Only Enchanting (11 page)

“But you paint,” he said. “Are you talented? Lady Darleigh s-says you are.”

“She is kind,” Mrs. Keeping told him. “
She
is talented. Have you seen her caricatures? And her story illustrations? I paint well enough for my own pleasure and poorly enough that I always dream of that one perfect painting.”

“I s-suppose even Michelangelo and Rembrandt did
that,” he said. “Perhaps Michelangelo sculpted the
Pietà
and then stood back and wondered if he would ever sculpt something that was really worth doing. I shall have to s-see your work to judge how w-well you measure up to the masters.”

“Indeed?” There was a world of disdain in her voice.

“Do you keep them under lock and key?” he asked.

“No,” she said, “but I choose who sees them.”

“And I am not to be included in that n-number?”

“I very much doubt it,” she said.

An excellent setdown. He looked at her with appreciation.

“Why?”

Her eyes turned his way, and he smiled slowly.

She was spared the need to answer him. Miss Debbins had begun to play something by Handel.

She played for longer than half an hour, though she tried to rise from her place at the end of each piece. No one was willing to let her go. And she did indeed display a quite extraordinary talent. One would not really have expected it. She must be a good ten years older than her sister, perhaps more. She was smaller and plainer. She looked quite unremarkable—until she set her fingers to a musical instrument.

“How easy it is to dismiss the outer packaging without an inkling that one is thereby missing the precious beauty within.” His thoughts had acquired sound, and Flavian realized with acute embarrassment that he had spoken aloud.

“Yes.” And Mrs. Keeping had heard him.

The recital was at an end, and a number of his friends were clustered about Miss Debbins at the pianoforte. Lady Darleigh excused herself after a minute or two in order to go up to the nursery—Flavian suspected that she was unfashionable enough not to have engaged a
wet nurse. Lady Trentham asked if she might accompany her, and the two ladies went off together. Vincent announced that tea would be served in the drawing room if everyone would care to remove there. Ralph was running his fingers silently over the harp strings. George was offering his arm to Miss Debbins and informing her that she must be very ready for her tea. Ben, who had not brought his wheeled chair into the music room, was hoisting himself slowly to his feet between his canes, and Lady Harper was smiling over him and making some remark that was lost in the hubbub of voices.

“Mrs. Keeping.” Flavian got to his feet and offered his arm. “Allow me.”

He had the feeling she had been sitting very quietly where she was, in the hope that he would wander away and forget about her. Maybe
that
was part of the attraction, was it? That she had never put herself forward to attract his notice? Other women did—except the ones who knew him or knew
of
him, though even some of the latter still pursued him. For some women there was an irresistible fascination about a dangerous man, though his reputation exceeded reality these days. At least he hoped it did.

“Thank you.”

She got to her feet and took his arm, the mere tips of her fingers touching the inner side of his sleeve. She really was rather tall. Perhaps that was why he had enjoyed dancing with her. She smelled of soap. Not perfume. Nothing either strong or expensive. Just soap. It occurred to him almost as a surprise that he would very much like to bed her.

He never thought of beds and
ladies
in the same context. And he had better banish the thought now. Which was a pity, for he would not even be able to indulge in a mild flirtation with her if there was any danger that it might lead to bed.

They were very sensible thoughts he was having and in no way explained why, when they entered the great hall from the west wing, he did not turn with her toward the staircase up to the drawing room. Instead he took a candle and its holder from a table, lit the candle from one that was already burning in a wall sconce, nodded to a footman who was on duty there, and was admitted to the east wing of the house.

Most surprising, perhaps, was the fact that Mrs. Keeping went with him without a murmur of protest.

The east wing, equal in size and length to the west wing, consisted almost entirely of the state apartments. They had been ablaze with light and splendor for the harvest ball back in October. They were dark now and echoed hollowly with their footfalls. They were also rather chilly.

And what the devil had brought him here?

“One tends to s-sit for too long in the evenings,” he said.

“And it is too early in the year to walk outside much after dinner,” she said.

Ah, they were agreed, then, were they, that they were merely seeking a bit of exercise after sitting so long listening to music? How long
had
they sat? An hour? Less for him.

“I must not stroll here for too long, however,” she added when he did not leap into the conversational gap. “Dora will believe I have abandoned her.”

“I believe M-Miss Debbins is being showered with attention,” he told her. “And deservedly s-so. She will not miss a mere s-sister.”

“But a mere sister may miss
her
,” she said.

“You think I have b-brought you here for d-dalliance?” he asked.

“Have you?” Her voice was soft.

No one admitted to playing a game of dalliance. Well, almost no one.

“I have, Mrs. Keeping,” he admitted. “In the ballroom where I first set eyes upon you. I have c-come to w-waltz with you again. To kiss you—again.”

She did not haul on his arm and demand to be returned to her sister’s side immediately if not sooner.

“I suppose we may see as much of the ballroom as will be visible in the light of a single candle,” she said. “We can hardly waltz—there is no music.”

“Ah,” he said, “we will have to settle for the kiss, then.”

“However,”
she said, speaking deliberately over his last words, “I can hold a tune tolerably well, even if no one in his right mind would think of inviting me to sing a solo before an audience.”

He slanted a smile in her direction, but she was gazing straight ahead.

The ballroom was vast and empty, and indeed the light of the single candle did not penetrate very far into its darkness. It was cold. It was about as unromantic a setting as he could possibly have chosen for seduction, if that indeed was what his intention had been in coming here.

He set down the candleholder on an ornate table just inside the tall double doors.

“Ma’am,” he said, making her an elegant leg and a flourishing bow, “may I have the pleasure?”

She curtsied with deep grace and placed her fingertips on his wrist.

“The pleasure is all mine, my lord,” she told him.

And he clasped her in waltz position, holding her the correct distance from his body, and looked inquiringly at her. She thought a moment, a frown of concentration creasing her brow, and then hummed and finally
la-la-la’d the very waltz tune to which they had danced all those months ago. He twirled her out onto the empty floor, weaving in and out of the shadows cast by the candle. He was aware of its feeble light twinkling off the silver embroidery on the edges of her sleeves.

She was breathless after a couple of minutes. The music faltered and then stopped. But he danced with her a full minute longer, the music and the rhythm inside his body and hers. He could hear their breath, the sound of their shoes on the floor, in rhythm with each other, and the swish of silk about her legs.

In the four years since he had left Penderris, he had had a number of sexual partners, all of whom had given him great satisfaction. He had employed no long-term mistresses. He had occasionally flirted with ladies of the
ton
, always with those old enough to know the game. He had bedded none of them, even those who had indicated a willingness, even an eagerness, to be bedded. He rarely kissed.

Mrs. Agnes Keeping did not fit into any known category, a thought that both rattled and excited him.

When they stopped dancing, he could not think of a blessed thing to say, and it did not occur to him to let her go. He stood with one hand behind her waist, the other clasping one of hers. And he looked down at her until she lowered her head and brushed an invisible speck from the bosom of her gown with the hand that had been resting on his shoulder. She replaced her hand and looked up at him.

He kissed her, holding her for the moment in waltz position, though his hand at her waist gradually tightened and drew her against him.

Her hand squeezed his almost painfully tightly. Her lips were trembling.

Easy,
he told himself. Easy. She was a widow of
undoubted gentility and virtue. She was Viscountess Darleigh’s closest friend. They were in Vincent’s house.

But he released her hand in order to wrap both arms about her and deepen the kiss. She twined one arm about his shoulders and spread her other hand over the back of his head.

And the idiot woman kissed him back.

But the thing was that she kissed him with obvious pleasure, even desire, but with no real
passion
. Except that surely, oh, surely, he felt it throbbing below the surface of the enjoyment she allowed herself. There was control in her abandonment—if that was not a contradiction in terms.

What if she lost that control?

He could make it happen.

The desire to do just that smoldered within him as he explored her mouth with his tongue, moved his hands along the curve of her spine, even for a moment cupped her buttocks in his hands and fitted her to his groin.

He could unleash the passion no one had uncovered before in her life—not even her dullard of a husband. The passion she probably did not even know was lurking within.

He could. . . .

He lifted his head and returned his hands to her waist.

“D-did someone say s-something about tea in the drawing room?” he asked her.

“Viscount Darleigh did,” she said. “But I believe you took a wrong turn in the hall, my lord.”

“Ah, careless of me.” He released his hold on her and retrieved the candle from the table. He offered his arm. “Shall we retrace our steps and s-see if there is anything left in the t-teapot?”

“That would be a good idea.”

And he wanted her.

The devil!

Forget about dalliance and flirtation. Forget about virtuous widows and genteel respectability.

He wanted her.

Almost, he thought, alarming himself to no inconsiderable degree, he
needed
her.

And if
that
was not a thought to make a man want to run a hundred miles without pausing for breath, he did not know what was.

Especially a man who was savage. And dangerous.

6

A
gnes avoided Middlebury, both the house and the park, for three days after the musical evening. It was a decision made easy for two of those days by the fact that it rained.

Middlebury Park came to the cottage, however, in the form of two visits—one from Sophia, Lady Trentham, and Lady Harper the first day, and one from the Duke of Stanbrook and the Earl of Berwick on the third. Sophia brought the baby with her, and he was very much the focus of attention during the visit, as babies almost always were. Both groups came to thank them for coming to dine and to commend Dora on the superiority of her playing. The duke expressed the polite hope that they would hear her again before their visit was at an end.

On the morning of the fourth day, the sun was shining again, though it had to contend with some high clouds, and Dora set off on foot to give the viscount his regular music lesson. Agnes stood in their small front garden to wave her on her way. Often she went with her sister and spent an hour with Sophia while the lesson was in progress, but she would not go this week despite Sophia’s assurances just three days ago that she would be very
welcome anytime and must not stay away on account of the visitors.

There were horses approaching along the street—four of them. Their riders paused to greet Dora. Agnes would have ducked back into the house, but she feared she had already been seen and it would seem impolite not to wait to bid them a good morning as they passed. And then one of them detached himself from the group and rode ahead and toward her.

Lord Ponsonby.

Agnes clasped her hands at her waist and tried to look cool and unconcerned or at least as though she had not spent far too long during the past four nights—oh, and the days too—reliving that waltz and that kiss. She was like a schoolgirl dizzy with a romantic infatuation, and she could not seem to summon the resolve to shake off the foolishness.

“Ma’am.” He touched the brim of his tall hat with his whip and looked down at her with eyes that seemed to burn into her own—foolish fancy. Or perhaps not. Once again she observed that he was very obviously a practiced flirt.

“My lord.” She inclined her head to him and clasped her hands more tightly until his eyes dipped to observe them.

“You are not p-painting the daffodils today?” he asked.

“I thought I might later,” she told him. It really did bother her that she might miss them at their best and would have to wait a whole year before they bloomed again.

That was the extent of their conversation. He was joined in the roadway by his three fellow riders, all of whom bade her a cheerful good-morning before they
rode on. They were going to Gloucester, the duke informed Agnes, to have a look at the cathedral.

It was a fair distance away. Even if they spent no longer than an hour there, they could not possibly be back before late afternoon. Here was her opportunity, then. She would go and paint.

Usually there was joy and serenity in the very thought, for she did most of her painting out of doors, and her subjects were almost always the wildflowers that grew in the hedgerows and meadows beyond the village. While she painted, she could forget her lingering sadness over the end of her all-too-brief marriage, the essential tedium of her days, the loneliness she tried to hide even from herself, the sense that life was passing her by—as it was, of course, for thousands of women like her. She was not unique in that way. She must never give in to the dreadful affliction of self-pity.