“How could you possibly want a nap?” Pandora demanded, incredulous. “We’ve done nothing but sit all day.”
Cassandra was instantly defensive. “Doing nothing is exhausting. I need to rest in case we do nothing again later.”
Looking nettled, Pandora turned back to Gabriel. “I can’t go, either. I have no bathing costume.”
“You can wear one of mine,” Seraphina volunteered.
“Thank you, but without a chaperone, I couldn’t—”
“Phoebe has agreed to chaperone us,” Gabriel interrupted.
His older sister, who had been listening to the exchange, raised her brows. “I did?” she asked coolly.
Gabriel gave her a meaningful glance. “We discussed it this morning, remember?”
Phoebe’s gray eyes narrowed. “Actually, I don’t.”
“You said you’d spent too much time inside lately,” he told her. “You said you needed a walk and some fresh air.”
“Goodness, how talkative I was,” Phoebe said in a caustic tone, her gaze promising retribution. But she didn’t argue.
Gabriel grinned as he saw Pandora’s mutinous expression. “Don’t be stubborn,” he coaxed in an undertone. “I promise you’ll enjoy yourself. And if you don’t . . . you’ll have the satisfaction of proving me wrong.”
Chapter 7
After being shown to a pretty bedroom with delicate pink walls, and wide windows opening to a view of the ocean, Pandora changed into a bathing costume that had been brought by Seraphina’s maid. The ensemble consisted of a dress with short puffed sleeves and a shockingly brief skirt, and a pair of Turkish trousers to wear underneath. Sewn of light blue flannel trimmed with white braid, the bathing costume was wonderfully light and loose.
“If only women could dress like this all the time,” Pandora enthused, twirling experimentally. Losing her balance, she fell dramatically backward onto the bed with her white-stockinged legs in the air like an upended tea table. “I feel so free without a creaky old corset.”
Her lady’s maid, a stout fair-haired girl named Ida, regarded her doubtfully. “Ladies need corsets to support their weak backs.”
“I don’t have a weak back.”
“You should pretend to. Gentlemen prefer a delicate lady.” Ida, who had pored over hundreds of ladies’ fashion periodicals, continued with authority. “Take my advice and find a reason to swoon when you’re at the beach, so Lord St. Vincent can catch you.”
“Swoon from what?”
“Say a crab frightened you.”
Still lying on the bed, Pandora began to laugh. “It’s after me!” she exclaimed theatrically, opening and closing her hands like pincers.
“Don’t snort, if you please,” Ida said sourly. “You sound like a trumpet-major.”
Raising up on her elbows, Pandora regarded her with a crooked grin. Ida had been hired at the beginning of the Season, when it had been decided the twins each needed her own lady’s maid. Both Ida and the other maid, Meg, had vied eagerly for the position of attending Cassandra, who had lovely golden hair and a far more compliant disposition than Pandora.
Cassandra had chosen Meg, however, which had forced Ida to settle for becoming Pandora’s maid. Ida had made no secret of her disappointment. To Pandora’s amusement, Ida had dispensed with most of the usual courtesies and pleasantries, and had remained surly ever since. In fact, when the two of them were in private, her remarks bordered on insulting. However, Ida was efficient and hardworking, and determined to make a success of her charge. She went to great lengths to keep Pandora’s clothing in perfect condition, and was proficient at arranging her heavy, slippery hair so that it stayed firmly in its pins.
“Your tone lacks deference, Ida,” Pandora said.
“I’ll treat you with all the deference in the world, milady, if you can manage to bring Lord St. Vincent up to scratch. Word among his servants is, the Challons will arrange for someone else to marry you, if you don’t suit Lord St. Vincent.”
Instantly annoyed, Pandora climbed off the bed and tugged the bathing costume back into place. “As if this were a game of pass-the-parcel? With me as the parcel?”
“It wasn’t Lord St. Vincent who said so,” Ida interrupted. She held up a hooded robe, which had also been brought by Seraphina’s lady’s maid. “It was his servants, and they were only speculating.”
“How do you know what his servants are saying?” Fuming, Pandora turned and thrust her arms into the robe. “We’ve only been here for an hour.”
“It’s all everyone is talking about belowstairs.” Ida fastened the robe at the waist. It matched the rest of the bathing costume and gave the ensemble the appearance of a proper dress. “There, you’re presentable.” She knelt and guided Pandora’s feet into little canvas slippers. “Mind you don’t become loud and wild during your outing. His lordship’s sisters will notice everything, and tell the duke and duchess.”
“Bother,” Pandora grumbled. “I wish I weren’t going at all now.” Scowling, she jammed a low-brimmed straw hat over her coiffure and left the room.
The group heading to the beach consisted of Lord St. Vincent, Seraphina, Ivo, Phoebe and her son Justin, Pandora, and Ajax, who bounded ahead and barked as if urging them to hurry. The boys were in high spirits, carrying an assortment of tin pails, spades, and kites.
The holloway was only wide enough to accommodate a single cart or wagon, and so deeply sunken in some places that its banks were taller than Pandora. Tussocks of gray-green Marram grass grew in places along its walls, interspersed with long-stalked flowers and spiny shrubs of sea buckthorn laden with brilliant orange berries. White-and-gray herring gulls spiraled on ocean-flung breezes, their stiffly spread wings carving through the soft sky.
Still brooding over the idea that she was on trial—that Lord St. Vincent was assessing her and would most likely decide to foist her off on someone else—Pandora spoke as little as possible. To her discomfiture, the rest of the group seemed inclined to draw away from the two of them. Phoebe made no effort to watch over them, instead walking far in front, hand-in-hand with Justin.
Obliged to keep pace with Lord St. Vincent’s more relaxed stride, Pandora saw the distance between them and their companions increase. “We should try to catch up to the others,” she said.
His lazy pace didn’t alter. “They know we’ll reach them eventually.”
Pandora frowned. “Does Lady Clare know nothing about chaperoning? She’s paying no attention to us.”
“She knows the last thing we need is close supervision, since we’re trying to become familiar with each other.”
“That’s rather a waste of time, isn’t it?” Pandora couldn’t resist asking. “In light of your plans.”
Lord St. Vincent glanced at her alertly. “What plans?”
“To pawn me off on some other man,” she said, “so you don’t have to marry me.”
Lord St. Vincent stopped in the middle of the holloway, obliging her to halt as well. “Where did you hear that?”
“It’s household gossip. And if it’s true—”
“It’s not.”
“—I don’t need you to dredge up an unwilling bridegroom from somewhere and bully him into marrying me just so you don’t have to. Cousin Devon says I won’t be made to marry anyone if I don’t wish it. And I don’t. Furthermore, I don’t want to spend my visit trying to win your approval, so I hope—”
She broke off, startled as Lord St. Vincent moved toward her in two fluid strides. Instinctively she backed away until her shoulders encountered the side bank of the holloway.
Looming over her, Lord St. Vincent braced one hand against an exposed tree root that ran up the wall. “I’m not planning to give you to another man,” he said evenly, “if only because for the life of me, I can’t think of a single acquaintance who would begin to know how to handle you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “But you can?”
Lord St. Vincent didn’t reply, but his mouth twisted in a way that seemed to impl
y the answer to the question was obvious. As he saw the fist she had clenched in the folds of her robe, something in his face softened. “You’re not here to win my approval. I invited you to find out more about who you are.”
“Well, that won’t take long,” Pandora muttered. In response to his quizzical glance, she continued, “I’ve never been anywhere, or done any of the things I’ve dreamed about. I haven’t finished becoming myself. And if I marry you, I’ll never be anything except Lord St. Vincent’s peculiar wife who talks too fast and never knows the order of precedence for the dinner guests.” Hanging her head, Pandora swallowed against the sharp constriction of her throat.
After a speculative silence, his long, graceful fingers came to her jaw, tipping it upward. “What do you say to lowering our guards?” he asked gently. “A temporary disarmament.”
Fidgeting, Pandora looked away from him and happened to see a nearby vine bearing an enormous cup-shaped pink blossom with a white star at its center. “What kind of flower is that?”
“Sea bindweed.” Lord St. Vincent guided her face back to his. “Are you trying to distract me, or did that question just pop into your head?”
“Both?” she offered sheepishly.
Amusement flicked one corner of his mouth upward. “What would it take to keep your attention fixed on me?”
Pandora stiffened as his fingertips traced the edge of her jaw, leaving behind a ticklish trail of warmth. Her throat felt thick, as if she’d just swallowed a spoonful of honey. “I am paying attention to you.”
“Not fully.”
“I am, I’m looking at you, and—” A shaky breath escaped her as she recalled that Lord Chaworth had called this man a notorious rake. “Oh, no. I hope this isn’t—you’re not going to try to kiss me, are you?”
One of his brows arched. “Do you want me to?”
“No,” she said hastily. “No, thank you, no.”
Lord St. Vincent laughed gently. “One refusal is enough, darling.” The backs of his fingers stroked the frantic pulse in her throat. “The fact is, we have a decision to make by the end of the week.”
“I don’t need a week. I can tell you right now.”
“No, not until you find out more about what you might be turning down. Which means we’re going to have to condense six months of courtship into six days.” He let out a breath of rueful amusement as he read her expression. “You look like a patient who’s just been informed she needs surgery.”
“I’d rather not be courted.”
“Could you help me understand why?” he asked, relaxed and patient.
“I just know it would turn out badly, because . . .” Pandora hesitated, considering how to explain the side of herself she’d never liked but couldn’t seem to change. The side that perceived intimacy as a threat, and feared being controlled. Manipulated. Damaged. “I don’t want you to find out more about who I am, when so many things about me are wrong. I’ve never been able to think or behave the way other girls do. I’m even different from my own twin. People have always called us hellions, but the truth is, I’m the hellion. I should be put on a leash. My sister is only guilty by association. Poor Cassandra.” Her throat cinched around an ache of misery. “I’ve caused a scandal, and now she’ll be ruined, and she’ll end up a spinster. And my family will suffer. It’s all my fault. I wish none of this had happened. I wish—”
“Easy, child. Good Lord, there’s no need for all this self-flagellation. Come here.” Before Pandora quite knew what was happening, she was in his arms, clasped against the warm, breathing strength of him. As he brought her head to his shoulder, her hat was dislodged and fell to the ground. Shocked and bewildered, she felt his masculine form pressed all along hers, and clarions of alarm sang through her blood. What was he doing? Why was she allowing it?
But he was speaking to her, his voice low and soothing, and it was so comforting that her startled tension dissolved like a sliver of ice in the sun. “Your family isn’t as fragile as all that. Trenear is more than capable of seeing to their welfare. Your sister is an attractive girl with good blood and a dowry, and even in the shadow of family scandal, she won’t go unmarried.” His hand moved over her back with easy, hypnotic strokes until Pandora began to feel like a cat whose fur was being smoothed just the right way. Slowly her cheek came to rest upon the smooth linen weave of his vest, her eyes half-closing as she inhaled the hint of laundry soap, and the crisp, resinous dryness of cologne on hot male skin.
“Of course you don’t fit in with London society,” he was saying. “Most of them have no more imagination or originality than the average sheep. Appearances are all they understand, and therefore—however maddening you find it—you’re going to have to heed some of the rules and rituals that make them comfortable. The unfortunate fact is, the only thing worse than being a part of society is living outside of it. Which is why you may have to let me help you out of this situation, just as I pulled you out of that settee.”
“If by ‘help’ you mean marriage, my lord,” Pandora said, her voice muffled against his shoulder, “I would rather not. I have reasons you don’t know about.”
Lord St. Vincent studied her half-hidden face. “I’ll be interested to hear them.” Lightly he fingered a tendril of hair at her temple, and smoothed it into place with his fingertips. “Let’s use first names from now on,” he suggested. “We have a great deal to talk about in a short amount of time. The more honest and direct we are with each other, the better. No secrets, no evasions. Will you agree to that?”
Reluctantly lifting her head, Pandora gave him a doubtful glance. “I don’t want this to be a one-sided arrangement,” she said, “in which I tell all my secrets while you withhold yours.”
A smile edged his lips. “I promise full disclosure.”
“And everything we say will be confidential?”
“God, I hope so,” he said. “My secrets are far more shocking than yours.”
Pandora didn’t doubt it. He was a seasoned, self-assured man, well acquainted with the world and all its vices. There was an almost preternatural maturity about him, a sense of authority that couldn’t have been more unlike her father and brother, with their hair-trigger tempers.
This was the first time she’d truly been able to relax after days of anguish and guilt. He was so large and substantial that she felt like a small wild creature who’d just found refuge. She let out a quivering sigh of relief, a regrettably childish sound, and he began to stroke her again. “Poor mite,” he murmured. “You’ve had a time of it, haven’t you? Relax. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Pandora didn’t believe that, of course, but it felt so lovely to be treated like this, soothed and coddled into a good humor. She tried to absorb every sensation, every detail, so she could remember it later.
His skin was smooth everywhere except for the texture of beard-grain where he’d shaved. There was an intriguing triangular hollow at the base of his throat, near his collarbone. His bare neck was very strong-looking except for that one shadowed place, vulnerable amid the tough construction of muscle and bone.
An absurd thought occurred to her. What would it be like to kiss him there?
It would feel like satin against her lips. His skin would taste as nice as he smelled.
The insides of her cheeks watered.
The temptation grew with every passing second, impossible to ignore. It was the feeling that sometimes came over her when an impulse was so overpowering that she had to obey it or die. That lightly shadowed hollow had its own gravity. It was pulling her closer. Blinking, Pandora felt her body camber forward.
Oh no. The urge was too much to resist. Helplessly she leaned forward and closed her eyes and just did it, kissed him right there, and it was even more satisfying than she’d thought it would be, her mouth finding tender warmth, a vibrant pulse.
Gabriel’s breath caught hard, and his body jolted. His fingers sank into her coiffure and he eased her head back, his wide, wondering eyes staring down
into hers. His lips parted as he struggled for words.
Pandora’s face was scorched with shame. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, I . . .” He sounded nearly as breathless as she was. “I don’t mind. I was just . . . surprised.”
“I can’t control my impulses,” she said hastily. “I’m not responsible for what just happened. I have a nervous condition.”
“A nervous condition,” Gabriel repeated, his white teeth catching at his lower lip in the prelude to a grin. For a moment, he looked heart-stoppingly boyish. “Was that an official diagnosis?”
“No, but according to a book I once read, Phenomena Produced By Diseases Of The Nervous System, it’s very likely that I have hyperesthesia or periodic mania, or both.” Pandora paused with a frown. “Why are you smiling? It’s not nice to laugh at other people’s diseases.”
“I was remembering the night we met, when you told me about your unwholesome reading material.” One of his palms came to rest low on her spine. His other hand slid around the back of her neck, closing tenderly around the small muscles. “Have you ever been kissed, love?”
Pandora’s stomach suddenly went very light, as if she were falling. She stared up at him mutely. Her entire vocabulary had collapsed. Her head was nothing but a box of loose moveable type.
Gabriel smiled slightly at her dumbstruck silence. “I’ll assume that means no.” His lashes lowered as his gaze fell to her mouth. “Take a breath, or you might faint from lack of oxygen and miss the whole thing.”
Pandora obeyed jerkily.
Fact #15 she would write in her book later. Today I found out why chaperones were invented.
Hearing the wheeze of her anxious breath, Gabriel gently massaged her neck muscles. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t kiss you now, if you don’t want it.”
Pandora managed to find her voice. “No, I . . . if it’s going to happen, I would rather you went ahead and did it now. Then we’ll have it out of the way and I won’t dread it.” Realizing how that sounded, she said apologetically, “Not that I should dread it, because I’m sure your kissing is well above average, and many ladies would be delighted by the prospect.”