“If I am, what of it?”
A smile tugged at the corners of her lips, broadened into a grin. “Why, you are just six years older than I!”
“I am centuries older in experience, believe me.” His expression told her that her amused delight in his relative youth disgruntled him.
“You are scarcely more than a lad!”
“And you, my girl, are a wet-behind-the-ears miss in search of a good set-down.”
As she giggled at his obvious discomfiture, Alec squatted beside the picnic basket, opened the lid, and began to rifle through the contents. A cloth had been included. He spread it out, and began to lay the picnic on it. Suddenly he looked across at her. “You have not honored your part of the bargain, Countess. You seem to find my age very amusing, but I still have no idea why you are idiotic enough to wrap yourself up in fur in this infernal heat.”
A bargain was a bargain. She took a deep breath, and searched for the words to delicately describe her dilemma. “The dress I am wearing … it’s not mine, you know, and … and it’s not really the thing.”
Disgusted, he said, “Are you telling me that the dress is so unfashionable that you would wear that stifling garment over it rather than reveal it to me?”
“No, of course not! It’s not that the dress is unfashionable. Rather, it is … indecent.” Try as she would to be matter-of-fact about it, she had to look away from him as she said the last word.
His eyebrows rose, and he scanned her outfit with renewed interest. “Really? Let me see.”
“No!”
He stood up then, with the picnic half spread out at his feet. While she watched him warily, a single lithe step brought him beside her. Seated as she was, he towered above her, and she had to crane her neck back to see his face. He grinned at her, a wicked grin that caused those golden eyes to dance. Isabella observed that grin with more than a little misgiving.
“Come, Isabella, take it off. Your gown cannot be that indecent, and ’tis nothing short of folly for you to wrap yourself from chin to wrists in wool on such a day. There is no one here to be shocked, you know. As for me—why, I can promise you that I’m too hungry to notice anything save my food.”
That virtuous note made her smile, but still she shook her head at him.
“Eat, Alec, and leave me be. I am determined not to come out of this pelisse, and there’s an end to it.”
“And I am determined that you shall. You are making yourself ill, to no purpose. And you are keeping me from my meal.”
“In my role as your tutor, I take leave to tell you that such persistence as you display is annoyingly ill-bred. A gentleman, knowing his importunities to be unwelcome, would desist at once.”
“Fortunately for you, Madame Tutor, I am not a gentleman. And I refuse to let you suffer for so ridiculous a cause.”
Isabella sighed. “I’m tired of bandying words with you. I am quite comfortable, I assure you, so let us find some other topic to discuss as we eat.”
“I’m tired of bandying words about, too.”
Before she knew what he was about, he bent, scooped her off the stump, and deposited her flat on her back on the just-greening ground quicker than she could squeal his name. Even as she squeaked with surprised protest he was kneeling over her, straddling her, catching her hands in one of his and pinioning them over her head.
“What the … the blazes do you think you’re doing?” Struggling was useless, she knew, and she refused to give him the satisfaction of subduing her when no good could come of it. But her eyes bespoke her emotions as they shot blue daggers at him.
“You really are going to have to learn to swear, Countess. If you mean bloody hell, say it.”
Alec’s eyes teased her. His free hand moved to her cleavage, and with obviously experienced fingers he began to flick open the remaining hooks securing her pelisse.
XXXII
“Y
ou are a devil! Alec Tyron, you stop that this instant! Let me up!”
“Presently, love,” he said soothingly, ignoring her squirming efforts to be free as he unfastened the last of the hooks.
“No, don’t!” she cried in near despair, but it was too late. He pushed the edges of the pelisse aside, and looked down with a lurking grin at the hideously inadequate bodice of her gown. To her horror Isabella saw that the too big gown had shifted, exposing even more of her white skin than it had previously. Her breasts rose wantonly above the lower edging of braid, bared by her wriggling almost to the nipple.
“Pray don’t look.” Blushing, she lay perfectly still and turned her face away. Thus she missed his sudden frown as he saw how truly embarrassed she was.
“Isabella. Look at me.”
Gently he caught her chin in his fingers, and turned her face so that she had no choice but to look at him. In that moment her eyes were more gray than blue, cloudy with distress. The prim coil of hair at the back of her head rested against the mottled green of the ground, forcing the front part, usually demurely combed back, to fall forward, surrounding her pinkened face with a brown-gold nimbus. Though she did not know it, she looked very young, very shy and every bit as vulnerable as she felt.
“You are being absurd,” he said. “I’ve already seen considerably more of you than this—” His eyes flicked her chest, and returned again to her face as she reddened still more. “And I will not allow you to make yourself ill because of some ridiculous notion of propriety. It’s too damned hot to wear this bloody thing, modesty be damned.”
With that he let go of her hands and pulled her to her feet, stripping the pelisse from her with a single ruthless yank before she could recover herself enough to try to stop him. Isabella gasped as the pelisse was dragged down her arms and then lifted away, her hands flying instinctively to cover the exposed expanse of soft white flesh.
“Bully!” she hissed when she’d recovered sufficiently.
“If you like to think so,” he answered with a shrug, slinging the pelisse over his arm. Without another word, without even so much as looking at her again, Alec turned and walked back to the carriage. Isabella’s smouldering eyes followed him every step of the way. She watched with no small degree of outrage as he tossed the pelisse inside, and then returned with easy strides to settle himself cross-legged beside the picnic basket as if nothing out of the way had occurred. To Alec, obviously, might meant right, and his high-handed assumption of authority infuriated her.
Isabella eyed him narrowly as he bit into a leg of roast chicken with blithe unconcern.
“You are an ill-mannered cur, Alec Tyron.”
“Then you have your work cut out for you, don’t you, Madame Tutor? As soon as we reach Amberwood, you may busy yourself by attempting to smooth out all my rough edges. But in the meantime, why don’t you help yourself to some chicken? The Carousel’s cook has a way with it.”
Berating the maddening creature was clearly a waste of her time and effort, Isabella decided after a moment in which the state of her temper hung in the balance. Seeing that he was paying her exposed charms no particular attention, and secretly admitting that she was beginning to feel a great deal better now that the hot pelisse was no longer swathing her to her chin, Isabella gave up her ire and came over to sit, legs curled at her side, on the opposite side of the cloth. She was careful to keep one slim hand spread over her shocking décolletage, however. Arranging her skirts around her so as not to expose her ankles, she kept a sharp eye on Alec. If he dared to ogle her …
But he seemed far more interested in his luncheon than her charms. Gradually Isabella relaxed enough to find a drumstick of her own and begin, daintily, to eat. Casting fleeting looks down at herself as she picked the meat from the bone, she finally decided that, sitting up as she was, the cutout was not so revealing that she must keep a hand constantly plastered over it. Indeed, she probably looked foolish doing so. After a succession of lightning glances in Alec’s direction, each less wary than the one before, Isabella finally allowed her hand to drop.
“Tomorrow you may send for a dressmaker and order yourself a wardrobe, if you wish, I’ll stand the nonsense, of course.”
His attention still appeared to be concentrated solely on his meal, and his tone was nonchalant. But clearly, from the timing of his remark, he had been watching her more than she knew. His offer, though of course she could not accept it, clearly was meant to please her. Despite his toughness, the appalling conditions of his birth and upbringing, and an infuriating high-handedness that she suspected was inbred, Alec Tyron was at heart a very kind man, she was discovering. Isabella put down the bread she was getting ready to bite into, and smiled at him.
“It’s very generous of you, Alec, and you must not think I don’t appreciate the offer. But you cannot buy my clothes. It wouldn’t be proper.”
He met her eyes then for a pregnant moment, and she saw that her answer had annoyed him. “We have already stepped well beyond the boundaries of what you would consider proper behavior, Countess. Besides, who’s to know? And you need not fear that I’m short of blunt, because I’m far from that. Buying you a few fripperies will not put me in the poorhouse, I assure you.”
Isabella shook her head determinedly. “Your finances are not in question. It’s simply that I cannot allow you to pay for my clothes. Why, that would make me … make me …”
“Yes?” he questioned very quietly, lowering the wing he was getting ready to bite into.
“Less than a lady,” she said, and looked away. He made a sound that bespoke extreme vexation, drawing her eyes again. Before he could respond in anger, as she feared he would do, Isabella added hastily, “That isn’t to say that I don’t realize that I must commission a few decent gowns to wear. Perhaps if you would be so kind as to give me an advance on my salary—I am assuming you do mean to pay me a salary—I could purchase enough for my needs myself.”
“Of course I intend to pay you a salary—” Alec broke off suddenly, put the wing back on his plate, and wiped his hands on his napkin. Then he got to his feet, came around the perimeter of the cloth, and hunkered down at her side. Isabella set her own plate on her lap and looked at him wide-eyed. His expression was intent, and there was, besides, a certain impatience in his eyes.
“Hell, Isabella, let’s have an end to this farce, shall we?” His voice had an underlying roughness. “You have a care for me, I think, and I … I find you more than attractive. You may consider my person and my money at your complete disposal for the foreseeable future, if you wish. I can afford to buy you a wardrobe as grand as a duchess’s. I can give you jewels, and your own carriage and horses—whatever you want. I know you’re not greedy, love, and I’ve no fear you’ll bankrupt me. You’ll have carte blanche to purchase what you choose, I’m a rich man, and I’ll see you well provided for in the event we part ways, enough for you to afford to live quite comfortably for the rest of your life. You need never return to St. Just again.”
Isabella went very still as he spoke. When he finished, his eyes sweeping her face for her reaction, she could barely speak. She had to force the words out through her suddenly dry throat.
“I am not sure that I understand you. Exactly what are you proposing?”
He looked at her more carefully then, and something—uncertainty?—flickered for a moment in his eyes. Then he grinned, though the grin was crooked, went down on one knee before her, and placed a hand over his heart.
“ ‘Come live with me, and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove.…’ “ His voice, like his posture, was teasingly soulful, but his eyes were intent, and they never left her face.
“You are suggesting that I become your kept mistress.” It was a statement, not a question. Despite the heat, Isabella suddenly felt as if she’d been turned to ice.
“ ’Tis a crude way of putting it. I prefer to emulate Marlowe and ask you to be my love.”
His hand dropped away from his heart to reach for hers. Numbly she allowed him to take her fingers in his, and raise them to his mouth. As if she were no more than an observer of the pretty scene, she watched him press his lips to her knuckles. Coldly, clinically, she took in the bowed, handsome head, the broad shoulders, the muscled thighs that his kneeling position caused to strain against the knit breeches. Dancing sunbeams glinted off gold threads in his tawny hair.…
He looked up at her then, smiling. “Well, Countess?” She stared at him unspeaking for an instant longer. Then her eyebrows twitched together and her mouth turned down violently at the corners. Jerking her hand from his hold, she jumped to her feet, upsetting her plate, which had been resting on her lap. He looked up at her as she stood over him like an avenging fury, surprise plain on his face. Then his expression changed as he too stood. “Isabella-”
“You may take me back to town, if you please.” “You’re angry.” He sounded resigned. “I should have waited, I know, but I wanted to put an end to all these silly games between us. I desire you madly, love.”
“Don’t dare speak so to me!”
His mouth tightened with impatience. “Very well, if you wish, we’ll continue to play out the farce to its end. But you may be very sure that you’ll end up in my bed sooner or later, however much you like to pretend that you will not. We want each other too badly, my girl. You as well as I. It’s there in your eyes for me to see every time you look at me.”
“You’re insufferable! Take me back to town!”
She felt as if she were choking, as if she were wrapped about by iron bands that tightened with every breath. There was an ache in the region of her breastbone that she refused to subscribe to a lacerated heart. Pearl had been exactly right: Alec had meant to set her up as his mistress all along. He would enjoy her favors only as long as they continued to please him, and when they no longer did, when her novelty began to pall, he would buy her off. If things were different, if the world could be as she wished it and not as it were, there was nothing on earth that would please her more than to be his love. But love had nothing to do with the arrangement he proposed. It was a business transaction, pure and simple. The irony of it was that it was she who had insisted that their future association be strictly business. Though what he had suggested was certainly not the sort of business she had had in mind!