Tapping her foot, Samantha glared at the clock on the mantel. “I suppose you have no inkling of how late you are.”
“Not a clue. I can’t see the clock,” he gently reminded her.
“Oh,” she said, momentarily nonplussed. “I suppose we’d best get started, then.” Reluctant to touch him, she seized the sleeve of his shirt and tugged him to the mouth of her makeshift maze.
He groaned. “Not the furniture again. I’ve already done it a hundred times.”
“And you’ll do it a hundred more until navigating with the walking stick becomes second nature to you.”
“I’d much rather practice my dancing,” he said, the silky note in his voice unmistakable.
“Why practice a skill you already excel at?” Samantha retorted, giving him a light shove toward an overstuffed sofa.
When Gabriel reached the end of the maze, grumbling something about a Minotaur beneath his breath, his walking stick met only air.
Frowning, he waved the cane in a wider arc. “Where in the devil did the davenport go? I could have sworn it was here just a few days ago.”
In reply, Samantha stepped in front of him and threw open a pair of floor-to-ceiling French windows, clearing the path to the terrace. Barking shrilly, Sam dropped the boot and went scampering past them, taking off like a shot after some imaginary hare. A soft breeze, scented with lilac, drifted into the room.
“Since you seem to have mastered both the drawing room and the ballroom,” she explained, “I thought we’d take a walk around the grounds this afternoon.”
“No, thank you,” he said flatly.
Taken aback, she asked, “And why not? You said you were bored with the drawing room. I should think you’d be eager to enjoy a new diversion and a little fresh air.”
“I have all the air I need right here in the house.”
Puzzled, Samantha glanced down. He was gripping the walking stick as if it were a lifeline, his knuckles white with strain. His expressive face was set and stiff, the left corner of his mouth drawn downward. The effortless charm of last night had vanished, leaving in its place a forbidding mask.
Her breath caught on an odd little hitch as she realized that Gabriel wasn’t angry. He was afraid. Thinking back, she also realized that she hadn’t seen him brave the sunlight even once since her arrival at Fairchild Park.
Reaching down, she gently pried the walking stick from his grip and propped it against the wall. She boldly rested her hand atop his rigid forearm. “Your lungs might not require fresh air, my lord, but mine do. And you can hardly expect a lady to take a stroll on such a glorious spring afternoon without a gentleman to escort her.”
Samantha knew she was taking a risk, appealing to a gallantry he no longer possessed. But to her surprise, he reluctantly cupped his fingers over hers and inclined his head in a mocking bow. “Never let it be said that Gabriel Fairchild could deny a lady anything.”
He took one step forward, then another. Sunlight poured over his face like molten gold. As they stepped over the threshold, he tugged her to a halt. She feared he was going to balk, but it seemed he had only paused to draw a breath deep into his lungs. Samantha did the same, drinking in the smell of newly turned earth and the intoxicating perfume of the plump wisteria blooms twining around a nearby trellis.
As Gabriel’s eyes drifted shut, she was tempted to close hers as well, to focus her senses entirely on the caress of the sun-warmed breeze and the twitter of the robin scolding its mate as the two of them built a nest in the bough of a nearby hawthorn. But if she had, she would have missed the look of raw sensual pleasure that crossed Gabriel’s face.
Her spirits soaring, she urged him into motion, guiding him toward the emerald-green swath of lawn that sloped down to a crumbling stone folly at the edge of a rambling wood. Every detail of the park’s meticulous landscaping, from its fresh-hewn rocks to its meandering brooks, had been artfully designed to mimic an encroaching wilderness.
His fingers still resting lightly over hers, Gabriel easily kept pace, gaining confidence and grace with each long stride. “We really shouldn’t venture too far from the house. What if someone from the village sees me? I wouldn’t wish to frighten the little children back to their beds.”
Despite his dry tone, Samantha knew his words were spoken only half in jest. “Children only fear the unknown, my lord. The longer you remain in seclusion at Fairchild Park, the more fearsome your reputation will grow.”
“We certainly wouldn’t want them to believe I’m some sort of misshapen monster lurching about in the dark, now, would we?”
Samantha glanced up at him, but it was impossible to tell if he was mocking her or himself. His eyes may have lost their sight, but not their droll twinkle. They were even more spectacular in the sunlight, their gold-fringed depths as clear and bright as a crystal sea. The shimmering air burnished his hair to the color of a newly minted guinea.
“There’s really no need for you to remain a prisoner in your own home when you have these beautiful grounds at your disposal. I gather you were once very active. There must still be some outdoor pursuits you could enjoy.”
“How about archery?” he quipped. Sam came bounding out of the woods, forcing them to slow as he capered around their feet. “Or there’s always the hunt. At least no one could blame me if I mistook a pup for a fox.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she chided. “Sam may very well be the saving of you someday. He’s quite intelligent, you know.”
Hearing his name, the collie dropped to the grass and writhed around on his back, his eyes rolling back in his head and his tongue lolling out. Samantha lifted her skirts and stepped over him, hoping her companion wouldn’t notice.
But Gabriel seemed to be preoccupied with other matters. “Perhaps you’re right, Miss Wickersham.” Samantha glanced up at him, startled by his easy capitulation. “Perhaps there is some outdoor pursuit I could still enjoy. Something that might even the odds, as it were.”
Gabriel won every single round of blind man’s bluff.
There was simply no besting him. Not only could he catch even the most agile of servants before they could dart out of his reach, he could identify them with little more than a perfunctory sniff of their hair or clothing. His reflexes were still so keen that he could also elude anyone wearing the blindfold, slipping from their outstretched fingers an instant before they tightened into a snare.
When Samantha had first summoned the staff to join them in their game, they had been shocked to discover their master reclining on one elbow on the sun-drenched hillside, his hair falling loose from its velvet queue and a blade of grass tucked between his lips. They’d been even more shocked when his nurse had explained what was required of them. While the other servants lined up in rigid formation, as if to greet a visiting dignitary, Beckwith “tsked” and “tutted” his disapproval and Mrs. Philpot declared that she had never before witnessed such a disgraceful exhibit.
Peter and Phillip were the first to break out of formation. Delighted to escape their duties on such a spectacular spring day, the twins eschewed the subtleties of the game, preferring to tackle and pummel one another with their freckled fists at every opportunity. Whenever he managed to straddle his howling brother, Phillip would steal shy glances at Elsie to make sure the pretty young maid was watching.
Seduced by the balmy breeze and their master’s good humor, the other servants slowly lost their reticence. When it was his turn to wear the blindfold, Willie, the wiry Scottish gamekeeper, ended up chasing Meg the laundress, his knobby hands stretched into claws. Squealing like a schoolgirl, Meg lifted her skirts and went barreling down the slope, her stout legs windmilling wildly and Sam barking at her heels. When she dodged left instead of right, Willie shot right past her, tripping over his own boots and rolling the rest of the way down the hill and into the brook.
“Since Willie couldn’t catch Meg, it’s Master’s turn again!” Hannah cried, clapping her hands in anticipation.
&nb
sp; While Meg dragged the dripping, cursing gamekeeper out of the creek by his ear, Beckwith gently directed Gabriel to the top of the hillside. Even Mrs. Philpot had begun to get into the spirit of the game. Without being asked, she stepped forward to give her employer three brisk spins, then danced well out of his reach with a sprightly grace that set the keys at her waist to jingling.
As Gabriel got his bearings, the rest of the servants stood frozen into place on the sunny hillside. None of them was allowed to stir so much as an inch unless Gabriel drew near enough to touch them. Only then were they allowed to flee. Samantha deliberately placed herself at the outer edge of their circle, just as she had on every one of Gabriel’s turns. She was determined not to give him any excuse to lay his hands on her.
Gabriel slowly pivoted, his hands resting on his lean hips. It wasn’t until the wind ruffled Samantha’s hair, teasing a wayward strand from her chignon, that she realized she had made the mistake of positioning herself upwind of him. His nostrils flared. His eyes narrowed in a look she knew only too well.
He turned and started straight for her, his masterful strides eating up the ground between them. As he brushed past Elsie and Hannah without slowing, the maids cupped a hand over their mouths, struggling to suppress their giggles.
Samantha’s feet seemed to be rooted to the earth. She couldn’t have run if Gabriel had been some charging beast, intent upon devouring her. She was keenly aware of the other servants’ intent gazes, the trickle of sweat easing its way between her breasts, the way her blood seemed to thicken like honey in her veins.
As always, Gabriel stopped a mere heartbeat before running right over her. As his hand brushed her sleeve, Peter and Phillip groaned at her lack of resistance. It was too late to flee. All he had to do now was name her and the round would be done.
“Name! Name!” the girls began to chant.
Gabriel held up his other hand, begging their silence. He had identified the other servants by nothing more than a whiff of wood smoke or laundry soap. But it was also well within his rights to identify his captive by touch.
As the corner of his mouth curled into a lazy half-smile, Samantha stood frozen into place, helpless to stop the approach of his hand. It was as if the others had vanished, leaving them all alone on that breezy hillside.
Her eyes fluttered shut as Gabriel’s fingers brushed her hair, then played lightly over her face. He gently skirted around the edge of her spectacles, tracing every curve and hollow as if to memorize her features. Despite the warmth of the afternoon, his touch sent delicious ripples of gooseflesh dancing over her skin. How could his hands be so rough and masculine, and yet so tender all at the same time? As his fingertips grazed the softness of her lips, her dread melted away to something else, something even more perilous. She found herself wanting to lean into him, to tilt her head back and offer up some sweet sacrifice solely to please him. She swayed, so swept away by this scandalous yearning that it took her a moment to realize he had stopped touching her.
Her eyes flew open. Although Gabriel’s head was lowered, the uneven rise and fall of his chest warned her that he was not unaffected by their brief contact.
“I’m not entirely sure,” he called out in a voice strong enough to carry across the hillside, “but judging by the softness of the skin and the delicate perfume, I believe I might have captured…” He paused, deliberately heightening the anticipation. “Warton, the stable boy!”
The servants exploded in raucous laughter. One of the groomsmen cuffed a sputtering young Warton on the shoulder.
“Only two more chances, my lord,” Millie reminded him.
Gabriel tapped his bottom lip with his forefinger. “Well, if it’s not Warton,” he drawled, his voice softening, “then it must be my dear…my dutiful…my devoted…”
As he clapped a hand to his heart, eliciting fresh titters from the maids, Samantha held her breath, wondering just what exactly he was about to reveal.
“…Miss Wickersham.”
The servants burst into hearty applause; Gabriel swept one arm toward Samantha in a graceful bow.
She smiled and dropped a mocking curtsy, speaking through her gritted teeth. “At least you didn’t identify me as one of your carriage horses.”
“Don’t be absurd,” he whispered. “Your mane is far silkier.”
A beaming Beckwith tapped him on the shoulder, then draped a linen kerchief over his hand. “The blindfold, my lord.”
Gabriel turned back to Samantha, one of his eyebrows cocked at a devilish angle.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” She backed away as he advanced on her, twirling the blindfold in a most menacing manner. “I’ve had quite enough of your ridiculous games. All of them,” she added, knowing the emphasis wouldn’t be lost on him.
“Come, now, Miss Wickersham,” he chided. “You wouldn’t make a blind man chase you, would you?”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” Snatching up her skirts, Samantha took off across the hill, shrieking with helpless laughter when she heard Gabriel’s footsteps closing in behind her.
The mood inside the marquess of Thornwood’s lumbering town coach ranged from glum to dour. Only seventeen-year-old Honoria dared to betray any sign of hope, sitting up to peer out the window at the passing hedgerows as the vehicle swayed its way down the broad lane toward Fairchild Park.
Her two older sisters were practicing the air of sophisticated ennui so essential to young ladies of a certain age, beauty, and quality. Eighteen-year-old Eugenia was enjoying loving communion with the hand mirror she’d pulled out of her satin reticule, while nineteen-year-old Valerie punctuated every bump and jolt with a long-suffering sigh. Valerie had been particularly unbearable since becoming engaged to the youngest son of a duke at the end of last year’s Season. No matter what turn the conversation took, she managed to preface every other sentence with, “Once Anthony and I are wed…”
Seated across from them, their father mopped his florid brow with a lace-trimmed handkerchief.
Eyeing his flushed face, his wife murmured, “Are you quite certain this was a wise idea, Teddy? If we had warned him we were coming—”
“If we had warned him we were coming, he’d have ordered the servants to turn us away at the door.” Since it was not his habit to speak sharply to his wife, Theodore Fairchild softened his rebuke by reaching over to pat her gloved hand.
“As far as I’m concerned, that would have been a blessing.” Eugenia reluctantly dragged her gaze away from her reflection. “Then at least he wouldn’t have the chance to snap and growl at us like some sort of rabid wolf.”
Valerie nodded. “The beastly way he behaved at our last visit, one would have thought he’d gone mad as well as blind. ’Tis fortunate that Anthony and I are not yet wed. Why, if he had heard the disgraceful way Gabriel dared to address me—”
“You two should be ashamed of yourselves, speaking of your brother so!” Honoria jerked her gaze away from the window to glare at them, her sherry-brown eyes burning with passion beneath the fluted brim of her bonnet.
Unaccustomed to receiving such a stern set-down from their good-natured little sister, Valerie and Eugenia exchanged a startled glance.
As the coach passed through a pair of ornate iron gates and began to climb the steep hill leading to the carriage drive, Honoria continued. “Who pulled you out of the freezing water, Genie, when you fell through the ice at Tillman’s Pond even though you’d been warned it was too thin for skating? And who defended your honor, Val, when that nasty boy at Lady Marbeth’s fete claimed you had allowed him to steal a kiss? Gabriel has been the finest big brother any girl could want, and yet there the two of you sit, mocking and insulting him like a pair of ungrateful cows!”
Valerie reached over and squeezed Eugenia’s hand, her light green eyes sparkling with tears. “That’s not fair, Honoria. We miss Gabriel just as badly as you do. But that ill-tempered brute who railed and swore at us the last time we came here was not our brother. We want our Gabriel back!”
&nbs
p; “Now, now, girls,” their father murmured. “There’s no need to make a difficult situation worse by quarreling amongst yourselves.” While Honoria returned her sullen gaze to the window, he attempted a ghost of his jolly smile. “Perhaps when your brother sees what we’ve brought for him, ’twill soften him toward us.”
“But that’s the problem,” Lady Thornwood blurted out. “According to your precious physicians, he won’t be seeing anything, will he? Not today and not ever.” Her plump face crumpled, tears streaking through her face powder. She took the handkerchief her husband proffered and dabbed at her streaming eyes. “Perhaps Valerie and Eugenia are right. Perhaps we shouldn’t have come at all. I just don’t know if I can bear seeing my darling lad locked away in that dark house like some sort of animal.”
“Mama?” Honoria rubbed at the mottled glass of the coach’s window, a note of wonder softening her voice.
“Don’t trouble Mama right now,” Eugenia snapped. “Can’t you see that she’s distraught?”
Valerie drew a vial of hartshorn from her reticule and held it out to her mother. “Here, Mama. Use this if you start to feel a fit of the vapors coming on.”
Lady Thornwood waved it away, her attention captured by the dazed expression on her youngest daughter’s face. “What is it, Honoria? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Perhaps I have. I think you’d best take a look.”
As Honoria pushed open the window, Lady Thornwood climbed over her husband’s knees, trodding heavily on his toes as she joined her daughter. Their curiosity piqued, Valerie and Eugenia crowded behind them.
There appeared to be some sort of diversion in progress. The participants were scattered all over the grassy hillside overlooking the mansion, their laughter and shouts ringing like music through the air. They were too preoccupied with their merriment to even notice the approaching coach.