Would the Devil Earl want to kiss a stablehand?
Of course not. Even if the stablehand was a girl. Roddy strained to catch some hint of what he felt, and found only that disconcerting blankness. In its loss, her other senses seemed to stretch and heighten. She felt the warm, faint touch of his breath on her skin, and caught a pleasant waft of tangy scent—masculine scent, which seemed new and familiar at the same time. His face was outlined in the moonlight in perfect curves and planes, so close that she could see the beat of his pulse beneath his loosened collar. She licked her lips; tried to make her breathing settle to a rational pace. She’d never been kissed before. It had always been something her brothers tried to do with the buxom little kitchen maid if they caught her in the pantry. And the kitchen maid liked it, even if she pretended not. Roddy steeled herself, determined not to flinch if he should try.
But the clatter of the stallion’s empty feed bucket broke the spell. The earl dropped his hand and held out the cap. “Put this back on,” he commanded. “I’ll see you home.”
Roddy hesitated, stupid and confused in the way the thing had gotten out of her control, and he acted for her, sweeping up the tangle of gold and pulling the cap over it with brisk efficiency. An instant later, Roddy found herself on his arm, being led firmly down the hill. She mumbled something about the stallion, and he shook his head. “Where are you staying? At the Star?”
“In my father’s pavilion—” She stopped in chagrin, realizing that she had just established her identity beyond doubt.
The earl glanced at her. “You needn’t look so disgusted with yourself, Miss Delamore. I’d guessed.” He frowned down at her upturned face. “Your father allows you a fine measure of freedom. I saw him dining in town. Did he leave you alone?”
The implied disapproval aroused a quick resentment. “Of course not! He left my brother to watch me.”
“Ah.” He scanned the horizon. “Your brother must have amazingly good eyesight.”
Roddy tried to pull her arm away. “It’s none of your affair.”
He stopped suddenly and caught her back. “But it is my affair. No young lady I intend to court is going to be found wandering Newmarket at night in the clothes of a stable lad.”
Roddy stared up at him. “Court?” she repeated shakily.
“Yes.” His face was as beautiful and cold as his namesake’s in the moonlight. “Isn’t that at what you were hinting so broadly, Miss Delamore?”
“Well—” Roddy floundered. And then: “Well.”
He laughed, a sound that was tart and rich, like her first taste of champagne. “I perceive that you’ve lost your nerve. But I’m persuaded that the young lady who sent Patrick to grass with one well-aimed kick will come round.”
Roddy could think of no answer for that, though she tried very hard. They reached her father’s tent in silence. The earl stood aside and held up the silk, bowing as formally as if he were handing her back from a dance. “Good evening, Miss Delamore. It has been a pleasure. I shall be standing watch at a discreet distance until I see your brother return.” He waited as she stepped into the tent, and then added, “In view of this rare demonstration of responsibility on my part, I would advise the postponement of any further plans you might have for the evening.” He gave her a dark and charming smile. “Go directly to bed, my love.”
“I won’t have him here,” Mrs. Delamore declared, in a voice which Roddy and her father well knew.
“Matty, my dear.” Her father spoke soothingly, but his movements were agitated as he took a brisk turn before the carved mahogany mantel. “Will you throw our good Cashel’s friends in his face?”
Roddy’s heart gave an old and familiar twist at the mention of Geoffrey’s name. For half her life, it seemed, Roddy had been waiting. To grow up, to become a woman instead of the child she knew he thought her. But to Geoffrey, Roddy had never been more than a lovable waif with disturbing gray eyes, just as the small property he owned in Yorkshire was only a pleasant place for a holiday. Lord Cashel’s heart was in Ireland, always, with the great estate that his family had held for centuries.
He adored his new Irish bride, too. It was a storybook kind of love, because Geoffrey was a storybook prince, perfect and kind and brave. Roddy knew that. She knew him to his toes. A man of principle, a man of ideals. He had his weakness—he liked a prettily-turned ankle almost as much as he admired a well-turned phrase—but he never suffered from the graver faults that plagued Roddy and the rest of mankind. Like jealousy. Like selfish spite. Roddy ached with it. No one would ever love her as Geoffrey loved Mary…unconditionally, no matter what Roddy’s strange talent might be. It was too much to ask; Great-aunt Jane’s marriage had been proof enough of that. Jane’s husband, too, had adored his wife, until he discovered the witch-gift of the Delamores.
“Friend,” Mrs. Delamore snorted, lifting herself to her greatest height, which came well below her husband’s broad shoulders. “The man’s not fit to kiss a viper, far less call Lord Cashel his friend.”
Roddy’s father took a sturdy swig of his brandy. “Dearest, you must understand. Geoffrey’s been close to Iveragh since they were boys. I simply don’t see how we can exclude him from the dinner party without giving offense.”
“Nonsense.” Her mother tapped her palm with her fan and eyed her husband suspiciously. “There must be horses in it.”
Roddy wanted to smile. Sometimes it was as if her mother, too, had the gift, so well could she penetrate her husband’s follies. Along with Geoffrey’s note to her father informing him of Cashel’s yearly arrival in the neighborhood had come a curt letter from his houseguest Lord Iveragh, stating bluntly that he recalled Mr. Delamore’s interest in Iveragh’s string of Thoroughbred broodmares, which were currently up for sale upon the closing of his racing stable. Lord Iveragh was at Mr. Delamore’s convenience, if he wished to discuss the matter.
Her father cleared his throat. “I’m sure there’ll be no talk of horses at table,” he said smoothly, and then added, with an ill-advised spurt of honesty, “At all events, not when the ladies are present.”
Mrs. Delamore made a face. “I thought as much.”
“Well, my dear,” he said mildly, “if you see fit to rescind an invitation which I’ve already proffered, I’m sure I’ll stand behind you.”
“Already proffered—Frederick, you didn’t!”
“I’m afraid I did. I saw Geoffrey this morning, and Iveragh, too, on my usual rounds. I must say, he didn’t seem such a dreadful fellow to me. Quite the gentleman, really.”
Once again, Roddy kept her amusement to herself. Her father was as contemptuous of Iveragh as her mother, but when he saw a chance for some profitable horsetrading, the opportunity overcame all scruples.
Mrs. Delamore bowed her blond head, touching the bridge of her nose with her fan in an attitude of suffering. “For Geoffrey’s sake,” she mused unhappily, “I suppose I must endure it. But I dread the talk.”
“Well, he’s Cashel’s guest, after all,” her husband said in a deliberately jovial tone. “I hardly think the county can cut you for his lamentable presence in the neighborhood.”
“Perhaps not.” Mrs. Delamore sighed, and looked up at her daughter. “But I won’t have Roddy present. You may go down to your cousin at Thirsk.”
Roddy came alive at this threat to her plans. “I won’t! I’m not a child, if you please. And I’ve already made Lord Iveragh’s acquaintance.” A wave of dismay emanated from her father at this announcement, but Roddy ignored it. “Twas at the races, a month ago. I liked him very well.”
Her mother looked at her sharply. Roddy knew she had used strong ammunition, for her family never took her opinion of a stranger lightly. She smiled at her mother, trying to appear very reassuring and adult, and was rewarded with an immediate relaxation of concern.
“Did you really, darling? Are you sure?”
Roddy nodded, feeling like a charlatan, since she had no more idea what went on in the dark recesses of Lord Iver
agh’s mind than her mother did. But he had come, and she was not about to be sent into exile at her cousin’s for the duration of his stay. In the past month, she had thought of him often, and it seemed almost prophetic that the Devil Earl was an old friend of Lord Cashel’s.
“I’ll call on them tomorrow, then,” her mother said briskly, “and have it over with. You may drive me, Roddy, if you wish.”
September sunlight flashed in and out among the garden trees as the chaise rattled past the courtyard walls of Geoffrey’s Moorside Hall. A tug and twitch, a soft word, and Roddy’s gray mare swung between the stone pillars, into the yard bright with crimson vines against cream-colored stucco walls—those walls she had always coveted for her own. Such plans she’d had, for additions and improvements, changes which would have suited Moorside Hall as little as the childish dreams she’d nourished of molding Geoffrey himself into a horseman and farmer, instead of the man of pen and parchment and political passion that he was.
It was as well, really, that the truth had been forced on her. She and Geoffrey would not have suited: he with his honor and idealism, and she with her arguments and challenges. Often she’d annoyed him by her ability to see the other side of some question to which he’d applied his strict ethical principles. She’d tried to understand, but the realities of human will and weakness meant more to Roddy than philosophy. His vague and pliant bride Mary was by far the better choice for him—as Roddy would have known years ago, if she had not let her own longing blind her to the truth.
Stupid. Her gift was no proof against girlish folly.
So…she had given him up. She wished them happy.
Liar.
Oh, foolish, selfish, stupid liar.
A stable lad ran out to hold the horses as Roddy and her mother disembarked with the aid of Geoffrey’s ancient coachman. Roddy felt the tall green-and-yellow ostrich plume bob gaily and precariously above her hat as she stepped down, trying to be as light as possible. She brushed surreptitiously at the front of her calico morning dress, and hoped that the green gauze veil trailing down from her hat didn’t drag as it felt it did, for the windows of Moorside’s drawing room looked directly out onto the front drive.
They found the house cheerful with early-afternoon sun and a small gathering of neighbors come to welcome Lord Cashel and his lady to their second home. Geoffrey’s eyes lit in pleasure at Roddy’s entrance—and she was a fool again, going breathless and hopeful for a moment, hardly noticing the flow of surprise from the other callers, who seldom saw the Delamores’ daughter in public. Though no one had ever exactly said so, it was generally believed among the county families that Roddy was “high-strung,” and suffered “nerves.”
Geoffrey came forward, all tall and hawk-handsome in that way that made her heart sink, maneuvering neatly around the ample girth of the local baron’s widow who sat in the place of honor. But long before he kissed Roddy’s gloved hand with a polite touch, she knew the truth. His pleasure was not really centered on her, but on the fact that someone of an age with his young wife, who was sitting shyly alone in the corner near the fire, had at last arrived.
Roddy found a smile somewhere in her disappointment and went immediately to Mary after greeting the baron’s widow, which earned Geoffrey’s great goodwill. He then proceeded to forget all about her, except in the frequent moments when he glanced their way to ascertain Mary’s degree of contentment.
In a small and pleasant gathering, Roddy knew well enough how to cope with her gift. It was a matter of concentrating on one person at a time, and letting the thoughts and emotions radiating from the rest fade to background. Like the babble of simultaneous conversation, the jumble of individual mentalities blurred easily into an indistinguishable mass. The occasional stronger thought would pop into her head: Mrs. Gaskell’s affront at the flippant mention of her favorite card game Preference as “Pref,” or Lady Elizabeth’s growing impatience that tea had not yet been served; but mostly Roddy was able to control her gift and center her attention on Geoffrey’s wife.
Thus she knew, long before Mary marshaled up the courage to speak of it, that Geoffrey was expecting an heir come spring. Roddy knew, too, that Mary was somehow upset with Geoffrey, and worried about him. If only, Mary kept thinking, and I wish he wouldn’t, but her preoccupation with the coming baby drowned out anything clearer than a vague jumble of politics and meetings. Roddy saw no harm in those things, which had been Geoffrey’s passion all his life, and tried her best to ignore the privacies that inevitably flitted through the other woman’s mind.
It was boring. Roddy sat there and cooed over Mary’s impending happiness and played cruel games, like saying that Allen was her very favorite name for a boy and then exclaiming over the delightful and amazing coincidence that it was also Mary’s. And Katherine was so pretty for a girl. Mary thought so too? How singular!
Silly, Roddy thought, in deliberate meanness. Sweet, silly birdwit.
Oh, Geoffrey.
Why can’t I be like that?
The flow in the room changed. Roddy felt it, from her position facing away from the door, felt the pleasantries evaporate and curiosity take their place. A jolt of pure disgust soured the Irish girl’s sweetness. Roddy looked around.
Not one of Geoffrey’s callers, except for Roddy and her mother, had known of Cashel’s guest beforehand. For a suspended moment, admiration for the fine, athletic figure in the doorway was universal. Then Geoffrey said, “Iveragh. Come in.”
Attitudes changed. Instantly. The poorly concealed reactions of shock and affront made Roddy angry, though whether for Geoffrey’s sake or for the earl’s, she did not know. She reached out instinctively to take Mary’s hand in support, but the other girl withdrew it in a wave of shame. The clear spurt of furious revulsion Mary felt for her husband’s friend was impossible for Roddy to ignore.
She slid her hand back into her lap. She hadn’t known how it would be—that among gentle society the Devil Earl was truly a pariah. Already, some of the callers were standing up to take hasty leave, as if even an introduction would taint their pristine reputations. She watched him return her mother’s greeting with a graceful, easy reply, and wondered if he was even aware of the antagonism which surrounded him.
He gave no sign of it, though she was certain that he was. How could he not be, when half the room was preparing for a sudden exodus? They only hesitated because the baron’s widow and Mrs. Delamore, first and second in precedence, had already acknowledged their introductions. True, Lady Elizabeth had done so only because she had taken a moment too long to make the connection between Iveragh and the infamous Devil Earl, but Roddy’s mother was determined to show that she, for one, was willing to extend approval to Lord Cashel’s guest. She said something to Iveragh about the invitation to dinner, loud enough for the rest of the room to hear, and one or two of the others relaxed enough to reseat themselves.
Roddy could not keep her eyes from the earl as he followed Geoffrey from one chilly nod to another. Iveragh answered each with an unperturbed civility which appeared to Roddy to be far more well bred than the thinly veiled hostility he received in response. If he had really come to Yorkshire because of her, she thought, he must wish now that he hadn’t.
“Your Ladyship,” he said to Mary as they came at last to Roddy’s corner of the room. “Good afternoon. I trust you had a pleasant morning’s walk to town?”
“Quite, thank you,” Mary said curtly, and Roddy had from her hostess the fleeting, agitated vision of a refusal to be driven into the village that morning by her husband’s unvalued acquaintance.
Roddy was frowning at that when Geoffrey took her hand and transferred it to Iveragh’s. “Miss Delamore,” Geoffrey said gravely. “May I present Faelan Savigar…Lord Iveragh.”
“I’m honored, Miss Delamore,” the earl said, and Roddy found herself transfixed once again by coal-rimmed eyes of the clearest, strangest blue. He lifted her gloved fingers to his lips and pressed a firm kiss there without taking his eyes from hers.
She swallowed. The spur-of-the-moment notion that had possessed her in Newmarket now seemed to border on insanity. Had he actually come to court her? There seemed to be a question in his glance, but without her gift, she trusted nothing. Still, if she could not fathom Iveragh’s thoughts, she could be perfectly certain of the chilling emanations of disapproval from the rest of the company as he lingered a split second too long over her hand.
It made her angry. What right had they to hold their noses in the air? Every one of them had some scandal in the closet, and though Roddy was a little unclear on exactly what Iveragh had done to earn such dislike, it could hardly be worse than some of the secret desires Roddy could have told about the most respectable matrons present. In a mood of challenge, she smiled back at Iveragh and said warmly, “Oh, but we’ve met before, I think—and not so long ago! Have you forgotten?”
A shock wave of consternation swept through the room at her comment, but Roddy saw only the earl’s face. It changed at her words, fleetingly but unmistakably, just a slight widening of his ice-blue eyes, a warming of the skeptical set of his mouth. Somehow Roddy knew it was a rare look that he gave her. “You’re quite impossible to forget, Miss Delamore,” he said softly. “I didn’t know but what you might have decided to forget me in the interim.”
“Not at all, Your Lordship.” She was well aware of the double-edged nature of her words, and her heart sped a little in conspiratorial excitement. “I believe I said at the time that I hoped I might see you again.”
“So you did.” He turned to Lord Cashel, who was handing Mary up from her chair. “Yes, of course, Geoff, go on. You’ve done your duty manfully.”
Geoffrey nodded, and then looked back at the two of them as Mary turned away. “Dragons,” he muttered, under cover of a cough, which reinstated him somewhat in Roddy’s estimation.
Iveragh stood back a little, turning partly toward the window as if, having finished his conversation with Roddy, he was interesting himself in some activity outside. She sat staring down at the handkerchief in her lap, far more aware of his silence beside her than of the busy hum of thought and conversation that emanated from the rest of the room.