“If there is no danger, why do you need to go at all?” She opened her eyes wide. “Why can’t I approach Ennis and get the message for Drake?” She knew the answer, but wanted to make Sebastian say it.
His lips thinned to a line, but when he spoke, his tone remained even—patiently persuasive. “Because, quite aside from us not knowing what action the message might necessitate—such as riding to Whitehall post haste—Ennis is highly unlikely to entrust his message to a lady, no matter how highly placed and well connected.”
When Sebastian shut his lips and declined to complete the answer, she added, “And it’s possible, even likely, that having a lady sent as go-between instead of a gentleman such as yourself will put Ennis’s back up, and he might decline to share his so-important information at all.”
Sebastian’s fleeting grimace was sign enough that she had that right, too.
Her reaction to what she viewed as a slight was almost intense enough to make her throw caution to the winds and agree to his and Drake’s outrageous scheme—she could and would assist them, possibly in ways they hadn’t dreamt of—but…when it came to acting as escort for a lady like her, she knew Sebastian. Apparently, better than he knew himself. Rapidly, she considered how best to retain control—of herself, at least. “If I agree to this, you need to agree not to actually act as an escort would—that you will not at any time seek to constrain my behavior in any way.” That you will not get in my way.
He understood perfectly, as if he’d heard the words she hadn’t said. His lips thinned again, but then he nodded. Curtly. Once. “If you agree to our necessary charade, I will give you my word that the only time I might step in is if you are in some degree of imminent danger.”
She wasn’t going to get better than that. After a second of further consideration, she graciously inclined her head. “Very well.”
Sebastian almost sighed with relief. For an instant there, he’d had the feeling he was standing on thin ice—because of what, exactly, he had no real notion—but she’d agreed, and that was enough. Once she’d given her word, she wouldn’t renege. “I gather the party starts on Saturday. I’ll drive us down. What time should I pick you up?”
“That depends on your horses. How long will it take us to reach Deal? Pressingstoke Hall is on the coast a little south of there.”
“Going via the Dover Road will be fastest—we can turn north along the coast road from there.” Sebastian rapidly calculated. “It’ll take just over six hours.”
“We’re expected at three in the afternoon.”
“Then I’ll call here at eight in the morning. We can stop at Faversham for lunch.”
“I’ve been thinking.” Francesca addressed her daughter. “You must let the Ennises know that Sebastian will be attending as your escort. I suggest a letter to Lady Ennis, throwing yourself on her mercy and saying that although you had previously gained my permission, when your father heard of your proposed stay, he insisted you have a suitable escort.” The countess waved. “No one will be surprised at that—Gyles’s overprotectiveness is legendary. And as for the reason Julius isn’t with you, as your brother is younger than you, your father refused to accept him as an escort capable of swaying you—which, heaven knows, is true. Consequently, we appealed to Sebastian, and he kindly agreed to act as your escort.” Francesca beamed. “There!” Eyes bright, she looked at Sebastian. “And as there is no hostess in England, Scotland, Ireland, or Wales who wouldn’t give her eyeteeth to have you attend her house party, Lady Ennis will excuse the late notice—indeed, she’ll be in alt.”
Lady Ennis, Sebastian feared, would, indeed, be imagining a paradise—a far from innocent and distinctly illicit one. But Francesca’s ruse would clear the way for him to attend the house party, and that was his principal aim. He could avoid Cecilia, Lady Ennis, and stick with Antonia on the pretext of taking his escort duties seriously.
If he had, in truth, given the Earl of Chillingworth his word that he would guard the virtue of the earl’s precious eldest daughter, then his sticking to her side would be entirely expected.
Slowly, he nodded, then glanced at Antonia. “I second your mother’s suggestion. Such a tale will adequately excuse my presence and silence any questions over my turning up more or less unheralded.”
Antonia met his eyes. Although nothing showed in her expression, he sensed a certain mutinous reaction. But then she nodded, rather tersely, and he breathed again.
Deciding to quit while he was ahead, he rose. “Thank you both. I must get on, and I daresay you have morning calls to make.”
Antonia rose, as did Francesca.
He bowed over Francesca’s hand, then turned to Antonia.
She offered her hand, and he grasped her slender fingers. Rather than bow, he pressed her fingers gently and smiled at her. “Thank you for agreeing. I promise you won’t regret it.”
She stood looking up at him; her face was near expressionless, and he was visited by the odd notion that shutters suddenly screened her eyes. Then her lashes fell, and she looked down. “We’ll see.”
Cynical skepticism colored the words.
He didn’t approve of her lack of faith in him. He’d eased his grip, and she started to draw her fingers from his—he had to clamp down on a sudden urge to tighten his hold again.
He quashed the silly reaction. “Don’t bother Withers,” he said to Francesca. “I’ll see myself out.” With a last polite nod and a general smile, he made for the door.
Antonia stood transfixed and watched him go. Even after the door closed on his broad-shouldered figure, she continued to stare, unseeing, at the panel.
She’d always known she reacted to Sebastian in an odd way—in a way somehow different to how she responded to, for instance, his brother, Michael, or his cousins Marcus and Christopher, all of whom were of a similar age. Or indeed, to any other gentleman. She’d put it down to Sebastian being…well, Sebastian—his dominant, not to say domineering, personality, his innate command, his assumption of leadership, and his performance in that role. Or perhaps it was simply because women like her were drawn to strong men. There’d been a plethora of reasonable, conventional excuses, and she hadn’t thought more of it—of that shiver of awareness that being close to him provoked—not for years.
She couldn’t remember him ever holding her hand before—not in the way he just had, where the gesture was more than just part of a polite greeting.
When he’d squeezed her fingers and smiled at her, something inside her had shifted, and she’d felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her stomach. She’d looked into his face, into his eyes, and without Lucilla or Prudence or any of the others of their group around, had, for the very first time, seen him clearly.
She’d seen him as a man—a man she inexplicably, but utterly undeniably, wanted.
That degree of want—sharp, direct, and absolute—had never struck her before.
That it had struck her over him, of all the males in the ton…
“Hmm, my darling daughter…”
Antonia turned to regard her mother, who had sunk onto the window seat once more. Like Antonia, she’d been staring unseeing at the closed door.
As Antonia watched, Francesca’s emerald eyes narrowed, then her mother turned her bright gaze full force on her.
“I think, my dear, that you would do well to use this time away from us all to think of what you wish to do with your life.” Francesca’s expression was serious. “We have never pressed you to marry and will not, now or in the future. All decisions must be your own, but as you are twenty-nine, and with this first excursion on your own, it seems an appropriate time to dwell on what you wish your life to be.”
Antonia smiled faintly. “Great minds, Mama—I had planned to do precisely that.” And she had. But now…
With a slight shrug, she bent and picked up her embroidery hoop. “With Sebastian going and Drake’s mission to deal with, I’ll have to see what prospects for contemplation remain.”
* * *
r />
Withers had materialized in the front hall and handed Sebastian his cane. He’d taken it with a word of thanks and, once Withers had opened the door, had gone quickly down the steps, walked along to Park Street, and set off for Arthur’s, where he had a luncheon appointment with friends.
As he walked, at first, he congratulated himself on successfully negotiating his entrée to the house party. Yet the farther he strode, niggling questions squirmed into his brain and dispelled his smugness. Antonia hadn’t been at all thrilled at the prospect of him acting as her escort. They’d known each other forever, so why?
He wasn’t a coxcomb, yet there was no question that he ranked among the most highly eligible bachelors in the haut ton. Having him by her side wouldn’t hurt her social standing one whit. Why, then, her reluctance?
Was she intending to conduct some illicit romance at Pressingstoke Hall?
The idea stopped him in his tracks—until a gentleman who had been stumping along in his wake poked him in the back, and with a muttered apology, he started off again.
For half a block, the prospect of Antonia, who was twenty-nine and unmarried after all, plotting some seedy affair played havoc with his faculties, but then reality reasserted itself. If she had been planning any such thing, gaining her agreement to having him as her escort would have been much harder.
With that resolved, his wits settled, and his mind moved on to the more important question of why she’d changed her mind—of what in the situation had swayed her to his cause. He always found it helpful to understand the motivations of those he needed to manage.
He revisited her questions and her reactions to his answers and confirmed that, as he’d anticipated, his mention of the “safety of the realm” had paved the way, even though it had taken her a while to admit it, even to herself. She was an earl’s daughter; responding to the call of duty came as naturally to her as it did to him.
But there’d been something else, some other strand in her ruminations. Those questions over why she couldn’t act as Drake’s surrogate herself…she’d known the answers, yet still she’d asked.
Insight bloomed lamp-like in his mind. She intended to actively assist, of course—that was the final lure for her, the prospect of dabbling in intrigue.
He pondered that as he waited to cross Piccadilly.
Once across the busy street and nearing Arthur’s, he concluded that, while Antonia attempting to actively help him in what was really a very simple and straightforward mission might prove a trifle annoying, if the prospect of engaging in an intrigue had cleared his way over attending the house party, then dealing with her efforts to involve herself was a small price to pay.
He’d reached the pavement in front of Arthur’s when, unbidden, the image of Antonia’s face as she’d smiled radiantly up at him filled his mind.
He halted as recollection poured through him.
In that moment…
He stood stock-still on the pavement as understanding dawned.
In that moment, he’d glimpsed the real Antonia—the woman behind the coolly composed social façade.
And to him, to his senses, she’d been riveting.
She was, in truth, a blend of her parents—Chillingworth’s reserve for her haughtily assured outer shell, but inside…
Inside, she was all Francesca—dramatically passionate and alluring.
Something primitive and predatory in him stirred…but this was Antonia.
Antonia, with whom he had just arranged to spend five entire days, for once free of the buffer of their usually ever-present families.
Sebastian considered the prospect, then slowly climbed the steps to Arthur’s door.
Carrying out Drake’s simple and straightforward mission might well prove to be more complicated and challenging than he’d thought.
Chapter 2
“There’s the entrance.”
With his gaze, Sebastian followed Antonia’s pointing finger to a pair of gateposts fifty yards farther up the country lane; they’d turned off the road between Dover and Deal half a mile back. Gratitude at the prospect of imminent relief flowed through him as he slowed his matched grays, then turned his phaeton in through a pair of wrought-iron gates obligingly set wide. He set his horses trotting up a tree-lined drive, then cast a sidelong look at the lady beside him.
Her lithe figure sheathed in a carriage dress of fine blue twill, her hair caught in a bun at the back of her head so that it puffed in a sleek frame about her face, with the blue ribbons of her bonnet riffling in the breeze as she looked ahead with evident delight, she might have posed for an illustration for the Ladies Journal: Young Lady of the Haut Ton setting out for a Country House Party.
As he watched, she glanced down and consulted a jeweled timepiece pinned to her bodice. “Nearly three o’clock,” she observed. “Perfect timing.”
He managed not to grunt.
She’d been ready and waiting when he’d drawn his horses to a halt in Green Street at eight o’clock that morning. Her parents had come down in their dressing gowns to wave her away—Francesca with apparent delight, Chillingworth rather less transported. But the earl had said nothing to Sebastian, just grunted a good morning and shaken his hand.
Bright and breezy, Antonia had allowed him to hand her up to the front seat of his phaeton. With their bags in the boot, and her maid, Beccy, and his man, Wilkins, perched behind them on the rear seat, he’d tooled them out of London.
At first, Antonia had preserved an easy silence, allowing him to concentrate on tacking through the traffic. But once he’d gained the clearer stretches of the Dover Road, she’d suggested that she should share with him what she knew of those who would be attending the house party.
He’d agreed with alacrity—anything to take his mind off her. They’d been only an hour into the journey, and he’d already discovered that, presumably courtesy of that eye-opening moment in Green Street three days before, not just his eyes but all his senses appeared to have become…riveted on her.
Aware of her in a way he hadn’t previously been—aware in a way he recognized.
Definitely a complication.
He’d encouraged her to describe all the guests she knew and forced himself to pay attention—something that had grown easier the more she’d talked.
The more she’d revealed, he’d realized that what she saw in others, and how she described them, gave him valuable insights into her. Her comments detailing the friendships between her and the other younger ladies, as well as those between other members of the company, also shed light on her—on how she thought, how she felt, on the life she’d been living.
The Dover Road followed the old Roman road of Watling Street and ran wonderfully straight, making for an easy drive. The day remained cool and overcast, but the breeze was gentle, and the clouds weren’t so heavy as to threaten rain.
Just before noon, he’d turned off the road at Faversham, and they’d lunched at The Limes. With a fair way yet to go, they hadn’t dallied, which had suited him. Spending time alone with Antonia now that his eyes had been opened, and he was so damned aware of her—physically, sexually, and in every other way—was dangerous; even in the dubious privacy of a corner table in the ill-lit dining room, temptation had whispered.
It was continuing to whisper, increasingly stridently and insistently, but he didn’t yet know—hadn’t yet had time to decide—just what he wanted to do. About her. With her. Not yet.
Completing Drake’s mission should come first—he was fairly certain of that.
If the safety of the realm truly was at stake, he couldn’t afford to be distracted, and Antonia now figured as a supreme distraction.
The much-anticipated relief flooded him as the trees fell away and the house came into view. A Palladian façade that to eyes accustomed to very old houses appeared relatively new looked out on neatly shaved lawns to the front and the left, while to the right, shrubbery nestled close with the taller trees of woods just beyond. Pressingstoke Hall appeared to
be a well-kept, pleasing, but essentially unpretentious gentleman’s country house.
Sebastian tooled the phaeton smartly around the sweep of a circular drive and drew the horses to a neat halt in the forecourt before a set of wide steps leading up to a pair of front doors set wide in welcome.
Grooms came running, and footmen hurried from the house.
Sebastian stepped down from the phaeton, handed the reins to a groom, and walked around to assist Antonia down. One footman had brought a set of steps, which he placed beside the carriage. Taking Antonia’s hand, grasping her gloved fingers, Sebastian steadied her down from the high seat; as she raised her skirts, he caught a brief glimpse of the half-boots of ivory kid that hugged her ankles.
He had to fight a short battle with his more primitive self before he could make himself release her hand, rather than wind her arm in his. He was there as her escort, not her protector. There was a fine line between the two, and he knew where it lay.
Glancing around, he strolled at Antonia’s heels across the gravel and up the steps to the front door.
A tall, white-haired butler bowed them over the threshold. “Welcome to Pressingstoke Hall, Lady Antonia. Lord Earith.”
As they moved inside, a cacophony of sound engulfed them. Apparently, a gaggle of guests had arrived just ahead of them, and much of the company had congregated, chatting and exclaiming, in the middle of the long front hall. The interior of the house confirmed Sebastian’s assessment that the present structure was most likely less than seventy years old; the lines were simpler, more modern, without the heaviness of earlier ages. A large glazed cupola all but filled the ceiling above the front half of the hall, admitting sufficient illumination to make the hall feel light and airy.
The butler raised his voice to be heard over the din. “I am Blanchard. The housekeeper is Mrs. Blanchard. Please call on us for anything you need.”