When the Jennings children were finally returned to the Abernathys, the couple invited Colton and Adriana to stay for supper. Colton would’ve refused, seeing as how the couple seemed in dire straits, but Adriana quietly confided that food was something her father always made sure the family never lacked. For Colton’s further consideration, she added that Mrs. Abernathy was an exceptional cook and it was an enormous treat to eat anything prepared by the woman.
The evening was passed in jovial pleasure, as Adriana and Colton sat together on a bench, flanked on either side by the Jennings children. The older children of the family were full of stories and eager to share them with their guests, stirring forth hearty laughter from the men and children and more subdued mirth from the ladies. Little Sarah giggled right along with the rest, although not entirely understanding the humorous tales, but she did everything the beautiful lady did and watched her with adoring eyes, warmly savoring her fond caresses and the gentle chucking of her tiny chin.
When finally the Wyndham carriage turned homeward along the moonlit road, Adriana felt inclined to express her gratitude to Colton for what he had done and seemed willing to do in the future for the children. “They’ll benefit from your help, my lord, and be better people for it.”
“I’ve done little,” he claimed, rubbing a thumb reflectively over the silver handle of his cane. “You and the Abernathys are the ones deserving all the praise, not I.”
“I give that to the couple wholeheartedly, yet you’ve been generous when other nobles would likely have refused.”
“If I’ve been charitable, Adriana, you are the one who has instructed me. Between your efforts and Samantha’s, I may yet prove magnanimous one day.”
Her soft, winsome mouth curved upward at the corners. “Perhaps you were merely awaiting an opportunity to demonstrate your benevolence, my lord.”
“I’ve normally overlooked those chances most of my life, Adriana. You’ve taught me more about charity in these last couple of days than I suppose I’ve ever given heed to before.” Leaning forward over the handle of his cane, he ensnared her gaze through the warm glow cast from the exterior coach lanterns and carefully probed those dark, lustrous orbs as a slow smile curved his lips. “You’ve awakened emotions within me that I was sure I was incapable of feeling until we became reacquainted: some of which I’m greatly appreciative; others I’m still struggling to restrain.”
Growing suspicious, Adriana peered at him charily. “And those you’re trying to curb?”
Colton leaned back in his seat and grinned. “Oh, I shan’t tuck that bit of knowledge into your pretty cap just yet, fair maid. I must plumb the depth of that matter more fully ere I give that power over into your hands.”
“You tease me,” she accused with sudden certainty. “I’ve done nothing, and yet you would have me believe I’ve either influenced you in some mysterious way or else committed some crime against you. You’re teasing me just as you used to do, and to that I say humbug.”
A soft chuckle escaped his lips. “I see you’re not easily taken in, my dear, but can you not understand what a man like myself experiences in the presence of such a beautiful woman?”
Adriana decided it was probably an appropriate time to worry about the remaining distance to Wakefield. Peering out into the darkness beyond the coach, she had some difficulty finding her voice until she cleared her throat and made another attempt. “Would you happen to know where we are precisely?”
“No need to fear, Adriana. As much as I’d enjoy making love to you right now, I shan’t force you to appease my manly bent. However, I hope in time that you’ll prove more receptive to my attentions. I can be enormously persuasive when there is a rare and beautiful prize that I’m desperate to have for my own.”
Adriana could feel her cheeks warming as she met those smiling gray eyes. Presently, they were softly illumined by the carriage lanterns, and the warmth shining in those translucent depths was unmistakable; so, too, his confidence. “You seem terribly sure of yourself, my lord.”
“Oh, I can imagine a woman of your uniqueness must grow bored with the various propositions presented her, and you may indeed wonder what makes my invitation different from those who may’ve invited you to share yourself with them. On the surface, nothing; but in bed, well, there’s the telling of it. I’ve come to realize over the years that there’s an art to everything.” His broad shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “For instance, on the battlefields I traversed throughout my career as an officer, I became more familiar with the skills of war. There is also an art to the intimacy a man and woman can share together. It doesn’t have to involve going to bed together; yet, if that were to happen, be confident, Adriana, I would be gentle with you and seek your pleasure before having mine. I’d cherish you as something rare and precious, for truly you are that. I’ve come to realize after perusing you in my bath that I won’t be content until I make you mine. You’re like a potent wine that has gone to my head. I’ve never desired another woman as much as I’ve come to desire you just since I’ve been home. You must know that by now.”
Not entirely sure what he was telling her, Adriana felt led to probe the matter more thoroughly, just in case she had misunderstood what he wanted from her. Surely he wouldn’t dare proposition her when they were facing an agreement signed by both their parents. “Should I believe you’re amenable to our betrothal?”
His eyes lowered to the elegant handle of his cane again as he traced the elaborate scroll etched in the silver with a neatly manicured thumbnail. “I didn’t say that, Adriana.”
Her brow arched at a skeptical angle. “But you are soliciting me for my favors, are you not?”
“I don’t think I said it quite like that,” Colton hedged, sensing her rising ire.
Adriana placed shaking fingers against her brow as she closed her eyes. For a moment, she mulled over what she had heard and tried to make some sense of it all. “Just what did you say then? Perhaps I’ve misconstrued what you’re proposing.”
“I do not intend to take you against your will, my dear, but I would very much enjoy being intimate with you.”
The audacity of the man! He was far bolder than she would’ve ever imagined. “Do you actually think I’d consent to lie with you without benefit of marriage vows?” she demanded. The nerve of him! “Am I daft? I remember too clearly how soon Jaclyn got with child after her marriage. If I were to be so foolish to concede to such an arrangement, which I’m not, I’d be inviting certain disaster.”
Colton chuckled at her protestations. She seemed far more worried about getting with child than being seduced outside of marriage. “I’d do everything I could to prevent that from happening, Adriana,” he cajoled. “I could pleasure you as you’ve never been pleasured before.”
The dark eyes narrowed as she fixed a malevolent glare upon the man through the lantern-lit gloom. “Melora warned me that it wasn’t safe to be alone with you in a coach, and foolishly I waved away her efforts to caution me. Next time, you can be certain I’ll be more attentive to her admonitions, for they have proven to be most perceptive.”
Colton felt a pang of disappointment when he realized Bentley was slowing the landau to round the curve into the Suttons’ drive. “ ‘Twould seem the chance to discuss this matter more thoroughly has escaped us, at least for this evening,” he murmured with a grin. His eyes came near to consuming her as the soft radiance of the lanterns touched upon her fine, delicate features and luminous dark eyes. He heaved a sigh that conveyed his disappointment. “I suppose I must endure the futility of wanting you for yet another night. Little did I imagine when I found you in my bath that I’d be so completely vexed by my desire to have you.”
When Bentley drew the conveyance to a halt before her family’s Tudor estate, Adriana didn’t wait for gentlemanly assistance. She threw the door open, kicked out the step, and alighted with as much haste as one whose tail had just been torched. Thus deserted, Colton descended the same steps with considerably more d
ignity and followed as swiftly as his hindered gait would allow.
In her eagerness to confront the pair after espying the coach lanterns emerging from the tree-shrouded lane, Melora had caught up her skirts and raced ahead of Charles. Fairly breathless from her flight, she snatched open the portal and ran out in time to meet her sister just as that one came stalking toward the portal.
“I thought you would never return,” Melora declared, sizing up her younger sister. She’d have certainly taken the initiative to suggest to her mother that something was not quite right if Adriana’s apparel had looked the least bit out of place. “I hope nothing serious happened that detained the two of you this long.”
“We had dinner with the Abernathys, Melora,” her younger sister announced flatly. “We came here straightaway after it was concluded, and if you’re wondering if I’ve been ravished, the answer is no, and will continue to be no as long as I have breath left in my body.”
Melora’s jaw plummeted forthwith at her sister’s announcement, and Colton coughed behind a hand as he made an earnest effort not to laugh at the petite woman’s gaping astonishment. It came to him in that moment that he had never in all his life met such a woman as Adriana Sutton. ‘Twould seem that he would have to be far more subtle about his intentions in the future if he meant to be intimate with the lady outside the boundaries of marriage.
Colton swept off his shako as the petite woman faced him. “Good evening, Melo—”
“Come inside, Melora,” Adriana interrupted tersely. Pausing at the door, she gave the man a frosty look. “Lord Colton can’t stay. He’s returning home immediately.”
Thus dismissed, Colton had no choice but to acquiesce. “Alas, ‘tis true. I cannot stay.”
“Good night, my lord!” Adriana stated rather forcefully as Melora pattered after her. In the next instant, he had cause to flinch as the door slammed behind the two women.
As he neared the landau, he noticed the sheepish glance Bentley cast his way before the man quickly lent his attention to the four-in-hand. Even so, the elder’s eyes were inclined to wander surreptitiously over his shoulder on a fairly frequent basis.
“Do you have something you wish to speak with me about, Bentley?” Colton asked, fixing a suspicious squint upon the driver.
“Well, ah . . . no, milord . . . I mean to say . . . Well, Liedy Adriana . . . ah . . . well, she does seem a mite independent . . . at times, that she does.”
“Yes, and what is that supposed to mean?”
Wary of offending the nobleman, the coachman shot another quick, nervous glance back at him. “I’ve seen her ladyship . . . ah . . . get miffed afore when a bloke tried gettin’ . . . too . . . ah . . . personal.”
“Familiar with the lady, you mean?” Colton prodded, peering up at the badly flustered man.
“Ah . . . well . . . ah . . . maybe so, milord.” Bentley cleared his throat with some difficulty, as if he had just gotten a huge frog lodged in it. “I overheard what the liedy said on ’er way ta the door, milord. She . . . ah . . . said . . . ah . . . nearly the same thing the night she blackened the fella’s eye wit’ her purse. She’s wont ta swing it ’bout wit’ a wee bit o’ force when she gets a mite riled, milord, an’ I can promise yu she knows how ta use it. Yur sister can affirm what I say. She were ’ere ta witness it. She an’ Mr. Percy.”
Hefting his cane, Colton closely considered the handle in the moonlight. “And your suggestion would be . . . ?”
Once again, the driver cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t think o’ suggestin’ anythin’ ta yu, milord.”
“Come now, Bentley, you were here before I left home. If you have a bit of wisdom to share in regards to the lady, you have my permission to voice it. Whether I take it or not remains to be seen.”
“In ‘at case, milord, I’ll be sharin’ what little I’d be knowin’. Mayhap ‘twould save yu from settin’ yurself at odds wit’ the lovely liedy. ‘Tis fairly easy for a man what’s been in the wars to lose sight o’ the difference betwixt the ones in the camps an’ those at home, but if’n yu were ta remember ‘at the Liedy Adriana is more’n a cut or two above ’em women who follow the soldiers, milord, then yu maybe wouldn’t be upsettin’ ’er so much.”
Colton mulled over the man’s advice for a long, thoughtful moment. Then he glanced back at the front portal through which the lady had stalked in a fair bit of a tizzy. Perhaps he had become too inured to women propositioning him and had lost sight of the fact that there were still some who preserved their purity for their husbands to savor. As much as he would’ve enjoyed making love to the lady, he had to admire her for her stance. At least, if he did marry her, he wouldn’t have to wonder who had enjoyed her before him.
With a sudden laugh, Colton tossed up his cane and caught the shaft in midair. Touching its handle to the brim of his shako, he saluted the man for his wisdom. “Thank you, Bentley. I shall do everything within my power to remember your prudent counsel. The lady is indeed just that, and ‘twould behoove me to tread lightly while I’m with her, or she’ll likely blacken my eye with her little purse.”
Bentley’s whole frame seemed to shake as he chortled in amusement. “Aye, milord, an’ the Liedy Adriana is just the one what’ll do it ta ya, too.”
Colton nodded mutely as his tailor, George Gaines, asked him a question, but the small, wiry man could tell that his lordship was distracted by his own thoughts and not in a mood to discuss the details of frock coats, waistcoats, and trousers. Though a number of hours had passed since they had departed the nobleman’s London residence, a fine Palladian mansion located near Hyde Park on Park Lane, the retired colonel had hardly muttered a word. For the most part, he had stared out the window at the changing countryside, deep in thought, his brows gathered in a frown, his lips compressed, the corners downturned. Only those lucid gray eyes had moved to take in the passing terrain as they traveled westward. Dusk would soon be approaching, and yet the younger man gave no indication that he even noticed the dwindling light.
Colton took note all right, but he was troubled by other matters. It hadn’t helped his surly mood one whit to realize that for the past several days, even while taking care of affairs dealing with his marquessate, he had been constantly inundated with thoughts of the brunette beauty he would soon be courting. As much as he had tried to banish her from his mind, he just hadn’t been able to, and it had been of no benefit to imagine he could find release with another woman. The very idea of that had set him awry with himself, and he hadn’t even wasted his time on what had promised to be a fruitless pursuit. The simple fact was that after viewing the unadorned perfection of the Lady Adriana, no other woman appealed to him. Trying to placate himself with another would’ve been similar to trying to down a pauper’s meal when a rich feast had been laid out before him. In spite of his strenuous objections to his father’s proposals in the past, it was as if he were some untried youth again, following merrily along the path his sire had chosen for him years ago.
The narrow lane they were presently traversing serviced both the neighboring mansions of Wakefield and Randwulf. When the landau passed the thick stand of trees that buttressed the road and broke into the clearing that allowed a sweeping view of the area around Wakefield Manor, he lifted his gaze with a strangely persuasive hope that he might see Adriana. The gray-stoned many-gabled, steeply-pitched-roofed Tudor mansion sat upon the brow of a hill amid tall evergreens, the height of which almost rivaled the lofty chimneys that seemed to pierce the gathering clouds looming overhead. He had visited the warm, spacious, comfortable mansion many times in his youth, and he had every confidence that the family living there was just as gracious and hospitable as they had been years ago. A man could do no better than to make such people kin by marriage.
The slowing of the landau evoked Colton’s curiosity, and he peered out the windows in an effort to discover the reason for Bentley drawing rein upon the four-in-hand. That’s when he saw in the field on the far side of the conveyance the
two mounted riders racing their horses toward a low stone wall. The lady, riding sidesaddle atop her mottled gray Andalusian stallion, was in the lead and apparently reveling in that fact. Glancing ahead, Colton saw the height of the barrier looming before the pair, and with a muttered curse that drew the tailor’s shocked attention, leaned forward in his seat for a better view. In something akin to paralyzed horror, he watched as the two neared the obstacle, but the closer they came, the more his eyes became riveted on the mottled stallion, which bore the elegantly garbed lady. As he held his breath, the steed soared upward, tucking his forelegs beneath him, and seemingly with buoyant ease, sailed over in a high, graceful arc that easily cleared the hurdle. Feeling an overwhelming relief, Colton hardly noticed the man’s shiny black steed gliding with equal grace over the same obstacle.
“Reckless wench!” Colton muttered in a sour temper. “Doesn’t she care a whit that she could get her fine neck broken one of these days with antics like that!”
By now, Mr. Gaines was eyeing him rather warily. “A friend of yours, my lord?”
“A neighbor with an uncommon passion for horses,” Colton muttered irascibly and, hefting his cane, rapped the elegantly curved handle against the roof of the carriage. As the landau began to slow, he faced his companion. “Your pardon, Mr. Gaines. I’ll be alighting here for a few moments, but I’ll have Bentley take you on to Randwulf Manor with your men.” Turning slightly, he cast a glance out the rear window and found the tailor’s conveyance just leaving the wooded copse. “Harrison will see to your needs and will show you to an area of the manor where you and your assistants can work undisturbed for the next week.”