It took a strong person in their prime to follow her aunt’s thought process, but Gillian was learning the knack. If you didn’t listen too closely, and allowed your attention to wander slightly, it was possible to glean enough kernels of information to respond.
“You mean I should not have waltzed with him because it’s said he killed his wife? Aunt, I’m surprised at you for believing such a ridiculous and patently untrue falsehood. Why, one only has to spend a short amount of time in the earl’s presence to ascertain his innocence. Of all the maligned men of my acquaintance, he certainly has suffered the most at the hands of the very people who should stand at his side, offering him support and succor rather than tearing his reputation and character to shreds. Society should be ashamed of itself for slandering him in such a manner! I for one won’t tolerate the sort of base lies and cruel implications that seem to delight the ton, and I must say, Aunt, I’m appalled that you would be cozened into believing such blatant untruths and can only hope you do nothing to encourage similar vile and reprehensible fabrications! Indeed, I would hope you do your part to help that poor, lonely, troubled man regain the sterling reputation that was tarnished by the unexpected death of his no doubt very beloved wife. I know I shall do all that I can to help him!”
Lady Collins wilted under her niece’s blistering attack. Gillian felt an immediate rush of guilt at having raised her voice at her aunt—truly, it seemed as if half the occupants of the ballroom had heard her, and held their collective breaths while they waited for her tirade to continue. Thankful that the Black Earl was not present to witness her unladylike display, Gillian made a feeble moue and turned back to her aunt.
“Such a lovely evening, isn’t it?” she said loudly, for the benefit of the people who were attempting to eavesdrop. “And the weather—my, how lovely the weather has been for June. Delightfully warm, wouldn’t you say, Aunt?”
“Warm, yes, it is warm. Lilacs and lilies—strolls in the garden and picnics at the riverside—Oxford, you know—oh, there is Her Grace. I will just pay my—yes.”
As Lady Collins made her escape, Charlotte tore herself away from her group of admirers and hurried over to speak with her cousin. She laid a dainty glove-clad hand on her cousin’s arm, flashed a dimpled smile over her lace fan at a passing admirer, and, with a grip that would do a stevedore proud, hauled Gillian into a sheltered spot guarded on either side by two large palms.
“What on earth were you thinking, Gilly?”
Gillian’s stomach felt as if it were filled with lead shot. She had been unaccountably rude to her aunt and had no excuse for her behavior. She hadn’t the slightest doubt that her cousin was about to dress her down, and she would deserve every harsh word. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I had no right to speak to your mother that way—”
Charlotte stared briefly at her, then made a face and waved the apology away. “Oh, fustian! Mama drives me to distraction too. But why did you let the earl get away? The supper dance is next, and if you were to intimate that you were free, he might ask you for it. You should have kept him by your side with amusing anecdotes and witty repartee until that time.”
“What amusing anecdotes and witty repartee would that be?”
Charlotte waved her hand around vaguely and bobbed a curtsy to a pair of elderly ladies as they passed. “Oh, you know—stories of your life among the Red Indians. Tales of your harrowing journey to Civilization. Surely you must have a large collection of lurid tales to enable you to do something as simple as keeping a man enthralled at your side for an hour or so.”
Gillian choked back a laugh. “The only lurid tales I know are the ones the sailors told me on the ship when I sailed here, and I doubt if they would interest a man of the world like Lord Weston. I’m surprised you would want me to try and keep his attention, Char. Your mama just told me he’s bad ton.”
Charlotte shot her cousin a disbelieving look. “Oh, pooh, who cares about that? He is an earl and that is all that matters. Well? What did he say to you? What did you say? Did he ask to call on you?”
Gillian felt her face flame as she remembered her appalling gaffe. “He taught me how to waltz, then asked how old I was.”
Charlotte’s blue eyes widened as she snapped her fan closed and smacked her cousin on the arm with it. “Good! That means he’s interested in you!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gillian said, suddenly exhausted and wishing she were at home, where no silver-eyed rakes lurked to torment her with lascivious thoughts and strange yearnings. “He’s an earl and I’m—well, I’m me. No one in particular. Even if he had been temporarily interested, he is no longer.”
“Now who’s being ridiculous?” Charlotte dimpled. “Of course he must still be interested. What could you possibly do on the dance floor to disinterest a man of his reputation? Even stepping on his toes wouldn’t stop the likes of him.”
“I did that quite enough, I’m afraid,” Gillian admitted, feeling an ache starting at the front of her head. She rubbed her forehead wearily. “But I went beyond stepping on his toes.”
Charlotte looked a mute question at her.
Gillian summoned up a feeble smile. “I asked him if he murdered his wife.”
Two
“Miss, if you please, you’re wanted in the house.”
Gillian looked up from where she squatted in the straw. “I’m sorry, Owen, I can’t come now. I believe Ophelia is down with colic again.”
The footman sniffed, frowned, looked around the stall, and spotted the two large brown forms lounging against a bundle of hay. “You’ll pardon me, miss, but I thought MacTavish said your hounds were not allowed in the stable. I thought he said they made it uninhabitable for man or beast.”
Gillian stroked the mare’s head where it lay in her lap. “He did, but Lord Collins banished them from the house due to their…uh…unfortunate tendencies. They have to stay somewhere. I raised them from pups and they are very devoted to me.”
Owen sniffed again, blanched, and backed up a step or two. Even with the normal smells associated with a stable, the hounds’ problem was noticeable. “As you say, miss. What shall I tell Lady Collins?”
“You may tell her I’m tending my mare. She’s ill.”
“Yes, miss. Although what Lord Weston will think—”
“Lord Weston?” Gillian’s shriek unnerved the mare, who rolled back her eyes and curled her upper lip in protest. Uncouth noises from the corner of the stall indicated that the dogs were exhibiting their typical reaction to being startled. Gillian calmed her mare with one hand while fanning her face with another. What on earth was the Lord of Coldness doing here?
Owen grimaced and backed up even farther. “Yes, miss, Lord Weston. He’s called for you.”
Hmph. More likely he called to purposely ignore her and pay attention to those people who didn’t ask him about his late wife and the suspicious circumstances surrounding her death. Well, he was welcome to them. She would stay out here with her animals. They didn’t mind what questions she asked. “You may tell my aunt that I will be in as soon as I’m sure Ophelia is out of danger.”
Gillian smiled as Owen muttered something about the horse acting like a spoiled child, and continued crooning softly to the mare.
“I wonder why he has really called, Ophelia.” Gillian scratched behind the mare’s ear and tried to puzzle out the unexpected visit. As it had all day, a vision of the darkly handsome face with its vivid silver-gray eyes rose before her. Her heart beat faster as she relived waltzing in his arms. “He must be visiting Charlotte. ’Tis the truth that after I made that blunder about his wife, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. No doubt someone has told him about the little discussion Aunt Honoria and I had last night, and now he’s called to tell me not to defend him at the top of my lungs in public.”
Ophelia declined to commit herself to any opinion. The dogs snored and emitted periodic statements tha
t Gillian refused to consider as a comment on her situation.
“It would serve me right for trying to aid such a maddening, obstinate man. No”—her anger turned quickly to sadness as she mused upon her sorry situation—“it must be Charlotte whom Lord Weston has come to call upon. After all, he’s an earl and I’m…I’m…”
“Completely fascinating.”
Gillian’s heart leaped up to her throat as the Lord of Magnificence leaned negligently against the stall door. Her breath caught as she stared at him—it simply wasn’t fair. No man should be as attractive as he was.
The earl’s left eyebrow rose. “Thank you. I’m flattered you think so.”
Gillian groaned and dropped her head to her hands. Her Unfortunate Habit had appeared again. “Is it possible to die of embarrassment, my lord?”
“If it were, there would scarce be a handful of people left. Good Lord, what is that smell?”
Gillian blushed even harder and peeked out from between her fingers at him. “It’s my dogs. They have a little problem with their inner workings.”
As if to emphasize the point, both dogs released proof of their affliction.
“I’ve been varying their diet weekly,” she said, fanning the air in front of her, “but I don’t seem to have struck upon the right combinations of food yet.”
Weston flinched but stood his ground. “Keep trying. What are you doing with that mare’s head in your lap?”
Ophelia rolled an eye back to look at Weston and blew loudly out of her mouth.
“She’s ill. She tends to colic when I am unable to ride her.”
“Hmmm.” Weston entered the stall and squatted down next to the horse, prodding her gently on the belly. Gillian couldn’t tear her eyes from the two large and extremely well-muscled thighs directly in her line of vision. He was wearing gleaming black Hessians and buckskin breeches that fit like a second skin. A midnight-blue waistcoat and jacket and a modest cravat completed his informal outfit. She wondered what would happen if she were to reach out and run a hand along that thigh.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, fine, thank you,” Gillian choked out, tearing her eyes and her mind from her unseemly imaginings. “I seem to have swallowed wrong. I thought you always wore black?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Black. I was told you always wear black as a form of penance, and yet here you are wearing buckskins.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
A noise from the corner proved the verity of his statement. Gillian pretended the dogs weren’t present and covertly wiped at her stinging eyes.
“Has she been biting at herself?”
“What? Oh, no, she’s quite content to lie here and have her head stroked. It keeps her calm.”
“Yes, I can see she’s content. She’s not off her feed?”
“No, but she isn’t always when she has colic. MacTavish—he’s the head groom—he claims she’s just shamming, but I don’t believe he likes Ophelia very well. She tries to bite him whenever he’s near.”
The earl clapped his hands loudly, jumping back quickly as Ophelia leaped to her feet, then held out a hand for Gillian.
“The groom is correct, Miss Leigh. Your horse is fine. Come with me.”
It took some doing, but Weston finally convinced Gillian that her mare was not really ill and just indulging in a bout of self-pity. He escorted her back into the house, through the long hallway and, without pausing, out the front door.
Gillian looked at the scarlet and black phaeton in front of her.
“Your aunt gave you permission to go for a drive with me in the park. I assume you are not adverse to taking the air, especially after having been confined with those dogs?”
“No, of course not. I’d be pleased to go for a drive, but I’m not dressed for it, my lord. You must allow me to change my gown.”
Noble’s eyes ran quickly over the thin blue muslin of Gillian’s dress, paying particular attention to the rounded curves of her breasts and the long length of leg outlined. “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.
***
Gillian chattered excitedly as Noble 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 had 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 brightly 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…