“That’s the Green Park, miss,” said Jarvis. “And there’s Hyde Park Corner ahead, and on the right-hand side is Hyde Park, where—”
Louder and nearer shouts made Jarvis break off midsentence.
It was their driver who was shouting.
Zoe moved to the opposite window.
A driver in a nearby hackney was gesturing and shouting. Her driver seemed to be arguing with him.
“They want us to stop, miss,” said Jarvis. “Oh, my. That’s His Grace.”
The other hackney was slowing, and the duke was leaning out of the window. Through her vehicle’s closed window, Zoe couldn’t make out what he was saying, but she recognized the strong, deep voice that could carry effortlessly across a square.
Her hackney came to a stop.
“Oh, miss, he’s getting out of the hackney.”
Zoe didn’t wait for this news. She was already sliding across the seat and grabbing the door handle. She wrenched the door open. It was a good distance to the ground, but Zoe leapt. Jarvis shrieked.
Zoe ran—not toward the other carriage and the man who’d recalled her existence at last—but into a footpath leading into the area Jarvis had called the Green Park.
Five
It was early afternoon, well before the fashionable hour for promenading in Hyde Park. As a result, the Duke of Marchmont’s acquaintances were denied the entertaining sight of His Grace leaping out of a hackney near Hyde Park Corner, dashing across Piccadilly, and running—yes, actually running—into the Green Park.
He did not have to run far.
His legs were a good deal longer than his prey’s, and he was not encumbered with skirt, petticoat, and corset.
He caught up with her a short distance from the lodge. Most of the park was bare of trees. In the grounds near the lodge and the adjoining area near the smaller basin, though, they provided a degree of shade, as well as a shield of sorts from the observation of passersby in Piccadilly. Those on the footpaths, however, would get an eyeful.
Not that the duke cared who was watching.
He was far too irritated to care.
Though he’d caught up with her, she kept on running, obliging him to trot alongside—or throw himself on her and bring her down.
He was seriously considering the latter course of action when she slowed to a walk, one hand to her side.
She’d given herself a cramp, the little fool.
“You are an idiot,” he said, further annoyed to find himself breathing hard.
Though mentally lazy, he was a physically active man, and he’d run only a short distance. If it occurred to him that emotion was making him breathless, the idea did not get far before being thrust into the special mental cupboard with other unwelcome thoughts. “How far did you think you’d get, running uphill, wearing a corset?”
“If I were speaking to you, I would tell you that the corset does not fit properly.” She stuck her pretty nose in the air and walked on. “But I am not speaking to you.”
Whatever else he was prepared for, it was not this. For one of the few times in his life, he was taken aback. “Not speaking to me? Not speaking to me?”
“You promised you would give me a place in your world,” she said. “You said nothing could be simpler. A week ago you said this, yet you have done nothing.”
This was monstrous unfair. He’d attended the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding last night, where everybody behaved with the utmost decorum and where no one could expect any hint of fun. There never was any fun when the Queen was about. He could have been with his friends or with Lady Tarling, but no. He’d gone to the boring wedding, all for the prime opportunity it offered to enlist the Prince Regent in his campaign.
The campaign for Zoe.
But the Duke of Marchmont never allowed anyone but her father to question his actions. Even then, all he did was pretend to listen. He rarely paid attention and certainly didn’t explain or defend himself.
“I was busy,” he said.
“Perhaps the task isn’t as simple as you pretended,” she said. “Perhaps it’s a joke to you.”
It was no joke. Far from it. When a gentleman agreed to do something, he did it. He had been doing it. He’d been so busy on her behalf that he hadn’t had time to visit his mistress.
But the Duke of Marchmont never complained and never explained. He remained silent, seething.
She glanced at him, then away. She took a deep breath, apparently to calm herself. “I suppose I ought to remember that you are not very intelligent,” she said.
He watched her bosom rise and fall.
His anger seeped away.
She wore a pale yellow carriage dress trimmed with green. Under the bonnet’s brim, dark gold curls danced by her ears. Adderwood had called her a peach, and that was more than apt. The warm glow pinkening her cheeks made them seem like sun-kissed peaches, and her soft lips glistened.
If she hadn’t been the daughter of the only man in the world for whom he’d lay down his life, the Duke of Marchmont might have tried to find out exactly how innocent she was.
But she was Lexham’s daughter, and in a snit about something, and all in all, perhaps it would be wisest simply to humor her.
“I’m shocked, deeply shocked, that no one’s told you,” he said. “I am not intelligent. You had better explain carefully. And try not to use any big words.”
She shot him one of her sidelong glances, a flash of blue suspicion.
“Ask your father,” he said. “I’m surprised he didn’t warn you what a thickhead I am. I’m sure he’s mentioned it to me many times.”
“He did tell me so,” she said. “He told me not to expect too much.”
“Ouch,” he said. “‘A hit, a very palpable hit.’”
She rolled her eyes. “I see how it is,” she said. “No matter. Some things even you can understand. I need clothes.”
“You do? Has my thick brain somehow overlooked the fact that you’re naked?”
“Not these clothes,” she said, drawing her hand down the front of the dress in the most provocative manner. “This is last year’s dress!”
“How appalling. You must take it off immediately.”
“Is that a dare?” she said.
He had replied without thinking. Now images from the past crowded into his mind: Zoe challenging and taunting her brothers, Zoe taking every “you mustn’t” and “you oughtn’t” and “you can’t” and “you wouldn’t” as a challenge or taunt.
What he’d jestingly suggested was a dare of the first order. For a lady to take off her dress in public was not merely unthinkably improper; it was practically impossible. Undoing the numerous and complicated fastenings—which were located for the convenience of the maid, not the mistress—would require the agility of an acrobat and a contortionist combined. No lady would get far unaided.
On the other hand, this was Zoe. She’d find a way to do it or die trying. And the process of her finding a way to do it was bound to be entertaining.
The temptation to dare her was almost overpowering.
But he collected his wits and said, “No, it was a joke.”
“This dress is no joke to me,” she said. “I shall get no respect in Society if I dress like a dowd. My attire must be in the latest mode. I should not have to explain this to you. You told me about Beau Brummell. Even my sisters admit you are fashionable, though it kills them to say so. And I can see it for myself: your dress tells me that you understand these matters.”
He said, “Actually, I leave it to my valet Hoare to understand.”
“And does Hoare go to the tailor to choose your garments as well?”
“No, I go to the tailor, but I leave the decisions to him,” he said. “He knows I don’t care. Still, any tailor would know that if he dresses me badly, his reputation will suffer and he’ll lose custom.”
This seemed to give her pause.
He watched her ponder, and something in her expression made him imagine her mind working, abso
rbing the few sentences he’d uttered, and filing the knowledge away for future reference. He pictured her mind as a miniature of London’s General Post Office, filled with lines of workers at the long benches, neatly filing letters into their proper slots.
“Do you mean to have your valet order my clothes?” she said.
“No.”
“Did you mean to leave the ordering of my wardrobe to my sisters?”
“Gad, no.”
She folded her arms and waited.
He waited, too, drawing out the moment, because sunlight kissed her nose and glanced off the curly tendrils escaping from under her bonnet, and because what might be a smile hovered at the corners of her mouth.
He stood, he was aware, some inches too close for propriety. A passing breeze carried her scent to him.
“I collect it must be me, then,” he said.
“Who else?” she said. “You’re the leader of fashion. I am to be your…protégée—that is the correct word, isn’t it?”
It sounded most incorrect and very naughty the way she said it, but he nodded.
“Then you must supervise my dressing,” she said.
He could see himself in her dressing room, saying, Take off your clothes. He could see himself helping her take them off, starting with…
He shook off the image.
Why must she make harmless words sound like the lewdest innuendoes?
“I believe you mean I must supervise your wardrobe selection,” he said.
She shrugged, and the motion seemed to travel the length of her body. She moved like a cat, he thought.
She walked on, and he became far too aware of the way she moved: the slow, beckoning sway of her elegantly curved figure. He walked alongside her, and he knew he was too close, because he could hear the brush of muslin against his pantaloons and he could smell the womanly scent, clean and warm.
It seemed to him that the grey spring day had turned into sultry summer.
“You oughtn’t to walk that way,” he said.
“What way?”
“That way,” he said. “An Englishman would get the wrong idea.”
“To desire me? But that’s the idea I want the men to get. I must be popular and receive many marriage proposals.”
He hadn’t thought of that—or had he? Other men, watching the way she moved her body. Other men desiring her. Other men, tempted.
“You’ll get other kinds of proposals,” he said.
“Like what?” she said.
“Like this,” he said.
He closed the small space between them and brought his arm round her waist. He only meant—or so he lied to himself—to teach her a lesson.
To his shock, she put up no resistance whatsoever. Not even a show of it. She simply melted into him.
She was warm and soft, and the scent of her was like a summer garden with a woman in it. He drew her against him, and the warmth and softness and scent enveloped him.
He slid his hand up her back and along her neck and drew his fingers along her jaw. He tipped her head back and she looked up at him. There was the deep blue sea of her eyes, and there was he, wanting to drown.
He bent his head and brought his mouth to hers.
It was only a touch of their lips, not even a proper kiss, but he felt it ricochet inside him: a stunning jolt of feeling. He didn’t know what it was and didn’t try to find out. He drew back. It was then, before he could shake off the surprise, that he heard a bird sing out lustily.
The sound penetrated the warm fog of his brain and called him back to his surroundings. The Green Park was far from deserted, and a public embrace was unforgivably, perhaps catastrophically, stupid. It would undo all the work he’d done thus far to make Society accept her.
He drew back. He took his hands away. Then he took himself a pace away, to leave a proper space between them.
He was furious with himself.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“Why not?” she said.
He stared at her. “Why not? Why not?”
She brought her index finger to her lips and touched the place where he’d kissed her. “A little caress, a little teasing.” She studied his face. Then she laughed.
“It isn’t funny,” he said.
“That’s what you say because you can’t see the expression on your face.”
Expression? He didn’t wear expressions. “Zoe.”
“Did you not like it?” she said. “I did. I never kissed or touched any man but Karim, and that was like caressing furniture—soft furniture,” she said with a laugh.
“Zoe, you can’t talk like that.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “My sisters tell me. You cannot say this, Zoe. You cannot say that. But you aren’t my sisters. You’re a man of the world.”
“I’m a man,” he said, “and I am not at all accustomed to resisting temptation. If you wish to have a proper launch into Society and be sought after and marry well, you had better not tempt me.” A thought struck him. “Ye gods, Zoe, do you even know how to say no?”
She shook her head. “Not in the way you mean. Not to caresses and kissing. All I ever learned in that way was yes.”
“Oh, my God.” If he had been any other man, the kind given to emotional displays, he would have flung his hat on the ground and commenced tearing his hair out.
It was at this moment, finally, that the Duke of Marchmont fully grasped the enormity of the task he’d undertaken.
He could pave her way into Society, but she’d be undermining him at every turn, all innocently. Or perhaps mischievously. This was Zoe, after all.
But Zoe was the daughter of the man who’d stood in place of a father to him. In any event, Marchmont had said he would do it, and he never broke his word.
“Very well,” he said. “I can deal with this.”
Nothing could be simpler.
The words hung in his mind, mocking him.
He looked about him. Nobody who mattered seemed to be about. Perhaps they hadn’t been observed. The intimacy had lasted not a minute, after all.
He said, calmly, oh so calmly, “I attended the Princess Elizabeth’s wedding last night. The Prince Regent wasn’t there—he was ill. But the Duke of York—that is his brother—”
“I know,” she said. “I had to memorize all of them.”
“Good,” he said. “The Duke of York promised to speak to the Regent and see that you received an invitation. He said the royal family were deeply affected by the story in the Delphian. The Duke of York thinks it likely that you’ll be invited to the Drawing Room being held to celebrate the Prince Regent’s birthday.”
“On the twenty-third of this month,” she said. “This is not his birthday. But his birthday is in August, my sisters told me, and the Season ends in June and everybody goes to the country. No one would be in London to celebrate it then.”
Her sisters were the most irksome of women. Still, they’d saved him a good deal of tiresome explanation.
“Exactly,” he said. “It isn’t like ordinary presentations. You won’t be stuck among all the schoolroom misses.”
She nodded. “Then it won’t be so obvious how old I am.”
“Yes, there’ll be many other antiques attending.”
She smiled. “Good, because I have no idea how to appear young and naïve. It’s only a little more than a fortnight from today, and I have more than enough to learn as it is without having to learn how to act innocent.”
“Can you contrive not to do anything outrageous or scandalous before then?” he said without much hope.
“If I do not become too bored,” she said. “I’m becoming a little bored now.” She turned and started back.
He wondered if his hearing was failing. Bored? With him? No one was bored with him. Women never walked away from him. On the contrary, they did everything possible to prolong conversations.
He told himself she was merely being provoking. Bored, indeed. He should have kissed her until she fainted. That
would teach her.
Oh, yes. And so much for his promise to make her respectable.
He went after her. “You can’t continue wandering about London on your own.”
“I am not on my own. My maid is with me.”
“A maid is insufficient, and she should not have let you bolt in the first place,” he said, though he doubted whether a cavalry could have stopped Zoe.
“I made her do it,” she said. “My sisters were coming to the house. They come every day and tell me how to talk and how to walk and how to sit and pour tea and what to say and what not to say.”
He felt a twinge of something that could have been the conscience with which he was only distantly acquainted. On the other hand, it could have been fear—far more reasonable in the circumstances.
Zoe let loose in London. Zoe, on her own. Zoe, who didn’t know how to say no.
He said quite, quite calmly, “You complained about being cooped up in the house. You’ve been cooped up in that filthy hackney. What you need is a drive in my new curricle.” He leant toward her and sniffed. She still smelled too deliciously like a sunny garden. He made himself draw away, before scent and sight and sound could lead him to another gross error of judgment.
“You badly need an airing,” he said. “I think you’ve contracted mildew.”
She walked on a few steps, then paused and looked everywhere but at him. “I know what a curricle is. An open carriage. Two horses, Papa said. It is dashing. And it goes fast.”
Marchmont discerned the gleam in her eye. She was not as indifferent as she pretended.
“I shall take you for a drive in my curricle,” he said. “We’ll air you out, then we’ll drive to the best dressmaker in London, and you may order as many frocks as you like.”
He certainly didn’t care how much they cost. He couldn’t have them billed to him, because word would get out and everyone would assume that Miss Lexham was his mistress. Still, he’d settle finances with her father. Whatever Zoe’s wardrobe cost, the price would never approach repaying what Marchmont owed his former guardian.
She continued down the hill. “I have sat in a carriage for long enough. The seats are hard and my bottom hurts.”