To Pleasure a Lady (3 page)

Finally, after more than three years of hard work, the school had become a highly successful enterprise, allowing them complete financial independence. Then, dismayingly, their step-uncle died and they were saddled with a new guardian, who had immediately declared his intention of finding husbands for them.

It was frustrating in the extreme, not to mention worrisome. The new Lord Danvers possibly had the legal authority to compel them to stop teaching if he arbitrarily chose. And any husbands he found for them would almost certainly disapprove of their uncommon endeavors.

Moreover, Arabella cringed at the mere thought of subjecting herself to another courtship. She had absolutely no intention of leaving herself vulnerable to the heartache she'd endured four years ago.

Her sisters had entirely different ideas for their futures as well, which did
not
include surrendering their hard-won independence to unwanted husbands. Roslyn was determined to marry only for love, while Lily had sworn off matrimony and men entirely.

“Thank heavens for Winifred,” Arabella murmured sincerely.

Their patroness, Winifred, Lady Freemantle, had come from the working classes herself before marrying into the gentry. The middle-aged widow had been an unfailing source of support, not only for the academy but for the sisters' personal lives, including offering her chaise and team for Arabella's journey so she wouldn't have to use her step-uncle's dilapidated barouche.

It was early afternoon by the time the chaise reached the village of Chiswick. Like Richmond farther west, Chiswick had become a fashionable place of residence for the aristocracy during the past century because of the desirable proximity to London.

The carriage passed numerous riverside mansions and villas before turning into the graveled drive of Danvers Hall. The beautiful, stately manor of mellow red brick stood on the tree-lined banks of the River Thames. The setting was lush and green, but the overgrown lawns and landscape resembled more of a jungle. The interior appointments and furnishings of the house, too, were shabby and worn, while the artwork and silver had long ago been sold to pay estate bills.

All but a handful of servants had been let go as well. The remaining staff was led by a butler and housekeeper, an elderly couple who were devoted to the place after having lived there for more than thirty years. They had welcomed the Loring sisters warmly four years ago, even if their step-uncle had not.

When the coach came to a halt before the house, Arabella's sisters came out to greet her.

Roslyn was tall and slender, with pale golden hair, sky blue eyes, and an exquisite beauty that gave her the delicacy of gilded crystal—a laughably false impression, since she was the most clever and studious of them all, as well as the most charming. Roslyn would have been far happier had she been born male, so she could have pursued a scientific career. Instead, her sharp intellect was wasted on teaching etiquette and deportment to raw schoolgirls.

Manners and deportment were certainly not Lily's forte. The youngest Loring sister was a lively hoyden, far more at home coaching the academy's pupils in sporting activities and physical skills such as riding and driving and archery. Curiously, Lily had a bold, vivid coloring. Her sparkling dark eyes and rich, dark chestnut tresses made her seem a changeling in her fair-haired family, while her passionate high spirits regularly led her into trouble.

Usually her eyes were warm and laughing, but now they only looked worried.

“Well, what did he say, Belle?” Lily asked as soon as Arabella stepped down, despite the fact that the coachman and groom could overhear their conversation.

“I will tell you when we have some privacy,” Arabella replied, even though she understood Lily's impatience.

When her youngest sister wrinkled her nose in exasperation, Arabella met her middle sister's smiling eyes.

“You must know,” Roslyn explained, “how difficult it has been, waiting for you all day, picturing your interview with Lord Danvers.”

“You never could have imagined what actually happened,” Arabella murmured inaudibly.

“You should have allowed us to come with you,” Lily said as they made their way up the steps and through the front door. “We could have supported you against the vexatious earl.”

“Perhaps I should have,” Arabella agreed with a rueful laugh, before surrendering her gloves and bonnet and pelisse to Simpkin, their venerable butler.

Her sisters managed to contain their impatience until they repaired to a small parlor at the rear of the first floor, the only room that had a fire burning in the grate to ward off the spring dampness, which continued their late step-uncle's frugal ways.

“I am sorry to say that I failed miserably this morning,” Arabella confessed, not disclosing that she had tried to make her case at the point of a rapier. “I did not handle Lord Danvers at all well—but even so, he was entirely unreasonable.”

“He won't withdraw his offer to provide us with dowries?” Roslyn asked in consternation.

Arabella gave a dark smile. “No. In fact, he boasted that we would soon have suitors swarming all over us.”

Roslyn pressed her lips together in ladylike annoyance, while Lily gritted her teeth. “So what shall we do to foil him?” she wanted to know.

The new earl's plan to find them husbands had alarmed Lily most of all. Not only was she perfectly happy with the unusual freedom she enjoyed in her current life, she relished working at the academy. And now Lord Danvers was threatening to spoil it all by attempting to make them marry.

The three of them had already discussed possible options in the event Arabella failed to change his mind this morning. There now seemed to be but one way to foil the earl's intentions, and even that would only be a temporary solution.

“I think,” Arabella said slowly, “that you will both have to disappear from Danvers Hall for a time. If he can't find you, then he can't coerce you into accepting any suitors he foists upon us.”

Lilian looked unhappy. “I still think we should stay and make a stand against him. He needs to accept that he won't be able to coerce us to marry under any circumstances.”

“I don't like leaving you to confront him alone, Arabella,” Roslyn added.

“I will be all right,” she replied, trying to sound confident. “And I would feel more reassured if you were out of harm's way.”

Roslyn finally nodded with reluctance. “How long will we have to remain in hiding?”

“Until Lord Danvers can be made to see reason.”

“You shouldn't have to fight our battles all by yourself, Belle,” Lily insisted.

Arabella smiled. “I know, but I think it best in this instance. You can go and live with Tess for a few days. He won't think to look for you at her house.” Tess Blanchard was their dearest friend and a teacher at the Freemantle Academy for Young Ladies, which had been named after their patroness.

“Winifred would undoubtedly take us in,” Roslyn suggested.

“Yes, but Lord Danvers is likely to look for you there, since I told him about her ladyship's sponsorship.”

When Lily still looked troubled, Arabella gave her an imploring smile. “Lily, promise me that you will go along with my plan for the time being.”

“Oh, very well.” She threw her arms around Arabella's neck in a brief hug. “But I don't like it in the least. I would rather remain here with you and challenge the vexations earl.”

Arabella ignored that comment, for she had learned the hard way that it was unwise to challenge the new Lord Danvers. “I think you should stay with Tess tonight. Lord Danvers will likely call on us soon, and I don't want you to be here when he does.”

“How will you deal with him?” Roslyn asked.

“I'm not yet certain,” Arabella murmured. As their guardian, he had the right to arrange convenient marriages for her and her sisters, yet she would somehow have to make him abandon his plan. “He is living under the illusion that he can dictate to us, but I will have to show him the error of his thinking.”

         

All her good intentions, however, suffered a serious setback four days later when she spied Lord Danvers riding across a grassy meadow toward her.

“Blast and hang him,” Arabella muttered under her breath, abruptly drawing rein. She should have known his lordship wouldn't be happy to cool his heels waiting for her. She had purposely stayed away from home at the appointed hour for the interview he'd requested, determined to make his guardianship as inconvenient as possible. She hadn't expected him to come after her; obviously she had underestimated his persistence.

Her gloved hands clenching on the reins, Arabella hesitated for the barest instant. It was not like her to turn tail and run, yet she didn't trust herself alone with Lord Danvers. It was one thing to meet him when servants were within calling distance; it was quite another to face him alone in a secluded meadow. She had no desire to confront the earl if he was bent on revenge for threatening him at sword point during their first encounter, or for defying his express orders this afternoon.

The lamentable truth was that the handsome devil unnerved her with his lithe, broad-shouldered form, his piercing blue eyes, and his knowing smile. She wasn't certain she could hold her own with him just now.

Or perhaps she had simply turned craven.

Not pausing to further debate the deficiencies of her character, Arabella wheeled her horse and spurred it into a gallop, making for the copse of beech trees in the distance. Any hope that Lord Danvers hadn't seen her, however, died a swift death when she risked a glance over her shoulder. He was giving chase.

Her heart quickening, she bent low over her sidesaddle and urged her mount on. When shortly she reached the beechwood and plunged inside the cool shadows, she was forced to slow her pace to negotiate the low-hanging branches that snagged at her bonnet.

Not so the earl. The sound of hoofbeats behind her told her that he was still pursuing her. When she came out again into another sunlit meadow, Arabella doubled her efforts but knew he was rapidly gaining on her.

Her pulse was hammering in time with the thudding hooves when he drew even with her. For an instant they raced side by side, while her heart pounded with unexpected exhilaration.

Then suddenly he reached out to wrap a strong arm about her waist and pluck her from the saddle as if she weighed no more than thistledown.

Arabella's gasp of alarm turned to outrage when she found herself hauled sideways in front of his saddle and enveloped in his powerful embrace. As she clung desperately to him for balance, her breathless demand, “Let me go, you devil!” was muffled ineffectively against his shoulder and received no reply. Instead of releasing her, the earl merely tightened his grasp.

When he finally brought his mount to a plunging halt, Arabella sucked in a panting breath and lifted her head to glare up at him.

A mistake, she realized at once, for her mouth rested only inches from his. A delicious shock flared through her. She had fantasized about those firm, sensual lips….

Then their gazes locked, and her breath faltered altogether.

The sudden silence seemed deafening. Arabella felt her heart nearly pounding out of her chest, yet this time she couldn't blame her response on physical exertion. Rather, it was because she found herself pressed against his lordship's hard-muscled male body, her heaving breasts nestled against his broad chest.

He sat there unmoving, eyeing her in speculation, and she stared back at him, frozen. When his gaze dropped to her bare throat and then even lower, to her breasts that were thrust prominently upward, she wished she had worn something more substantial than a low-collared muslin gown in deference to the warmth of the spring afternoon. She was acutely conscious of the way her nipples had brazenly hardened at the contact.

He, too, seemed aware of her body's wanton response, for his blue eyes darkened with a sensual gleam.

His voice fell to a languid murmur when he observed, “I had anticipated any number of greetings from you, Miss Loring, but I confess this was not one of them.”

Arabella stiffened at his husky, amused tone. “Nor I, my lord. What do you mean, manhandling me in this brutish way?”

The glimmer in his eyes deepened. “Why, I was rescuing you, of course.”

“I did not need rescuing!”

“No? I assumed your horse bolted. You would never have been so rude as to deliberately ignore my request for an audience. I arrived an hour ago at the hall to find you and your sisters nowhere in sight.”

She had no legitimate reply for that, since her absence had indeed been entirely deliberate.

“You must have forgotten the time,” the earl prodded, “for I'm certain you didn't mean to put me to the trouble of searching for you.”

Arabella had the grace to blush. “I was previously occupied at the hour you demanded.”

“Demanded?” He raised a dark eyebrow. “It was hardly a demand.”

“It seemed very much so, since you gave me no choice in the matter.”

His gaze dropped to her lips again. “It appears your flight had consequences you never intended.” At her puzzled look, he shifted slightly beneath her. “Perhaps you didn't realize that physical exertion rouses a man's blood. And combined with the thrill of the chase…”

He let the words hang until she felt the swelling hardness of his loins against her thigh and comprehended his meaning. She had aroused more than his blood, quite obviously!

Regaining her wits, Arabella pressed her hands against his chest, determined to break free. Yet it was too late. His mouth suddenly lowered to capture hers in a kiss.

A slow, devastating, spellbinding kiss.

The unexpectedness of his assault stunned her. She felt light-headed. She couldn't breathe. At the searing heat of it, panic melded with insidious excitement, but she couldn't summon the desire to fight him. Instead, her entire body softened instinctively against him as his lips moved over hers with exquisite pressure. When his tongue delved deep inside her mouth, exploring, she gave a helpless moan.