Nights in White Satin: A Loveswept Classic Romance (12 page)

How was she supposed to spot the Colonel in all this? It was impossible, and right about on par for her luck so far in this fiasco. The regatta was her last and only chance to find the man—

“You look very sexy.” She jumped at the voice suddenly whispering in her ear.

“Rick!” she snapped, her heart beating so fast,
she thought it would burst. She wasn’t sure whether it was from the fright or the words.

He grinned and handed her a glass of champagne and strawberries from the brunch buffet, an intriguing twist to the strawberries and cream traditionally served at the regatta. “Well, it’s true. You look terrific in that hat.”

“Thank you.” She touched the wide brim of the straw hat. It was set straight on her head like a little girl’s Sunday best, right down to the grosgrain red ribbon band trailing off the back. It matched her modest blue and white silk print coatdress, with its double row of gold buttons and lace shawl collar. She felt her spectator pumps were especially appropriate, since she was “spectating.”

She smiled and took a sip of the champagne. “I’m lucky I got the hat. Boy, you didn’t say anything about the shopping here.”

He frowned. “What’s wrong with the shopping?”

“Rick, here you only have one night of evening shopping and Saturday morning, every week. In America, we have seven days a week at mall hours. Getting one hat was like a major expedition!” She shuddered, remembering her blithe comment last Saturday afternoon about going out shopping in Cheltenham, the nearest city, only to be told the stores wouldn’t be open again until Monday morning.
Then
she discovered the shortage of straw hats. White gloves might have gone by the wayside, but hats were a regatta tradition. She couldn’t go without one.

Rick touched her hair. “Well worth it. You look about twelve.”

Suddenly giddy at his words, she said in a low voice, “You said I looked sexy.”

“A sexy twelve.” He chuckled. “I thought women liked to be told they look younger.”

“Not that young. Besides, you could be arrested for that.”

“You could tell me I’m a dirty old man.”

“You are.” She was actually sounding sultry, she thought in amazement.

He leaned forward. “A sexy dirty old man.”

She laughed, refusing to flush. “Not with that hat.”

He tilted his straw boater back on his forehead. “You don’t like my hat?”

“I love your hat.” She giggled. She couldn’t help it. Grahame had practically jammed the boater on Rick’s head that morning, telling him to “dress bleedin’ proper for once in your life.” But he did look good—extremely good—in his red and black piped blazer and white flannels. His boat club’s crest was embroidered on the blazer pocket. Somehow, she hadn’t been expecting the change from farmer to landed gentry. The facets of the man were … seductive.

She pushed away the reminder of her own near physical seduction the other night. She had been saved from disaster by a protesting set of muscles. She must have been insane to give in to her hormones that night.

She realized he was staring at her, as if aware of her every thought.

“Where’s Lettice?” she asked.

“Below deck, renewing acquaintances with some people.” He paused. “I’m glad you love my hat.”

She smiled and took another sip of the champagne, then looked around at the quiet river, the strolling crowd, and the glorious day. To hell with the Colonel for one moment, she thought. This was the first day of the regatta; there was no need to panic yet. She gave in to the dangerous enticement of having Rick all to herself and sighed with pleasure. “A person could get used to all this gentility.”

He gazed at her, his eyes intense, but in a different way from usual. “Good. Get used to it.”

This teasing between them was more perilous than her plan for the Colonel, she thought. The barge was filling with people, coming in for brunch and the first race of the day, but the two of them could almost have been alone. Almost.

“Kitteridge! Never expected to see you here. And don’t we all look ‘boated up’ like our parents did for our regatta week. Something we swore we’d never do.…”

The man who came up to them was dressed exactly like Rick and was about the same age. Rick grinned at him.

“Jill, meet Tommy Wellsmere, the worst rogue ever to scull the river.” To her shock, he put his arm around her as he introduced her. “Tommy, Jill Daneforth.”

The proprietary gesture was obviously not lost on Tommy. “Lovely to meet you. Rick, you old dog.”

“I know.”

Jill could feel her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. Somehow, she managed to smile and shake hands without showing her internal panic.

As the men talked, she found herself immersed in confusion. Rick had been very attentive over
the last few days, and yet equally careful not to do anything that could lead to a repeat of the other night. In fact, he only touched her briefly, like the earlier caress of her hair, or not at all. Platonic was too strong a word for his actions. Instead, they talked all the time, mostly about things medieval. She loved it, but now she realized it had drawn her guard down even further. If she had thought her awareness had been at an all-time high before, she knew better now.

There had definitely been a subtle change in their relationship. It was as if Rick were deliberately feeding the attraction between them, both physical and emotional, while giving her nothing concrete to protect against. She couldn’t shake the growing sense that he was relentlessly in pursuit of something she had. And now she was being lured in.

Other people followed Tommy over, and she was introduced to more of Rick’s fellow club members. By the dozens, it felt like, as she attempted to keep the names straight. Worse, Rick’s arm tightened with every new arrival, until she found herself pressed intimately to his side. She was tucked under the curve of his arm as if she belonged there, their hips practically melded together. She had wanted to stick close to him, but this wasn’t what she had in mind.

First there was no touching and now they were Siamese twins. She had a feeling her problems with the Colonel were nothing compared to this newly determined Rick Kitteridge.

His plan was working.

Rick watched Jill as she watched the third-day heats with intense concentration. From their vantage point at the finish line, they could see the boats coming around the last curve of the river.

She looked stunning in a light green and white dress that emphasized her slimness. With the soft dresses and flattering hats she wore, each day had brought a feast to his senses. Her eagerness to be there with him was immensely gratifying, and more than made up for the mishaps that greeted him every night at home. He loved watching her. Her gaze flitted everywhere it seemed, as if she were afraid to miss a thing. If he hadn’t known about her father, he would have sworn she’d never been to the races before.

She gasped and pointed across the water to Christ Church Meadow. “Look at those cows drinking!”

“Cows do that, you know,” he said calmly.

She shot him a stern look from under her hat. “I know that. I meant they’re going to panic when the boats come around.”

“Only if their favorite loses the race.”

The boats streamed by just at that moment, the favored team crossing the finish line first. The cows continued to drink placidly, completely ignoring the roaring cheers of the crowd.

Jill chuckled. “Amazing.”

“Nope, Trinity was odds on to win.”

“And the cows knew that. What a country!”

“I thought you’d been to the regatta before, with your father.”

“Once, when I was ten. That year, however, there were no cows drinking right at the finish line, but I do think I cramped my father’s style.”
She peered around again. “When does the next race start?”

“In a few minutes.”

She gave him a brilliant smile. “Then can we stroll around?”

Rick frowned. They had already strolled the entire length of the race course at least six times in the last two days. Clearly, Jill was big on walking.

“Sure,” he said, putting his hand on the small of her back to escort her. It was a touch of possessiveness.

She smiled and shyly ducked her head. With her slate-gray eyes, creamy complexion, and wealth of rich shoulder-length brown hair, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever brought to the regatta. And he had never enjoyed himself more than with her because
she
was enjoying herself so much. Upon occasion, though, she seemed distracted. But then she would focus back on the events, or better still, on him, and he dismissed it.

They passed his grandmother on the way out of the enclosure. Lettice was deep in conversation with the dean of Trinity College.

“Where are you two off to?” she asked, smiling.

“For a stroll,” Jill said. “Would you like to join us?”

Rick stared hard at his grandmother, daring her to accept.

“Archie and I are reminiscing,” Lettice said, waving them away. “Go enjoy yourselves.”

“We will,” Rick promised.

As he turned away, he would have sworn his grandmother winked at him.

Out in the open, they walked along the tow-path, sidestepping other strollers. Club tents and viewing barges lined the riverbanks. People mingled everywhere, the clipped British accents floating on the air.

“So who’s Archie?” Jill asked.

“The Honorable Archer Bowman,” Rick said, glancing back at the tent. “Venerable dean of Trinity College. And my grandmother calls him Archie. He’s at least eighty.”

“So’s your grandmother.”

Rich shook his head. “A dean is a bit like a Chinese emperor, kept away from the masses and revered like a god. Obviously, he has a naughty American in his past.”

Jill laughed.

Rick sighed, enjoyed the scene and the faint, well-remembered smell of the nearby brewery. “I think I’ve been on the farm too long.”

“I’m glad I wheedled you into this, then.”

He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. “I am too.”

His plan called for a little bit of intelligence and a lot of old-fashioned courtship. Being a constant companion, and the little gestures that required, was highly enjoyable. He had also discovered that control had its own sensual pleasures. The physical urges simmered just under the surface, while acute awareness invaded every aspect of their time together. He was too old to think that sex was all there was between him and a woman. And he would never do that to Jill. Of course, he was cutting off his nose to spite his face, or rather something lower down. He grinned wryly at the thought.

He knew his country’s past was her first love. All he had to do was to find ways to tempt her with that, until he was giving her lots of reasons to stay. Maybe this visit to Oxford would encourage her to go back to her studies. Maybe he ought to suggest it.

“Have you given any thought to doing that Domesday project Grandmother suggested?” he asked.

“I’m trying not to,” she admitted, after hesitation. “I have a job to go home to. Besides, much as I love the history, I’m not academically minded.”

He stopped them just at the side of the path. “You don’t have to teach. Hell, Jill, write a book that everyone can understand. Little tidbits, trivia, and descriptions of daily life from a thousand years ago. It would be like gossip and everyone loves that.”

She was staring at him, openmouthed. Abruptly she turned and started walking again. “It’s an interesting idea.”

He sensed that if he pushed it, she would close up. Remaining silent, he tucked her fingers tighter around his arm and patted them. He’d planted a seed. Now it either took or it didn’t.

His brain suddenly sprouted its own germ of an idea. A brilliant courtship idea, especially with everyone watching the regatta. It was time to apply a real old-fashioned courting technique, Oxford-style.

“Jill, how would you like to play a little hooky and sample an ancient Oxford tradition?”

She grinned. “How ancient?”

“Oh, at least a thousand years.” It wasn’t quite a lie for what he had in mind. “We won’t be long.”

She hesitated.

He wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass and steered her off the track toward Magdelan Bridge. “You’ll love it. I promise.”

Jill lay back against the cushions and trailed her hand through the water, letting the cool currents of the Cherwell River thread through her fingers.

Through half-closed eyes, she watched Rick, his hat perfectly square and his flannels immaculately white, as he stood at the stern of the long narrow punt. Never missing a beat, he pulled a long pole up hand over hand, dropped it straight down to the river bottom, and pushed the boat forward.

“All we need is a gramophone and we’d look as though we came right out of
Brideshead Revisited
,” she said. “When you play hooky, you don’t fool around.”

“I thought everybody would be over at the races on the Thames, not on this side of town, punting the Cherwell,” he said, glaring as a gang of college students went by in a rowboat, their boom box blaring U2.

“It’s an
ancient
tradition,” she reminded him. “Right up there with jetting to the Riviera.”

“People
have
been boating on this river since medieval times,” he defended himself.

“Since the dawn of time, I’m sure.” She chuckled. “Of course, they didn’t punt.”

“Maybe not quite like this,” he conceded, and smiled at her.

The smile nearly had her swooning. She didn’t
know when his smile had become so seductive, but it had been having that effect on her for the past day or so. If only, she thought for the thousandth time since the regatta began, she weren’t there on a mission. If only she could forget about the Colonel and the damned necklace and give herself up completely to Rick’s tantalizing attentions.

And if only Rick’s attentions included more than gentlemanly touches at her back and elbow, and the brushing of his lips across her cheek that passed for a good-night kiss. Once again, when she should be grateful to him for sensibly keeping his distance, she was irritated and frustrated enough to want to chuck all of her plans and cast herself into his arms, the consequences be hanged.