Then Comes Seduction

He had not been at Lady Cranford’s concert last evening. And he had not been here so far this afternoon. She had been glad of it on both occasions. There was something about him that never failed to ruffle her calm.

And she had so wanted to be alone for a little while longer.

It was not to be. His eyes met hers through the glass, and it was clear that she was indeed his destination. A glass pavilion did not, alas, provide an effective hiding place. Not that one ought to be looking for one at a garden party.

She resented the way her heartbeat quickened.

He stopped when he was in the wide doorway and propped one shoulder against the wooden frame. He crossed his arms over his chest and one booted ankle over the other. It was the way she would always remember him, she realized, apparently indolent, his eyes alert but half hidden beneath lowered lids, one eyebrow half cocked, one lock of dark hair down across his forehead.

“This has to be deliberate,” he said. “The dress to match the flowers, the straw hat to add a delicate rustic touch, the glass-walled retreat to suggest both the desire for solitude and the subtle invitation to have that solitude interrupted, the relaxed, graceful posture-it has to be deliberate.”

Only he could be so outrageous as to suggest such a thing-even if it were true.

“But of course it is deliberate,” she said. “You do not think I would attend a garden party, do you, without first consulting with the hostess to discover the color of the flowers in her garden and the existence of a glass pavilion within full sight of the terrace and lawns in which I might arrange myself for full pictorial effect. Of course it is deliberate.”

Her dress was a deep rose pink muslin. Paler pink rosebuds adorned the crown of her wide-brimmed hat.

He chuckled-a lazy, seductive sound.

“Then you have succeeded beyond your fondest hopes,” he said. “I am only surprised that gentlemen are not queued up outside for the pleasure of spending a few moments paying homage to you. But I have only just arrived. Perhaps they have been paying court to you since the party began and are only now all finished. May I?”

He advanced inside the pavilion and indicated the empty half of the seat beside her. He did not wait for her permission. He sat down, and she was instantly aware that the seat was not very wide at all. She could feel his body heat even though he was not touching her. She could smell his musky cologne.

“Do have a seat, Lord Montford,” she said crossly. “There is no need to feel that you must remain standing in my presence.”

He chuckled again.

“Prickly, Miss Huxtable?” he said. “Have I done something to offend you? Or said something?”

“You?” she said. “The soul of propriety? Tell me, was the idea of inviting me to Cedarhurst Park for two weeks in August yours or Miss Wrayburn’s?”

“Good Lord!” he said. “The day I plan the guest list for an eighteenth birthday party, Miss Huxtable, is the day someone really ought to put a bullet in my brain. It would save me from the misery and ignominy of being hauled off to Bedlam.”

Which did not really answer her question, did it? But it was not worth pursuing.

“This is a lovely garden,” she said. “It makes me miss Warren Hall. And Throckbridge too. There is nothing more desirable than being in the country, is there? Do you miss Cedarhurst Park?”

“I hated it with a passion for at least the first twenty-five years of my life,” he told her.

“Oh, why?” she asked in surprise, turning her head to look at him.

“I suppose,” he said, “because it was the visible symbol of my captivity.”

“Captivity?” She frowned at him. “I would say very few people are freer than you, Lord Montford. You must have everything you could possibly need or want.”

He smiled that lazy smile of his.

“Your brother is a fortunate man, Miss Huxtable,” he said. “Not because he unexpectedly inherited the earldom of Merton at the age of… what?”

“Seventeen,” she said.

“… at the age of seventeen,” he said, “but because he had all those years before it in which to be free to live his life as he chose.”

“We lived in a small cottage after our father’s death,” she said indignantly. “Meg had to use all her ingenuity to make ends meet so that we could eat and clothe ourselves.”

“And Con Huxtable is a fortunate man,” he said. “He somehow managed to get himself born two days before his father, the old earl, could procure a special license and marry his mother. And so, though he grew up as the eldest son of the house, he could never inherit, and he knew it from the start.”

That touched her on the raw.

“That was fortunate?” she said. “It was surely the worst thing that could possibly have happened to him. The knowledge that it did happen has dampened Stephen’s pleasure in his good fortune, I know. He has not enjoyed benefiting from someone else’s misfortune.”

“Your brother was free to dream until the age of seventeen,” he said, “and when the news of his inheritance came, then it must have seemed like a dream come true. Con has always been free to dream.”

“And you have not?” She was frowning again.

“I was my father’s eldest and only son,” he said. “He died before my birth. I was born with the title Baron Montford. Cedarhurst and all the rest of it have always been mine.”

“Most people in your circumstances,” she said sharply, “would spend their lives counting their blessings.”

“I suppose they would,” he said softly. “What I have always counted a blessing, Miss Huxtable, is that I am not and never will be most people.”

“Well, that is certainly true,” she conceded, clasping her hands tightly in her lap.

She would need time to think through ideas that had never occurred to her before now, though. What was freedom? It certainly was not poverty. That put horrible shackles upon people. She and her family had never been so poor that they must fear for their next meal, but even so she knew poverty well enough to be sure that there was no freedom in it. But in wealth and position and privilege? Were they not the very epitome of freedom? Was it not almost sinful to hate being owner of a grand house and estate and master of a fortune?

But if one had everything one could ever need or want, what was left to dream of? That question had never occurred to her before now.

Someone else had left the terrace and was approaching the pavilion, she noticed with her peripheral vision. She turned her head to look. It was actually two gentlemen-she recognized one of them as Sir Isaac Kerby. They had stopped walking by the time she looked, though. The other one had his right hand raised as if in acknowledgment of something or someone, and they both turned back toward the terrace without coming closer.

Katherine turned her head the other way in time to see that Lord Montford had one hand partly raised too and one eyebrow lofted above the other.

A signal must have passed between him and the other gentlemen. He did not want their company?

She noticed too that his other arm was spread along the back of the seat behind her shoulders though it was not touching her at all. He was turned slightly toward her.

“We all need to dream,” she said.

“Ah, but I prefer not to,” he said, his eyes heavy lidded again and half smiling and resting fully on her, “whenever there is a more congenial activity to keep me awake. At the moment I can think of nothing more congenial than sitting here tete-a-tete with you.”

Good heavens, he made it sound as if they were indulging in a secret lovers’ tryst. She ignored the alarmingly unexpected shiver of physical awareness that tightened her nipples and settled between her thighs.

“No, you misunderstand,” she said firmly. “Indulging in dreams-waking dreams-is essential to us. As essential as eating or breathing. As essential as hope. It is through our dreams that we do our hoping.”