Weston made a show of examining the faded blue muslin. “You look delightful. Come along now, my bays have stood long enough.”
Startled at the authority behind the softly spoken words, Gillian found herself accepting his hand and was boosted up into the phaeton. She made one last attempt at propriety. “My bonnet?”
The earl accepted the reins from his tiger and slanted a glance across at her. “Do you burn easily?”
Gillian grimaced. “No, I just freckle.”
“You don’t need a hat.” With a click, the lovely bays were sent on their way, and Gillian’s spirits soared. The Black Earl had paid a call to see her, to take her for a drive in the park. An afternoon drive, when all of Society would be out seeing each other.
She chattered excitedly as Weston skillfully maneuvered his team through the crowded streets toward Hyde Park. He listened with only half an ear, more concerned with the growing fascination he felt for Gillian than with paying attention to her babble about whatever it was women talked about.
“I don’t know why everyone in England believes that we live with the Indians, but I can assure you we do not. Although I did have the opportunity to discuss the old days with a very interesting Indian who was staying with a merchant on our street. The Indian gentleman shared the technique of scalping with me and even promised to give me one, but he never did.” Gillian sounded disappointed for a moment. “On the whole, however, Boston is a very civilized city.”
She seemed to expect some sort of response to whatever it was she was saying, so Weston murmured his agreement and continued to examine the problem his unwelcome attraction to her presented. It was surely madness that allowed her to be constantly in his thoughts. She was a woman, merely a woman. Pretty, yes, lively and entertaining, true, but underneath her innocence and high spirits she was the same as every other woman — manipulating, conniving, and wholly untrustworthy.
“I wasn’t really responsible for the man being caught and tried, you understand, my lord. ’Tis the truth it was a coincidence I should bump into him just as he was escaping the jeweler’s and, of course, only an accident that our collision resulted in his breaking his arm. So you see, there is no reason the jeweler should have called me a heroine.”
“Of course,” Weston replied without thinking, and continued the dissection of his feelings. Given her many faults, why was it he felt like a hollow shell of ice when he wasn’t in her presence? He shook his head at his confusion and set out to methodically sort through the jumble of emotions that was clouding his good sense and organized mind.
“Truly, my lord, it is beyond my understanding why the sailors would think it was my fault the mast snapped, and although the captain might have been correct when he blamed me for letting it loose, I feel confident that my knots were just as well tied as anyone else’s.” Her voice stopped briefly as Weston bowed to an acquaintance who sniffed and quickly looked away in response. When he turned back to her, she was smiling.
“Sailors are a very superstitious group, I’ve found, hence their belief that women onboard ship are bad luck. Don’t you agree, my lord, that such a belief is ridiculous?”
She placed her hand briefly on his arm as she spoke. Weston smiled in return, mumbled something inane, and felt as if he had been struck.
He wanted her.
This was madness. The answer was simple — he had been too long out of the company of women. Despite having recently taken a mistress, base physical need must be the answer. There could be no other reason why he would be overwhelmed with the desire to brand Gillian as his own, to bask in the warming glow of her innocent sensuality, to bend her until she admitted she was his and his alone. He shook his head again. Surely this was insanity. He knew his duties as well as the next man; he was to pick a suitable wife from those women deemed eligible by Society. Daughters of fellow peers, or perhaps even a titled young widow, but not a penniless, unconnected, thoroughly unconventional woman. He would have to choose a wife from among the insipid, mindless chits that were dangled in front of him, and no matter how much he appreciated Gillian’s spontaneous laughter, no matter how bright her eyes glowed when she laughed, no matter how golden she appeared in the sunlight with her hair a beacon of flames dancing in a halo around her head, he could not marry her.
“Why the hell not?” He spoke the words without thinking.
Gillian looked startled at the rawness in his voice, but her delectable pink lips curved into a smile as she begged his pardon. “Why the hell not what, Lord Weston?”
Lord, he enjoyed her brashness. “Nothing; it’s of little consequence. Make your bow to Lady Fielding, she’s trying to get your attention.”
He pulled up the team briefly so Gillian could speak with her aunt’s sister, and watched her closely as she conversed. She was the granddaughter of an earl, and her manners were suitable, if a little rough. Training would help her overcome most of her gaucheness, although Weston recognized instinctively that he only wanted to tame her spirit, not break it.
Why shouldn’t he offer for her? She was a pleasant companion, appeared to be well read and conversant with the topics of the day, a fact that came to light when she shyly admitted that she read her uncle’s daily Times whenever she could. Weston approved of her inquiring mind and curious nature — up to a point. It would be his task to see to it that she learned her proper duty and place as his countess. She would be a good mother to his son, he mused as he gave the signal to the leader, and would provide him with the heir he needed. Her pleasant, unassuming nature boded well for her happiness; she would be content with life in the country, a dutiful wife who would tend to his needs and not interfere in his life.
Indeed, the more he thought about it, the harder pressed he was to find any fault with her at all. She was witty, amusing, and at the same time possessed a gentle nature and dignity that…
“Stop!” she screamed in his ear, startling him into compliance. Gripping his arm, she leaped over his legs and flung herself off the phaeton.
Dear God, she was going to get herself killed weaving in and out of the heavy traffic like that! Weston snarled an oath to himself, tossed the ribbons to his tiger, and leaped out after his soon-to-be-bride before she was flattened.
He was shaking by the time he reached her side, but whether from anger or fright he didn’t know. He suspected it was both, and clenched and unclenched his hands in an attempt to keep from strangling her on the spot. He took a deep, calming breath, mopped his handkerchief across his perspiring brow, and reminded himself that he was by nature a calm man, a placid man, a man fully in control of his emotions, and he would be damned before he allowed the daft Amazon to get the better of him.
“What the devil do you mean, leaping off the phaeton like that, madam?” he bellowed at her. “Have you no brains, woman? You might have been killed!”
Gillian looked up from where she was kneeling on the sidewalk next to a ragged street urchin and scowled at him. “Hush, my lord. You’re frightening the child.”
Weston boggled at her. Did she just order him to be quiet? He shook his head. No one, not even a clearly deranged woman like Gillian, would be so foolish.
“Miss Leigh,” he ground out between his teeth, trying desperately to leash the raging volcano of temper seething inside him. She’d taken at least ten years off his life, scaring him with her heedless actions. “Would you be so kind as to inform me why you saw fit to leave the safe confines of my phaeton to dash recklessly across the road?”
Gillian was crooning softly to a small, extremely dirty street Arab. Weston guessed the child was female only because there was a wilting clump of pathetic violets clutched in the urchin’s filthy fist.