Elisabeth Fairchild (5 page)

Was it wise of her to publicly humiliate him before they had so much as said, “How do you do?”

She wanted to impress him, to astound him with how much she had changed, not alienate him from the start. She wanted him to see her as a beautiful and clever young lady, not a public annoyance.

Beating him had seemed so appropriate just a moment ago, so perfect. Now, as double sixes carried all but one of her men off the board while he struggled with two laggards, she was anxious to be gone.

And so, with the final throw, to the crowd’s cry of “Backgammon!” before Pip and his diminutive shadow could ascertain his defeat, before Pip could tear the blindfold from his eyes and recognize her, she rose in a rustling flurry of red and black satin and abandoned the game.

Chapter Five

Patience ran. A crimson bird given wing, she flew through the gathering crowd, no clear idea where she was going.

Behind her she heard sudden commotion. A thumping clatter, a cry, the flap of wings, a screeching squawk. She turned to see Pip wrenching the blindfold from his face as he vaulted the table, the cockatoo, clipped wings flapping awkwardly, trying to fly from his shoulder.

“You!” Pip cried out, the word meant for her. “Yes, you, in the red!”

His cry spurred her onward, through a sea of masked faces turned to look.

“Stop!”

The thump of running footsteps gained on her. The cockatoo screeched in earnest. The lad wailed, “My lord. The bird!”

Half of Patience’s mind urged her to stop; the other half railed,
This is worse than before!
He must not catch up to her, must not know who created such a scene.

She lifted her skirts and ran—away from the pavilion, into the darkness. Trees loomed ahead, a block of shrubbery and trees, surrounded by a head-high fence to keep one on the main promenade. She did not turn to look, simply ran, afraid she had ruined her chances with Pip, ashamed of her own pride, far too conspicuous at the moment in her red domino.

The bird’s screeching faded; the lad’s cries died away. Only the thump of Pip’s heels pursued her from the pathway into the grass, toward a spot where the fence staggered drunkenly. She was not the first to skirt the hedge and take cover in the trees. A path had been beaten down by the passage of feet.

Breathless, he called, “Wait!”

Too close. He was too close. She darted behind a holly, racing between tree trunks, branches catching at her hair, her mask.

“Patience, please!”

That he used her name brought her up short, took her breath away. From the shadows, beneath one of the trees, came a grunt, a sultry moan. Two pairs of legs were startlingly visible, one pair male, alarmingly hairy, half-clad in hunter’s green breeches lowered to the knee, exposing canary yellow stockings, pale thighs, and a breathtaking moon of pale buttocks that thrust itself in rhythmic motion between the second pair of legs, clearly female, clad in rumpled white-on-white striped stockings.

Patience might have assumed the woman in trouble but for the crooning noises made, and the fact that the white-stockinged legs moved as she watched to wrap around the man’s pale torso, drawing him closer.

All of this was witnessed in the blink of an eye. Patience’s mouth fell open in a gasp.

Fornicating! The two were fornicating in a public park!

Astounded, gasping, anxious to flee, she whirled in her tracks, mask slipping to her chin. Blindly she set off back the way she had come, struggling to right the eyeholes that she might see again. No more than a few strides, and she plowed into the all-too-solid form of a man.

He knocked her to the ground in a scarlet sprawl, landing on top of her in much the same scandalous position she had just witnessed. Mask blinding her, arms and legs entangled, her heart thudded like a runaway horse’s hooves. His own thundered in her ear in the brief moment her cheek pressed against his chest.

She was about to let loose a bloodcurdling scream when Richard asked in the most reasonable of voices, “Where in heaven’s name are you going?”

Not Pip. Not some stranger who meant to assault her. He smelled of cedar and lime.

Richard’s arms clasped her. Dear Richard. Dependable Richard.

“Oh, Richard!” She shoved free from his grip, righting the troublesome mask, feeling doubly foolish as she struggled to rise to her knees, to right her gown.

She could not look at him as he stood, not with the memories, the odd emotions she currently carried. She could not disconnect her mind entirely from the terrifyingly provocative image of a man’s naked buttocks thrust between a woman’s welcoming legs.

His breath came hard and fast as he jumped up and held out his hands. The look on his face was one of shock and growing anger. “What possessed you to run away like that, without so much as a word? Into the trees, of all places. You’ve no idea how dangerous this place can be for a young woman alone.”

She could not tell him, could not argue that she was far more aware than he realized. Richard would be horrified. He would insist upon taking her home.

No more groans came from the trees—not so much as a rustling noise in the shrubbery. Had Richard seen what she had seen? Did the lovers watch them from the cover of the trees?

“I am sorry,” she said at once, hoping he had not, hoping he would never know. She laced her fingers through his and leaned into the support of his arm as she stood. “You are right, of course.”

He batted a leaf from her skirt. She shook away a flurry of grass and dirt, and led him back toward the staggered section of fencing. Pausing in the cover of the holly she shook her skirts one last time and eyed the seams of her dress for damage from her fall. “It was very foolish of me to run.”

His features gentled, the worried pucker of dark brows overriding the pinch of his lips as he plucked a twig from her hair. “Why did you?”

She darted a glance over her shoulder, unable to remember now. The distraction of two sets of legs—and the action they had been engaged in—was mind numbing.

“I ran because . . .”

“Yes?” Richard’s gloved thumb stroked a lump of dirt from the side of her glove. He gave her fingers a friendly squeeze, and yet in that moment the motions seemed much more than friendly. His every touch seemed in some way connected to the squeeze of stocking-clad knees, to the thrust of bare buttocks. Her body ached down low, in a manner she had never felt it ache before, as if she had been the woman in rumpled stockings, as if she had borne the weight of a naked man cradled against her thighs.

She jerked her hand from Richard’s, folding her arms across her chest.

“I ran because . . .”

She could not imagine behaving so shamefully with any man, not even Pip. Pip! The card game. She flung our her hands in a frustrated gesture. “Because I was winning. You know how Pip hates to lose.” She hoped he would understand, that he would not find her enormously foolish. “It is not terribly mature to long to best one’s friend at games, is it?”

He reached the edge of the trees before her, ducked behind a nearby bush, and barred her from moving forward.

“What are you—”

He pressed a silencing finger to her lips, the kid leather pleasantly scented with his cologne.

She wondered for a wild moment if he meant to kiss her, here in the shadow of the trees, if dear, dependable Richard would ever dream of taking liberties, legs bare, buttocks thrusting.

He leaned closer.

She leaned back in disbelief.

“Wait,” he whispered, “until the path is clear. I would not wish your reputation ruined by . . . a misunderstanding. This place . . . these trees . . . are used for . . .”

“Illicit dalliance,” she hissed. “I know.”

He studied her a moment, tight-lipped.

“I mean, I’ve never—”

“Of course not,” he said, and turned his attention to the promenade.

She closed her eyes, curious what it would be like to participate in illicit dalliances, to be kissed, held, to lie naked with a man.

Her cheeks fired. The ache between her thighs intensified, went liquid. What was this strange desire? Was she a hoyden after all?

“Quickly now.” Richard beckoned.

She stumbled in skirting the edge of the fencing, felt completely self-conscious when Richard steadied her elbow, when he guided her billowing domino past the raw edges. His touch felt different, provocative. His glance, too, as if it kindled more heat in her.

They had done nothing in the least untoward, and yet she felt they took part in scandalous acts.

He cradled her hand in the crook of his arm, as was his habit, and she found herself no longer comfortable there, skin tingling, aware of his every movement, her nerves on edge.

“There,” he said, and gave her hand a pat. “That’s better. And in answer to your question, I have always believed that the point to games is to enjoy another’s company in a pleasant pastime.”

Pleasant pastime? Like lying naked with a man beneath a tree?

She shook her head. She must erase the vision of what she had seen from her mind. She must focus on what Richard was saying, on what had been happening before her mad dash for the woods.

“You do not agree?” he asked.

Pip. The game. She had run from the game.

“Certainly it was not ladylike,” she smiled, amused by her own unintentional double entendre. The remark applied equally well to her desire to beat Pip at games, and the desires expressed in the game she had just witnessed played out beneath the trees.

“What? Running?” Richard raised another aspect of what might be considered unladylike.

“All of it,” she said impatiently—impatient with herself. “I did so want to be ladylike when he saw me for the first time.”

She did not know what else to say, how to make him understand without sounding the complete idiot. “I was winning, and inwardly gloating, and it seemed suddenly most impolite of me to . . . to . . .”

“Disgrace Pip publicly?”

He knew the workings of her mind too well, dear Richard. She wondered if he would understand her mixed feelings about what she had seen.

“Pip is not one to hold a grudge,” he reminded her.

She let loose a breath. It seemed she had been holding it in for some time. She was the complete idiot! Sheepishly she studied her expensive red-heeled shoes, now muddied.

“But . . . I would not have him regard me . . . I would prefer not to have to try to explain . . .”

“What you cannot fully explain to me?”

“Yes.”

“We need not tell him it was you.”

She felt shamefacedly grateful that he should say so, but could not be content. “He knows it was a woman in red.”

He looked her up and down, his attention on her body, on her clothing, bringing heat to her cheeks. He laughed and stepped closer. She backed away, heat thrumming between her thighs again. She was not at all accustomed to Richard staring at her person.

“You need not be the woman in red,” he suggested, brows raised. “Lift your chin.”

She had no idea what he was about, but this was Richard, after all. Warily, but obediently, she lifted her chin.

His breath was warm on her face, his gaze serious as, fingers fumbling, brushing her throat, he undid the domino’s clasp and lifted the warm weight of satin from her shoulders. She blinked, the sensation surprisingly sensuous. Turning the cloak inside out, he draped her again, in evening-chilled satin.

Of course. How simple!

So painless Richard made the thorniest of problems.

“It now appears you wear a black domino with red trim,” he said, smoothing the seam across her shoulders.

“Brilliant!” She clapped her gloved hands with such enthusiasm he blushed and grew even clumsier than before. But perhaps it was only that he must now fix the clasp from the inside out, his fingers warm and hard against her throat, little room for maneuvering. It required dexterity. He could not manage it with his gloves on, and so he bit down impatiently on an immaculate kid fingertip and tugged his hand free. How warm his bare fingers at her neck! She had not realized the evening air had grown so chill.

She shivered and then blushed, her mind on two sets of legs. Her eyes were drawn to Richard’s legs, the muscular bulge of his thighs. She forced herself to look away, then to look him in the eyes. How warm his expression, how affectionate. It pleased her to think he was no longer mad at her.

“How do I look? Will Pip know?” She patted the billowing folds when he was done.

He yanked the glove on again as he looked her over with a curt nod. Behind him, from the pavilion, the voice of Mr. Charles Dignum rang out sweet and true.

Not so sweet Richard’s voice. “Gave me a devil of a scare, running away as you did. Do not ever do that again while you are in my care.”

Patience did not like to see him frown at her. It ruined the moment, her pleasure in his clever idea. It reminded her she was younger and more foolish than he.

He thrust his elbow in her direction as sharply as he said, “Come along, then.”

She obeyed, the moment spoiled.

***

Pip’s audience proved too thick for the two of them to continue abreast of one another the closer they got to the game tables. Patience let go of Richard’s arm as they approached. At least that was the reason she convinced herself she dropped his arm. She could not admit to herself that she felt suddenly awkward and self-aware with his every touch. She could not even begin to admit a more selfish reason, a reason that might remind her yet again that she was a foolish young female. Had she been completely honest, she would have had to admit she did not want Pip’s first view to be of her clutching Richard’s arm. She had never imagined it thus.

Richard looked back when her fingers slid away, concern in his eyes, a return of that panic he had met her with when she had run away. It bothered her to provoke such a look.

“I am right behind you,” she assured him.

He nodded, mouth pinched, and now and then glanced back to see that she still followed.

The peacock-coated lad passed among the final round of beaten players, turban in hand, into which he gathered the coins his master had won.

Pip had removed his blindfold, and stood talking to the pretty Lady Wilmington, dimples flashing, a coy smile tugging at his lips. He seemed to be trying to coax her into something.

She thought the words his lips formed were, “Tell me, who . . .?”

The cockatoo unfurled the snow white feathers at its crest, and shrieked, “Dickey-boy’s here. Dickey-boy. Dickey-boy.”

Pip turned. “Richard!” he called cheerily. “How good to see you.”

The cockatoo bobbed its head and repeated, “Good to see you. Good to see you.”

Lady Wilmington turned her head with exquisite grace.

“Yes, Pippet. I am here,” Richard agreed, and reached out, finger crooked, to stroke the bird’s breast.

The bird leaned into his hand as if it knew and enjoyed the gesture.