How to Beguile a Beauty (16 page)

Suddenly Lydia was very out of charity with men who said anything, any nonsense at all, in order to beguile women. “Thank you, Justin. You're rather a marvel
yourself, as if you were unaware of it, which I feel certain you are not, posing as you were a moment ago.”

“Close your mouth, Justin, she got the better of you. Oh, and for all your supposed waiting on us, your hair's still damp,” Tanner pointed out as Justin stood back and winked at Lydia as she was escorted past him and into the room. “You might also be slightly out of breath, probably from running down the back stairs only moments ahead of our arrival. The door to our shared chamber was still swinging back and forth when I approached it. Where's Jasmine?”

“Your cousin? I have no idea. Have you misplaced her? For shame, Tanner.”

Lydia and Tanner exchanged looks. “I may have inadvertently said something to upset her while we were upstairs,” Lydia told him. “But surely she wouldn't have just gone off on her own. Would she?”

“God knows,” Tanner ground out, already turning for the doorway, Lydia right behind him.

“Mind if I start without you?” Justin called after them. “Never mind, I'll take that growl as a yes. Do hurry back.”

“Where would she have gone?” Lydia asked Tanner as they first poked their heads into the taproom, and then headed outside, to the dusty inn yard. “Does she often take herself off to sulk?”

“How do you think she got lost in the West Wing at Malvern?” Tanner said, raking his spread fingers through his dark blond hair. “What did you say to her?”

Since the truth was not hers to tell and therefore out
of the question—as well as self-serving, something she had already considered—Lydia ignored him, and only pointed to a path that led into a stand of trees. “Could she have gone that way?”

Her question was answered by Jasmine herself, who just then appeared on the path, her arms filled with wildflowers. The sun filtered down on her through the trees, setting small fires in her dark hair, and she looked the picture of innocence, of youth, of ethereal beauty.

“Christ on a crutch…” Tanner swore under his breath, clearly not impressed.

“Yoo-hoo, Tanner, Lydia! Have you been looking for me?” she called out, hastening across the inn yard to them. “Oh, dear, you're frowning, the pair of you. Of course you have been looking for me,” she said, her slim shoulders slumping, her smile fading as her bottom lip began to tremble. “I'm so, so sorry. Only I saw these pretty blooms on the table just inside, and a servant told me the flowers grow wild all along the stream just down that path, and how could I resist? I simply knew I had to see them, fill my arms with them, and make dearest Lydia a present of them.” She thrust the flowers straight at Lydia. “Here. Please let them be my apology for using both of the towels earlier. Did you think I didn't notice?”

Lydia would have liked to ask her what she'd give her to make up for the pilfered sugared bun, but only took the flowers, some of them still with their roots, and dripping mud, she noticed, and held them away from her body. “Thank you, Jasmine. That is very kind of you.”

“And rather foolish,” Tanner said, handing Jasmine his handkerchief, for her hands were muddy. “You shouldn't have gone off on your own. This isn't Malvern.”

“Yes, Tanner,” she answered quietly, handing him back the handkerchief, which was now streaked with mud. He looked at it rather blankly for a moment before folding it and shoving it back in his pocket. “I won't do it again, I promise. Now, do you suppose the innkeeper's wife will have a pretty vase for us, hmm? The flowers will make a lovely centerpiece as we have our little meal. I'll just go ask her, all right?”

“She's such a child,” he said as they watched her race into the inn after snatching the flowers back from Lydia.

“In some ways,” Lydia said, thinking once again of the note she'd found in the girl's reticule, suddenly feeling quite aged, and distressingly virginal. “Did your father know her well?”

A small smile tickled at one corner of Tanner's mouth. “You think he was punishing me from the grave, with that deathbed declaration of his? I've thought of that myself, more than once. Not that I can believe he made any such statement.”

“You don't?” Lydia's heart skipped a beat. Really. It was most disconcerting how talk of Tanner's future affected her. “Is that why—”

“Why it has been over two years, and I still haven't declared myself to her?” He was looking at her very intensely. “No, Lydia. That is not the reason, and it hasn't been, not for a long time.” He took her hands in his.
“Lydia, we really should talk. Lord only knows how much privacy we'll have at Malvern. Would you care to go see the wildflowers?”

“Yes, I…I think that would be—”

“
There
you are! What's the matter, Tanner, can't you remember the way to the dining room?”

“Go away, Justin,” Tanner said, still looking at Lydia.

“Go away, Justin, is it? Oh, foul, foul! That's the reward I get for ordering us all a fine meal—dearest Jasmine is making heavy inroads on the ham, by the way, if you were planning on having any of it yourself. Now come along. There will be plenty of time for billing and cooing once we're at Malvern. If we ever manage to make it through this supposed quick stop and back on the road, that is. Lydia, my arm,” he ended, extending his bent arm to her so that she had no other choice but to take it. She looked over her shoulder as she was directed into the inn, and Tanner was following them, a scowl on his handsome face.

“I've ordered up a variety of the plain fare offered here,” Justin told Lydia as he guided her toward the private dining room, “but you needn't confine yourself to that, as I've also brought along several tins from my own kitchens. Have you ever tasted honeyed figs?”

“No, I can't say that I have. I don't believe I've ever even seen a fig. They sound…interesting,” Lydia said as he pulled out a chair for her and then sat himself down beside her, leaving Tanner to take up his seat across the table, beside Jasmine. He was still scowling, which for reasons she didn't wish to investigate as they
might brand her as silly and shallow, seemed to be cheering her no end.

“Well then, I can see that it is my current duty in life to remedy that sad lack. Did you know that, in some of our more exotic countries, the fig is known as an aphrodisiac?”

“Enjoying yourself, Justin?” Tanner gritted out, pouring himself a glass of wine.

“Oh, yes. Immensely. We both are, aren't we, Lydia?”

She refused to answer, but only watched as he opened a tin that had been wrapped in a thick towel and spooned what had to be a sweet-smelling half-fig onto his plate. He then topped it with a dollop of—“what is that?”

“Goat cheese, my dear. Nothing quite like good country goat cheese, which mine host provided, bless him.” He then cut the fig in half once again and lifted a piece toward her, speared on the end of his fork. He placed his other hand beneath the fork, to catch any drips of honey. “It's still warm, the fig, that is. Here you go—ambrosia for the lady.”

With no other recourse than to refuse and seem silly and unadventurous, Lydia opened her mouth and Justin fed her. Her lips closed around the fork and he smiled when her eyes widened as the sweet and yet tangy combination of fig and honey and goat cheese exploded on her tongue.

While the fork was still between her lips, he lifted the other half of the fig in his fingers and, his face close to hers, popped the thing into his own mouth.

It was all so curiously intimate.

“Oh, for the love of heaven, Justin, give over. You're making a cake of yourself.”

Lydia watched as Justin smiled around his mouthful of fig, and then winked at her as if Tanner's reaction had been just what he'd wished for.

“I shouldn't think I'd like to try that at all,” Jasmine offered, without being asked. “They look funny. The figs, that is, not Lydia and Justin, or at least not so much. And I don't much care for goat cheese. Spit it out if you want to, Lydia, I'm sure no one would mind.”

The loverlike expression on Justin's handsome face turned to one of almost abject horror as he looked across the table at Jasmine, while Tanner began to laugh out loud in real pleasure.

Perhaps it would be fun to be courted by two men, two such very different men. Lydia hid her own smile behind her serviette.

“S
HE THINKS YOU'RE
amusing, you know,” Tanner told Justin once they were back on their horses and on the road once more, Lydia and Jasmine inside the coach. “Rather like a trained monkey.”

“Ah, but much better dressed, you'll admit,” Justin said, clearly not taking offense. “Are you ready to rescind your invitation?”

“I didn't
invite
you to pursue her, damn it. I only said she is not mine to…to—oh, stop grinning. Now you look like an ape.”

“You know what's wrong with you, Tanner?” Justin said amicably, pulling two cheroots from his pocket and offering one to his friend. “You're too good.”

“I wouldn't count on that quite so much. I'm feeling less
good
by the minute. Now, how in hell are we going to light these things?”

Justin reached once more into his waistcoat pocket and produced a small bleached stick, the top half of which appeared to be coated with something. “Observe, Tanner, as I do magic.”

So saying, he then struck the coated end of the stick against his saddle, and the stick caught fire.

“Hurry, the magic doesn't last that long,” he said, and Tanner leaned half out of his saddle toward Justin, cupped his hand around the tip of his cheroot and the small flame, which did indeed die quickly. “Good, now I'll light mine from yours, if you don't mind.”

Tanner passed over his cheroot. “What was that?”

“Should it have a name? Wigglesworth discovered them in a chemist's shop in a place called Stockton-on-Tees. Quaint name, don't you think? At any rate, I've only a few left and the apothecary doesn't see the sense of making more. And you couldn't be
bad
if you applied yourself, so I will continue to
count on it.
” He blew out a cloud of blue smoke as he inspected the end of his cheroot. “Do you think the apothecary was right in saying his magic flame could be poisonous? Something about the mixture of all the chemicals and such. I don't taste anything too vile. What do you say.”

“Nothing that wouldn't end with me burning in Hell and its own poisonous chemicals,” Tanner said, now examining the glowing tip of his own cheroot. “Have you ever considered that you might have crossed the border from engaging eccentric into the realm of the genuinely unhinged?”

“Many times, Tanner, many times, but then I console myself that I am not as yet baying at full moons. Now, back to the dear Lady Lydia and your dogged refusal to warn me away and thus clear your path to her affections this week. And please consider this to be your absolute final chance to change your mind.”

“I'm not going to change my mind. Granted, I think
she enjoys you.” Tanner was careful to keep his expression neutral. “Rather as she might a performing bear at a country fair. Besides, she seems fully aware that you're not on the hunt for a wife, her or anyone else.”

“Been warning her away from me, have you? Shame on you.”

Tanner nodded. “Yes, shame on me. But, damn it, Justin, this isn't a game.”

“I agree. I spoke privately with Rafe before we left the city,” Justin said, taking another long pull on his cheroot.

Tanner quickly glanced at his friend's profile, which betrayed nothing. “You're serious? You barely know her.”

“And I hardly could, not without Rafe's permission, now could I? I am, after all, and for all of my vices, a gentleman.”

“Don't do this, Justin. Lydia's been through enough, losing Fitz. She doesn't know about your ridiculous notion of some wager between us. She might not realize you're only amusing yourself.”

“Is that what I'm doing? Can any of us be sure of that? As you already know, and have foolishly not yet acted upon, Lydia is a most singular woman, unlike any other of my extensive and varied acquaintance. She has, one might say, opened my eyes to whole new realms of possibilities I didn't know existed,” Justin told him, clamping the cheroot between his even white teeth, looking every inch the unrepentant rake he was known to be. “Now, if you'll pardon me, I'll leave you
to answer the question of what I am doing for yourself. I feel the need for a gallop.” He dug his heels into his mount's flanks, and he was off, past the coach, leaving Tanner once more in his dust.

Which meant he couldn't remind Justin that the many women of his “extensive and varied acquaintance” hadn't really varied—he'd chosen his women for their beauty and his personal enjoyment. Of course Lydia was different. She was a lady in more than name. And she saw Justin for who he was, which had to intrigue the hell out of him.

The remainder of the afternoon passed in agonized slowness for Tanner, with one of the team of six matched bays throwing a shoe and delaying them at yet another inn, and Jasmine once more wandering off, this time not to be found for a full half hour. At which point, again, she apologized, blinked back tears, and then, after inquiring if they would be staying the night at their usual stopping point, went skipping toward the waiting coach as if all was forgiven.

Tanner had watched Lydia watching Jasmine, wondering at the rather concerned look on her face, but even though she then turned to him as if she wished to say something to him, she only shook her head and followed his cousin into the coach.

Jasmine was probably wearing at Lydia's nerves, which was certainly reasonable to assume. At least she would find some respite at the Crown and Sugarloaf, as he'd sent one of his grooms along hours earlier, to reserve three rooms for the travelers, and another three
attic rooms for their servants, who would probably arrive in another few hours.

He'd left Justin to make his own arrangements, and the inestimable Wigglesworth was probably already replacing the inn's sheets with the baron's own and terrorizing the kitchen staff by commandeering it in order to personally prepare his master's evening meal.

A smile played around Tanner's mouth as he gave up trying to be angry with Justin. The man probably couldn't help himself. He'd been born to more wealth than any ten men would ever need, the pampered only child of a doting father and a mother born into a filthy rich (Justin always made that joke himself) coal merchant's family and never able to forget that fact. Her money might not have bought for her the social position she'd longed for, but that didn't mean she couldn't live as if she were Lady Jersey herself. She'd been delighted beyond words to have somehow produced such a beautiful and witty son, and she'd impressed upon him the value of showing the world that he was every inch the gentleman, with no coal dust to be found on
his
feet.

Justin may have taken her lessons too far, but that wasn't for Tanner to say. He only knew that the man might be referred to as
that fop
, or
that killer,
but never as
that blown-up cit.
He imagined that must be some sort of accomplishment for a man many of the high in the instep
ton
otherwise would have condemned dismissively as being only one generation away from the shop.

A flash of sunlight on something metal caught
Tanner's attention and he looked to his left just as a horse and rider broke from the trees and onto the roadway. He reached for the pistol mounted on his saddle before the wide smile on the well-dressed rider and a genial wave of his gloved hand had him turn the gesture into a reassuring pat to his mount's neck as the rider fell into tandem with him.

“Good day to you, sir,” the man said, tipping his jaunty curly-brimmed beaver, revealing a full head of bright red hair and a black patch tied over his left eye. He held out his gloved hand. “Benjamin Flynn is the name, late of his majesty's Fourth Foot, for my sins. Would you be minding overmuch if I was to join you for a space? I've been riding cross-country, but now that it's coming on to dark, I thought I'd best get myself back on the road before old Charger here stepped in a rabbit hole and I came to an ignominious end.”

Tanner reached his hand across the gap between the two horses. “Tanner Blake, and no, I wouldn't mind. Traveling far?” he asked, seeing the blanket roll tied behind Flynn's saddle. It was nice to hear that Irish lilt in the man's voice, which reminded him a bit of Fitz.

“And that I won't be knowing until I get there. I've mostly been moving about ever since coming back from Brussels. Can't seem to settle myself anywhere for very long. For now, I'm thinking I'll be seeing what this fellow Will Langland was so taken with. Let's see, how does it go? Ah, yes, ‘And on a May morning on Malvern hills.'”

“
The Views of Piers Plowman,
” Tanner said, nodding.
“How I loathed reading that damn thing, and my tutor for forcing it on me. So, you're looking for truth in a ‘fair field of folk,' are you?”

“Can't say as I've had much luck in finding it anywhere else,” Benjamin said, his grin wide and open. “So you know the poem?”

“Only the bits I haven't been able to beat out of my memory. My home is in Malvern, so Langland's ditty was pretty much considered a requirement to residing there. My friends and I are traveling there now.”

“Is that a fact? Well, then, is it possible you could be telling me of a good inn to stay the night, hmm? I'm longing for a hot bath and a bed that has at least a hope of not being damp.”

“We're stopping at the Crown and Sugarloaf, which is only a few miles from here. I'd consider it an honor if a fellow veteran of our last battle with Bonaparte would join my party and myself for supper.”

“Well, now, how could a man refuse an invitation like that and not be called daft? Thank you kindly, Tanner.”

As they neared the inn, Tanner wondered how Lydia would react to Benjamin's Irish lilt, and the fact that he'd fought in the Fourth Foot, which had been a part of the forces that had been at Quatre Bras, where her Fitz had died.

Perhaps Justin was right, and he was “too good.” Or, even more likely, simply an idiot. Yes, he'd wanted—still wanted—Lydia to choose him, and he wanted her to be sure of her choice, not just settling for him because
Fitz may have, God forbid, suggested that solution to her somehow.

But of all the “competition” he could have chosen, how had he ended up with the dashing Baron Justin Wilde, who could charm birds down from the trees, and then gone even further, all but inviting Fitz's ghost to the party?