me? How perceptive you were.”

“Ellen and Rawleigh were made for each other,” she said, refusing to have her attention diverted.

“We shall see,” he said, laughing.

“I
T
is extremely obliging of Mr. and Mrs. Adams to invite Mrs. Lovering and me to dine at Bodley,” the Reverend Ebenezer Lovering said as he handed Catherine down from his cart and turned back to lend assistance to his wife. “And they have done you a singular honor to include you, Mrs. Winters. Especially when they have Viscount Rawleigh as a houseguest.”

“Yes, indeed,” Catherine murmured. She lifted her hands to smooth over her hair and check that the evening breeze had not ruined her coiffure, simple as it was. She tried to ignore the thumping of her heart. She had decided a hundred times not to accept the invitation, but she had accepted anyway. There was really no point in staying away. She could not hide until all the guests had returned to their various homes. They might be here for several weeks.

She had dressed with some care, wearing a gown of green silk that she knew looked good with her hair. And she had dressed her hair less severely than usual, allowing tendrils to curl at her temples and along her neck. And yet she knew as soon as she had handed her cloak to a footman and had been shown into the drawing room by the butler that she looked woefully plain and unfashionable. Of course, it befitted a poor neighbor who had been honored with an invitation only because for some reason there was one more gentleman than lady to look slightly shabby, she supposed with a flashing of the old humor. But in truth she could feel little amusement.

“Ah, Mrs. Winters,” Mrs. Adams said, sweeping toward her, all flounces and sparkling jewelry and nodding plumes, “how good of you to come.” Her eyes swept over her guest and registered clear satisfaction that she was not likely to outshine any other lady present. She turned to greet the rector and his wife.

“Mrs. Winters, how kind of you.” Mr. Adams was smiling warmly at her. It was definitely Mr. Adams, she thought before allowing herself to smile back. He was wearing his habitual good-humored expression. Besides, he had called her by name. “Allow me to present you to some of our guests.”

She did not have the courage to let her eyes sweep the room. It seemed very full of people. But she looked at each separate person as she was introduced and felt relief each time. None of these people was familiar, except for Miss Ellen Hudson, Mrs. Adams's sister, who had been a guest at Bodley several times over the past five years. She was looking very pretty and grown-up and was dressed in what Catherine guessed was the first stare of
fashion. She was a younger version of Mrs. Adams, with her rich brown hair and green eyes.

Everyone greeted her politely. She saw admiration in the blue eyes of Lord Pelham, who took her hand and bowed over it, and in the lazy gray eyes of Mr. Gascoigne. Both were handsome young men. It did feel good to be admired, she admitted to herself, although she would never again court admiration or be beguiled by it.

At last there were only two people left to whom she had not been presented. But she had been aware of them—or of one of them at least—with an inward squirming of discomfort since she entered the room. But it had to be faced. Perhaps he had not even noticed her with any particularity yesterday or, if he had, perhaps he would not recognize her now. Or perhaps he realized she had mistaken him for his brother.

“May I present my sister, Daphne, Lady Baird?” Mr. Adams said. “Mrs. Winters, Daph.”

Lady Baird was as fair as her brothers were dark, but she was as amiable as Mr. Adams and greeted Catherine with a smile and a few courteous words.

“And my brother, Viscount Rawleigh,” Mr. Adams said. “As you can see, Mrs. Winters, we are identical twins. The fact has caused other people embarrassment and us amusement all our lives—has it not, Rex?”

“And they have been known shamelessly and deliberately to exploit the likeness, Mrs. Winters,” Lady Baird said. “I could tell you stories to fill the evening and still have enough left for tomorrow.”

Lord Rawleigh had made Catherine a stiff bow. “Not now, Daphne,” he said. “Maybe some other time. Your servant, Mrs. Winters.”

Yes, they were identical, Catherine thought. Both were tall and handsome with dark hair and darker eyes. But they were different. Although she had made that initial mistake in the village, she did not believe she would do so again. They were apparently of the same build and yet it seemed to her that the viscount was more athletic and stronger than Mr. Adams. And his hair was longer—surely unfashionably long. And his face was quite different. Oh, the features were indistinguishable from those of his brother, but whereas Mr. Adams had an open, amiable countenance, Lord Rawleigh's was arrogant, hooded, cynical.

She liked Mr. Adams. She disliked this man—an opinion that might well be colored by the fact that she had embarrassed herself before his eyes, she was ready to admit to herself.

“
Mister
Winters?” Lady Baird said, looking about the room with brightly curious eyes.

“Is deceased, Daph,” Mr. Adams said quickly. “Mrs. Winters is a widow. We are delighted that she chose Bodley-on-the-Water in which to make her home. She reads to the elderly and teaches the children and keeps the church supplied with flowers from her garden during the summer. She teaches Julie and Will to play the pianoforte, though they are displaying all the symptoms of tone deafness that afflict their father, I am afraid.”

“Mrs. Winters is what one would call a treasure, then,” Viscount Rawleigh said, his eyes looking her up and down and undoubtedly coming to the same conclusion that Mrs. Adams
had appeared to come to earlier. Well, it did not matter, Catherine thought, swallowing her mortification. She had not dressed to impress his almighty lordship. If he saw her as a woman of moderate means, living far from any center of fashion, then he was right. That was exactly what she was.

“Beyond all doubt,” Mr. Adams said with a smile. “But we are embarrassing you, Mrs. Winters. Tell me how my children have progressed in the past two months. The truth, now.” He chuckled.

Catherine was annoyed to realize that she really had blushed. But it was not so much with pleasure or embarrassment at the compliment as with anger that it had not been meant as such. There had been a certain boredom in the viscount's voice. What he had really been saying was that she was a dull woman. Well, she was that too.

“They have both been practicing daily, sir,” she said. “And both are developing a competence at their scales and the simple exercises I have set them.”

Mr. Adams laughed again. “Ah, the consummate diplomat,” he said. “But I suppose that with Julie at least we must persevere. The thought of a young lady growing up without that particular accomplishment is enough to give one the shudders. At least she shows some promise with her brush and watercolors.”

“I do not play the pianoforte with any degree of competence either,” Lady Baird said, “and I have not been a social pariah since my come-out. Indeed, I believe I did very well for myself in snaring Clayton as a husband, even setting aside the fact that we were head over ears for each other. All one does during a party
when asked to play a piece, Mrs. Winters, is smile dazzlingly, hold up both hands, and say something like, ‘Look, ten thumbs,' and everyone laughs as if one is a great wit. I assure you it works.”

“Perhaps Mrs. Winters should teach your children diplomacy rather than music, then, Claude,” Lord Rawleigh said.

“It must indeed be tedious to teach children who are not interested,” Lady Baird said with some sympathy.

“Not so, ma'am,” Catherine said. “And it is not interest they lack, but—”

“—talent,” Mr. Adams supplied when she stopped abruptly. He chuckled again. “Never fear, Mrs. Winters. I love them none the less for their lack of musical aptitude.”

“Ah, dinner,” Lady Baird said, looking across the room to see the butler speaking with Mrs. Adams. “Good. I am famished.”

“Excuse me,” Mr. Adams said. “I must lead in Mrs. Lipton.”

“Where is Clayton?” Lady Baird looked about her.

Catherine quelled an inner surging of panic. Oh, no, this was too embarrassing. But she was saved, as she might have known she would be, by the arrival of Mrs. Adams, who of course had everything organized.

“Rawleigh,” she said, taking his arm, “you will, of course, wish to lead Ellen in.” She looked with almost comic condescension at Catherine. “I have asked the Reverend Lovering to lead you in, Mrs. Winters. I thought you would be more comfortable with someone you know.”

“Of course,” Catherine murmured, amusement replacing the panic. “Thank you, ma'am.”

The rector was already bowing at her elbow and assuring her
that he would consider it a singular honor to be allowed to take her in to dinner and seat her beside him.

“Mrs. Adams knows,” he said while that lady could still hear him, “that a man of my calling favors a table companion of good sense.”

Which was wonderful praise indeed, Catherine thought, laying her arm along his, and would undoubtedly confirm Viscount Rawleigh in his opinion of her as a dull woman. Not that she gave the snap of two fingers for his opinion.

She settled philosophically into what was bound to be a dull hour. Mr. Nathaniel Gascoigne sat to her left and appeared to be a pleasant gentleman as well as a handsome one. But she had little opportunity to converse with him. The Reverend Lovering monopolized her attention as he always did when seated beside her, a common occurrence when they were both guests at Bodley. He assured her throughout the meal that they must both feel humble gratitude for the honor bestowed on them by their invitations to be in such illustrious company. And he assured her too of the superior quality of every dish set before them.

Catherine lent him half an ear and enjoyed observing the company. Mr. Adams at the head of the table was the genial host. Mrs. Adams at the foot was the regal hostess. It always intrigued Catherine that they were apparently quite contented with each other when they were so very different in character. They were, of course, both beautiful people. She noted that Ellen Hudson, seated beside the viscount, made a few nervous attempts to engage his attention. Yet when he gave it, she became mute and noticeably uncomfortable. He would turn his attention back to the
conversation of Mrs. Lipton on his other side. Mrs. Adams was noticeably annoyed. Catherine guessed that Mrs. Lipton would be seated far from the viscount in future. She noticed that Lady Baird and Mr. Gascoigne flirted with each other in what was very obviously a harmless manner. She noticed that Miss Theresa Hulme exchanged several longing glances with Mr. Arthur Lipton, her fiancé, who was too far from her at table to be engaged in conversation. She appeared to have little conversation and was soon largely ignored by the gentlemen to her left and right, poor girl. Lord Pelham was deep in conversation with Miss Veronica Lipton throughout dinner.

Catherine enjoyed being an observer rather than a player, though it had not always been so. Being an observer lent amusement to life and saved one much heartache. It was far more pleasant, she had discovered gradually over the years, to guard one's emotions, to keep oneself at one remove from life, so to speak. Not that she did not involve herself in a number of busy activities, and not that she did not have friends. But they were safe activities, safe friends.

She found her eyes caught by Lord Rawleigh's at a moment when half her mind was listening to the Reverend Lovering's eulogy on the roast beef, just consumed, and the other half was woolgathering. She smiled into the familiar face a split second before she remembered that it was not familiar at all. He was a stranger. And she had done it again soon after assuring herself that it could never happen again. Her eyes slid awkwardly away from his and her fork clattered rather noisily on her plate.

But what was wrong with smiling at him when their eyes met
by chance across the table? They had, after all, been presented to each other and had conversed in a group together for a few minutes before dinner. There was no reason at all why she should have looked away in confusion. Doing so had made her appear guilty, almost as if she had been stealing admiring glances at him and had been caught in the act. She frowned in chagrin and looked determinedly back at him.

Viscount Rawleigh was still observing her. He raised one dark and haughty eyebrow before she jerked her eyes away again.

And now she had made matters worse. How gauche she was! Merely because he was a handsome man and she felt the pull of his attractiveness as any normal woman would?

She smiled at the Reverend Lovering, and thus encouraged, he launched into praises of the superior discernment Mr. Adams had shown in the choice of chef.

•   •   •

SHE
was a widow. Interesting. Widows were always many times more desirable than any other type of female. With unmarried ladies one had to tread carefully—very carefully, as Nat had recently discovered to his cost. If one was a man of fortune and some social standing, one was seen as a matrimonial prize, to be netted at all costs by interested relatives, even if not by the young lady herself. Besides, unmarried ladies were quite unbeddable unless one was prepared to pay the ultimate price.