‘You are skilled at what you do, Miss Ashfield.’
‘You believed I would not be?’
‘I am not truly certain what to believe of you. A woman of science and healing. A débutante who is here for the Season and yet eschews the promise of Holy Matrimony. A lady who fails to see any sort of a need for women to excel in painting, dancing or tapestry. But obviously an avid reader of botanicals and the art of medicinal healing. And romance?’ His eyes caught the slender volumes at the bottom of her pile.
But two could play at this game and Adelaide was well up to the task. She squared her jaw. ‘And what of you, my lord? Routes of long-distance shipping lines and maps of the English countryside. And botanicals of much the same ilk as mine. Are you ill?’
Amazingly he coloured and looked away.
‘No.’
A private worry, then, and one he did not wish to speak of? She had so often seen this reaction in patients and as surprising as it was in him she changed the subject completely.
‘Would you be able to find the time to teach me how to ride properly, Lord Wesley?’
His eyes came back to hers, any hint of embarrassment gone. ‘Why?’
‘I dislike feeling...beaten by anything and you give the impression of knowing what you are doing around a horse.’
His frown deepened. ‘Your uncle would allow it? My tuition, I mean.’
‘Why should he not?’
‘I have a certain reputation that generally worries the relatives of young débutantes.’
‘I am not so young.’
He laughed. ‘How old is “not young”?’
‘Twenty-three.’
He laughed again. ‘Believe me when I say that at my age your years look tender.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-four. A whole decade of experience ahead of yours.’
‘Good.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I might need that if I am to cope here. Experience in handling others seems a requisite that is useful in the society salons of London.’
‘Well, you managed Mr Friar on your own?’
She shook her head. ‘No, it was the ill-placed plant holder at his feet that enabled me to vanquish him.’
‘Luck is often as important as talent, Miss Ashfield, one learns that quickly.’
‘Then I shall claim it was lucky that I met you, my lord; the one man in society with whom I seem to be able to have a reasonable conversation and who holds the same view upon marriage as I do.’
‘Let me choose the horse, then.’
The twist in subject made her smile. He was good at putting people off guard. Unsure of what else to say, she nodded.
‘Meet me in the park tomorrow at two. It won’t be as busy as yesterday was at the later hour.’
‘Very well. I shall pay you, of course, for the hire of the small and docile mount I have confidence you will choose for me and for your time.’
He smiled. ‘How much?’
‘I do not know exactly. What is the going rate?’
‘More conversations just like this one, Miss Ashfield. And the chance to get to know you better.’
‘Why would you want to?’
He smiled. ‘You might be surprised if I answered that honestly.’
For just a moment something passed between them that Adelaide had never felt before, a breathless whirling knowledge of danger and desire. She stepped back, marvelling that, despite her shock, the implacable mask had not changed a whit on his handsome face.
‘Perhaps, Lord Wesley, some time in your company may tarnish my desirability in the wifely stakes here. The spectacles do not quite seem to be accomplishing their given task.’
The round curse he used made her turn with her armful of books and head back into the safety that the large numbers of men and women reading provided in the main room.
Damn it. Why did Gabriel Hughes have to be so beautiful? She would have liked it better if his face had been flawed and if she did not see the shadow of vulnerability that he hid so well beneath bravado and indifference. It was a friend she needed here, a confidant who was easy and biddable, one whom she could mould to any form she wanted. But the enigmatic Earl of Wesley was complex, difficult and unknowable, the small scar that ran beneath his ear on the right side only honing his beauty. He was...misleading. Yes, that was the word she wanted. Charm and danger both twisted together in a clever and menacing way. He was also interesting. Not wishing to dissect this thought for another second, she hurried to find her maid.
* * *
Miss Adelaide Ashfield was always running away, always scurrying in the other direction after sending him into a spin with some new and unexpected comment.
She wished to be tarnished? By him? Pain sliced through humour and regret chased hard on the heels of them both. He had not touched her but, oh, how he had wanted to, to feel the smooth softness of skin and the elegance of the line where her throat met the flesh sloping down to her breasts. He stopped still and closed his eyes. Waiting. Hoping. The whisper of her words, the fire in her eyes, her sharp tongue and the girlish romances buried amongst a weighty pile of scientific endeavour.
Contradictions.
Questions.
And nothing at all from his desiccated and useless member. Raising his left hand to his face, he breathed in deeply.
Lavender, arnica, comfrey and vinegar. A surprising combination. There were other things as well that he had no notion of.
‘Hell,’ he said to himself, Miss Adelaide Ashfield was the human embodiment of her salve. A healer. Brave. Unusual. Captivating. No wonder she had Lovelace and his ilk lapping at her heels.
He should cry off from the riding lessons, he knew he should. If he had any goodness in him he would simply walk out of her life and let her get on with the task of being an innocent and unwilling débutante in London society. He had nothing to offer her, after all. More than nothing, he qualified, his body as burnt out as his custodial mansion.
Yet as one side of his mind dwelled upon the negative the other was already planning where and when he could organise their first riding lesson.
With irritation he felt the trembling he was now so often afflicted with. He didn’t want her to know what a wreck he was, that was the problem, because in her eyes he saw reflected a version of himself that was still...honourable.
‘Hell. Hell. Hell.’
With intent he moved the large map from above the botanical he had chosen on diseases of the body and settled down to peruse the index and look for his own particular malady and its stated cure.
* * *
Adelaide brushed out her hair before the mirror. What did Gabriel Hughes see when he saw her? she wondered. She was not beautiful in the way some other women here were, with their blond curls and alabaster skin. She was not dainty or feminine or curvy.
Brown. That was a word she might use to describe herself. Plain was another. She had not learned the art of flirting or dancing or conversing with a man as though everything he said was right and true and exact. Others here had that knack, she had watched them. The quiet flick of a fan and the twirling of an errant curl; the breathless looks that would reel a man in to produce the long sought-after offer of a hand in marriage.
Like a game. How often had Eloise or Jean told her of this and underlined the consequences marriage wrought on a woman’s independence and pathway in life.
Kenneth Davis, the third-born son of Sir Nigel Davis, a squire on a neighbouring property, had then brought every warning to life. Adelaide shook her head, her eyes in the mirror darkening. She would try not to think of him.
It wasn’t running away, she said to herself. No, rather it was protecting her uncle and her cousin and the name of Penbury from a man who had clearly taken her offer of friendship and changed it into something that was different.
She hadn’t told a soul other than her aunt Eloise about their exchange, either, preferring instead to sink back into the sanctuary of Northbridge and to the comforting other world of solitude. But sometimes at night when the moon was full and the land was covered in bright shadow she remembered.
She had been sixteen years old when she met Kenneth Davis behind the stables at midnight, creeping from her room with all the delight of one who expected compliments and perhaps a kiss. Small and trifling objects of his affection and regard.
The man who had met her was not the one she had known in the daytime, and when he had pulled at her gown and ripped it to her waist in one single dreadful movement, she was so frozen in shock that she could not even fight back.
Until his teeth bit at her nipples and his free hand seized the softer flesh beneath her skirt, his touch as unexpected and painful as the one at her breast. When she had tried to scream for help he had placed his hand across her mouth and pressed down hard.
‘No more pretending, my sweetling. I have courted you for three whole months in all the small ways, but the real pleasure is here and now, in the dark.’ His fingers came between her thighs, sharp and prodding, and the wine on his breath was strong as he swore.
He was drunk.
Drunk and dangerous and different.
In earnest she began to struggle, her knee coming up in the way Bertie had shown her, angled hard and direct to the groin. Kenneth Davis had fallen as if by magic, his mouth open, his breeches grotesquely arranged around his ankles so that the skin of his naked round bottom was pale in the moonlight.
Then she had run, with her tattered bodice, aching breasts and ruin, the stupidity of what she had allowed him beating against her reason. Tears could wait until she had once again gained the safety of her room and locked the door behind her.