“You seem to have forgotten how Roger humiliated you the day we met. Hurt you, in fact.”
Her lips set. “I haven’t forgotten. But larger considerations make it prudent to show no public distress.”
“Larger concerns.” He nodded. “Roger’s future. Roger’s fortune—”
“Exactly.” The word hung between them, flat, final.
Then, with another of those smoky looks at Phillipe, Alicia seated herself against the trunk of a beech, gracefully settling her skirts. She sighed what sounded like a contrived sigh, remarking:
“Of course, even when Roger and I are married, I shall have to find lovers.”
Phillipe laughed again. “That’s the fashion too? One husband isn’t enough?”
She brushed back a lock of hair, laughing with him. “Poor ignorant foreigner—!” she teased, patting the ground next to her riding skirt.
He sat down beside her, then felt annoyed that he’d obeyed her pantomimed command so promptly. Despite many differences, he saw traces of Lady Jane in Alicia, foremost being her unspoken assumption that, because of her position, her whims would always be gratified.
Still, he couldn’t deny that she was lovely.
Alicia leaned her head against the bark and closed her eyes, musing on:
“Among our class, Master Frenchman, marriage has little if any relation to more diverting pastimes. Except on those occasions when an heir must be gotten, of course. Oh, I shouldn’t say that categorically. Much depends on the quality of the husband.”
Edging a bit closer to her, he asked, “What are your feelings about Roger’s quality?”
“Didn’t I hint at it? He’s cold with a woman. I’ve yet to discover his—quality.”
Her voice lent a shade of vulgar meaning to the final word. Phillipe felt warmer than ever. And aware again of Alicia Parkhurst’s skill in sensual games. He asked:
“Would you like to?”
“What a frivolous question!” She ran her pink tongue over the edge of her teeth. “Shouldn’t the wise person sample an apple before buying the bushel?”
She was leading him down a contradictory path all at once, a path that had little to do with the other one winding, presumably, to wealth and position as the spouse of the next Duke of Kentland.
“Then—” Phillipe’s gesture was wholly French, eloquent. “Why not sample, Miss Parkhurst?”
“Heavens, I’ve already told you that he hesitates to touch me! Besides, it’s really quite impossible on a practical basis. I mean—watched day and night at Kentland by gossiping servants—”
Another wistful sigh; artifice. Layer on layer of artifice—it had been born into her, he supposed; and more of it taught as she grew. Yet her behavior both unsettled and excited him.
“I rather suppose,” she concluded, “that at best, Roger will be a crude lover. Unsure of himself, and therefore crude and rough. Only seeking to be done quickly—satisfy himself—never sensitive to the desires of”—a small catch of breath; the sky-blue eyes pinned him—“a partner. Tell me something, Master Frenchman.” She inclined her head nearer to him. “Would you hesitate to touch me?”
“No.” A pause. “Not if I wanted to.”
“Ah, wicked!” she laughed. “Venomously wicked!” There was a hint of anger in the way she tapped his cheek. It reminded him of Roger’s use of the silver-headed stick. He closed his fingers on Alicia’s wrist, gently but firmly thrust her hand away.
With a pretty pout, she pretended hurt. He let her go.
“I expected better manners from you,” she told him.
“It will take some of my father’s money to polish off the rough edges.”
“Then you and your mother do intend to press the claim?”
“To the finish.”
“Well, you’re liable to cause no end of difficulty—and you’d better stay out of Roger’s way if Lady Jane’s leash ever snaps—”
She left off rubbing her wrist when she saw Phillipe was paying no attention. He was looking directly into her eyes. The smile of the genteel harlot teased at him again.
“But we’ve quite lost the drift of our conversation—”
“I believe you said I disappointed you.”
“Yes. You’re a lord’s bastard—and a Frenchman to boot. I was entertaining the notion that you might be quite unlike your half-brother in the way you behaved toward a woman. Gentler—yet at the same time more impassioned. We’re told that the French are experts in matters of love.”
All at once, Alicia’s physical presence and the intimacy of the rustling grove started a deep, now-familiar reaction in him. He was infuriated by the mannered way in which this haughty girl toyed with him, playing her romantic word games. At the same time, he was tempted.
In no more than seconds, he succumbed:
“Were you also thinking of indulging yourself in the novelty of finding out?”
For the first time, she was taken aback, pink-faced. The subject changed instantly.
“ ‘Indulging yourself.’ There’s yet another pretty turn of phrase. You speak our language surprisingly well.”
“I had a special teacher, because I knew I’d be coming here to claim the inheritance.”
Alicia touched his wrist. The feel of her warm fingertips excited him even more. She, too, hesitated only a moment.
“Have you had special teachers in Cupid’s disciplines as well?”
“A few.”
He placed his own free hand on top of hers, nervous, yet somehow compelled. Her own grip tightened just a little. He looked into those remarkably blue eyes.
“And you?”
“Oh, yes—many.”
Something told him she was lying. But he only said, “Miss Parkhurst—”
“My name is Alicia.”
“The conversation’s wandered a long way down an unfamiliar path—”
“Shall we turn back, Master Frenchman?”
From her expression, her tone, her touch that brought him to stiffness, her meaning was unmistakably clear.
“It depends on the reasons for going on. I don’t want to be used as a means for you to strike back at Roger for what he did to you at Kentland.”
Her quick intake of breath said he’d struck the mark again. She started to pull her hand away, ready to rise and leave, angered. He caught her fingers, felt their heat once more, refused to release her as he finished:
“That is—if it’s the only reason.”
For a moment her eyes darted past his shoulder, full of the fear of chance discovery. Then she looked back to his face. Their gazes locked, held a long moment. A lark trilled somewhere at the edge of the grove. The stallion stamped. Slowly, she leaned her face toward his.
“No,” she whispered. “It isn’t—”
Phillipe kissed her. Hesitantly at first. Her warm, sweet breath cascaded over him. All at once his hands were on her shoulders, pulling her close. Her lips parted. Her kiss became eager, hungry. He thought his tongue tasted wine; through his mind fleeted a memory of Roger scoring her for an excessive fondness for claret—
They tumbled over onto the grass, arms twined, kissing. They began to let their hands explore. Very shortly, he discovered that young ladies of the English nobility wore silk drawers beneath their underpetticoats. Not to mention scarlet garters elaborately trimmed with lace.
The greenish darkness had turned steamy as a jungle. After much fumbling and struggling, Alicia’s shoulders were bare; then her breasts. He bent to kiss the soft valley between. He moved his head to one side, kissed again. She uttered a small cry of surprised pleasure. Was she, then, mostly artifice and little, if any, experience—?
The play of hands and mouths grew more intense. Soon he was crouching above her, gazing down at her tumbled beauty through the green haze that seemed to surround them. Her upper lip was moist with perspiration. Her garments all a-tangle around her slim hips—the silken drawers had been cast aside—showed him a delicate golden place above her white stockings and he
r garters.
She looked at him with wide, almost alarmed eyes. She started to speak. He laid his fingers gently on her lips.
“Shall I stop, Alicia?”
“What’s fair for me is fair for you. Only—only if you’re just attacking Roger—”
“I’ve forgotten all about Roger,” he said, and wrapped his arms around her so violently that her head accidently struck the tree trunk.
She let out a low exclamation of pain, then another, sharper one a moment later when he forced his entrance. The lark rilled. The stallion clopped his hoofs. The green darkness seemed to light and glow with a fire that might have been kindled within Phillipe’s own flesh—
At first, it was awkward; her body was still not prepared for him, although it had already received him. And something said over and over that, despite her talk of it, she’d never had a lover. That excited him even more. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, stroked her back—
Until finally the awkwardness passed in favor of a matched steadiness whose speed increased and increased like their breathing until she was hugging him convulsively and crying softly for him to press her even harder.
She clung to his neck with both arms, driving herself as close as she could to meet flesh with flesh. He gasped—and her answer was a strident, lingering moan of joy that slowly faded under the lark’s singing.
vi
Dressed, reasonably composed and ready to ride away on the rested horse, Alicia looked at him differently. She tried to smile and play the courtesan but her eyes betrayed her.
He asked quietly whether he’d in any way hurt her.
“No,” she murmured. “Oh dear God—no. I—” A little gasp when she tried to laugh. Another brush at a stray lock of tawny hair. “—I found my answers about Frenchmen, too. And I think, I do think the Amberlys have finally met an adversary worthy of them.”
“What a strange way to form a judgment,” he teased.
She shook her head. “Not really—” All pretense seemed stripped away as she leaned forward to let their mouths touch quickly, passionately.
He experienced strange feelings. He knew she was still a creature of skills and deceptions. Yet he hadn’t the heart to force her to admit whether she had ever lain with a man before. He wasn’t sure—but asking was a cruelty he couldn’t perform. A half-hour ago, yes. But not now.
Nor did he care much whether, at the start, she’d been goaded into this game of love by a desire to secretly spite the man who had hurt her.
“I want to see you again, Alicia.”
“I don’t know—”
“While the spring lasts—while I’m here—I want to see you.”
“It will be so difficult—” She mounted, steadying the restless black. “I told you how I’m watched.”
“You must find ways to get around that. Dammit, you must! Unless you were lying to me, and just wanted to revenge yourself—”
Her voice turned husky:
“No!”
“Then come to Quarry Hill when you can. I’ll be here as often as I can. You can do it if you want to badly enough.”
“I suppose,” she said, sounding uncertain. Their eyes met again. “I meant to say I suppose I can do it. I’ll try. I want to come again, Phillipe, even though I think having met you could prove—very dangerous.”
“For whom?”
“Both of us.”
“Tomorrow? The same time?”
“I don’t know for certain.”
“I’ll be here.”
“But if it’s not possible for me to leave Kentland—”
“Then I’ll be here the next day. And the next.” His voice was low. He was as shaken as she was, because he too sensed that they were plunging into something far more entangling than a casual liaison—
“All right,” she said suddenly, leaning down again to caress his cheek. “At the first possible moment.”
She wheeled her black stallion away, cropping him savagely all the way down the hillside.
CHAPTER VI
“A Perfect Member of the Mobility”
i
THE END OF MAY brought a spate of changes to the south of England—and to Phillipe, who was growing aware that he was not the same person who had stepped so hesitantly off the lugger at Dover.
He fretted about the dwindling supply of money Marie kept hoarded in her casket. Even at Mr. Fox’s modest rates for bed and board, it would not last much longer.
On top of that, every few days Clarence reported that some servant or other from Kentland dropped by the hostelry—and did not depart without making an inquiry about the French woman and her son.
Though Phillipe still had not explained the reason for this unusual interest, he had gained Clarence’s confidence to the point of convincing the boy that it was important Clarence keep him informed about the watchers. So Clarence kept a wary eye out, and an ear open. Phillipe had hoped the spying would stop. Apparently that was not to happen.
Blended with the anxiety these circumstances produced was the hope and the joy he felt each morning at the prospect of perhaps meeting Alicia.
Assignations had proved difficult, as she’d predicted. Somehow, though, the protracted periods of waiting between their furtive meetings on Quarry Hill only intensified his emotions—and the shattering satisfaction when a rendezvous did take place.
After that first tempestuous afternoon, he’d gone to the hill four days in a row—and no sign of her.
The third and fourth days were agony. On the fifth, he slipped back to the grove convinced he would never see her again, save perhaps at Kentland—and there she was, tearfully clinging to him, overflowing sweet, sad apologies.
She would never be able to ride off alone oftener than every three or four days, she told him after they made love. However, she believed she had found a system to at least minimize the potential danger to herself—and, she quickly reassured Phillipe, to him.
By paying close attention to household gossip— closer attention than she usually paid, she was frank to say—she could pick up hints of plans for the next day or the day after. Would Roger be off hunting? Lady Jane entertaining the bishop between prayers? When such situations developed, Alicia would now employ the services of a girl named Betsy.
Betsy was the one lady’s maid Alicia had brought with her from home. She felt she could trust the girl—particularly when a few extra coins were supped from hand to hand.
After Alicia had outlined her plan, she and Phillipe searched and found a felled oak with many rotted places in its lightning-blasted trunk. Phillipe scooped out one such place, which was designated the message spot. Here Betsy, sent on some fictitious errand, would leave a slip of paper with a crudely printed word or two on it—Tuesday twilight—so Phillipe might better know when to expect the tawny-haired girl.
After their third rendezvous, Phillipe noticed that she looked drawn, weary. He questioned her about whether the strain of outwitting and eluding dozens of people, from Lady Jane and Roger down to the pantry and stable help, was too taxing.
“Taxing, yes,” she replied. “But worth it, my darling. And after all, haven’t you told me I do exceeding well at games?”
She kissed him with lips parted. But not before he saw the shadow in her eyes, the shadow that said she was meeting him at the price of raw nerves.
One mellow evening when she brought a bottle of her favorite claret in a hamper—she drank twice as much of it as Phillipe—she speculated aloud that it might be amusing to let Roger know she’d acquired a lover.
Her eyes twinkled with hard merriment as she said it. Then she saw Phillipe’s scowl, touched him.
“Though you know I wouldn’t—ever.”
“That first time, Alicia—”
“Yes?”
“You did let me make love to you because he hurt you, isn’t that right?”
“You know me too intimately, Master Frenchman!”
“But you did.”
“Partly.” Her voice was thick
ened by the wine. “Only partly—” She kissed him.
The suppressed streak of cruelty in Alicia was an aspect of her personality he intensely disliked. But it was an aspect that dwindled to insignificance alongside the overpowering reactions she produced in him, mind and body, when he was away from her, anticipating their next stolen moments together.
The message-tree system worked reasonably well. Yet there remained occasions when he would wait hours past the appointed time, then trudge back to Tonbridge when she failed to arrive. On those lonely walks, he experienced what he realized must be one of the first signs of full manhood. He knew the full meaning of sorrow.
During one such frustrated return to Wolfe’s Triumph, he came close to losing his life.
In the mist of early evening, he was passing a copse when a blunderbuss blasted. He dropped instinctively, flattening in the tall grass—
Balls hissed through the tops of the nearby grass stalks, spending themselves. A bad shot, he decided. With a weapon of too short a range.
Still—
Who had fired?
Hunters? Yes; he heard them hallooing in the copse as he raised himself cautiously to hands and knees.
Rooks cawed their way into the sky’s yellow haze, flushed from the thicket by the shot. Phillipe remained still, presently saw four riders emerge from the trees and canter away toward Kentland. As the figures vanished, he identified the livery of the Amberlys.
He doubted the attempt had been deliberate. He had seen no one following him earlier, and he was always careful on his walks now, surveying in all directions as he moved. More than likely the servants had spotted him by chance while pursuing the bird among the trees.
But the very fact that they’d fire at all said much about Roger Amberly’s feelings. How pleased the Duke’s son would be if there were a report of a fortuitous accident—!
Phillipe reported nothing of the incident to his mother or Alicia. But his apprehension deepened.
There was another change in him as well. His conscious decision to keep the affair hidden from Marie. He didn’t want to flaunt the conquest of the heiress of Parkhurst, drag it into the open for his mother to examine as another twisted proof that her son rightfully belonged among his so-called betters.