Was he a rakehell? He was a friend of Lord Montford’s and every bit as dashing and handsome as he was, even if his looks did narrowly escape perfection because of his nose, which had been broken at some time in the past and not quite straightened afterward. Though actually the bend in his nose made him look more attractive than perfection would have done.
“Enough of this,” Margaret said firmly. “You will stay for dinner, Constantine? Bar the doors, Stephen, lest he say no.”
“Coercion succeeds with me every time,” Constantine said. “But so does a friendly invitation. I will be delighted to stay.”
And so, Katherine thought, she was surely doomed to another disturbed night. She was to go walking with Lord Montford tomorrow-and Meg and Stephen and Miss Wrayburn. She must make a determined effort to walk with one of them.
She must also pray very fervently that it would rain tomorrow.
The five of them went walking as planned the following afternoon, which was fortunately fine, even sunny, after a damp, unpromising morning. Jasper walked with Miss Huxtable while Merton had Charlotte on one arm and Miss Katherine Huxtable on the other. After they had all spent a while down by the Serpentine, admiring the swans and watching a young boy sail his small boat on the water under the eagle eye of his nurse, they walked back again with Merton between Charlotte and his eldest sister and Jasper with the younger.
As he had planned from the start, of course. One must never be too obvious in such pursuits, but one must be relentless. He had maneuvered the exchange without any of the others even suspecting that maneuverings were going on. Except, perhaps, Katherine Huxtable herself. She favored him with a tight-lipped but otherwise expressionless stare as she took his arm.
“Miss Wrayburn is charming,” she said almost vengefully.
“But sometimes anxious about how she will be received,” he said, inhaling to see if he could catch a whiff of that soap smell again. He could. It was faint but unmistakable. It must be the most seductive scent ever invented.
She looked very fetching too in a sage green, high-waisted walking dress with a straw bonnet adorned with ruched pale green silk about the crown and ribbons of a matching color beneath her chin. Her hair looked very golden beneath its wide brim.
“Oh, but she need not be anxious with us,” she said. “There is no reason to be. We are very ordinary people.”
“Indeed?” He looked down at her with raised eyebrows, but she was being quite serious. “One wonders, then, what extraordinary people would be like. One might need an eye shade just to look at them.”
She clucked her tongue and raised a reproachful face at the same time.
“That was a compliment, was it?” she said dryly. “Thank you, my lord, on behalf of Stephen and Meg.”
“Charlotte is very taken with you,” he said quite truthfully. “And with your sister,” he added to be fair. “She is flattered by your kindness and condescension in taking notice of her.”
“It is hardly condescension,” she said. “We were very ordinary mortals indeed just a few years ago and living in a small cottage in a small country village. I was contributing to our meager income by teaching at the village school a few mornings a week. The most glamorous events in our lives were the infrequent village assemblies and the annual summer fete at Rundle Park, the manor of Sir Humphrey Dew. Our circumstances have changed since then, but we have not, I hope. I liked us as we were.”
Was she deliberately making herself sound dull? He felt a wave of amusement.
“I believe, Miss Huxtable,” he said, dipping his head a little closer to hers, “I would have liked you then too. Did you dance about a maypole on the village green every spring, by any chance? There is nothing more enticing than the sight of a lovely woman weaving her ribbon about the pole, dipping and swaying and flashing her ankles as she goes.”
“No maypoles.” But she laughed suddenly. “And no flashing ankles.”
He felt enveloped by sunshine and warmth and noted with some surprise when he glanced upward that the sun was hidden behind clouds. It amazed him that he had tried to forget her for three whole years, that his memories of her had not been pleasant ones. That, of course, was because his memories of her had been all tied up with memories of humiliation.
“No maypoles or flashing ankles,” he said. “How very sad. Though perhaps not. Perhaps the males of your village from the age of twelve to ninety were thereby saved from unutterable suffering at your hands-or should I say rather, at your ankles.”
“I wonder, Lord Montford,” she said, though her face still laughed, “if you have any skill or experience with ordinary conversation.”
“But of course I have,” he said, all astonishment. “I am a gentleman, am I not? You wound me with your assumption that I have none.”
“But I have never heard any evidence of it,” she said.
“Would you say,” he said, looking upward, “that those clouds overhead presage more rain to come later? I would say not. You will observe that they are white and fluffy and really quite benign. And there is blue sky beyond them. My prediction is that in one hour’s time, or even less, the sky will be a pure blue and we will bask in the bliss of it for a short while before the pessimists among us start to worry about tomorrow. Have you noticed how good weather invariably brings on the prediction that we will have to suffer for it with some shockingly infelicitous storm in the near future? Have you ever heard anyone do the opposite? Have you ever heard anyone on a day of cold sleet and arctic gales gloomily predict that we will suffer for this with blue skies and sunshine and warmth at some time in the future?”
She was laughing out loud.
“No, I never have,” she said. “But is this ordinary conversation, Lord Montford?”
“The topic is the weather, is it not?” he said. “Could anything be more ordinary?”
She did not answer, but she continued to smile.
“Ah,” he said, “I understand. You did not mean ordinary at all, did you? You meant dull. Yes, I am capable of dull conversation too, and will demonstrate if you wish. But I must warn you that I may fall asleep in the middle of it.”
“You need not worry about that,” she said. “I would be asleep before you.”
“Ah, an interesting admission,” he said, moving his head a little closer to hers, “and one I may use to my advantage at some future date.”
“You would be unable to,” she said. “You would be asleep too.”
“Hmm. A thorny problem,” he admitted.
“Besides, Lord Montford,” she said, “you cannot make me fall in love with you while I am asleep, can you? And I assume that is what this is all about? This visiting me with your sister? This walking in the park with us?”
“While you are asleep?” he said, moving his head even closer to hers.
And actually, in his attempt to arouse her interest in him, he was arousing himself to no small degree. The idea of making a sleeping woman-all warm and languorous in the depths of a soft mattress-fall in love with him had a very definite appeal. Good Lord!
“Miss Huxtable, you are quite-”
He got no further. They had progressed by this point to a more public part of the park, and the daily promenade had begun-vehicles of all descriptions, horses, pedestrians, all jostling for space on the crowded thoroughfares, all vying for attention. For the purpose was less to acquire air and exercise than it was to see and be seen, to show off new bonnets and new mounts and new beaux, to see and criticize other, inferior bonnets and mounts and beaux. It was the ton at play.
And one garishly ostentatious open barouche, which was almost abreast of Jasper and Miss Huxtable, was slowing and then drawing to a halt. Its occupants peered down at them with frowning disapproval-or at him, actually.