Caroline had been surveying the modest taproom, nothing but wooden floors and plain tables. It was attractive because though it was simple, it did have a quaint quality and thankfully was clean. She lifted her brows. “Yes?”
“Are you quite certain you wish to do this?”
Her gaze turned into a stare as she looked at the young man. His skin had taken on a dusky color.
Of course. Huw knew about the wager and her part in it. He had stayed in the servants’ quarters at Tenterden Manor during her five days with Nicholas—he must have easily guessed. Huw stood there with his hat in his hand, a light coating of dust on his uniform from the drive. His hair was dark and curly and framed a face with an expression that was a mixture of embarrassment and concern.
It was touching.
Still, she tried to prevaricate. Faintly, she asked, “Do what?”
“It isn’t my place to say, madam, but the duke . . . well, he wouldn’t be pleased you’re here, if you ask me.”
Since this was the same young man who had driven them around London while they made love in her carriage, she couldn’t help but blush. But still she bristled a little at the assumption Rothay had any say over what she did. After all, the man had made no declaration of feeling for her whatsoever.
He wanted her, which was something else.
She wished for more. Yes, she did, or she wouldn’t be now meeting Lord Manderville at some unprepossessing country inn.
Servants knew everything. It was a point she often forgot because in the past there was nothing about her to know.
Caroline smiled ruefully. “Why do you think I am here in the first place? I am hoping His Grace doesn’t like it at all.”
Huw’s face broke into a tentative smile. “I see.”
The man actually looked relieved. Such was Rothay’s compelling charm. She remembered the two men chatting about horses once or twice in her hearing back at the country estate. It had impressed her he addressed the Welsh lad with the same easy camaraderie as anyone else.
Huw liked him. She liked him too. She liked him too much for her peace of mind. Nicholas was infinitely likable. That was not in question. Too many women could testify to his magnetic allure.
Whatever she might have said next was silenced by the entrance of the very man she waited for. Well, that wasn’t accurate. She was expecting Lord Manderville. She waited—and hoped—for Nicholas.
Derek looked dashing as ever even dressed less formally than his usual style, his cravat simple white linen, his coat draped over his arm instead of spanning his shoulders. His hair was boyishly tousled and his blue eyes were alight. A smile graced his aristocratic features. He inclined his head politely at Huw and bowed to her. “My lady.”
She nodded at her young driver in dismissal, touched admittedly by his protectiveness. “Thank you, Huw.”
He hesitated for a moment and then left.
She turned to the earl. “I see we arrived at about the same time, my lord.”
The innkeeper hadn’t missed the aspect of a liveried driver or the way the two of them addressed each other. He was a rotund man with a bald crown, a florid face, and a nose with a reddish hue that indicated perhaps he imbibed quite a bit of ale himself. He hurried forward.
Derek took her hand and gave her fingers a small squeeze. One eyebrow went up in a haughty arch as he addressed the proprietor. “We’ll be staying a few days. My correspondence should have reached you last week.”
“Our finest room, yes indeed, milord.” The man wiped his perspiring face with a handkerchief, shoved the cloth back in his pocket, and led them to a small flight of stairs.
They followed, Caroline conscious of the earl’s light grip, aware that something about him was different. She didn’t know him well, but even she could sense it.
They entered an attractive room with half-timbered walls, a large bed with a patterned quilt in various shades of blue and green, and two small windows that overlooked a stream bordered by a meadow full of grazing sheep. A small back garden full of vegetables looked promising at least as far as the menu might go.
Of course, it was her hope not to stay too long.
Would Nicholas care enough to come and stop what he was supposed to think was going to happen?
Derek’s theory was he would. She didn’t have the same easy confidence, but in some ways, she supposed, she didn’t know Nicholas as well as his friend. But she wanted to know him. God in heaven, how she yearned for another moonlit balcony dance or, even better, to wake up in sleepy dishabille next to him again, his arm around her, the wisp of his breath against her cheek as he slept. . . .
“Annie has severed her engagement.”
Caroline, who was staring out the window at a ewe with two small lambs flanking her on either side, turned around and smiled. “I rather thought you seemed lighthearted when you arrived. Now I know why.”
“What you need to know is you have my undying gratitude. Whatever you said to her had the desired effect.”
Caroline took a seat on the chair by the small fireplace. “I simply told her the truth. That it was a disservice to them both if she married Lord Hyatt when she was in love with you.”
Derek chose the bed, settling down with casual ease.
Naturally, Caroline thought with a twinge of wry observation. He was hardly a novice at sharing small rooms at inns with a variety of ladies. For her the stakes were much higher. She was putting her reputation in as much jeopardy as when she’d gone to Essex. Not for passion but as a ruse.
She felt unsure, but Derek had sworn it would be a success.
“Did she admit she was in love with me?”
“No.”
His lordship looked crestfallen. Yes, a first-caliber rake with a reputation to make any maiden blush looked like a child who had just had his sweet taken away. “I see. I rather hoped—”
“Did you honestly think she’d tell me, a mere casual acquaintance, something so personal? I did almost all the talking, but to be honest, my lord, I think she was already inclined toward breaking it off with Lord Hyatt.” Caroline cocked a brow. “I doubt, even with her engagement over, it is going to be easy for you to win her back. Her love for you isn’t in question; it’s her trust. That is a commodity that once destroyed is not so easily replaced.”
“I realize that.” He shifted a little from his perch on the side of the bed, his booted feet scraping the floor. “I’ve agonized over it, believe me.”
He’d
agonized
over it. Annabel was lucky.
“Women have romantic notions over how we should be wooed and won.”
His smile was a glimmer. “Are you going to lecture me now about women, my lady? I am rumored to be an expert, I warn you.”
His charm was certainly a palpable thing. No wonder Annabel Reid had fallen for it. If Caroline were not so involved with Nicholas Manning, she would probably have been susceptible herself. She smiled. “If it were not for your reputation—and Nicholas’s—we would not be sitting here, would we?”
He gazed at her across the room. “If it were not for the bet, you and Nick would still be nodding acquaintances, Annabel would still be planning her wedding, and I would still consider myself impotent to change things. I find I cannot regret the wager now.”
“Will he come?” Her question came out involuntarily and she looked immediately away.
Derek chuckled. “Oh yes.”
His confidence was reassuring, but she wasn’t sure she shared it. “Why are you so certain?”
“Because of several things, but mostly because of eleven days.”
Caroline wrinkled her brow. “Eleven days?”
“He knew exactly how many days had passed since the two of you left Essex. Whether or not I know women, I know about the male of our species, since I am one myself. Keeping track of such a thing is not normally in our nature. He counted the days. It says it all.”
Caroline was still an ingenue when it came to intrigue of this sort. “That means something?”
“It does. Take my word.”
“I have, for quite a lot of things. If I did not have faith in your integrity, I would not be sitting here now.”
“I suppose not.” Azure eyes regarded her with what looked like resigned humor. “Nicholas finds your approach to society’s censure an annoyance.”
“An annoyance to his purposes, you mean.”
“He likes his liaisons without strings, I admit.”
“And most women bow to his whims.” She sat up straighter.
Derek gave her a level look. “Which you have not. Look how it has brought him to his knees.”
“I haven’t seen much evidence of that.”
“For Nick, his distraction and irritation is evidence of itself. I know I’ve never seen it before. Well”—he hesitated—“let’s say I haven’t seen it but once before. It proved disastrous then. He’s understandably wary.”
She was intrigued and recalled when she asked if there had ever been anyone special, how flippant Nicholas had become. “Who was she?”
“If he wants to tell you, he will.”
Men
, Caroline thought in irritation. When they closed ranks, it was impossible to glean information.
Lord Manderville grinned, his well-shaped mouth boyishly curved.
It was angelically infectious. Caroline could not help it. She grinned back. “So, what do we do now?”
He said succinctly, “We wait for the grand entrance.”
Chapter Twenty-four
H
e’d waited too damn long. Nicholas pulled his horse up and cursed under his breath. Yes, he’d hedged and procrastinated and tried to deny his overwhelming urge to follow his gut, but he’d finally succumbed.
Good God. He’d followed them.
All the way to Aylesbury. Several pointed questions of loquacious and only marginally informative residents told him he had located the right inn.
Hell and blast, he was making a fool of himself.
It was modest and small, set at the edge of town, with a pitched roof and flowers in boxes beneath the windows. It was not quite what he’d have chosen, but it wasn’t his right to choose it either. Derek was trying to be discreet at Caroline’s request, no doubt.
Derek and Caroline. Together.
Dismounting, Nicholas tossed the reins to a young lad that came out of the stables, and stalked to the door. Inside, the place was adequate in a countrified way, he supposed, for a romantic fling.
Which might be just what Caroline wanted, he reminded himself.
Had she given him any indication of wishing for anything else?
In the carriage the evening when he’d been reduced to asking favors of servants and hiding like a thief in the night just to see her, he’d disappointed her. Caroline wasn’t sophisticated enough to conceal her expression when he’d confessed to being wary of her and she’d asked him why.
The answer was clear, he thought with grim self-reproof: because he was leery she’d make him do ridiculous things like riding at top speed for hours to some little countrified inn to stop her from settling a very ill-advised, juvenile wager.
He loved Derek like a brother. This interference was as much to save their friendship as anything else.
No, it wasn’t, he told himself with rueful honesty. It was selfish, because he could not bear the thought of the two of them together.
In bed. Touching, kissing . . .
He hoped like hell he wasn’t too late.
A small plump man had stopped wiping one of the tables at his entrance, reacting to the hint of impatience and purpose in Nicholas’s expression.
Nicholas said in a clipped voice, “I’m looking for two guests. A beautiful woman with auburn hair and a tall blond man. Where are they?”
The proprietor eyed his expensive clothing and gauged his social status. “My lord, I can’t—”
“You may call me Your Grace,” Nicholas corrected with a lethal edge to his tone. If his title held weight to get him expedient answers, he’d use it. “And please answer my question or I will simply pound on all the doors until I discover where they are.”
“First room to the right at the top of the stairs.” The innkeeper understood the impatience in his tone very well. The towel dangled limply from his pudgy hand.
Nicholas nodded and turned, but then swung back around. “How long have they been here?”
“Several hours, Your Grace.” The confession ended on a squeak.
Under his breath, Nicholas muttered a curse. Why the devil had he waited, pacing in his damn study, for so long? It was already beginning to get dark outside.
He took the stairs two at a time, as if haste at this late hour could make a difference. At the correct door he stopped, rigid and arrested, as he heard a small breathless laugh.
Feminine and familiar. In Essex he’d heard it often enough, usually sighed in his ear as they lay in bed together. Spontaneous and free and as lovely as the rest of her when she wasn’t rigidly holding everything in an icy facade of detachment.
Nicholas lifted his hand to knock and paused, another scene coming back, like a ghost drifting past in the subdued lighting of the hallway.
Helena had disappeared. He knew because he’d been so acutely aware of her every movement, the fluid grace of her body as she danced, the curve of her smile, the sway of her hips as she walked.
Where was she?
Outside for a bit of fresh air? Certainly it was warm enough; certainly the closeness of the room was a good reason.
Why had he gone looking for her?
Because he’d known. It had happened to him, after all. That alluring glance, the brief pressure on his arm, the delicate and subtle scene of seduction.
Yes, he’d known.
So instead of looking on the terrace or in the gardens, he’d gone quietly upstairs. And stood there, on the wrong side of a closed bedroom door, and heard them.
Dear God, he’d heard them. She was supposedly in love with him, yet here she was enjoying a passionate moment with another man—he didn’t even have to walk into the room to know it was true.
He recognized that light, breathy exhale of pleasure. . . . He knew it. It was branded in his brain, his nerve endings, his heart. . . .