Only Enchanting (18 page)

“Ah, but the question is, Mrs. Keeping,” he said, “do you
w-want
to know me? Or do you wish to c-continue undisturbed with your placid, blameless, not quite happy but not entirely
un
happy existence here? I may be d-dangerous to know.”

*   *   *

Agnes got to her feet and moved to the water’s edge. But it was not far enough. She walked along the shore until it bent away to her right. She stood still and gazed sightlessly across at the west bank and the trees that overhung it. He did not follow her, and she was thankful for that.

He had been lying right on top of her. For a minute or two all his weight had borne her down into the grass. He had been between her thighs. She had felt him. . . .

Only their clothes had stopped them.

And she had wanted him. Not just the being-in-love sort of wanting. Not just the desire for kisses. She had
wanted
him.

She had never wanted William—which was just as well, she supposed, since she had not had him very often. Once a week, as a regular routine, for the first year or so, then at less frequent intervals, and finally, for the last two years, not at all. She had never denied him his rights when he had claimed them, and she had never shrunk from their encounters or found them particularly unpleasant. But there had been a certain relief, a certain feeling of freedom, when he had stopped coming to her—except that she would have liked to have had a child. The friendship and affection between them had endured, though, and the comfortable sense of belonging. He had often told her how fond he was of her, and she had believed him. She had been fond of him too, though, if she was honest with herself, she would have to admit that she had married him only because home had no longer felt quite like home with Dora gone and her father’s new wife in her place, with the strong likelihood that her mother and sister would come to live with them soon—as they had.

She had wanted Viscount Ponsonby as she had never wanted her husband. She could still feel the tenderness of physical longing in her breasts and along her inner thighs. And it frightened her—or at least it disturbed her, if
fright
was too extreme a word. But it was
not
too extreme. She was terrified of passion, of wanton abandon.

Her thoughts touched upon her mother, but she pushed them firmly away, as she always did when they threatened to intrude.

She continued along the shore until she could see the house across the water. He was sitting on the jetty close to the boat a short distance away, one knee raised, an arm draped over it, the picture of relaxation and well-being—or so it seemed. He was watching her approach.

I do believe that any solemn vow freely given ought to be binding in honor, including marriage vows.

Considering the fact that she had fallen in love with him last autumn and again this spring, she should be over the moon with happiness that he wished to marry her, especially in light of those words. Why was she not? Why did she hesitate?

I may be dangerous to know.

Yes, she felt that it was so. Not that she feared him physically, despite the violent rages he had admitted to and the leashed energy she sensed lurking beneath the often sleepy-seeming exterior. Those rages had happened at a time when he had been all locked up inside his head as a result of his war injuries. He was past that stage now. A slight stammer, sometimes a little worse than at other times, was not enough to frustrate him to the point of violence. But—she feared the danger that was him.

He represented
passion
, and she feared that almost more than anything else in life. Violence came from passion. Passion killed. Not the body, perhaps, but certainly the spirit, and all that had most value in life. Passion killed love. They were mutually exclusive things—a strange irony. It would be impossible to separate the two with Viscount Ponsonby, though. She would not be able simply to love him and keep herself intact. She would have to give all and . . .

No!

He got to his feet as she came closer. He had her bonnet in one hand. He looked lazily into her eyes as he fitted it carefully over her hair, and she stood like a child, her arms at her sides, while he tied the ribbon in a bow beneath her left ear. She looked back into his eyes the whole time.

Would you stop me? Would you have stopped me?

He had not insisted that she answer, and she had not done so—which had been cowardly of her.
Would
she
have stopped him? She was not at all sure she would. Indeed she was almost certain she would not have. Her heart had sunk with disappointment when he had stopped. And
why
had he stopped? A rake would surely not have done so.

Her gloves, drawn from a coat pocket, materialized in one of his hands. He held one out and then fitted it onto her fingers. He did the same with the other glove, and she half smiled.

“You would make an excellent lady’s maid,” she said.

His eyes gazed keenly into hers from beneath heavy eyelids.

“I would indeed,” he said. “This is a mere foretaste of the services I would provide.”

“I could never afford you.” She laughed softly.

“Ah,” he said, “but I would not exact payment in coin. You
can
afford the payment I would demand, in abundance. In superabundance. Ma’am.”

Her knees almost buckled. And there was surely not as much air on this side of the island as there was on the other.

The corners of his mouth lifted in that wicked half smile of his, and he offered one hand to help her into the boat.

They were on the other shore and he was handing her out of the boat when she became aware that Sophia and Lady Trentham were strolling toward the lake from the direction of the house. Sophia was carrying the baby, bundled up warmly in a blanket.

Whatever would she
think
?

But whatever she thought, she was smiling as she called out to them.

“You have been to the island,” she said. “It is the perfect morning to be outdoors, is it not?”

She looked more searchingly at Agnes as she came closer with Lady Trentham. The viscount was putting the boat away in the boathouse.

If only one were able to control one’s blushes!

“I have never been there before,” Agnes said. “The little temple is more beautiful than one expects, is it not? The stained glass makes the light inside quite magical. Or perhaps
mystical
would be a more appropriate word.”

“Sir Benedict rowed Samantha and me over there a couple of weeks ago,” Lady Trentham said. “I agree with you, Mrs. Keeping. And that stained glass window gives me ideas for
our
park.”

“Dora has gone home?” Agnes asked.

“She praised me and scolded me in equal measure.” Sophia laughed. “By some miracle I played all the notes of last week’s piece correctly, but I played with wooden fingers. It is the very worst censure your sister can possibly deal out to one of her pupils, Agnes, and it is quite devastating when she does it. And thoroughly deserved on this occasion. I have not been practicing as conscientiously as I ought.”

She lifted a corner of the blanket and smiled at her son’s sleeping face.

“She would not stay for a cup of coffee,” she continued, “and Gwen and I decided to come out without stopping for one either. The sunshine was too inviting.”

Viscount Ponsonby came out of the boathouse, and all eyes turned his way.

They had not exchanged a word in the boat on the way across. Agnes did not know whether he was finished with her now or whether he would renew his addresses. There was less than a week remaining. . . .

She had a sudden premonition of how she was going to feel on the day all the guests left Middlebury Park.
Her stomach seemed to sink like a leaden weight all the way to the soles of her shoes, leaving nausea and near panic behind in its place.

He smiled.

“I was not in the m-mood for writing letters after all,” he said. “It was too late to g-go with everyone else, and there was no one in sight in the house except for a few f-footmen, who did not look as if they would enjoy being engaged in c-conversation. I took myself off to the v-village to see if Mrs. Keeping would take p-pity on me, and she did.”

“Come up to the house and have coffee with us,” Sophia said, smiling at Agnes.

“But you have just come outside,” Agnes protested.

“Not so,” Lady Trentham told them. “We walked through the formal gardens before coming down here.”

“Come,” Sophia said.

Being sociable was the last thing Agnes felt like doing, but none of the alternatives appealed to her either. Dora would be back home and would expect to know where her sister had been. And even if she could get away from Dora after a brief explanation and retreat to her room, she would have her thoughts to contend with again, and they would not be happy company for a while.

“Thank you,” she said.

“And now I face a dilemma,” Viscount Ponsonby said. “Three l-ladies and only two arms to offer.”

Sophia laughed.

“How a child who is not yet two months old can weigh a ton, I do not know,” she said, “but that is precisely what Thomas
does
weigh. Here, my lord, you may carry him to the house, and we three will find our way unassisted.”

He looked almost comically alarmed. He took the blanket-wrapped bundle—Sophia gave him no choice—and held it as though terrified he would drop it.

Lady Trentham linked her arm through Agnes’s, and Viscount Ponsonby looked down into the baby’s face.

“Well, my l-lad,” he said, “when the l-ladies do not want us, we men band together and talk about horses and races and boxing mills and . . . well, the interesting stuff. Yes, you may well open your eyes—b-blue like your papa’s, I see. We are about to indulge in a heart-to-heart chat, just the t-two of us, and it would be ill-mannered of you to nod off in the m-middle of it.”

Sophia laughed again, and Agnes could have wept. There was surely
nothing
more affecting than seeing a man holding a baby and actually talking to it. Even if it was
not
his own, and he had not chosen to hold it and probably wished himself anywhere else on earth than just here, holding his friend’s infant.

He tucked the child into the crook of his arm and made off across the grass, leaving the path to the three of them.

“Agnes,” Sophia said, her voice low, “does he have a
tendre
for you? What a sensible man he is, if he does.”

“I have a soft spot for him, I must confess,” Lady Trentham said. “But then, I do for
all
of them. Hugo is so very fond of them, and they have all suffered dreadfully.”

Agnes wondered about Lady Trentham’s limp, which did not seem to be a temporary thing. Wondering kept her mind off the events of the morning so far. Well, almost, anyway.

He still wanted to marry her—perhaps.

He had kissed her again. And more than just kissed her.

But he had not once expressed any fondness for her. Only a desire to
bed
her, to use his own language.

“I still have not seen any of your paintings, Mrs. Keeping,” Lady Trentham was saying, “even though we have been here longer than two weeks.
May
I see some of
them if I walk into the village one day before we leave? Sophia says you are very talented.”

He had reached the house ahead of them and was sitting on one of the steps outside the front doors, the baby on his lap, head outward, one of his hands spread beneath it. He was still talking.

Agnes swallowed and hoped she had muffled the gurgle of unshed tears in her throat.

10

A
gnes sat in the morning room for half an hour with the ladies, enjoying her coffee and the conversation. Viscount Ponsonby had taken the baby up to the nursery, having assured Sophia that he did indeed know the way and that he would not abandon young Tom until he had placed him safely in his nurse’s care.

Agnes thought he was not going to join them, but he did so just as she was getting to her feet to take her leave.

“Ah, well-timed,” he said. “I shall escort you home, Mrs. Keeping.”

“There is really no need,” she assured him. “I come back and forth to Middlebury all the time to call upon Sophia, and it never occurs to me to bring a maid or other escort.”

She needed to be alone to think.

“But if a w-wolf should happen to leap out at you from the woods,” he said, “there really ought to be someone there to f-fight it off with his bare hands. Me, in fact.”

Lady Trentham laughed. “A hero after my own heart,” she said, clapping a hand theatrically to her bosom.

“And the woods are full of them,” Sophia added. “Not to mention the wild boars.”

Agnes looked reproachfully from one to the other of
the ladies, and Sophia tipped her head slightly to one side and looked searchingly at her again.

Viscount Ponsonby escorted her home. She clasped her hands determinedly behind her back as soon as they left the house, and he walked a little distance to one side of her and talked agreeably almost the whole way on a series of inconsequential topics.

“No wolves,” he said when they were close to the gates, “or wild b-boars, alas. How is a man expected to impress his l-lady in this civilized age when he may not perform some g-grand deed of heroism in order to pluck her from d-deadly danger and s-sweep her swooning form into his strong, sheltering arms?”

His
lady?

He had stopped walking—in almost the exact spot as he had chosen yesterday to inform her that she had better marry him.

She smiled at him.

“You would like to be a knight in shining armor?” she asked him. “You would like to be that cliché of worthy manhood?”

And it struck her that he must have looked quite irresistibly gorgeous clad in his officer’s uniform with his scarlet coat and white pantaloons and red sash and cavalry sword swinging at his side.

“You do not f-fancy being a damsel in distress?” He raised one mocking eyebrow. “What a p-poor sport you are, Mrs. Keeping.”