“As you have already pointed out,” she said. “And I will repeat that your circle of acquaintances must have been regrettably small, for all that you boast of having friends in many parts of the world.”
“They are not friends,” he said. “Merely acquaintances.”
“Because they all met Lord Wilde,” she said, nodding. “And not Lord Alaric.”
A smile lit his eyes. “If you ban Lord Wilde, you will have a remarkably impolite spouse.”
“I have not agreed to have you as a spouse,” she reminded him.
“Yes, you have.” His smile was wide, and warm, and sent a bolt of pleasure straight down her body. “You haven’t quite accepted it yet, Evie, but you are mine. There’s no rush, though. Take your time.”
That was pure Alaric. That sinful, teasing look, the one that promised to come to her room night after night, roly-polies in hand, no doubt. It made her blood simmer with lust, weakened her knees again.
“Go,” she commanded, ignoring her conviction that he would knock on her door on the morrow.
“As you wish,” he said, amiably enough. He came over and kissed her with the brisk efficiency that she’d seen from husbands leaving their wives for the day.
“Lord Wilde is not who you want in a husband,” Alaric said, with a grin. “He doesn’t exist. I am precisely who you want, Evie. But I know it will take you some time to accept it, and I will wait for you.”
He turned and was out of the room, the door closed quietly behind him, before Willa could open her mouth to reply.
Which was just as well.
She was afraid she would have agreed with him. Or disagreed, if only to say that she wouldn’t need much time at all.
That she wanted Alaric Wilde now, here, forever.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The following day
Willa was captive to a lecture about partridge shooting all the way through luncheon. Neither Alaric nor Parth appeared at the meal. Lavinia wasn’t due back from Manchester for another two days, and Diana was hiding in her room. Even Lady Knowe claimed to have a toothache.
By the end of two hours, Willa had learned everything there was to know about the magical hour before sunset, when partridges supposedly wandered about, waiting to be shot.
She was bored, horribly bored.
It drove her to consider that, while winning fourteen proposals of marriage had been a flattering and agreeable game, the idea of spending the rest of her life listening to a man lecture her was intolerable.
As they’d begun their Season, she and Lavinia had confidently assumed that suitors would appear who were compelling in their own right. Those men would fall into their beguiling trap but somehow be different. Their lectures would be engaging.
Only one man had seen through Willa’s trap.
But … “Willa Wilde”? She wrinkled her nose.
An awful name. Her name?
She practiced saying it to herself, wishing Lavinia were there. How does one accept a proposal that has yet to be formally made? All the same, joy prickled down her back.
Her parents would have scorned a lecture about partridge shooting. They wouldn’t have been bored by a conversation with Alaric.
ALARIC HAD SPENT the morning in his father’s library, so thoroughly buried in the account books that he didn’t hear the gong announcing luncheon. He emerged at length with a firmer sense of the work to be done with the estate.
No wonder North was so morose. This work didn’t come naturally to either of them, as it had to Horatius. Their older brother would have relished the labor of managing the estate. He had been protective to the core, a worthy descendant of the medieval ancestor who had ridden out the siege. Horatius would have gathered his people and fought to the last stand before he gave up a blade of grass.
For the first time in years, Alaric smiled at the thought of his brother. This time, the pain of loss didn’t constrict his heart as if it were in a vise.
As soon as he could get his father alone, he meant to suggest that the duke hire two more estate managers. North wouldn’t inherit the estate for years; he couldn’t see any reason why his brother shouldn’t spend the next decade designing houses and building them. It would make him a happier duke in the end.
The archery range was across a long lawn. The smell of scythed grass and hedge roses drifted in the air. In the cloudless sky a swift flitted across his vision with a flash of wings.
England was so damn beautiful. So much a part of his bones and blood. The bird was joined by another, the two swifts darting around each other in a giddy, swooping dance. On the far side of the lawn, Fitzy paraded under a nectarine tree, its ripening amber fruit complementing his turquoise blue feathers. From this distance, tree and bird made a tapestry woven from rich-colored silks.
At the archery range, the ladies stood in clusters, their summer plumage threatening to out-dazzle Fitzy’s. As he approached, he realized with an odd thump of his heart that his eyes had gone directly to Willa, just as his brother’s had gone directly to Diana when they first walked into the drawing room and interrupted the ladies’ tea.
Now, those ladies were sipping champagne and looking on as the duke sent one arrow after another sailing toward the target and hitting the center, more often than not. Alaric headed directly to his lady’s side.
Willa caught sight of Alaric prowling across the lawn and felt a thrill of pure joy—but the surge of exultation she felt when he came straight to her, as if the duke, duchess, brothers, guests, didn’t exist?
It rolled through her like an earthquake.
“Good afternoon, Miss Ffynche,” Alaric said, throwing her an ironic glance that said just how much he disliked addressing her in such formal language.
“Lord Alaric,” she said with a smile that she knew wasn’t a Willa smile. It was an Evie smile. It was the smile she had as a young girl.
“I suggest a contest.” Alaric picked up a bow and tested the string. “Whoever wins will be granted a favor by the other.” His eyes had a hot, lazy message of their own.
All the same, he was overconfident with respect to his archery skills. From what she’d seen on previous days, they were evenly matched. He shouldn’t assume that he would win this favor, even though it felt as if the air had turned to sherry, a honeyed potent wine, making her fingers tremble.
“What favor do you have in mind?” she asked, picking up her favorite bow. It was light and springy, painted green with daisies. Lavinia had given it to her solely due to its embellishments, but the fact was that, if she had to, Willa could bring down a deer with it. Not that she would ever shoot anything more lively than a target.
Not even those women whose eyes followed Alaric with longing. Who tittered behind their fans and ogled the muscles in his arse.
Prudence was the worst of the lot, by far. Even now she was edging around the marquee, her eyes on Alaric. Willa glanced at her, and the girl flinched.
Alaric looked over his shoulder at Prudence. “A walk,” he suggested. “Prudence has taken to poking bits of paper into my pockets. I think she knows we sent messages by your locket.”
“What do her notes say?”
“They quote Bible verses. I dislike being reminded that I am in need of salvation. Miss Ffynche, please accompany me on a walk. Escape awaits.”
“Perhaps, if you win the bout.” Willa felt as if she were hugging a wonderful secret to her heart. She had made up her mind to become Lady Alaric Wilde, and the man in question didn’t know.
His eyes crinkled as he smiled at her. Heat rushed up her spine.
He knew.
In the distance, the duchess waddled over to her husband and said something Willa couldn’t make out. As they watched, His Grace wrapped his arms around her from behind and she leaned into his weight while drawing back her bow.
“Romantic, aren’t they?” Alaric asked in a low voice. “I fully intend to be hugging you when I’m fifty. I’d hug you now if you’d allow me.”
When it was their turn, Alaric sent his five arrows into the target, one after the other, as casually as if he weren’t looking. Four hit the center.
Willa took her time, standing perfectly straight, drawing back her arm. Ignoring Alaric’s groan when her stance made her bosom rise in the air.
Four had struck the bull’s-eye when Alaric said, “Willa.”
She glanced at him. “Yes?”
“Please don’t make me return to that tent.”
“We needn’t,” she answered. She was waiting to be certain that the boy tasked with removing arrows was well out of the way before she put her final arrow to the string.
“If you hit the center of the target,” he said, running his fingers up her arm from the elbow to the wrist, “we have to stage another match before I can ask for my favor. Ten more arrows.”
Willa shivered as his caress singed her skin. Desire shot through her with a sharp stab, as if she’d been struck by one of his arrows. His touch reverberated through her, making her throat tight.
“I want to ask you to accompany me for a walk,” Alaric coaxed, his voice husky and low. “I’d like to show you my favorite boyhood hiding place. What’s more, Prudence keeps staring at me behind your back.”
She put her bow down so as to not yield to the temptation to wave it in Prudence’s direction. “What if our absence is noted?”