The Bridal Season (12 page)

“Chivalrous? Not I,” he said, directing his comments to Lady
Agatha. “Though I am most recently reminded that chivalry is not dead.”

Lady Agatha colored the faintest bit.

“But you were always kind to me, weren’t you, Elliot?”
Catherine said with a touch of insistence. He looked down at her pretty,
expectant face.

“You were an easy girl to spoil, Catherine,” he said.

She laughed, hugging his arm tighter as she leaned toward Lady
Agatha. “I’m afraid I still am. Paul and Elliot and... well, I’m shamefully
overindulged.”

“Don’t worry, m’dear,” Lady Agatha said. “I can assure you,
you do a splendid job of masking any character flaws such pampering oft
engenders.” She paused. “Besides, I’m sure you’ve exaggerated your situation.”

Elliot glanced at her sharply, not quite trusting her innocent
expression. Though the words themselves were reassuring, the tone was mildly
sardonic. And, as disloyal as he felt it to be, he couldn’t help but feel
Catherine deserved it.

For whatever reasons, since the moment she’d met Lady Agatha,
it had seemed like Catherine had been set on making her ladyship feel like an
outsider. Already today he’d heard her make several casual remarks about Lady
Agatha’s “interesting fashion sense” and “peculiar—albeit
charming—conversation.”

Of course, he was probably misinterpreting what was going on.
Catherine had no reason to feel any animosity for Lady Agatha. Nor Lady Agatha
for her.

Still, Catherine’s voice was decidedly frosty when she
murmured, “You are too kind.”

Lady Agatha didn’t demur. She simply smiled sunnily and said,
“So I’ve been told.”

Elliot damn near burst out laughing. She’d make a formidable
opponent, would Lady Agatha. She’d turned the tables on Catherine right enough,
and though he should be supporting his one-time fiancée, he found himself too
busy trying to keep from grinning.

Into this mire of tension sailed Eglantyne, Grace Poole at her
side and young Hobbs from the stable bringing up the rear. He was pushing a
wheeled cart filled with croquet equipment.

“See, Grace? More than enough food,” Eglantyne said. Her gaze
fell on the abandoned trifle. “But what is this doing here? Don’t tell me you
haven’t had your dessert yet, Colonel Vance! Miss Vance? Elliot? Well, I’m
afraid I’ll have to ask you to delay enjoying it until later or you’ll miss the
croquet, and I do so need you, Elliot, to make an equal number of ladies and
gentlemen.”

“Of course.”

‘Thank you. Now, then—” She clapped her hands, drawing the
attention of the rest of the picnickers. “If you please! We’re going to have a
croquet tournament this afternoon with prizes for the winners,” she announced.
“So please divide yourselves into teams of one lady and one gentleman. The only
requirement is that,” she wagged her forefinger playfully at Catherine, “you
must not pair up with your spouse.”

“Oh, Elliot!” Catherine exclaimed. “Remember how we won the
lawn tennis tournament at Tumley?”

“I do,” Elliot answered. He knew where this was going, yet he
was reluctant to ask. Beside him, Grace Poole whispered urgently in Eglantyne’s
ear. He glanced at Lady Agatha. She’d turned in another direction, her
expression a little bored.

Catherine regarded him with confident expectation. He cleared
his throat. “Catherine, it would be—”

“I’ll tell you what it would be,” Eglantyne cut in abruptly.
Grace Poole folded her hands at her waist, her expression supremely complacent.
“It would be a great favor to me, Catherine, if you would partner Anton. You
know how shy he is about his lack of athletic abilities, and what with your
talent, you might just keep the pair of you in the game beyond the first round.
If you would be so kind, my dear?”

Catherine’s smile wavered. “Well, of course, Eglantyne dear.
If you think he really
wants
to play...”

“Oh, I am certain he does.” She raised her voice. “Yoo-hoo,
Anton!”

Anton, who’d been in conversation with Atticus and
the
vicar,
looked around.

“Grand news,” Eglantyne called with strenuous cheer.
“Catherine has just been telling me how much she would like being your
partner!”

“She has?” Anton asked.

“Yes! Come on, then. Don’t keep her waiting.”

Anton, his florid face bemused, hurried over. Eglantyne turned
to Elliot. “Oh! I have
just
had a grand idea, Elliot! Perhaps
you
might
partner
Lady Agatha.”

“I would be delighted,” he said promptly.

“Oh, no!” Lady Agatha exclaimed. “I mean, I am certain Sir
Elliot is an ace player. Indeed, that’s the problem. I’m not. In fact, I’ve ...
I’ve never played croquet before.”

“Never?” Eglantyne echoed disbelievingly.

“I’m... very busy, and when I was a child we didn’t play many
games. Not that sort of game.”

“Well,” Eglantyne said, “it’s high time you learned. You’ll
enjoy it. Capital game. Elliot will have you flying through wickets in no
time.”

She drew a pair of mallets and two balls from the cart and
plopped them unceremoniously into Elliot’s hands.

Lady Agatha darted a glance at him from beneath her lashes.
She looked a little uncertain and suddenly quite young and quite shy; an
attitude that contrasted strongly with her oft-repeated insistence that she was
“a woman of the world.” In fact, several times now he’d seen Lady Agatha
surprised into ingenuousness, making it seem ever less likely that she could be
some hardened confidence artist.

“I wouldn’t want to be a bother,” she said.

“It would be my pleasure, I assure you,” he said.

“Dear Eglantyne, Elliot,” Catherine said sympathetically, “if
Lady Agatha doesn’t want to play, I don’t think we should badger her into
complying.”

“Oh. Of course not,” Eglantyne agreed, at once red-faced and
contrite. “I am sorry. I did not mean to insist.”

Once more, Lady Agatha saved the situation. She laughed,
taking Eglantyne’s hand between hers and giving it a little shake. “Don’t be
silly, dear. I was simply being coy,” she admitted with charming artless-ness.
She dimpled adorably. “I am secretly all atwitter to learn the game. Because,”
she straightened, “it’s always so much more fun to be in the game,” her gaze
flitted over Catherine, “rather than sitting on the sidelines. Don’t you agree,
Miss—oh! Excuse me! What a goose I am! It’s
Mrs.,
isn’t it?—Don’t you
agree, Mrs. Bunting?”

“Yes,” Catherine clipped out, her body stiff and her face
stiffen “Come along, Anton, we’d best collect our gear while Elliot instructs
Lady Agatha. Though I wouldn’t doubt she could teach him a thing or two— She
looks very much the
sporting
sort, doesn’t she?”

She turned to Letty. “I look forward to meeting you on the
playing field, Lady Agatha.”

“No more than I, Mrs. Bunting,” Letty replied.

“Whatever is going on?” Eglantyne asked, watching Anton being
led off by Catherine.

“Nothing,” Lady Agatha said.

“Well, then, I’ll leave you in Elliot’s good hands. You have a
quarter hour to turn her into a prime player, Elliot. Ah!” She raised her head
like a hound sighting a hare. “Dr. Beacon! I need another gentleman,” she
called, taking off after him, “I say, Dr. Beacon!”

Elliot turned to Lady Agatha; she was smiling after Eglantyne
as though any minute she might shout an encouraging “tally-ho!”

“That was most kind, what you did with the trifle.”

“It was nothing.” She accepted the mallet that he held out to
her. “How do you hold this thing? Like a golf club?”

She was not being falsely modest. She really was discounting
her generosity as a matter of no importance.

“I beg to differ.”

She looked up from swishing the mallet experimentally at some
weed heads. Clearly she’d considered the subject closed and he’d surprised her
by pursuing it. A roguish glint appeared in her eyes. Her wonderfully mobile
mouth pursed contemplatively. “Sir Elliot,
I
am a woman of the world.”

Somehow he kept from smiling, but then his humor was
supplanted by another sensation altogether as she placed one hand on her hip
and in the other swung the mallet as a dandy would his walking stick. She
sashayed toward him, her playful mood infectious.

“Really, now, Sir Elliot,” she said, her eyes flashing, her
hips ... God, what those hips were doing! “What else should I have done? I
looked over, immediately understood the situation, and—well, I saw at a glance
that this proud, straitlaced darling would suffer from his comments far more
than I was ever likely to do.”

She stopped and leaned on the mallet, a comic caricature of a
London dandy. “It seemed a little enough thing to save him from the torture he
was bound to put himself through. Especially since his supposed ‘crime’ in no
way warranted so grievous a punishment.”

“You are kindness itself, Lady Agatha,” Elliot said. “And you
were correct in your estimation of Colonel Vance’s character. He would, indeed,
have put himself through—”

“Oh,” she cut in, “I wasn’t speaking of Colonel Vance.”

It took a full ten seconds for her meaning to sink in, and
when it did, he took one look at her naughty, lovely, teasing face, and burst
into laughter.

Sir Elliot’s many friends and neighbors looked around in
surprise. They’d not heard such full-blown laughter from him in years, and
seeing the smile on his face they found themselves smiling, too, for he was a
great favorite in their community.

A few dozen yards away, Eglantyne and Grace Poole exchanged
glances as congratulatory as they were conspiratorial. Atticus, deep in
conversation with the vicar, paused at the sound of Elliot’s rich amusement and
smiled. And even Cabot, offering an uncharacteristically petulant Catherine
Bunting a different glass of iced tea, hesitated before a grin flickered and
vanished on his austere face.

Only Lady Agatha failed to understand the rarity she’d
produced. She grinned back cheekily in response to his laughter, as though
they’d traded bon mots all their lives, and as she did, a breeze caught a
tendril of her hair and whipped it across her face.

Elliot, still smiling and before he could think better of it,
reached out and brushed it away. As soon as his fingers touched her sun-warmed
cheek, he understood his folly. Instantly, the casual touch evolved into
something too like a caress for comfort.

He stared into her eyes, suddenly wide and questioning and
young and .... frightened. His hand dropped. He stepped back and gestured for
her to precede him. “Perhaps we ought to go to the playing field,” he said,
despising the stilted tone in his voice.

But she was having none of it. Her expression had smoothed
out; her eyes glittered. “I could have sworn we were already on the playing
field,” she murmured, invoking another laugh from him. Something inside of him
struggled for expression.

He was in trouble. He liked her, liked her enormously—which
was far, far more worrisome than simply wanting her.

If you trip, make sure the leading man is there to catch
you.

“BECAUSE THE BIGGLESWORTHS HAVE SUCH a large lawn they play a
six-wicket game of croquet, though we do have to be careful on the edge of the
field.” He gestured to a ridge of land across from where they stood. “It’s an
embankment. There used to be marsh on the other side, but it filled in with
sedge years ago.”

Lady Agatha studied the layout of the playing field. “And the
wicket is that wire arch there?” she asked.

“Yes. The object of the game is to shoot our balls— these
black-and-blue ones—through the wickets in a particular order and hit that peg
at the end of the field there.” He pointed to where Hobbs was driving a stake
into the ground. “Then return to the other end of the field in reverse order,
our ultimate goal being this peg.”

“It doesn’t sound very challenging,” she said doubtfully.

He smiled at her with a touch of condescension. “The addition
of other players provides the challenge. One tries to go through the pattern in
as few shots as possible, each team getting one stroke per turn. However, upon
driving your ball through a wicket, you get another turn.”

She frowned and he decided not to complicate matters by
explaining “taking croquet” and “roquet” until the need arose, or rather,
if
the need arose, which it very well might not. Little Bidewell society
played a notoriously, if excruciatingly, civil game.

“Very well,” she said. “What next?”

“You hit the ball with the flat end of the mallet. May I
suggest you take a few practice shots? Wrap your hands around the handle and
swing it to get the feel of it.”

She grasped the handle at the very end, like a walking stick.
“Like this?”

“Not exactly. Use both hands.” He gripped his own mallet in
demonstration.

She choked the middle of her mallet as though wringing some
poor chicken’s neck. “Stand back while I hit the ball.”

He obliged and she drew the mallet back and swung. The mallet
flew from her hands, hit the ground, and cart wheeled across the lawn. Her nose
wrinkled. “I can safely assume
not
like that?”

“Not quite.”

She sighed heavily. “I’m afraid I’m hopelessly inept.”

He regarded her closely. She’d been climbing up an ivy vine
last night, and now she claimed to be unathletic? He dismissed his suspicions.
He’d not had an answer to the telegraph he’d sent to London this morning. Until
he did, the wisest course was to take her at face value.

And
isn’t that a nice rationalization?
his conscience
taunted him as he kept his eyes from lingering on her feminine figure. Her
brows rose to a saucy angle. She knew full well her impact on him—on him and
all the rest of Little Bidewell’s male population. She was a woman accustomed
to being ogled.