In that moment…
He stood stock-still on the pavement as understanding dawned.
In that moment, he’d glimpsed the real Antonia—the woman behind the coolly composed social façade.
And to him, to his senses, she’d been riveting.
She was, in truth, a blend of her parents—Chillingworth’s reserve for her haughtily assured outer shell, but inside…
Inside, she was all Francesca—dramatically passionate and alluring.
Something primitive and predatory in him stirred…but this was Antonia.
Antonia, with whom he had just arranged to spend five entire days, for once free of the buffer of their usually ever-present families.
Sebastian considered the prospect, then slowly climbed the steps to Arthur’s door.
Carrying out Drake’s simple and straightforward mission might well prove to be more complicated and challenging than he’d thought.
Chapter 2
“There’s the entrance.”
With his gaze, Sebastian followed Antonia’s pointing finger to a pair of gateposts fifty yards farther up the country lane; they’d turned off the road between Dover and Deal half a mile back. Gratitude at the prospect of imminent relief flowed through him as he slowed his matched grays, then turned his phaeton in through a pair of wrought-iron gates obligingly set wide. He set his horses trotting up a tree-lined drive, then cast a sidelong look at the lady beside him.
Her lithe figure sheathed in a carriage dress of fine blue twill, her hair caught in a bun at the back of her head so that it puffed in a sleek frame about her face, with the blue ribbons of her bonnet riffling in the breeze as she looked ahead with evident delight, she might have posed for an illustration for the Ladies Journal: Young Lady of the Haut Ton setting out for a Country House Party.
As he watched, she glanced down and consulted a jeweled timepiece pinned to her bodice. “Nearly three o’clock,” she observed. “Perfect timing.”
He managed not to grunt.
She’d been ready and waiting when he’d drawn his horses to a halt in Green Street at eight o’clock that morning. Her parents had come down in their dressing gowns to wave her away—Francesca with apparent delight, Chillingworth rather less transported. But the earl had said nothing to Sebastian, just grunted a good morning and shaken his hand.
Bright and breezy, Antonia had allowed him to hand her up to the front seat of his phaeton. With their bags in the boot, and her maid, Beccy, and his man, Wilkins, perched behind them on the rear seat, he’d tooled them out of London.
At first, Antonia had preserved an easy silence, allowing him to concentrate on tacking through the traffic. But once he’d gained the clearer stretches of the Dover Road, she’d suggested that she should share with him what she knew of those who would be attending the house party.
He’d agreed with alacrity—anything to take his mind off her. They’d been only an hour into the journey, and he’d already discovered that, presumably courtesy of that eye-opening moment in Green Street three days before, not just his eyes but all his senses appeared to have become…riveted on her.
Aware of her in a way he hadn’t previously been—aware in a way he recognized.
Definitely a complication.
He’d encouraged her to describe all the guests she knew and forced himself to pay attention—something that had grown easier the more she’d talked.
The more she’d revealed, he’d realized that what she saw in others, and how she described them, gave him valuable insights into her. Her comments detailing the friendships between her and the other younger ladies, as well as those between other members of the company, also shed light on her—on how she thought, how she felt, on the life she’d been living.
The Dover Road followed the old Roman road of Watling Street and ran wonderfully straight, making for an easy drive. The day remained cool and overcast, but the breeze was gentle, and the clouds weren’t so heavy as to threaten rain.
Just before noon, he’d turned off the road at Faversham, and they’d lunched at The Limes. With a fair way yet to go, they hadn’t dallied, which had suited him. Spending time alone with Antonia now that his eyes had been opened, and he was so damned aware of her—physically, sexually, and in every other way—was dangerous; even in the dubious privacy of a corner table in the ill-lit dining room, temptation had whispered.
It was continuing to whisper, increasingly stridently and insistently, but he didn’t yet know—hadn’t yet had time to decide—just what he wanted to do. About her. With her. Not yet.
Completing Drake’s mission should come first—he was fairly certain of that.