Lady Adventuress 02 - The Education of Lord Hartley (2 page)

The shuttlecock was quickly followed by a large blur, which turned out to be Hart, unable to stop the trajectory of his leap. He landed just to the side of Maggie and tumbled into her, knocking more lemonade everywhere and sending her glass flying.

Maggie gasped and sputtered. She was soaked and dreadfully embarrassed.

Was there no end to the indignities she would have to suffer this day? She wondered miserably, all the while trying to ignore the intoxicating warmth of Lord Hartley’s proximity, and the way he smelled of masculinity and summer.

In the distance, she could hear Frederick laughing as she stared up into Hart’s dark blue eyes. She couldn’t quite catch her breath. Then, her common sense came rushing back, and she was angry. Maggie hated feeling inadequate – which was a shame because, of late, she spent much of her time feeling exactly that.

Perhaps she was a little angrier than the accident had warranted but she couldn’t quite rein in her outrage – another failing. Her father often berated her for her dreadful temper.

She scrambled to her feet, refusing Hartley’s hand.

“Are you all right?” the marquess laughed, delighting in her angry eyes and dripping hair.

“I say, Maggie, stop being a sop. Hart, come finish the game!” Frederick called, still laughing and going in search of the shuttlecock.

As Maggie struggled to catch her breath and think of something suitably cutting to say, Hart wiped the hair out of her eyes and took hold of her chin.

His touch thrilled her to the core, erasing anything nasty she might have been about to say to him.

“I’m sorry, Maggie. Let me kiss it and make it better.” His voice was suddenly low and enchanting and it took a heartbeat for his words to register.

Maggie blinked and time seemed to stop as she watched his face come closer to hers and lean in to kiss her squarely on the mouth.

Her knees felt like they would give out at any moment, and his arm snaked helpfully about her waist.

For one brief, perfect moment, she felt the warmth of him, the strength of his hard chest, pressed against her. She would have given anything to stay that way forever.

She felt dizzy, a little uncertain and utterly delighted at the unexpected passion in his embrace as his lips pressed confidently against hers.

He tasted like salty lemonade.

Then, Hart broke the kiss and grinned at her.

Maggie lifted an unsteady hand to her mouth. Her first kiss, she thought dazedly. No one had ever even
tried
to kiss her until that day. Propriety required that she be offended. Aunt Verity would certainly have been scandalized. Only, at that moment, Maggie cared nothing for propriety or for her aunt’s opinion.

Hart was looking at her expectantly now, waiting for an answer to something. But what? She couldn’t think what to say, so all she said was, “I’m all wet.”

She regretted it instantly.

Of course
she was wet. She was wearing most of a pitcher of lemonade.

What a stupid thing to say, Maggie thought, wincing at her own inanity. Somehow, she found that she often said stupid things in front of Hart.

The marquess took in her appearance from head to toe. Something in his eyes made her shift restlessly in place.

He raised an elegant eyebrow. “Yes, rather like a drowned rat.”

Frederick laughed as he emerged from the trees behind Maggie, having retrieved the shuttlecock.

“Would you like me to dry you off?” Hart whispered, ignoring Frederick and reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief.

The insinuation, the question itself, was utterly scandalous, given the situation. Maggie’s eyes flew to his. She was unable, once again, to come up with a reply, momentarily lost in imagining his hands on her body. Perhaps too much sun really was bad for a lady’s well-being – not to mention her virtue.

When she failed to answer, Hartley gave her a triumphant grin. “Or perhaps I should just throw you in the lake, like old times?”

“You wouldn’t,” she stammered, preparing to run.

“I wouldn’t?” he challenged, lifting his eyebrows and tilting his head.

The challenge in his eyes was very familiar. She’d seen it a hundred times before, usually just before Hart did something terrible and daring.

She spun around and took off at great speed, running toward the house. Hart gave chase and caught her by the hand in record time.

It seemed an afternoon for scandal because then, to her utter astonishment, he moved to pick her up and deposit her in the water.

“Oi!” Frederick exclaimed, stepping forward with the shuttlecock in his hand. “All right, Hart, that is quite enough excitement for today! Do observe some propriety – wouldn’t want to compromise my sister, would you?”

Frederick and Hart laughed, thinking the very notion of such a thing to be a supreme joke. “Besides, she would never forgive either of us if you threw her in the lake, and then I would be the one to pay the price.”

Maggie felt her face flame. Before anything else could be said she picked up her skirts and continued running back to the house as fast as she could, leaving her book and spectacles behind on the table. She didn’t stop running until she reached her aunt’s room, short of breath.

Maggie really wanted to see Aunt Verity – but she wasn’t certain what she could really say. She could hardly walk in and ask her aunt’s advice on getting Hart to see her as a woman.

She hesitated at the door, adjusting her dress and hair. She tried her best to disguise the signs of her improper haste, and of the even more improper kiss that had preceded it. Was it written all over her face?

She could smell lemons on her, and the faintest hint of cedarwood and nutmeg. Hart.

She didn’t wish to disturb her aunt, but suddenly Maggie desperately needed her comfort.

She knocked on the door, and when her aunt’s voice invited her in, Maggie stepped gingerly into the room.

Aunt Verity had been staying with them for the last month, invited by Lord Chenefelt in an attempt to ‘reform’ Maggie and help her prepare for her first Season. This meant that she spent a great deal of time writing letters home to her husband, the mild-mannered ornithologist Sir John Compton. Maggie wondered if she would ever find the kind of marital felicity enjoyed by her aunt and uncle.

She liked her Uncle Compton a great deal for the calm, sensible air he always possessed. He didn’t seem to disapprove of her when she spoke out of turn or accidentally committed yet another gaffe.

Lady Compton, on the other hand, did disapprove. Maggie knew that she was merely trying to help her become what she ought to be, but this inevitably left her feeling extremely inadequate. Her aunt had made no secret of the fact that she thought training Maggie for society was a task that she ought to have undertaken long ago.

It was entirely Lord Chenefelt’s fault that things had been left so late because he had always been intolerably dismissive of the whole idea. And now Maggie was a disaster waiting to strike.

Even when Lady Compton had still been Miss Verity Dacre, a fresh-faced debutante, she had been considered a pillar of society, navigating each tricky turn with the utmost grace.

If only Maggie could possess even half her elegance!

It also hadn’t escaped Maggie’s notice that, despite her many social obligations, Aunt Verity had always shown a genuine interest in Maggie and Frederick. Maggie remembered how kind she had been, over the years, to come to Chenefelt whenever Maggie had needed her.

As Maggie shut the door behind her, still hesitant, Lady Compton looked up from her letters and gave her niece a welcoming smile, which was quickly replaced by a look of concern.

“Margaret, my dear, whatever is the matter? You’re all flustered. Is your hair wet? And your gown!”

Somehow, those words were enough to cause tears to cascade out of Maggie’s eyes, and she furiously wiped them away.

Maggie hated behaving like some silly milksop. “Oh, Aunt Verity,” she cried, coming to sit beside her at her escritoire. “Why does everyone think me a silly child?”

Before Verity could reply, Maggie continued on breathlessly, “It is simply dreadful. Frederick was playing shuttlecock with Hart on the lawns, and the lemonade got knocked over me, and…”

“Lemonade? My dear, you are telling banbury stories – slow down, please, and explain. I cannot follow.”

Maggie stood up and began pacing the room while she recounted the story, her face warm. She made no mention of the kiss.

Lady Compton listened sympathetically as her niece told her tale, a look of understanding on her face.

Maggie did her best to explain the embarrassment she’d felt, her eyes flashing with frustration at her inability to stop being so awkward and so hopelessly invisible.

“It is as though, no matter what I make of myself, I shall never be the lady everyone expects to see,” she finished mournfully.

She didn’t add that, if she couldn’t become that lady, Hartley would never think of her as anything more than his childhood friend. And did that even matter if he was going to offer for the beastly Lady Alice?

“Why does he have to be so exasperating and blind? He called me a ruffian yesterday, and asked after my governess today! I abhor him absolutely, and yet… It is cruel that there should be men like the Marquess of Hartley!” Maggie cried.

“Whatever do you mean, dearest?” Lady Compton asked, amusement in her eyes.

“I am not entirely certain. I should stop thinking about him. Only – he is so very handsome. One cannot help but notice it, you know. And yet he thinks of me as a…a…a magpie! A clever, scruffy bird!”

Aunt Verity laughed gently, patting her niece on the hand. “A magpie? What a silly boy. No matter their age, men are always boys, it seems – and often insufferable ones. Do you know, your Uncle Compton wouldn’t even speak to me until the Duchess of Strathavon made him? But I think I understand your trouble, my Maggie. Would it really be so very bad to be clever, do you think? A great many of the most respected ladies of the
ton
are very clever indeed, and greatly admired for it. I have every confidence that you are just a lily waiting to bloom. Or a nightingale waiting to sing, if it’s birds you want.”

“Bloom! I cannot even walk a step in my presentation gown.”

“Even so. You know, men are very absurd creatures – unable to see the treasure right under their noses. It merely takes some guidance, some patience and the occasional show of character to make them see just what they are missing. Perhaps a lovely gown and a new
coiffure
would not hurt the matter. You do sew such pretty things – I wonder that you never wear them. No matter – we will see about that for you soon, dearest. It will be just the thing to cheer you up. A pretty
coiffure
cannot but make a young lady feel
that
much more courageous.”

“Thank you, Aunt Verity.”

Maggie did feel somewhat better at these words, full of fresh hope.

She would bloom. Surely, any day now, she would bloom. And then Hart would forget all about the dreadfully perfect Lady Alice.

Maggie spoke with her aunt a while longer, enjoying the quiet, peaceful conversation. They discussed arrangements for going to town and the letters Maggie’s cousins had written their mother in her absence.

Even though Lady Compton was a tad old-fashioned, Maggie loved having someone like a mother to talk to. There had been too little of that kind of relationship in her life.

Her father had certainly been no good on that head. He had always been scornful of what he termed ‘female hysterics and fripperies’, and he’d hardly ever been at Chenefelt when she was growing up.

And now that he
was
at Chenefelt, Maggie did not know how to go on with him.

The cessation of the war with France and his subsequent return to shore had certainly done nothing to make Admiral Lord Chenefelt any more approachable.

Maggie’s father had never been able to form a strong attachment with his son or daughter, feeling that they ought to obey orders without negotiation or explanation. He did not see why they should be allowed to think for themselves, and his character was much too different from theirs to allow for common interests. Maggie knew that he loved them in his own way: this did not, however, make him an easy man to live with.

Sensing that her aunt wished to return to her correspondence, Maggie reluctantly excused herself to go clean up her sticky face and hair.

She made her way to her room, meaning to ring down for Cecile, her companion, and ask that she retrieve her glasses and book from the lawns.

She was momentarily taken aback to discover these items already delivered up to her room and placed on her little escritoire. She called for a maid to draw her a bath and watched the innocuous objects out of the corner of her eye.

“Cecile?”

“Yes, Maggie?” Cecile’s lilting French accent had remained unchanged in the years Maggie had known her.

“The glasses…?”

“Oh! Lord Hartley sent those up for you. He said you’d forgotten them and may want them later.” Cecile gave the younger girl a warm smile. She had become Maggie’s dearest friend over the years, quite beyond the requirements of her post as a lady’s companion.