Barnaby turned to Millicent. “Why don’t we head that way, taking in the sights at our leisure, and these two can go down and view Cyclops, then join us at the upper platform?”
“But don’t you wish to view Cyclops from closer range?” Millicent asked.
“I do.” Barnaby smiled, distinctly devil-may-care; he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “But I would prefer to get closer than Miss Tregonning would probably think wise, and I would be loath to argue with such a charming hostess.” He flashed his irrepressible smile at Jacqueline. “I’ll come back later.”
Jacqueline looked uncertain.
“Go on.” Barnaby waved them on. “I’ll stroll with Miss Tregonning and enjoy the sylvan delights.” So saying, he offered Millicent his arm. Surrendering, she took it and allowed him to lead her up the other path.
Jacqueline stood watching, frowning.
Gerrard waited for a moment, then touched her arm. “Shall we?”
She didn’t jump, but when she turned her head and her eyes met his, they were a fraction wide. “Yes, of course.”
She sounded a touch breathless. Side by side, they walked down the sloping path. His latest questions burned in his brain, but he decided to ask someone else—possibly Millicent—about Jacqueline’s mother rather than put his foot wrong with her. As for her reaction to the Garden of Venus, he wasn’t yet sure what that was, but she’d said they would pass it on their way back—time enough to probe then.
They rounded the last bend in the path; the breeze off the waves hit them, and snatched at her parasol. She quickly furled it; he waited while she secured it, then offered his arm. “It’ll be safer if you hold on to me.”
She drew in a breath, then slid her hand around his elbow, laying her fingers on his sleeve. Sensing her uncertainty, he didn’t draw her close, but now they were in the open, the breeze shrieked about them, plastering her dress to her figure, tugging at her skirts. She really would be safer clinging to him, taking refuge in his windshadow.
He wished she would. Most young ladies would unhesitatingly seize the opportunity; instead, she struggled to walk by his side and keep a decorous distance between them. Despite his unwanted sexual awareness of her, still notably high, her caution rankled.
They reached the line of rocks above the sloping shore. At the southern end of the cove, the massive bulk of Cyclops rose from the waves, its seaward faces cloaked in spume and spray.
Gerrard squinted. “Is that a ledge running around it?”
“Yes.” Jacqueline raised her voice over the crash of the waves. “It’s terribly dangerous, as you can see. At neap tide, you can follow the ledge all the way around and into the blowhole chamber itself, but at most times, the waves are too high, and the footing far too treacherous.”
He stepped off the edge of the path to get a better view. Bracing one booted leg against a large rock, he studied the outcrop, noting the proportions. “I’ll have to come down at sunset. Or sunrise. Or perhaps we’ll have a storm?” He wanted to see more variations of light on Cyclops, and more movement about it, too.
Pushing back from the rock, he straightened and turned.
Only to discover Jacqueline had leaned toward him, fighting to hold back her hair with one hand.
They were suddenly very close, their faces only inches apart. Her eyes widened. Her lips were parted; she’d leaned close to say something.
Their eyes locked. Looking into hers, into the moss-agatey depths, he realized she’d forgotten what she’d been about to say.
Beyond his control, his gaze dropped to her lips. Soft, intensely feminine, shaped for passion, and mere inches away.
As was her body, those delectable breasts and elementally female curves. All he had to do to bring her against him was tip her to him, or take half a step more.
The impulse to do so was nearly overpowering; only the thought that she might panic held him back. Yet the allure of those lips, the desire to taste them, to raise his hands, frame her face and angle it up so his lips could cover hers and he could learn…
His gaze lowered to where the pulse beat wildly at the base of her throat, then lowered further, to her breasts, high, full…frozen. She wasn’t breathing.
Forcing his gaze up, he met her eyes, and read in them how shocked, stunned and uncertain she was—how out of her depth she was.
He couldn’t take advantage of such innocence, such clear and open naïveté. She might be twenty-three, but she had no idea what this was.
She’d clearly had no experience with desire, much less lust.
Taking a firm grip on his own, he grasped her arm, and gently moved her back so he could step up onto the path.
“Ah…” Jacqueline blinked and looked around; she fixed on Cyclops. “I was going to ask…”
She dragged in a huge breath, and grabbed hold of her wayward wits. Keeping her gaze on the huge rock, she battled to steady her giddy head and ignore the man by her side. “I was about to ask about Mr. Adair. He wouldn’t be so reckless as to try to explore Cyclops, would he?”
When her companion didn’t immediately reply, she glanced briefly at him, ready to be mortified if he said anything about that fraught moment an instant ago.
Instead, he was looking, not at her, but at Cyclops. Retaking her arm, he urged her on; hesitantly, trying not to notice the sensations his touch evoked, she fell into step once more beside him.
“Barnaby’s insatiably curious, but not rashly so—not to the point of endangering himself. He might be many things, incorrigible and impossible to restrain at times, but he’s not stupid.”
“I didn’t mean to imply he is,” she hurried to say. “But…well, you know.” She gestured. “Young men and their follies and reckless ways.”
He looked at her then. She met his eyes—and realized they were warm, that his lips had eased, fractionally curving—that he was genuinely amused, not trying to be charming.
His natural smile was more potent than he knew.
“Young men,” he repeated, then quietly said, “Neither Barnaby nor I are that young.”
His eyes held hers for an instant, then his gaze lowered to her lips, then dropped away as he looked ahead.
They walked five paces before she remembered how to breathe.
Foolish, foolish, foolish! She had to overcome this ridiculous sensitivity that he, somehow, triggered. She might have led a quiet country life, but she’d attended country assemblies aplenty and she’d never—not ever—responded to a gentleman—to the man, to his presence—as she did to Gerrard Debbington.
It was nonsense—her reaction made no sense at all.
She had to, was determined to, overcome it, and if she couldn’t do that, then she’d ignore it, certainly hide it so he got no inkling of her witless sensibility.
After that moment on the shore, ignoring all he made her feel seemed eminently wise.
The path led them around the edge of Cyclops, some distance back from the blowhole itself. Gerrard paused at the point where the path rose; looking down on the rock, they could see the hole clearly. A muffled rumbling reached them, then a small spout of water gushed up through the hole.
“The tide’s turning,” she said, and moved on.
He followed, his long fingers still wrapped about her elbow; she didn’t shake free, didn’t want to call attention to her awareness of his touch.
Yet she was aware—to her bones aware—of the latent strength not just in his fingers but in the lean, hard body keeping pace so close beside her.
Once they’d left Cyclops, the delights of the Garden of Vulcan, with its fiery red and orange flowers and bronze foliage, followed in turn by the Gardens of Hermes and Diana, the former dotted with ornamental stone cairns, the latter incorporating a small wood that was home to a herd of deer, gave her fodder enough to distract him. And herself.
By the time they reached the upper viewing stage, a delicate wrought-iron pergola, and rejoined Barnaby and Millicent, she’d managed to press that moment on
the shore to the back of her mind.
She indicated the path that left the pergola to wind up the incline of the south ridge. “That leads to the Garden of Atlas, which is a rare example of a rock garden created with nothing but spherical boulders, rocks and stones.”
“Reflecting the globe Atlas shouldered?” Shading his eyes, Barnaby looked up at the ridge.
“Indeed. From the upper end of that garden, steps give access to the south end of the terrace.” Beckoning, she stepped onto the other path leading toward the house. “This will take us into the Garden of Athena. We could go straight through to the terrace—there’s another set of steps—but if we take the fork that goes through the Garden of Artemis, we’ll pass by the Garden of Night, too, before climbing the main terrace stairs.”
“Lead on.” Gerrard smiled easily as he came to pace beside her.
He looked ahead; she grasped the moment to surreptitiously study his profile. He’d asked numerous questions about the gardens as they’d walked. He was a landscape artist; the gardens would be of consuming interest, yet she had a suspicion he’d asked more because she’d expected him to, more to put her at ease, to soothe her leaping nerves…he couldn’t know how he affected her, could he?
Facing forward, she pushed the disturbing notion out of her conscious mind. “The Garden of Athena, goddess of wisdom, is laid out in formal style, using primarily olive trees, sacred to the goddess.” Her knowledge of the gardens was extensive; from childhood, she’d quizzed the gardeners, some of whom were older than her father and remembered the changes the decades had wrought.
They took the fork she indicated and strolled on into the fanciful landscape of the Garden of Artemis, home to a host of topiary animals, lions and tigers among them, the goddess’s especial followers.
The sun shone strongly; the temperature was significantly higher than it had been when they’d set out. She slowed her pace; Millicent had to be tiring. She and her aunt had only recently become close, but she’d quickly grown fond of Millicent.
Ahead, the main steps up to the terrace rose in a curving flight of white marble with the same waist-high balustrade that ran the length of the terrace itself. The path they were following led to the bottom of the steps, then curved away into the Garden of Night.
She’d thought she was up to it, to taking them at least a little way into that most famous area of the gardens, but the closer they got to the heavy, large-leaved, dark green foliage that enclosed it, she felt instinctive resistance rise, until it was choking her.
It was broad daylight, she chided herself, yet her mind instantly conjured how dark, almost subterranean, the garden felt regardless of the hour, with its wide still pool into which the spring all but silently flowed, the closeness of the humidity the spectacularly rampant growth held in, the muted quality of the light, so diffused and broken by the thick canopy that even at noon the garden resembled a cavern, and above all else, the claustrophobic stillness and the heavy, suffocating medley of perfumes.
Dragging in a breath past the vise that, with each step, tightened about her lungs, she halted at the foot of the stairs. “I have several matters I must attend to before luncheon, which will be served shortly, so perhaps, Aunt”—she glanced at Millicent—“we should go inside?”
Approaching on Barnaby’s arm, Millicent nodded. “I think so.” The long walk had clearly wearied her. She furled her parasol. “I must speak with Mrs. Carpenter before luncheon.”
Relieved, Jacqueline turned to Gerrard and Barnaby. “If you wish to go on, that path leads through the Garden of Night, and then into the Garden of Poseidon.” She managed a light smile. “As Papa has doubtless told you, you should feel free to explore the gardens at will.” Glancing at Barnaby, she considered reiterating her warning about venturing onto Cyclops, then remembered Gerrard’s words, and thought better of it.
Barnaby had been peering ahead; he flashed her a grin. Reaching for her hand, he bowed over it. “Thank you for a fascinating tour.” Straightening, he looked at the Garden of Night. “I’m sure we can manage on our own from here.”
She smiled and shifted her gaze to Gerrard, expecting to see a similar eagerness to explore in his face. Instead, he was watching her, studying her.
Her breath caught; her lungs seized.
Millicent, thank heavens, spoke to him, deflecting his attention. By the time his too acute gaze returned to her, she’d recovered and was ready. She inclined her head, her lips lightly curved. “I hope you feel comfortable within the gardens now, sir, enough to go about on your own.”
“Indeed.” His brown eyes held hers. “If you’re sure we can’t tempt you to accompany us, and leave those ‘several matters’ until later?”
Her smile felt tight. “Quite sure. Unfortunately…” She broke off before completing the lie. Millicent moved past her, starting up the steps. She reminded herself she owed him no explanation. Drawing a determined breath, she met his eyes. “I’ll see you at luncheon, sir. Treadle will ring the bell on the terrace, so you’ll be sure to hear it.”
His disturbingly intent gaze lingered on her face, but then he bowed. “Until then, Miss Tregonning.”
Inclining her head, she turned and followed Millicent up the steps. Her senses pricked, nervously flickering. Gaining the terrace, she paused, then looked back.
Gerrard hadn’t moved. He’d remained where she’d left him, watching her…as if he knew how tight her lungs were, how tense her nerves…how her heart was thudding.
His eyes met hers. For an instant, all about them stilled…
She turned and followed Millicent across the terrace and into the house.
4
After luncheon, another quiet meal, Gerrard retreated to his studio while Barnaby hied out to explore Cyclops and the gardens in general.
Earlier, they’d explored the Garden of Night—a curious, dramatic and vaguely disturbing place. The atmosphere had been all Gerrard’s dream had promised, not just darkly Gothic but with a sinister undertone carried in the oppressive stillness. The more cheery Garden of Poseidon had lightened their mood before Treadle’s gong had summoned them back to the house.
Closing the nursery-cum-studio door, Gerrard got to work. His purpose was defined—to set out all he needed, to unpack the boxes the footmen had left stacked against the walls and lay out paints, pads, pencils and the various paraphernalia with which he habitually surrounded himself—yet while his hands were busy, his mind remained engrossed.
Thinking of Jacqueline Tregonning.
Reliving, reviewing, all the moments he’d thus far shared with her, and trying to make sense of them, trying to wring every last iota of meaning from each, to get some firm concept—some concept he could accept as firm enough—of what she was, of what, with her, he was dealing with.
His initial view of her had been that she had character. That had proved true, yet her character was complex, far more so than he’d expected. He’d labeled her an enigma, and she still was to him.
He hadn’t, yet, made any real headway in understanding her. His observations to date had yielded not answers but yet more questions.
And that surprised him.
He would, he felt, have coped with that surprise, with the challenge she posed, well enough, if it hadn’t been for the rest of it—the aspects of their interaction he hadn’t foreseen, and wasn’t sure how to deal with.
Despite his experience, this was one situation he’d never before had to face. Not even when his subjects had been ravishing beauties, the twins for example, had he found himself wondering what their lips would taste like.
He kept telling himself that the sexual attraction he felt would fade, would merge into his customary, curious-yet-detached attitude as he learned more of Jacqueline. Instead, thus far at least, the more he learned, the closer he drew to her, the more powerfully the attraction flared.
Throwing the heavy locks on a case, he laid it open on the floor, then hunkered down to examine the pencils and charcoals neatly arrayed within. H
e tried to focus on his art, on the practical acts necessary to bring it to life, tried to channel his edginess into that, and didn’t succeed.
Selecting two pencils, he closed the case. Straightening, he crossed to where the table he’d requested sat at right angles to one end of the wide windows. Sketch pads lay stacked, the lightly textured paper he favored for first drawings spread ready, virginal white, waiting for his impressions, his first attempts at capturing them.
Such a sight always brought a surge of excitement, of eagerness to plunge into a new work; he felt the expected lift, the sharpening of his senses, yet there was something else, something more compelling, hovering in his mind, distracting him.
Laying down the pencils, he breathed in and closed his eyes—and vividly recalled how her eyes, moss, amber, gold and brown, had appeared in that fraught instant on the shore.
He focused on that moment, one that kept replaying in his brain; he remembered what he’d felt, how the feelings had flowed.
Realized that it wasn’t purely his reaction to her, the sexual attraction itself, that was destabilizing his concentration. It was her reaction to him, and his subsequent response to that—all of those elements combined.
Opening his eyes, he blinked. Frowned.
He couldn’t recall ever having his attention captured, ensnared, by a woman’s reaction to him. Yet every time her fingers trembled in his, he wanted to seize, not just them but her; every time her lovely eyes flared, he was visited by an urge to touch her, caress her, and watch them widen even more.
Beneath his breath, he swore. Every time he thought of her, he ended envisioning making love to her.
A tap fell on the door, light, uncertain.
Not Jacqueline, was his first thought.
He raked his hand through his hair. “Come in.” Any distraction was better than the circle his thoughts seemed determined to tread.
The door swung open; Millicent stood in the doorway. Seeing him, she smiled and walked in. She looked around, but that seemed merely a polite action, because she thought she should show interest.