Of course, it was scandalous to be kissing in a field. Scandalous. And even worse, a little voice inside Imogen insisted that what she really wanted was the feeling of that hard body on top of hers.
She didn’t open her eyes immediately after his mouth left hers. “Imogen,” he said. His voice sounded odd.
“Yes?” She kept her eyes closed. There was something extraordinarily embarrassing about kissing Rafe. She couldn’t quite work it out. He was just Rafe—her guardian, the thorn in her side, the man who shook her on the dance floor, the man she called a pickled drunk…
“I’m not sure how to put this.”
“What?”
“Oh, marriage. Kissing and marriage.” His voice was deep, and casual for such an important topic.
“There’s no need to put it any way at all,” Imogen said, sitting up. “Where have I put my hat?”
“I left it with the horses. I’m asking you to marry me, rather awkwardly, but…”
She was aware of him watching her brush the grass from her skirts, and then he helped her to her feet. “Rafe,” she said, “why are you doing this?”
“Because we kissed in a field.”
She couldn’t fault that logic. “It’s just you and me,” she said patiently. “I expect it must be quite interesting for you to kiss a lady after ten years.” She met his eyes for the first time. “But you would never wish to be married to someone with my temper. Imagine if I were about the house all the time.”
“I can imagine it quite easily. We both know that you primarily lost your temper over my drinking.”
She started walking toward the horses, talking over her shoulder. “Go find another woman to kiss, Rafe. If it’s practice you’re wanting.”
“You are suggesting,” Rafe said, sounding as if he were entirely enjoying himself, “that after being deprived of the pleasures of the flesh for years, I am foolishly enslaved by base desires.”
She stopped and looked at him. “Did you understand anything I told you about my marriage?”
“Of course,” he said. “You and Draven had a marriage that was precisely like that of every other member of the ton: empty of conversation and passion.”
It was surprisingly hard to hear it drawn up in such a neat package. “When I marry again,” Imogen said, “I want to be the one pursued, Rafe. Pursued madly. I don’t want to marry someone just because he kissed me, and that kiss was only because I happened to be there. That’s how it was with Draven, you know. He kissed me, and then he said ‘If we elope, it’ll turn my mother into a raving bedlamite.’ That was his proposal.” She admitted it fiercely.
Rafe’s eyes were sympathetic, but he said nothing.
“The proposal that I accept, if I ever accept one, will be planned. It will be formal. It will not follow an inappropriate kiss in a field or elsewhere, and there will be no mention of mothers!”
Rafe was grinning now.
“We should not be having this conversation,” Imogen said, realizing that she had turned pink with the fury of it. “I’m not going to marry you,” she added lamely.
“I understand completely.”
“I’m certain you will find someone to marry.”
“But I suspect that you’re right, and I would make a terrible husband,” Rafe said. “The truth is that I believe my ambitions lie in quite another direction.”
Imogen looked at him before realizing that his eyes were dancing with laughter. “What would that be?” she asked cautiously.
“Something more carnal than spiritual.”
“I cannot believe we are having this conversation,” Imogen said crossly, beginning to hurry toward the road. “I can only suppose that you should marry with dispatch.”
“Better to marry than to burn,” Rafe said thoughtfully. “Or so Paul says. If you are averse to saving my soul, I shall find someone else.”
“I am barely widowed,” Imogen said, finally realizing that behind all this teasing was a rather obstinate view that a kiss was tantamount to an acceptance of marriage. “I do not wish to marry again so quickly, Rafe.”
The sun was almost directly overhead now. Rafe’s hair turned a golden brandy brown, falling over his eyes, his collar.
“You should have your hair cut!” she scolded, brushing it from his forehead.
He caught her wrist. “Do you refuse me because you are engaged in an illicit affaire with my brother?”
The words cut her to the heart. He knew…and he kissed her anyway. He must think her the veriest tart, the plaything of two brothers.
She swallowed hard. “I am not engaged in an affaire with your brother!” Her voice came out low and hard, harder than she would have liked. “I—I am not.”
“I thought by the way you looked at him at the breakfast table that something had happened between the two of you.”
“You insult me!” Imogen could feel the red flags in her cheeks. She tried desperately to think of a phrase that any honorable, affronted lady would utter. “You have no right to speak like that.” To her ears the words sounded feeble.
“I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Then how could you suggest such a thing?”
“That you would have an affaire with Gabe?”
“Of course!” she said shrilly.
“Because I imagine that if I were a young widow with no particular propensity to marry, I would find Gabriel a quite delightful prospect for a small dalliance.”
“I would never do such a thing.”
But he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “If you were to contemplate such an affaire, you might want to modulate the way you look at the gentleman in question, Imogen.”
She just gaped at him.
“This morning, for instance, your emotions were written on your face.”
Tears were pricking her eyes, from rage, she told herself. “I did not look at your brother in an inappropriate manner.”
“I apologize,” he said slowly. “I expect that I am merely piqued because you do not wish to marry me.” He turned away and began untying her horse’s reins from the fence.
“Will you insult the next woman who refuses to marry you?” Imogen asked tightly, hearing the little shake in her voice.
He didn’t look back at her. “I think I had better make more certain of my companion’s feelings, don’t you?”
“Yes! Because I wouldn’t think of marrying you.” She snapped it, and then she was sorry because his hands stopped on the horse’s tackle for a moment, and she actually entertained the thought that he cared—that he truly wished to marry her.
But he turned around, and there was the familiar laughter in his eyes. “Forgive me?” he asked. “You know I’m damnably protective of your reputation, Imogen. I seem to have taken to this guardianship business with a mite too much enthusiasm.”
“Guardians are not required to propose marriage to their wards in order to save their reputations,” she said severely. But she was starting to understand now. He’d caught her looking at Gabe in the morning—and just as surely as had Josie, he knew that she wanted his brother. And he’d also seen that his brother was uninterested in her. It was humiliating.
But Rafe was still talking easily. “I’ve made up my mind that the next time I ask someone to marry me, I shall know the answer beforehand.”
“I’m sure you’ll find many women who will make it all too clear that they would like to be your duchess,” Imogen said, a touch acidly.
“Do you think that Gillian would care for the position?” came his voice from behind her.
“Who?”
“Miss Pythian-Adams.”
“Do you wish to marry her?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“You’re not going off like a piece of meat,” she remarked. “You could afford to wait for a bit before finding a wife.”
And then before she realized what was happening, strong arms came around her from the back and pulled her against his body. She stood, stock-still, trying not
to melt into him and turn her mouth up to his.
“I like kissing you,” he said. “It’s a strange thought, admittedly, but true. I like the way you taste.”
And then she did turn her head, just to see what the look was in his eyes, and this kiss was almost like one of Gabe’s.
Then it was over, and he pulled a strand of grass from her hair. “Please note,” he said, “that no proposal of marriage will follow this inappropriate kiss.”
Imogen tried to think of something clever to say—something witty about being glad to offer him an experience such as he hadn’t had in ten years—but nothing came to mind.
They walked over to her horse without another word. After he’d thrown her up onto her horse, there was just one thought that she couldn’t brush away.
Both Gabe and Rafe made her weak at the knees with their kisses. It must be a family trait. Or if it wasn’t their innate ability, it must be that she was particularly vulnerable to those kisses. More the fool she! Why, it was positively incestuous to be kissing the two brothers at once.
Why was she kissing Rafe? Why on earth would her guardian have kissed her at all?
He answered that. Rafe looked over and said: “Are you feeling better about your husband, then, Imogen?”
“Don’t laugh about that!” she said, without thinking about it.
“I wasn’t.” He said it quietly, without a trace of that insouciant grin he had earlier.
She could tell he wasn’t. And of course that explained the kiss. Of course it did. He was wiping away the tears, and the memory of Draven. Very kind of him.
There was only one problem with his plan.
She could remember Draven as clearly as ever. She remembered every kiss they shared in their brief two weeks of marriage (six), every act of love they shared in the same two weeks (seven), and every time he rolled her over in a bed of flowers and kissed her to make her stop crying (none).
Just at the end of the road, Rafe looked at her and then leaned over his horse, and they raced down the curve of the road leading to Holbrook Court. Alas, the bouquet of cow parsley—or hogweed—intended for Josie couldn’t take the gale, and tumbled away on the wind, rough yellow petals streaming behind them.
24
The Virtues—or Lack Thereof—of Creatures Such as Dorimant
Gillian Pythian-Adams was in a foul mood. She scowled at her own reflection, even though her mother had strong views about wrinkles being the inevitable result of bad temper. Then she stopped scowling and readjusted her elegant cottage bonnet.
It was pale sage green and made her hair look as red as a deep port. “Lovely hair,” she said aloud, a little savage mockery in her voice. She might as well compliment herself, because at this rate no husband would say it to her.
Her walking costume was a slightly darker shade of the same green, and buttoned up the front with Spanish buttons that made her appear more generous in the bosom than she was in truth.
“Lovely…” But her voice died out.
It wasn’t that she was in a frenzy to marry. She could see perfectly well that a woman’s life was a great deal more comfortable once she married. But since her grandmother had been kind enough to leave her a dowry that converted to a personal estate if she was unmarried at age thirty, the case was not desperate.
It just seemed that the moment she turned her eyes on someone, an Essex sister was there before her. Not just any Essex sister either: Imogen.
She hadn’t really wanted Draven Maitland, mind you. She could admit that the engagement was a huge mistake. She had learned her lesson: do not engage oneself to a fool because his mother holds the mortgage to the family’s estate.
Although one had to admit that it was nice when she received the mortgage back after Draven fled with Imogen.
Of course she wanted nothing to do with the depraved brother of the duke, for all she had enjoyed his kiss. It served as a powerful example of why men were able to turn women’s heads and make them do foolish things, like running away with a footman. She’d always wondered about that, but after kissing Mr. Spenser, she didn’t wonder anymore.
Not that she had the option of running away with Mr. Spenser, because Imogen had scooped him up directly. If Gillian actually turned her eyes to a footman, obviously Imogen would beckon him with a crook of her little finger.
But she had thought that the duke was eligible for matrimony, now that he was sober. She and Imogen had even discussed that fact: a sort of dividing of territories conversation, now she thought about it. So why were the duke’s eyes following Imogen around the room?
Because Imogen was a magnet for men who interested Gillian, that’s why.
Gillian was clearly a failed magnet for those same men. She scowled again. Who cared about wrinkles when there was no one left to admire her?
Lady Ancilla poked her head into the room. “Are you ready to go, darling?”
“Of course, Mama,” Gillian said. But she stayed another moment, staring at the mirror. She wasn’t an antidote. True, some people didn’t care for red hair. But in secret, she herself liked red hair. Hers was a nice strawberry color, and it curled just where she wanted it to. And she had everything else that seemed to add up to the package men wanted to marry: green eyes, dimples, and a large enough bosom. Even a dowry.
It wasn’t that men didn’t want to marry her. It was that they didn’t want to marry her once they met Imogen Essex.
“Gillian!” her mother called from the corridor.
“Coming!” Gillian snatched up her gloves and ran into the corridor.
A moment later the two of them joined Lady Griselda in one of the duke’s carriages. Gillian’s mother was quite interested to hear that the housemaids had finished the theater curtain.
“I read The Man of Mode last night,” Lady Griselda said, bracing herself against the side of the carriage as they turned onto another road.
“What did you think?” Gillian asked.
“An inspired choice, my dear. My only question would regard casting. For you have cast Rafe as Dorimant, have you not?”
“Yes.”
“And his brother, Mr. Spenser, as Medley?”
“Dorimant is a rakelike creature, is he not?” Gillian’s mother asked. “I’m ashamed to say that I keep trying to read the play and falling asleep. I thought Dorimant a very foolish fellow. Are you quite certain that the play is fit for representation, Griselda? It would seem to me to cast a dubious light on our host, if he plays a man who is dallying with three women, if I understood the plot correctly.”
“Mama—” Gillian began.
But Lady Griselda interrupted her with a charming little wave of her hand. “Ancilla, dearest, your delicacy is much to be credited. These days what provokes innocent enjoyment in the theater is, on closer observation, rather warm indeed. But the truth of the matter is that you and I are creatures of another era.” She gently waved an exquisitely embroidered handkerchief before her unlined face. “We must make way for the exuberancy of a new generation. What we might consider vulgar, they consider delightful.”
Ancilla looked at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. “What a complete hand you are, Griselda! I’ve known you these twenty years—and may I remind you, my dear, that when I met you I was already married, and you no more than ten years old? But even at that age, you had all the hallmarks of a young lady who would get precisely what she wished. I take it that you like the play.”
“I think it’s funny,” Griselda said, dropping the handkerchief and smiling at Ancilla. “I think it will be enjoyable to see Rafe playing Dorimant—as far as I know the duke hasn’t had a rakish thought in years.”
Gillian thought the look on Rafe’s face when he looked at Imogen spoke volumes, but she kept quiet.
“Now if you needed another male, and you wished me to summon my brother…” Griselda said, looking at Gillian.
“Lord Mayne?” Ancilla said. “I’ll thank you, no, Griselda. The last thing I need, with Gillian’s current
situation, is your brother on the premises.” She turned to Gillian. “Mayne is certainly handsome, my dear, but I’m sure Griselda won’t mind if I point out that he is famously set against marriage.”
“All true,” Griselda said. “But I have hopes for him. He’s getting long in the tooth. Perhaps you might change his mind as regards the state of matrimony, Miss Pythian-Adams!”
“And perhaps he might dent her reputation,” Ancilla said. “As he has done with so many other women.”
“Never with those who are unmarried,” Griselda said. “But admittedly, he has inspired his share of unrequited sighs. I have high hopes that this will be the season in which he takes a bride. He said as much to me, when we returned from Scotland.”
“That will be interesting to watch,” Ancilla said, making it absolutely clear that Mayne would throw out his lures toward Gillian over her dead body.
Gillian decided to intervene. “I have met Lord Mayne, Mama, and he showed no interest whatsoever in sullying my virtue. Lady Griselda, may I ask you to reconsider your refusal to play a role in The Man of Mode?”
Griselda looked as surprised as if she’d been asked to fly into a tree. “I? If I remember correctly, there is not a single part for a respectable woman in the play.”
“I think you would play the role of Belinda with éclat,” Gillian said.
“She is the one who tricks her best friend, steals the woman’s lover, and then ends up losing him to the country miss in the end?”
Gillian nodded.
Lady Griselda drew herself up. “Surely you do not think that I would betray a female friend, or allow a man in whom I had interest to flee to a country miss!”
Gillian wasn’t sure which of these options Griselda viewed with more horror, but she decided on the second. “The man you chose would have no interest in a rustic maiden. But I think you would enjoy playing Belinda, Lady Griselda.”