Irresistible (40 page)

“One must confess,” he said, “that it can be unnerving. One never knows where one stands with females.”

“Perhaps if
men
were not so devious,” she said, “women would not need to be.”

They strolled onward, forced to within two feet of each other when the path narrowed as it entered the trees. There was also a delicious coolness there and a shady, fragrant sense of privacy.

“We should always speak our minds, then,” he asked her, “and risk having our faces slapped?”

“You seem,” she said, “to feel a terror of having that happen to you, Lord Pelham. Could it be that you do not have the confidence in your charms that you affect to have?”

“It could be,” he said, looking sidelong at her, “that I have naughty thoughts that no true lady would wish to hear expressed aloud.”

“Oh goodness,” she said, spreading one hand over her bosom. “Pardon me while I have a fit of the vapors. But I have forgot—I believe we have already established, sir, that I am not a true lady. At least it is what you have accused me of on more than one occasion.”

“Have I?” he said, raising his eyebrows and fingering the ribbon of his quizzing glass. “Could I possibly have been so ungentlemanly?”

“I do believe,” she said, “you are as little the gentleman as I am the lady.”

“Dear me,” he said. “We
are
speaking our minds today. Are you happy in your role as village spinster?”

She looked at him scornfully. “Are you happy in yours as society bachelor?” she asked.

“Touché.” He twirled his quizzing glass on its ribbon and looked about him. “This place seems designed for dalliance, does it not?”

“Oh, decidedly,” she agreed. “God created the trees and the forest for that sole purpose, I daresay.”

“It would be a shame to confound the plans of the Almighty,” he said.

It was Lavinia’s turn to look at
him
sidelong. “Nat will be along soon,” she said. “He would blacken both your eyes if he found you six inches closer to me.”

“Oh, I think not,” he said. “I do not think he will be coming along behind us, that is. He will be too busy with Sophie. And if I were you, I would not expect Ken and Moira either. They are leaving you and me alone. It was a double plot. They think I do not know, but I know my friends every bit as well as they know themselves, I believe.”

Lavinia had stopped in her tracks and was staring at him. “They are leaving
you and me
alone?” she said, aghast.

“You and me, as in us,” he said. “You ought to train yourself not to blush quite so deeply, you know. The color of your face clashes with your hair.”

“I am not blushing, sir!” She glared at him. “I am furious. Whoever would think that you and I should be left together?”

“Nat and Ken apparently,” he said. “Oh, and Moira too. She is no innocent. It was probably all her plan. I wonder what excuse she used to get Ken back to the house.”

“Well!” Lavinia drew an audible breath. “I am going back to my cottage, sir. I would suggest that you too return to the house. Good day to you.”

“Lavinia,” he said, and raised his glass to his eye.

“I do not recall,” she said, “giving you leave to make free with my name, sir.”

“To steal a phrase,” he said, sounding infinitely bored, “do try not to be ridiculous, Lavinia.”

“Well!” was all she could think of to say. She seemed to have forgotten that she had taken her leave and could now turn and hurry away. He was not detaining her by force.

“Precisely,” he said. “If our friends—including your
guardian
—believe that we might make a match of it, do you not think we should give the matter some consideration? Find out what makes them think so?”

“I would as soon be matched with a toad,” she said.

He pursed his lips and considered her words. “I doubt it,” he said at last. “I believe you wish to be persuaded.”

“You may believe what you wish, my lord,” she said. “I shall have a word with Nat tomorrow.”

“Kiss me,” he said.

Lavinia drew breath to speak but snapped her mouth shut again. “Why?” she asked warily.

“Because I have been wanting you to since the last time,” he said. “Because I have not been able to forget it or you. Because if I leave here tomorrow without settling something with you, I might well be haunted by you for the rest of my life. Because if anyone is ever to tame me, you are the one. And if anyone is going to tame you, I suspect it will have to be me. Because I lo—oh, the devil, now
that
is too much for me to say. Kiss me.”

“To how many women have you delivered this speech?” she asked, her eyes narrowing on him.

“To one,” he said. “You.”

“I am no wild animal to be tamed,” she told him.

“Neither am I,” he said. “Are you going to kiss me?”

“I do not know,” she said.

“What are you uncertain of?” he asked her, and took one step toward her. She took a step back, realized what she had done, and stepped forward again so that they were almost toe-to-toe.

“I do not trust you not to mock me afterward for falling into the trap,” she said. “If you want a kiss, then
you
kiss
me.”

He did so.

And then, after they had come up for air a minute or so later, both panting, he kissed her again.

And after they had drawn an inch apart another few minutes later and gazed at each other as if to verify each other’s identity,
she
kissed
him.

“That does it,” he said when their mouths were free once more—but still almost touching. “You are not going to tell me after that that you are indifferent to me.”

“It was just a kiss,” she said shakily.

“No,” he said. “Allow me to know more about such matters than you, Lavinia. That was more than a kiss. And it was more than just physical. Are you prepared to see me leave here tomorrow never to return?”

She stared at him.

“I could not quite face it myself,” he said. “I have this terrifying notion that I should return to my estate, which I visited for almost the first time in my life a month ago, and make a home of it. I have this even more dizzying idea that I should take a wife there and start rusticating in earnest—and even, heaven help me, setting up my nursery. I’ll do it too, if you will come with me and do it all with me.”

“How ridiculous,” she said without any of her usual spirit.

“Yes.” He gave her no argument. He kissed her instead.

“Well,” he said at last. “Are we going to do it? Or are we going to stand here forever, wearing out our lips?”

“Oh,” she said, “I think we are going to do it, my lord. Just do not expect me to be a biddable wife, that is all.”

“A biddable wife?” he said in disgust. “What a ghastly notion. I will expect—no, I will insist upon—at least one argument a day. Starting at breakfast. Call me Eden.”

“Eden,” she said.

“What a biddable woman you are.” He grinned at her—and kissed her again before she could mouth her protest. “Now I think we ought to go slinking off to the lake to see if Nat and Sophie have finished their tête-à-tête. If they have, we had better hint to Nat that I will be making a formal appearance in his library tomorrow morning or sooner. I daresay he will be so amazed that we could knock him down with the proverbial feather if we felt so inclined.”

“Eden,” she said, tightening her arms about his waist when he would have drawn away, “say it.”

“It?” He grimaced.

“What you would not say earlier,” she said. “Say it. I want to hear it.”

“You certainly enjoy taking your pound of flesh, do you not?” he said, frowning.

Lavinia smiled her dazzling smile at him.

“Lord,” he said, “you had better not do too much of that until we are standing beside—or better yet lying in—our marriage bed. I have enough to cope with. Now let me see—
it.”
He cleared his throat. “Here we go, then. I love you. Was that it? I hope I have not been through that torture only to find it was something else you wanted to hear.”

“No, that was it,” she said. “It sounded lovely. You can say it every day after we are married so that it will come more easily to your tongue—at breakfast each morning, I believe. I love you too, you know.”

“Unfair,” he said. “You did not even find it difficult, did you?”

She set her forehead on his shoulder then and his arms tightened about her.

“Yes, I did,” she said. “Oh, yes I did. I have always been terrified of love, Eden. I never wanted just marriage as other women seem to do and perhaps a little romance to make it palatable. I have wanted the stuff of poetry and of dreams. I would rather settle for nothing at all than a mere shadow of the real thing. This has to be the real thing. It
has
to be. Tell me now if it is not and we will part and go our separate ways. Just never come back, that is all, even to see Nat. If you leave now, stay away forever.”

He held her for a long time, saying nothing.

“Now you have
really
put the wind up me,” he said at last. “It feels real enough to me, Lavinia. I never expected this to happen. I never
wanted
it to happen. It is not the sort of thing I would imagine merely because I wanted a wife. I have never
wanted
a wife. It is real, right enough. I love you right enough.”

“I knew,” she said into his shoulder, “that I would squeeze the words out of you again if I tried.”

They both laughed. But they both knew that her words had not been spoken out of anything less than the very depths of her heart. And they both knew that he would not have surrendered his freedom for anything except a deep and abiding love.

“Let’s go and find Nat,” he said.

“Yes.” She drew away from him and smoothed out the folds of her dress. She looked at him and smiled sheepishly. “Oh, it is you, is it? All that close stuff was being done with you?”

“It is I,” he agreed meekly, offering his arm. “We had better get this wedding out of the way as soon as we can. You know absolutely nothing yet, my love, about close stuff. Ah—I knew I could get you to blush again if I tried.”

“Hoist with my own petard,” Nathaniel muttered.

“What?” Sophia turned her attention from the retreating backs of Kenneth and Moira to look at him.

“Nothing,” he said. “Let me show you the lake and the folly. This was always my favorite part of the park. I always loved swimming and boating here. I also love just sitting and dreaming.”

“Yes, I can see why.” They were approaching the bank of the lake and the trees that grew beside it or overhung it. “You have a beautiful home, Nathaniel.”

And now and at last it was all his. He had longed for this day. To know that his sisters were all well settled in homes of their own and Bowood was his alone. To know that he could do as he pleased here and come and go as he pleased. Today it seemed an empty triumph.

And he was afraid to hope.

“There it is,” he said, pointing to their right. It was a small Greek temple of gray stone, complete with columns and carved pediment. “Foolish, is it not? But that is why such buildings are called
follies,
I suppose.”

“It is charming,” she said, and she smiled as they walked toward it.

It had been built in a carefully chosen spot so that it was hidden by the slope and the trees from the house above. And when one sat on the stone bench inside, one could see only the bank in front and the lake and the trees beyond. One felt surrounded by wilderness.

Sophia stepped inside and sat down. Nathaniel stood outside, his hands clasped behind him, watching her look about at her surroundings. The gardener always kept well-tended pots of flowers inside the folly during the summer.

“Sophie,” he said, “you are looking so very pretty, my dear. I love these light dresses you have been wearing. And you have cut your hair. It is very becoming worn like that, though I suspect it might look less glorious when worn down than it used to look.”

She turned her eyes from the lake to look at him briefly and smile.

“And you have gained weight,” he said. He chuckled. “That is not usually a tactful thing to say to a lady, is it? But it looks good on you.”

She smiled again, though she was looking now at the lake.

“It was a lovely wedding,” she said. “Georgina looked beautiful and was very obviously happy. You must be happy for her—and also very glad to have all the busy festivities over.”

“By this time tomorrow,” he said, “almost all the guests will be gone. In a few more days I will have Bowood to myself.”

“That must be a pleasant thought,” she said.

“Sophie.” He leaned his shoulder against the column to one side of the doorway. “Are
you
happy? Does the thought of returning to Gloucestershire and choosing a new home, perhaps in a place where you know no one and will have to start all over again—does the thought excite you?”