The Scoundrel's Secret Siren (16 page)

At the unexpected question, Eloise stopped her work and looked up, an expression of keen interest on her face. “I enjoy it very much, Alastair,” she said, an amused smile flickering at the corners of her mouth. “I believe that marriage agrees with me. Furthermore, I believe it agrees with Gilmont. But what a curious question! You have never yet expressed an interest in my marriage. Nor anyone’s.”

She regarded him shrewdly, patiently waiting for a reply.

The earl was not himself entirely certain why he had asked. Only that, somehow, he’d found that he wanted to know. “Not at all. A gentleman ought to show some interest in the life of his youngest sister,” he said blandly, a sleepy expression returning to his face.

“Particularly if that gentleman is considering matrimony? Who is the damsel so fortunate as to win such high regard in your eyes, brother?” 

Eloise had always been very quick. It was easy to forget, with all her smiles and chatter.

“Nonsense, my dear. You are being an addlepate. I believe I have told you many, many times that I am not the sort of man who marries.”

“You have,” she agreed with a teasing note in her voice. “You have.”

Whatever else she might have said was interrupted by the arrival of Lorelei and Julia, both looking somewhat windswept. He was amused to note that Miss Lindon was still doing her utmost to avoid him.

His sister greeted the newcomers. Blessedly, she seemed to forget all about Winbourne.

“You missed a charming bit of gossip while you were out, my dears,” Eloise whispered dramatically, her eyes laughing. “I understand Miss Standish is all aflame with her latest disappointment.” Miss Standish was another of the debutantes who had taken Lorelei for a poor country cousin.

Lorelei tried to look suitably intrigued, and hide the fact that she was carefully keeping her eyes away from the earl, who looked handsomely sleepy. The infuriating man got up and pretended to browse the shelves. “Disappointment? Whatever happened?”

“I have had a letter from Honoria,” the countess went on, still looking supremely amused. “They say her beau has succumbed to the charms of a little mouse of a girl. By all accounts he is besotted, and it is said around Town that Miss Standish is quite determined to win him back.”

“How does she mean to achieve that?” Lorelei asked, playing along.

“Ah, my dear, it is quite scandalous! There is gossip that she means to dance at her next party in a diaphanous gown,
a la
Madame Recamier.”

“That would be quite infamous, my dear. Though perhaps a lady of Miss Standish’s years cannot afford another failure: I believe this is her third Season,” drawled an ironic voice from behind Lorelei.

She barely managed to keep from spinning around to face Winbourne. Instead, she forced herself to turn her head a little and give him a look of polite enquiry. His own eyes flashed amusement in return, before he turned back to his sister. “It would certainly make for an interesting night.”

“Oh, I don’t agree,” said Lorelei, giving in to a perverse urge to bait the man. His blasé air was very disconcerting, and she wanted to
put his back up, if only a little.

“Do you not? How so?”

“Yes, Lorelei, do you not think it infamous?” Eloise waited curiously for her reply.

“Oh, yes, infamous, but hardly interesting. The novelty of Miss Standish’s dancing, however well it might compare to that of the French lady, will doubtlessly soon wear off. It is not trick that will hold up to repetition. The gown is bound to be pronounced a bore within a month.”

Eloise laughed, but Winbourne just watched Lorelei. She had the satisfaction of seeing a small crease appear between his brows. Eloise soon excused herself to speak to Julia and they were left alone near the window.

Neither spoke for a while, until Winbourne shot a heated glance at Lorelei. “I find myself intrigued, Miss Lindon. It is an unusual state for me, and I pray that you will enlighten me. If, as you say, the key to Miss Standish’s seduction lies not in the dancing, or indeed, the gown, how is she to win back the hapless gentleman?” His tone was quiet so that no one else might overhear the private exchange. Lorelei did her best not to react to the sudden intimacy.

She knew nothing about seduction, of course, and even less about men who existed outside novels. She had only said what she had to bait him. Suddenly caught, she wondered how she was to answer. The words came to her of their own volition, as she felt his gaze pin her in place.

“The eyes, Lord Winbourne. I believe such a seduction would lie largely in the eyes.” It was plain to her that he had not expected such an answer. “If you will excuse me, Lord Gilmont has just walked in and I believe I promised to parent him at whist.” She did her best to make her exit as nonchalant as possible.

*

Lorelei had thought that, once they were back under Lord Gilmont’s roof, she may simply embark on a clever strategy of avoiding Lord Winbourne as much as possible. That gentleman, however, appeared to have other ideas.

He even insisted on joining her in her riding lesson with Julia, and had the audacity to be both faultlessly polite and helpful. He was kind to Julia when her mount grew skittish and her voice rose in missish anxiety.

“You need not concern yourself, Lord Winbourne,” Lorelei said a little coolly. She stood next to her horse, a fast, beautifully-bred creature whom Lord Gilmont had been somewhat sceptical about lending to a lady. It was Lorelei’s confident catalogue of the horse’s finer points that convinced him of her sound command of equine matters.

Looking amused, Winbourne, came forward before a groom could and insisted on throwing Lorelei up onto the horse himself.

To let him so close to her could prove fatal despite her assumed carelessness. Yet, making a fuss would cause her to appear ill-bred and, even worse, it would make him aware of the effect he had on her. So Lorelei gritted her teeth and smiled tightly.

“Very well, Lord Winbourne,” she said lightly. “You are most kind.”

The proximity of him was torturous. She could feel the warmth of his strong body even through his coat and smell his scent of spice and masculinity.

She looked down at him as he stepped back and gave her a wry one-sided smile, his dark eyes taking her in.

“That is a very becoming riding habit, Miss Lindon,” he told her quietly, though the way he looked at her made her flush slightly, as his eyes travelled over her figure. It was not fitting, of course, for a gentleman to say such things to a lady. Nevertheless, his regard sent her pulse racing.

The man gave her a long, knowing look. “You also have a fine seat upon the horse. Now let us see you put her through her paces.”

“You are sorely mistaken, Lord Winbourne”, she replied smartly, “if you think I am here to provide you with a horse spectacle. You may go to Astley’s for that whenever you please. My purpose is to simply help Julia.”

She looked over at her friend, who had been observing the exchange with interest despite her obvious lack of ease in the saddle.

“Shall we? I must see how you handle the mare,” Lorelei said with an encouraging smile. Then, with a brief nod to Winbourne, she urged her steed onwards and Julia, reluctantly, did the same.

With an expert eye, Lorelei assessed her friend’s horsemanship. Julia held the reins too tightly, the tension in her hands obvious even through her pretty kidskin gloves.

“You must lighten your hold, for you will hurt the horse’s mouth,” Lorelei told her friend gently, halting them.

“I am often told such,” Julia sighed. “But how shall I control her otherwise? I feel as though I could topple off just at any moment.”

Julia reminded Lorelei so much of Constance that she smiled softly, and shook her head. “My sister said the same once. It is very simple, you shall see, only first you must trust your horse even as you maintain a subtle control.
  You are being a goose, my dear, and if you are to learn a good seat, that simply will not do. We must begin work at once.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon trying to coax Julia out of her unease, until, hungry and tired, they returned their steeds to the stables and proceed
ed to their own rooms to dress for luncheon. 

Julia was still very far from any sort of equestrian success. However, the patient tone and endless explanations provided by her friend had eased some of the nerves instilled in her by years of impatient instruction. She shyly asked Lorelei if they might not have another lesson after all, provided she did not find Julia a stupid and difficult pupil.

That made Lorelei laugh, “What nonsense, my dear! You are no such thing. And of course we shall have another. As many as it takes. I shall make you a project.”

They were in high spirits when they returned to the house, unknowingly observed by Winbourne and Mr Hunter from an upstairs gallery. Winbourne found he could not quite draw his eyes away from the blonde woman, whose beauty became magnified ten-fold when she laughed.

The following day, when the ladies resumed their tutorial, Lord Winbourne joined in the lesson. He sat astride his own beautiful stallion, offering sound suggestions with a patience that surprised and irritated Lorelei. Would the man never let her be?

He concluded his appalling behaviour by challenging Lorelei to a dashing ride, having secured her participation under guise of doubting her skills. Winbourne seemed utterly unconcerned about his healing shoulder. It was a despicable thing to do, Lorelei thought, because he knew she could not resist a race. Julia did her best to discourage such a dangerous idea, but to no avail.

Lorelei looked at Winbourne laughingly. “A lady never engages in races, Lord Winbourne,” she scolded, with sparkling eyes, a second before she took off, her laughter ringing in her wake as Winbourne spurred his own horse to follow. He had truly an excellent command of his horse: strong and confident, the movement of horse and rider a study in graceful lines.

It made Lorelei inexplicably itch for charcoal and a sketchbook, and her sister’s talent for capturing life on paper. She thoroughly enjoyed the gallop, and when they arrived back at the house, flushed and laughing, she was sure she ought to utterly loathe the man for making her enjoy herself so excessively.

Julia had long since gone up to dress for dinner and, as they walked back from the stables, Lorelei found that she did not know what to say to him. Every time she tried to surreptitiously catch a glimpse of his face, her eyes snagged on his and sent her senses reeling. With a hasty ‘thank you’, she fled to the safety of her own room, where she did her best not to think about the infuriating Corinthian.

*

Lorelei’s confusion only grew stronger the following day.

Mr Taylor and Mr Hunter had gone off to the lake
just after dawn, for what Mr Taylor claimed was the healthiest exercise imaginable – a brisk morning swim. Winbourne had begged off, claiming that he had not the least intention of having lake water in his hair so early in the morning.

Instead, he seemed to have had the same idea as Lorelei -who had woken unaccountably early, and suddenly found the confines of her room intolerable – to go out into the rose gardens. His lordship had brought a newspaper with him, freshly delivered that morning from London, and Lorelei had brought her journal, because she imagined that she would explode if she did not write all her feelings out on paper.

She felt like she had a hot air balloon expanding in the region of her heart, and she did not think it was at all healthy feel such desire, despair and anger all at once. If Lorelei were a heroine in one of Lady Hurst’s novels, she felt sure she would already have expired from too much sensibility – perhaps, like Ophelia, she would float away down the river, beautiful in her death and surrounded by flowers.

But her reality was very far from a fanciful story, and so she picked up her much-loved journal, and a shawl in case of a morning chill, and proceeded out into
 the rose garden, where the dew on the grass dampened the hem of her lemon-yellow dress, and her soft leather slippers made no sound on the stony walkway.

Lorelei saw the earl before he saw her. She froze, debating between greeting him and retreating quietly instead. She had just made up her mind to issue a quiet greeting, when his lordship happened to look up from his pa
per and start, before rising to his feet.

“Did I scare you?”
Lorelei said, with a charming smile. “I am so very sorry!” She twinkled at him mischievously, and he was once more enchanted by her astonishingly green eyes.

“You are
not. You enjoy startling me. Perhaps you will sit down?”

She cocked her head to the side, considering him in a bird-like gesture that set her golden ringlets bouncing and made her look extremely pretty. “I wouldn’t wish to intrude. You are reading.”

“You are not intruding, I assure you. It is only the paper,” Winbourne replied, looking at her intently. “Unless you mean to snatch it away and throw it in the fountain, I doubt if you will bother me.”

“Well!” she laughed despite herself, “How kind you are. But you need not concern yourself over your paper – if I were to be tempted to throw any of your possessions in the fountain, I promise you that it would be your snuffbox.”

“My snuffbox? Now you
have
distracted me, and had better explain. Whatever has my snuffbox done to offend your sensibilities? It is very valuable you know – quite my favourite.”