A Much Compromised Lady (18 page)

“You want to settle what is between us? Well,
settle it. You want my body? Go ahead. Take it! Let us have done
with this, for that is all you will ever have from me!”

He stood very still for a moment, and finally
took two steps closer. The heat from his body washed over her. His
stare swept over her as well. And he smiled.

“You raise the stakes again, my Gypsy. For I
now want far more than your body. Far, far more.”

Her mouth went dry.

“Now go back to bed.” Leaning close, he
whispered in her ear, his voice soft as summer. “And dream of all
the things I will ask from you one day. One day very soon. I shall
ask, and you shall give in to me. That is a promise I shall
keep.”

He left her then. Left her standing in her
room, her arms bare and cold, her nightshift feeling transparent.
Part of her wished to throw something at him, and in part of her a
numbing relief settled along with an odd disappointment. Like a
phantom, he disappeared into the dark hole and that secret door
clicked shut and vanished back into the room’s paneling.

A sudden heat flared in her. Almost she
wanted to scream again and have him back here and finish this. He
wanted more! Bah! He wanted whatever he thought he could not have.
And when he had her heart, he would look at it and decide he did
not want it after all. She knew his kind too well.

Turning, she glanced around the room. She
dragged a round table carved with exotic fish in front of that
cursed door. When she finished, she pushed back the hair that
curled around her damp brow. Her shoulders sagged.

She put a hand up to her neck, to the spot he
had kissed. Still she could feel how warm his lips had been, and
that longing he had stirred within her began to stir again.

Ah, but she did not know who really was more
dangerous, or who was her greater enemy—this
gaujo
, or
Francis Dawes.

* * *

Glynis woke to a bustling in her room. She
pried open sleep-weighted eyes, and realized she had fallen asleep
in her dressing gown, curled up in a chair in the salon and not in
her bedchamber.

The maid, wide-eyed with curiosity, glanced
at her, but seemed too well-trained to say anything about Glynis’s
choice of bed. The girl dropped a curtsy, and asked the question
she asked every morning. Would miss prefer tea or hot
chocolate?

Glynis asked for tea, and she frowned at the
trunks laid open on the floor. “What is this?”

“His lordship wants you ready to leave, miss.
Soon as you’ve had your breakfast.”

A weight settled in the pit of Glynis’s
stomach. So it had happened. Despite his words and actions of last
night, the inevitable had occurred. He had grown tired of her. He
had probably gone away angry with her, disgusted with her tears,
and had decided this morning that he had had enough of her
difficult ways.

She rose, her chin high and telling herself
it was for the best. She and Christo would manage without anyone’s
help.

Still, it stung her pride. Angry with herself
that it did so tingled on her skin, pricked like thistles. And
that, she told herself, was all she felt at this abrupt
dismissal.

She dressed quickly in her blue gown,
throwing her few things into a bundle she hastily tied.
Reluctantly, she left the fringed turban behind. She could not
afford reminders of him.

Starting down the stairs, she forced her
shoulders straight, stiffened her back to as tall as she could make
herself.

St. Albans stood in the main hall, talking to
Gascoyne. As Glynis came down the stairs, St. Albans glanced up at
her, dismissed his servant and moved to the base of the stairs to
wait for her.

His Gypsy, St. Albans decided, looked in a
decidedly thorny mood. Ashamed perhaps of last night? Head high,
dark eyes snapping, she wore that confounded blue gown of hers, her
cloak draped over her shoulders. Someday he would really have to
burn that rag.

Clutching a small dark bundle, she stopped
before him. “I am ready to go. Where is Christo?”

Still weighing her mood, St. Albans offered a
smile. “He is staying behind on this excursion. It is just the two
of us.”

Shock widened her eyes and she glanced at
him, a frown pulling her dark brows together. He realized then what
it was. She had mistaken the intent behind his orders. “You thought
you were being given your
congeé
.”

“My what?” she said, still sounding
indignant.

“Your permission to depart,” he said,
offering his arm. “You are departing, but with my escort. I want
you out of Nevin’s reach for a time.”

“But why? This is not what you promised! You
said you would arrange that I—”

“Plans have changed. No, do not lose your
temper just yet. You do have a choice in this—you may stay here,
locked in your room, or you may come with me.”

“And why should I wish to go anywhere else
with you?”

“Because I am curious about this story you
have told. Curious enough to have your favorite item—questions. I
think you might find the answers interesting. Now, do you come with
me, or stay?”

She did not like her choices. He saw that at
once, but her preferences did not matter on this occasion. He
wanted her away from Lord Nevin’s reach for a time—enough time to
make Nevin forget her presence, in fact. And this was not an errand
for a servant. Too many nuances might be uncovered, and it was a
delicate thing to inquire if the current Lord Nevin might have
caused his elder brother’s death. That task demanded
discretion.

So he would have to go, because he hated
puzzles, and he had done nothing last night but puzzle over the
question of could his Gypsy really be telling the truth.

Curse as he might want to, he could not avoid
the fact that she had infected him with this quest of hers. At
least he had that brother of hers safe under lock and key, where
the fellow would not cause further problems. Gascoyne would see to
that.

He offered his arm again. “Shall we?”

They covered nearly a hundred and thirty
miles in just over ten hours. A reasonable pace, St. Albans
thought, but Glynis sat bolt upright across from him the entire
time, clasping the strap inside the carriage and vowing that his
coachman would overturn them at this speed.

But no such delay overtook them. No horse
went lame—St. Albans kept his own horses along each of the major
roads, and he change teams every fifteen miles to keep the pace he
liked. No axle broke. No wheel came off. His staff knew how to
maintain a carriage.

He could not draw his Gypsy into
conversation, and she glared at him if he even leaned towards her,
so he left her to her own thoughts and amused himself with a deck
of cards and a traveling card table.

At six that evening, with a good amount of
light still left in the sky, his carriage pulled up before a snug
brick house, not five miles from the village of Nevin. St. Albans
swung out and turned to reach for his Gypsy.

On solid ground, Glynis eyed the house with
misgivings, although its age-yellowed stone facing, its flight of
shallow steps that led to the main double doors, and its tidy size
and gardens, made an inviting setting. Particularly after ten hours
in a swaying coach. Ah, but she felt as if she were still
moving.

A wooded hill rose up behind the house, as
appealing as any home to Glynis and lit with the golden light of a
clear blue evening sky.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Owlpen Manor. One of my lesser holdings. I
sent a messenger ahead to have all ready for us. You will want to
bath and change. We dine at eight with the Vicar of Nevin.”

She glanced at him. “But why?”

“Because, my sweets, you are now Miss Dawes,
and a distant connection of mine, and have an interest in your
family history, and a desire to bestow a gift upon the parish in
exchange for a glimpse of its records.” His smile widened. “You
see, you are not the only one who can invent a good
swato
.”

* * *

Dinner seemed to Glynis to drag on
forever.

She had dressed in a gown of gold silk which
had a half-robe of red velvet. She plucked at the velvet,
self-conscious, feeling overdressed and out of place. St. Albans
acted as if she honestly was a lady, deferring to her every
preference, and lightly wielding that devastating charm of his on
both her and their host.

The vicar, Mr. Ambrose Cook—a solemn man,
gray haired, and round of figure and face—had greeted them at the
Rectory with more caution than hospitality. Glynis realized the
vicar must be aware of St. Albans’s notoriety, for the man could
not have been more guarded if he were greeting the devil
himself.

Still, he offered the Earl the deference due
his position. And after serving them sherry in the drawing room—and
after being handed a discreetly proffered check drawn, as St.
Albans said, on his own bank on behalf of Miss Dawes—the vicar’s
starched formality began to thaw.

Not a word more was mentioned by St Albans of
why they were there. Not as the vicar took them into dinner. Not as
a meal of more pies and sauces and dishes than Glynis could count
was laid before them. Not as she retired—as a lady must—to leave
the gentleman to their port, with their promise not to linger.

The housekeeper took Glynis to a retiring
room to answer nature’s demands, and to freshen herself. When she
came back to the snug, book-lined parlor, it seemed to her that St.
Albans had made himself fastest of friends with the vicar.

Ah, but that man could charm. He would be a
wonder at a horse fair.

“Bless, me, but do you mean to say you were
up at Cambridge with Terrance Hale?” the vicar asked beaming. “Why
his
Botanical Gardens
sits upon my very shelf here. Have you
actually been to his home, to see his gardens I mean? I have
promised myself to make that pilgrimage, but have yet to tear
myself from my own tidy plot here.”

“Yes, I have been many times,” St. Albans
said, a slight drawl in his tone. “Shall I ask Tuffy to send you
some rose cuttings? They are some of the most glorious in the
country.”

Glynis sat down and listened to the Earl of
St. Albans talk roses. He actually seemed to know of what he spoke,
for he and the vicar were soon off into talk of cuttings and mulch,
and colors and pruning, and things that seemed in another
language.

She tried to picture St. Albans in a rose
garden, perhaps with his coat off, and his shirt cuffed. The image
had her smiling, but she thought it more likely that he had an army
of gardeners and commanded them like a general.

A shadow fell over her and she looked up into
his handsome face. “Have we managed to bore you utterly?”

She glanced around and saw they were
alone.

“Mr. Cook has gone to fetch the rectory keys
to take us into the church vaults,” St. Albans said, offering her
his hand. Do remember that it is a cousin’s wedding you wish to
find.”

She nodded and rose. And glanced sideways at
him. “Do you really grow roses?”

“A sensualist ought to indulge his senses—all
of them,” he said, and his eyes lighting with some secret mischief.
He lifted her bare hand to his lips, for she had taken off her
gloves in the retiring room. “Sight we take for granted. But that
is just the starting point.”

His lips brushed the back of her hand. “There
is touch.”

His tongue teased her skin with a soft
feathering. He lifted his mouth and said, the word almost a caress,
“Taste.”

She stiffened and tried to glare at him. “Do
you not recall that Mr. Cook is supposed to think me the
respectable Miss Dawes tonight?”

His eyes gleamed wicked. “That certainly
covers hearing, although those were not quite dulcet tones. But we
cannot overlook scent—it is a woman’s scent that lingers most in a
man’s mind.”

Still holding her hand he lifted it and then
breathed deeply, as if taking snuff from her wrist. “A clean smell
of soap and rosewater. A pragmatic aroma for Miss Dawes. But you
ought to have your own scent, my Gypsy. Something unique.
Exotic.”

Despite the cooling evening, her neck warmed.
“You are trying to flatter me.”

“And I am succeeding. Shall I mix you a
scent? It is a hobby of mine to do so.”

She started to answer him that she wanted no
such thing, but Mr. Cook came back into the room, huffing, a sheen
on his round face from his search for his keys. He urged Glynis to
bring a shawl, warning her that he would not want her to take a
chill from the night air.

Ah, if he only knew how many nights I
slept in the open.
She caught a glimpse of wry amusement in St.
Albans’s eyes, and she had to look away for she knew he held same
thought as her.

St. Albans offered her his arm for the walk,
and the vicar chatted about the history of the village—its
establishment as a Norman holding near the Welsh border—and the
illustrious Dawes family.

“How long have you been vicar here about?”
St. Albans asked, drawling the question with casual boredom.

Glynis tensed. Could this man have actually
married her parents? His answer disappointed.

“Nearly two decades. Yes, a goodly time. Lord
Nevin gave me the living after Mr. Allnut—the previous vicar, bless
him—left for India. Missionary work, I think it was.”

“You never asked him?” St. Albans said,
stopping outside the church.

Mr. Cook lifted the lantern he carried and
paused, the iron ring of keys jangling softly in his hand. “Never
met the man. He left just after the fire that took the old Rectory.
No one died, bless us. But I have heard that it broke the man to
have had his personal papers burnt. All of them—diaries, letters,
books. Thankfully, the parish records have always been kept in the
vault. Do go in. The church is always open, and it is only the
vault that is kept under key.”