Irma grinned, showing dimples alongside her mouth. “Never, but not even Mama can make us marry gentlemen who don’t ask. And I mean to make sure they never do.”
Nessie worried her lip between perfect white teeth. “I don’t believe I could act vulgarly enough to give Mr. Frye a disgust of me, Irma.”
And Iselle fretted: “If you’re thinking I can get myself up to look like a hag in order to discourage Lord Wingate, I don’t think I can do it. Remember when I was supposed to be Medusa for that masquerade? Everyone laughed.”
Irma drew her sisters closer. “I know neither of you is good at deception, so you’ll just have to trust me. Nessie, you can be as good as ever, and Ellie, twice as beautiful, if that’s possible. Just listen…”
3
His boots were dusty, by Jupiter. Dusty and scuffed and caked with mud. Damn if they didn’t look good to Brigham Winn, Viscount Wingate. Here he was, alone in the English countryside, with no one to impress but the occasional sheep or cow and his own horse. And the stallion trailing behind him at the end of the reins was missing a shoe altogether, so the blasted horse couldn’t complain. Winn laughed out loud with the sheer joy of freedom. He looked back along the tree-lined lane the way he had come, then forward on the leafy path, then reached up with his free hand and loosened his neck cloth. Walking one’s horse for a few hours was warm work, even if the bright autumn sunshine did not carry much heat with it. The viscount told himself that it would not do to arrive at Bannister Grange looking like some kind of undergroom, but he was gambling on getting ’Ledo to the stables, then finding a servant to direct him to a side door before he had to greet his hosts. That is, if he ever found Bannister Grange at all.
Lord Wingate had been wandering these country byways for hours, it seemed, after leaving his carriage, baggage, groom, and valet at the last posting stop. The ostler had sworn he knew the best way to get to the Grange across the fields and streams, the best ride to challenge both nobleman and stallion. Master and horse had been confined too long, held to the carriage’s slow pace halfway across Europe, making their way to London after three days’ delay for the Channel crossing. Then they had to idle about for a fortnight in town waiting on the Cabinet ministers and doing the pretty with Wingate’s mother and her friends. It was exhilarating to have the strength of the stallion beneath him as hedgerow and stone wall flew by. It was not quite as exhilarating to walk miles out of the way to find an opening in those same fences and brambles after the steel gray Toledo cast a shoe. The ostler’s directions, of course, meant nothing if horse and rider couldn’t take the third fence after jumping the brook, catercorner from the fallen elm, et cetera. By the time he found a low spot to lead the stallion across a fast-running stream that was strewn with dangerous rocks, he couldn’t locate a fence post, fallen tree, or his hat.
So he was lost and late, damp and dirty—and he didn’t care. The viscount was no longer a public figure. He was not representing England, the throne, or the entire British upper class. Negotiations did not hinge on the punctilio of his address, nations were not going to rise or fall on the height of his shirt points or the depth of his bow. Brigham Winn was a free man.
If he was about to assume another type of yoke, well, he still knew his duty to God, the king, and the family name, but, deuce take it, he was going to enjoy these last hours of liberty. Like a small boy, he kicked up piles of fallen leaves with every boot step until the stallion snorted and sidled at the end of the reins.
“Very well, lad,” the viscount told the horse, “I’ll stop playing and get on with finding you your supper and a cozy crib for the night. Ah, but ’Ledo, isn’t England a pretty place?” Wingate paused to wave his hand around, encompassing the blue skies, the scarlet leaves, the rolling fields. The horse nudged him from behind, sending him on his way again. “Yes, yes, I am going. You have no poetry in your soul, though. Come along now, there’s a hill just ahead. Likely I’ll be able to spot some landmark or other from there, or at least a farmhouse where I can ask directions.”
Wingate was right. From the top of the hill, he could look down to what had to be the main highway, from the width and condition of the road. On another rise across the road, he could see the chimneys of a large building, large enough to be Bannister Grange itself. He checked his watch. With any luck his own coach would be passing by shortly, and he could freshen his appearance before reaching his destination after all. Unless the carriage with his valet and clean clothes had already gone by. Undecided, Wingate looked around him while the horse cropped the still-green grass.
The viscount took a deep breath, catching wood smoke and the hint of an apple press in the air. Cultivated fields stretched in all directions, grains tied in bundles or piled in ricks, waiting for the lumbering wagons and huge workhorses he could see making their way from row to row. The windbreak evergreens made dark contrast to the orange and yellow leaves of the vines and hedges. “I cannot help it, ’Ledo,” he told the disinterested animal, “I am happy to be home in England, especially at this time of year. It may be trite but no less true for all that: autumn truly is a glorious season.” Wingate turned back to gather the reins again when another splash of color caught his eye from the side of the hill he was on, closer to the road. As he went nearer, leading the stallion, the brightness defined itself into a female figure in a russet frock reclining on an undyed wool blanket beneath a small hawthorne tree. A maid on her half day off, he thought a bit enviously, waiting for her beau for a picnic in the grass. At least someone could tell him if his carriage had passed by recently and if that was, indeed, Bannister Grange.
Unfortunately, the maid appeared to be asleep. He tied ’Ledo to a nearby branch so as not to startle her, and walked quietly to her side, then silently whistled. This was no maidservant. Not in a russet velvet riding habit cut in the latest military fashion, and no child, either, judging from how the velvet hugged a delightful little figure. He looked around for the horse and spotted a dainty roan mare across the roadway, placidly cropping grass. That was no workhorse, and this was no farmer’s daughter picking berries or whatever. So where was the groom who should have been in attendance? Well-bred young ladies did not loll about empty hillsides for any passing stranger to chance upon. England could not have changed that much in his absence. Gads, what if he’d been one of the roving ex-soldiers or an angry, out-of-work farmhand?
He sank down beside the foolish wench, a scowl on his face, ready to blister her ears with a few home truths, when he saw the pistol tucked under her skirts. Not quite a henwit, then, if the pistol were loaded, if she knew how to use it, and if she had the bottom to shoot a man. That pointed little chin seemed to indicate enough determination, but there was a sweetness around the lips that hinted at a tender heart. He found himself wondering what color the chit’s eyes were, and if they’d be stormy if he kissed those soft lips awake. He gently nudged the pistol further out of her reach, just in case he let his baser instincts win out. ’Twould teach the girl a lesson, he tried to convince himself, and failed. He was still a gentleman, for all his release from duty. Wingate sighed and forced his eyes away from those tempting lips. The corners of his own mouth tilted up when he studied the jaunty little hat, now cocked over one brow, with a green ostrich feather resting against one creamy cheek. Fine lot of good that minuscule bonnet was doing keeping the sun off her face, about as much as the pistol was protecting her from unsought admiration. By the freckles he spotted and the warm-toned skin, Sleeping Beauty was no more caring of her complexion than she was of her reputation. And that red hair—a minx for sure.
It wasn’t quite red, not carroty at all, more a mix of gold and copper, with curls that just asked a man to hold them to the light, to watch the fiery glimmers change color. Damnation, his wits must have gone begging along with his hat.
Winn looked away with a twinge of regret that the unknown miss wasn’t one of the Bannister daughters, who were exquisitely fair, according to his mother. Then who the devil was she, and what was she doing out here alone on what had to be Bannister property? And with a pistol. He had not forgotten the pistol.
He moved it farther away, feeling guilty at the liberties he had taken, if only in his mind. Hell, if he gave way to even a quarter of the impulses this female was stirring, she’d have every right to shoot him. On the other hand, he couldn’t just go away and leave her unprotected this close to the road. Winn started to clear his throat when a paper fluttered at the girl’s other side. He moved around to see what he’d missed, a drawing pad and a set of watercolor paints together with a small jug of water and a rag. Ah, so she was off on a drawing excursion, practicing one of those paltry skills deemed so necessary among debutantes, like harp playing and batting their eyelashes just so. Winn swallowed his disappointment as he flipped back the page on her painting. Lud, she needed a lot of practice!
The view from the hill was there, the reds and golds of the changing leaves, the blue of a cloudless sky, and the greens where the grasses hadn’t turned yet, even the browns of the harvested fields—except the browns came more from her reds and greens running together, and all the colors flowed and moved like leaves on the breeze. There was no recognizable feature in the whole picture, and yet the chit had captured the essence of the autumn day as seen through half-blind or squinted eyes. Winn looked around for spectacles. No. Perhaps she just saw things through a child’s mind, then? There would have been an attendant here for sure if she was that much of a slowtop. With his collector’s eye, Wingate decided the chit was either brilliant, doing with autumn what Turner did with fog, or she was a wretched watercolorist. Undoubtedly she was using the excuse of painting to avoid whatever duties awaited her at home, the same as he was avoiding his.
To put the moment off a bit more, he replaced the painting next to her on the blanket, only this time upside down. Not that it made much of a difference, he decided, a definite quirk in his smile. He stood back and studied the new still life he had created: the vibrantly colored girl, the vivid painting, the radiant hillside. “Yes,” he said aloud, “the glories of autumn, indeed.”
Green. Her eyes were bright green, and his connoisseur’s heart breathed a sigh of satisfaction. “Ah.”
Irma jerked herself upright and groped for the pistol. But, “Ah?” What kind of threatening sound was “ah?” The attractive stranger did not seem menacing, especially when he knelt on one knee so that he no longer loomed over her.
“I mean you no harm, miss,” Irma’s fuddled mind heard him saying, over the pounding of her heart. She took a deep breath and a better look at the gentleman, for such he assuredly was, even from her narrow experience with the breed. His coat and boots, albeit dusty, proclaimed he patronized the finest London tailors, and the dark gray stallion she could see tied nearby was as neat a piece of horseflesh as anything in even Mr. Frye’s stable. The rider’s accent was refined, his voice low and pleasant. The breadth of his shoulders and the buckskin-clad muscles on his flexed thigh showed him to be in superb condition for a man with as many gray hairs as brown.
“Do I pass inspection, or shall you shoot me after all?” Warm brown eyes flickered to the pistol, still out of her reach. But he smiled.
Irma blushed furiously to be caught staring like a gapeseed, all the while thinking that the gray hair was deceiving. He was not old at all; the boyish grin took ten years off his age. Which, she belatedly reflected, made her encounter with him on this hillside even more improper. She hurriedly got to her feet.
“Please don’t let me frighten you away from your, ah, artistic endeavor,” he said indicating the watercolor painting.
Irma could feel her cheeks grow still warmer. She straightened her hat and started packing up the paint box, her sister Nessie’s set since Irma never possessed such a thing. She could feel his smiling regard while she folded the blanket. Then she realized the feather on her hat—why ever had she let Ellie talk her into such an absurdly useless little bonnet?—was dangling straight between her eyes. As she lowered her hand after adjusting the plume, she noticed with horror the orange streaks on her fingers, streaks which must have been transferred to her forehead. She couldn’t blush any harder, could she? A quick glance at the stranger showed his eyes twinkling, but he gallantly refrained from comment, only holding out a fine-edged linen handkerchief.
“Thank you, but I have one right…” But she’d used hers to wipe the brushes, having forgotten to bring a rag. Her own scrap of cloth looked quite as atrociously colorful as the painting. There was nothing for it but to borrow his after all, a perfect stranger’s! Mama would have a spasm. “Thank you, my lord.”
Then she stood looking at the cloth, already blotted with orange. No mirror, and the only water was the jug she’d used to wash the brushes. Why did these things always happen to her? Iselle could walk through a soot storm and not get smudged.
Winn took the cloth back, held it toward her mouth, and said “Spit.”
“My lord?” She couldn’t have heard right.
“I said spit. Or ride back to your house looking like a Red Indian on the warpath.”
The earth wasn’t about to open up and swallow her, no matter how Irma might dearly have wished it, so she stuck her tongue out, dampened the cloth, and permitted an attractive stranger with dancing eyes and casual neck cloth to wipe her face. In a lifetime of misdeeds, never had she done anything this far beyond the line. Never mind Aunt Irmintrude; Mama would ship her to the Antipodes.