“You have beautiful hair,” he said softly, his fingertips drifting across her cheek and throat in a deeply erotic caress. The desire in his eyes was a potent aphrodisiac, releasing the hidden part of her nature as surely as he had unbound her hair. She caught her breath and her lips parted, wanting more, not knowing how to ask.
He lifted her chin with one finger. She had been uncomfortable with his height, but now she realized that he was exactly the right size, tall enough to make her feel fragile and feminine, not so tall that it took more than a slight inclination of his head to bring his lips to hers.
It was a brandy-flavored kiss, rich and heady and intoxicating. All her senses were heightened, and she was acutely aware of the pulse of blood in her veins, the subtle library scents of leather and oak, the strength of the arms that enfolded her.
They came together, and passion flamed between them, fierce and mindless. Tentative touch became crushing embrace. Ever since she had been an awkward, yearning girl, Alys had longed to learn love’s mysteries. Now she had found her teacher in this improbable man, with his cynicism and mockery, his wry self-knowledge and dangerous sense of justice. She knew herself for a fool, and didn’t care.
She was so sure of her desire, so totally immersed in the moment, that when he pulled back the shock of deprivation was like a splash of frost-bitter water. Dazed, she opened her eyes.
“Bloody, bloody, hell!” he swore, his hands gripping her arms with bruising strength as he held her away from him.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, bereft by her aloneness, terrified that he was repulsed by her wanton behavior.
“I said I wouldn’t do this.” He released her and stepped away, rubbing his temples as if trying to clear his mind. Harshly he repeated, “I said I wouldn’t do this.” Then he met her gaze, his expression twisted with self-contempt. “Allie, I’m sorry. You deserve better.”
He spun away, crossing the room with long strides to the French doors that opened to the patio. As he fumbled with the key in the lock, she cried out, “Where are you going?”
He glanced back at her, his face bleak. “Out. Anywhere, until I sober up.” Then he disappeared into the night.
Alys sank into a chair, her knees too weak to support her. Her body cried out to continue what it had begun, and her mind was an ache of confusion. Was the statement that she deserved better a gentlemanly way of avoiding doing something he would regret in the morning?
How many? Too damned many. The rake’s lament.
She did not doubt that for a handful of drunken moments, he had wanted her. But even in his present undiscriminating state, he had realized that by dawn’s sober light he would regret lying with her. For a man who had known women beyond counting, there was no challenge or sport in bedding an unattractive, overeager spinster.
As the collie came over and whimpered sympathetically, Alys huddled in the chair, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Though more kindly phrased, this was a rejection as painful as the one Randolph had given her.
The only comfort she could find was a fervent hope that in the morning he would remember nothing of what had transpired between them.
Chapter 14
Reggie rode all night, letting his horse have its head at every crossroads, not caring where he went as long as he kept moving. When he’d first left the stables, dizzy and on the edge of passing out, only the skill and habit of years kept him in the saddle.
Recognition of his state had led him to saddle a calm chestnut hunter instead of Bucephalus. The stallion was a lively handful under the best of circumstances. In Reggie’s jug-bitten condition, Bucephalus would probably have broken his neck.
His mouth twisted bitterly. Maybe he should have ridden the stallion and hoped for the worst. Despite frustration and brandy-induced confusion, one thought stood out with brutal clarity: he was failing at his attempt to change his life.
The roads and lanes ran through fields of ripening summer grain that rippled pale in the moonlight, lined by dark hedges and shadowing trees. He and the chestnut wound their way up to Shaftesbury, across the barren, undulating downs, then south again through quiet lanes and occasional sleeping village greens. Light mists pooled where the road dipped lower. He had left without his coat, and the damp chill bit deep through his linen shirt.
As his mind cleared and a headache began pulsing in time to the horse’s hooves, his thoughts were as cold as his body. He should never have invited Alys Weston and her quasi-family to move in with him. It had seemed an irresistibly good idea to fill the empty spaces of the manor house with youth and laughter, and Strickland was large enough to give him privacy as needed.
In one way the idea had worked. The young Spensers had intelligence, enthusiasm, and good manners, and he enjoyed their company. The problem was with Lady Alys. He had found her attractive from the first time he saw her, and knew that having that tantalizing body under his own roof would be a constant temptation. However, contrary to popular opinion, he was quite capable of resisting temptation—when he was sober.
All too aware of his weaknesses, he had known that he must be careful about his drinking. Self-control and judgment were the first things to go when booze went down the throat. He hadn’t anticipated how preoccupied he would become with Allie’s nearness. Her nearness, and her responsiveness.
It didn’t help that he had yielded to the impulse to buy her something better than her governess gowns. He had known she had a good figure, but had not realized just how splendid it was until she had appeared for dinner in one of her new dresses. He had been tempted to turn her into the first course.
Oddly enough, Allie was quite unaware of how attractive she was. That must be the result of too many years where work and propriety came first. Or perhaps she had been scorned when she was a growing, gawky girl, too tall and too unusual for mere prettiness, and had never learned to see herself as the striking woman she had become.
Nonetheless, he had not thought sharing the house with her would cause problems. Unless he was half sprung, he knew how to keep his hands to himself, so all he had to do was restrict his serious drinking until late in the evening. Since he was nocturnal by preference, this was no hardship. For the first few nights he had gotten quietly foxed with none the wiser. Except Mac, of course. Then his plan had broken down.
A vainer man might have thought Allie had sought him out deliberately, pretending surprise at finding him in the library, but Reggie did not number vanity among his faults. It had been chance that had brought her downstairs at such a late hour, a chance he should have guessed would occur sooner or later. Short of locking her in her bedroom every night, it would surely happen again. And next time, whatever remnants of decency he still possessed might not stop him in time.
He thought of the shock and hurt on her face when he had pulled away, and winced. The blasted woman was such a mixture of intelligence, worldly wisdom, and vulnerability. He had enjoyed their outrageous discussion, enjoyed her curiosity and open mind and lack of missishness. It was different from talking with Chessie. While he had never had to guard his tongue with his former mistress, she had lacked the education and temperament to appreciate his more oblique mental flights.
Tonight he had learned that in many ways Allie was a kindred spirit, as isolated by circumstances, as intense and unconventional, as he himself. There were two major differences between them. First, as a woman she had been raised to be proper and restrained, to deny her passionate nature.
Second and more important, she had chosen to use her gifts of talent and intelligence constructively, while he had thrown all of his away. He was generally considered a rake, but wastrel was a more accurate term, for he had wasted so much over the years. So much money, so many choices.
Most of all, so much time—time that could never be recaptured.
Eventually Reggie stopped and tethered his horse, then stretched out under a tree on the dew-moistened grass. He was enormously tired and wished he could sleep,
but when he closed his eyes everything began spinning and nausea threatened. He lay stark-eyed and awake, thinking of his desire to change his life and what a bad job he was making of it.
First one bird chirped, then another and another, multiplying to a chorus as dawn began to tint the eastern sky. He took a certain sour intellectual curiosity in feeling his hangover slowly develop, bit by wretched bit. Usually he slept through the process.
With the sky perceptibly lighter, he wearily got to his feet and remounted, feeling the ache of fatigue and depression in his very bones. He let the horse amble until they came to an intersection with a collection of fingerposts pointing in different directions: Fifehead Neville, Okeford Fitzpaine, Sturminster Newton.
He had read once that the absurd double names many English villages carried were a result of Norman designations being tacked onto the original Saxon. It was the sort of fact that he loved—utterly useless. In a debate at Eton he had once successfully defended the proposition that a fact should be loved for itself alone rather than for what it could do.
Turning his mount to the left, he headed toward Strickland, unsuccessfully trying to avoid thinking about Alys Weston. It would be so easy, so infernally easy, to fall into an affair with her. She was ripe for appreciation, eager for experience. For a little while, she would welcome his advances—that had been made clear tonight.
But the same quirky sense of honor that had led him to administer rough justice as required would not let him ruin an innocent. More than an innocent—a good woman, though that was a rather colorless description for someone so vibrantly, forcefully alive.
He had to get her out of the house. Some of his working capital could be diverted into rebuilding Rose Hall. After the embers had cooled, he’d checked the walls and found them to be sound. If construction began soon, Alys and her brood would be back where they belonged by early autumn.
And Strickland would be empty again.
The days were very long this near the solstice. Though the sun was well above the horizon, the hour was still so early that even the farmers were barely stirring. Instinctively Reggie was heading toward home—as a Mussulman bowed to Mecca, he always knew in which direction Strickland lay—and the countryside was beginning to look familiar. It took his tired, sodden brain time to realize that he was skirting the fields of Fenton Hall.
Still, it was a surprise to turn a corner in the deep lane and come on Jeremy Stanton on a placid gelding. His godfather was also startled, but the leathery face immediately creased in a smile. “Good morning, lad. You’re out early.” After a shrewd glance, he added, “Care to join me for breakfast?”
Reggie winced, wishing he could beat a retreat without being unbearably rude. He was unshaven, coatless, grass-stained, and generally must look like hell. “I’ll pass, sir. I should be getting home.”
Stanton’s eyes twinkled. “I’m disappointed that you think I’m too old and respectable to deal with the aftereffects of a night’s debauch. If you’re worried about Elizabeth seeing you, she won’t be up for hours. I realize you might not be able to face food, but perhaps a cup of coffee?”
Reggie hesitated, on the edge of bolting, then smiled wryly. “That’s an offer I can’t refuse. It’s been a long night.”
Stanton turned his horse, and they trotted companionably along the lane, then up the tree-lined drive to the manor house. Little was said until both men were ensconced in the sunny breakfast parlor with steaming coffee and fresh warm rolls on the table. Between sips of his beverage, Reggie clasped the mug between his hands to warm them.
Breaking open a roll and spreading it with sweet butter, Stanton said reminiscently, “Do you realize how much you resemble your father just now?”
“Certainly there’s a general resemblance,” Reggie agreed, “but I don’t recall him ever looking as if the sexton had just dug him up in the churchyard.”
“You’re too young to remember, but many’s the time he was here looking just like you. And for the same reason.” While the words were casual, the older man’s gray eyes were shrewdly observant.
Coloring under the examination, Reggie growled, “Are you trying to insult me, or my father?”
“Neither.” Unoffended by the rudeness, Stanton said pensively, “Drink is one of the curses of the Englishman. We’re told from the time we’re mere lads that a hard head for liquor proves we’re real men, so naturally we drink ourselves to oblivion, with rowdiness and ill-temper along the way.
“With maturity and increased responsibilities, most men decide boozing interferes with the serious business of life, and they reduce their libations. Some, however, drink more and more.” He added a spoonful of raspberry preserves to his roll, spreading them neatly over the surface. “Your father and I drank together often. He was one of the wittiest men I’ve ever known. Oh, we were merry as grigs over our bottles.”
He bit into his bread, chewing and swallowing before he continued. “It was all good sport, until drinking almost ruined both our marriages.”
“How fortunate that I don’t have a marriage to ruin,” Reggie said caustically. “If you’re trying to tell me something, just come out with it. You may call me a lad if you wish, but I’ll be damned if I’ll sit still for a lecture.”
“I don’t intend to give you one,” his godfather said in a peaceable tone. “I merely want to fill you in on a bit of history that you might not be familiar with.”
“You’re right, it’s quite unfamiliar to me,” Reggie said shortly. “I don’t remember my father ever drinking so much as a tankard of ale.”
“That’s because he gave up every form of alcohol when you were a child. About four, I think.”
Reggie was about to pour more coffee, but he paused in mid-gesture and shot Stanton a suspicious glance. “I told you once that I don’t remember anything from when I was younger than four.”
“With good reason, perhaps,” his godfather said, still imperturbable. “Excellent preserves, these. Sure you wouldn’t care to have some?”
Reggie had enough to digest without adding food. Scowling at his coffee, he forgot his host for a time. Abruptly he asked, “You said drink almost ruined your marriage. What happened?”
Stanton shrugged. “I woke up one morning, or afternoon actually, and Elizabeth and the children were gone. She’d packed them up and returned to her parents. She refused even to see me for a fortnight. In fact, her father’s solicitor called here to discuss a legal separation.”
Reggie stared at him, aghast. “But you and Aunt Beth have always been as close as inkle weavers.”
“Not always, I fear.” Remembered pain showed on Stanton’s thin face. “When she finally agreed to talk, she told me that she was tired of sleeping alone while I drank myself to a stupor downstairs, she was tired of running the estate and the house both, and she was damned tired of seeing her children hide from their father because they never knew what mood he would be in.”
The thought of plump, gentle Aunt Beth swearing was as incongruous as imagining her brandishing a sword. As incongruous as the thought that Jeremy Stanton’s children might have been afraid of him. Reluctantly intrigued, Reggie asked, “What happened then?”
“I thought about it, and decided that my wife was a much better companion at night than a half dozen bottles of burgundy. So I told her I would stop drinking.” He smiled without humor. “I thought it would be easy. Elizabeth said she wouldn’t come back until I had been sober for six months. It took me over a year to achieve that. But in the end, I did. I haven’t had a single drop of alcohol since.”
Reggie remembered how his godfather had refused a drink at Strickland, and how he had drunk only water the night Reggie had come for dinner. So that wasn’t mere caprice, but iron habit. “And my parents? What kind of problems did they have?”
Stanton shook his head. “The situation was similar. Since the crisis occurred at the same time as my own problems, I’m not sure of the details. You were there—perhaps you might remember some of what h
appened if you tried.”
“What would be the point of the exercise?” Reggie said, his voice hostile.
“There might be some relevance to your own life,” Stanton said, as immune to hostility as rudeness.
“Are you implying that I can’t hold my drink?”
“Since you are your father’s son, perhaps not.” Stanton regarded him gravely. “You would know that better than I.”
Coldly furious, Reggie yearned to curse Stanton for a meddlesome old fool and stomp out. Something stopped him. For the third time in a matter of weeks, someone was talking to him about his drinking, and all three people were in the very small handful who had demonstrated a genuine concern for his welfare.
As the fatigue and despair of the night flooded over him, he set his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. Without looking up, he muttered, “Maybe I do drink too much, but I haven’t a wife or family. Who am I harming?”
“Yourself,” Stanton said softly.
The silence stretched. Reggie thought of the depression that had been dogging him, and for the first time wondered if it might be a result of drink. And while he did not have a wife or child to lose, there was Strickland. He remembered the last night in London, when he had gone gambling and won a thousand pounds in some unknown way. He could as easily have lost.
If he had been on a losing streak, might he have been fool enough to put up Strickland as a stake? Chillingly he knew that was possible. Voice muffled by his hands, he said gruffly, “You’re right. I should drink less.”
“Possibly that would work,” was the noncommittal reply.
Lowering his hands, Reggie looked up with narrowed eyes. “Would you care to elaborate on that statement?”
“Some men can reduce their drinking, and that solves their problem.” Stanton grimaced. “I tried that. It didn’t work. As soon as I swallowed that first mouthful of booze, I would forget—or rather, no longer care—about my good resolutions. Then I would drink until I was unconscious. For me the only answer was to stop altogether. There was no middle ground.”