Lady O smiled brightly into Portia’s eyes, then her gaze passed on to both Simon and Charlie.
They all understood—that was the tale they were to spread.
The Hammond sisters didn’t need to have it explained. When Portia suggested they should part and mingle, Cecily and Annabelle were perfectly ready to flutter off like butterfiles and spread the word. Charlie went one way, Portia and Simon another. They exchanged a glance, then dutifully set themselves to do what they could to help smooth things over.
The other houseguests were doing the same; Lady Glossup took charge of the arrangements and sent the footmen into the crowd bearing ices, sorbets, and cakes.
All in all, they were moderately successful. The rest of the afternoon—the following hour or so—passed in reasonably comfortable style. That, however, was all on the surface, in the faces people showed to the world. Underneath . . . significant glances were exchanged between friends, although no one was so outré as to put their thoughts into words.
As soon as it was possible to do so without giving offense, people started leaving. By late afternoon, the last guests were wending their way down the drive.
Lady O clomped up to where Simon and Portia stood. She poked Simon’s leg with her cane. “You may give me your arm upstairs.” She turned her black gaze on Portia. “You can come, too.”
Simon obeyed; they turned to the house. Portia walked on Lady O’s other side, taking her other arm when they reached the main stairs. Lady O was not young; for all her ferocity, they were both deeply fond of her.
She was breathing stertorously when they reached her room; she pointed to the bed and they helped her to it. They’d barely got her settled, sitting propped high on her pillows as she’d commanded, when there came a knock on the door.
“Come!” Lady O called.
The door opened; Lord Netherfield looked in, then entered. “Good—a confabulation. Just what we need.”
Portia quelled a grin. Simon met her gaze briefly, then turned to set an armchair for his lordship close by the bed. Lord Netherfield accepted Simon’s help into the chair; like Lady O, he, too, walked with a cane.
They were cousins, Portia had been informed, although several times removed, much of an age, and very old friends.
“Right, then!” Lady O said, the instant he was settled. “What are we to do about this nonsense? Horrible mess, but there’s no sense in the whole company suffering.”
“How did Ambrose take it?” his lordship asked. “Will he prove difficult, do you think?”
Lady O snorted. “I should think he’ll be glad if nothing more is ever said. Shocked to his toes—he went white as a sheet. Couldn’t get a word out. Never seen a would-be politician so lost for words.”
“I should think,” Simon said, propping a shoulder against the bedpost, “that this would be a case of least said, soonest mended.”
Portia perched on the edge of the bed as Lord Netherfield nodded.
“Aye, you’re most likely right. Poor Calvin—no wonder he was in such a state. Last thing in the world he’d want at present, to take up an intrigue with a female like Kitty. Here he is, trying to get her father’s support for his cause, and there she is, flinging herself at his head!”
Lady O looked from one face to the other, then nodded. “We’re in agreement, then. Nothing of any great moment occurred, nothing need be said—all is perfectly normal. No doubt if we stick to that line, the others will, too. No reason Catherine should have to weather having a disaster of a house party just because her daughter-in-law’s lost her wits. Hopefully, that mother of hers will straighten her out.”
Decision made and judgment delivered, Lady O sank back on her pillows. She waved at his lordship and Simon. “You two may take yourselves off. You”—she pointed at Portia—“wait here. I want to talk to you.”
Simon and Lord Netherfield left. When the door was once more closed, Portia turned to Lady O, only to discover she had shut her eyes. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
One lid rose; one black eye glinted. “I believe I’ve already advised you against spending all your time in any man’s pocket?”
Portia blushed.
Lady O humphed and closed her eyes. “The music room should be safe enough. Go and practice your scales.”
An imperious wave accompanied the order. Portia considered, then obeyed.
Their plan to keep the house party on an even keel should have worked. Would have worked if Kitty had behaved as they’d all expected. However, instead of being sunk in mortification, quiet, careful of her manners, especially careful to toe every social line and transgress no more, she swept into the drawing room and proceeded to give a command performance in the role of “the injured party.”
She didn’t utter a single word about the afternoon’s debacle; it was the set of her face, the tilt of her chin, the extraordinary elevation of her nose that communicated her feelings. Her reaction.
Sweeping up to Lucy and Mrs. Buckstead, she placed her hand on Lucy’s arm, and inquired solicitously, “I do hope you met some entertaining gentlemen this afternoon, my dear?”
Lucy blinked, then stammered a vague answer. Mrs. Buckstead, made of sterner stuff, inquired after Kitty’s health.
Kitty waved, limpidly dismissive. “Of course, I did feel let down. However, I do think one should not let such wounding behavior on the part of others overwhelm one, don’t you?”
Even Mrs. Buckstead didn’t know how to answer that. With a smile and glittering eyes, Kitty moved on.
Her high-handed, arrogant behavior overset everyone, left them off-balance, totally unsure what to do. No one could understand what was going on. What were they witnessing? Nothing made any kind of social sense.
Dinner, far from being the agreeable, soothing if quiet affair they’d all hoped for, was subdued to the point of discomfort, all laughter in abeyance, talk suppressed. No one knew what to say.
When the ladies removed to the drawing room, Cecily and Annabelle, along with Lucy, encouraged by their mothers, retired early, claiming tiredness after the long day. Portia would have liked to leave, too, but felt compelled to remain in support of Lady O.
The conversation remained stilted. Kitty continued to play the martyr; Lady Glossup was at a loss to know how to deal with her, and Mrs. Archer, all but visibly wringing her hands, starting every time anyone directed a remark her way, was no use at all.
It soon became apparent that, far from coming to rescue them, the gentlemen had decided to leave them to their fate. And Kitty.
It was difficult to blame them; if the ladies—including Lady O, who sat openly frowning at Kitty—could not fathom what was going on, the men must be completely at sea.
Accepting the inevitable with true grace, Lady Glossup called for the tea trolley. They all remained just long enough to do justice to one cup, then rose and retired.
After seeing Lady O to her room, Portia retreated to her own chamber, high in the east wing. The window overlooked the gardens; she paced before it, frowning at the floor, oblivious of the silvered view.
She’d told Simon she believed that Kitty did not understand or value trust; she’d been speaking of trust between two people, but the performance they’d just witnessed had confirmed her view, albeit in a different context.
They all felt—they’d all reacted—as if Kitty had broken a social trust, that she’d betrayed them by refusing to follow any of the patterns they recognized. The patterns of social commerce, of civility, the underlying structure of how they related one to the other.
Their reaction had been quite profound, the gentlemen’s refusal to return to the drawing room a very definite statement.
An emotional statement—indeed, they’d all reacted emotionally, instinctively, deeply disturbed by Kitty’s breaking the social code they all held in common.
Portia stopped, stared out at the darkened gardens, but didn’t trul
y see them.
Trust and emotion were closely linked. One led to the other; if one was prodded, the other responded.
Frowning, she sat on the window seat; after a moment, she crossed her forearms on the sill and rested her chin upon them.
Kitty wanted love. In her heart, Portia knew that was so. Kitty was searching for that which so many other ladies looked for, but in Kitty’s case, with her unrealistic expectations, love was no doubt highly colored, a passionate, overpowering emotion that rose up and swept one away.
Unless she missed her guess, Kitty subscribed to the idea that passion came first, that highly charged physical intimacy was the path, the gateway to deep and meaningful emotional attachment. Presumably she believed that if the passion was not sufficiently intense, then the love she imagined would ultimately arise from it would not be sufficiently powerful—powerful enough to hold her interest, to satisfy her craving.
That would explain why she did not value Henry’s gentle devotion, why she seemed bent on raising an illicit and powerful lust in some other man.
Portia grimaced.
Kitty was wrong.
If only she could explain it to her . . .
Impossible, of course. Kitty would never take advice from an unmarried, virginal, near-apeleader-cum-bluestocking on the subject of love and how to secure it.
A soft breeze wafted through the window, stirring the heavy air. It was silent outside, dark but not black, cooler than indoors.
Portia rose, shook out her skirts, and headed for the door. She couldn’t sleep yet; the atmosphere in the house was oppressive, uncertain, not at peace. A walk in the gardens would calm her, let her thoughts settle.
The morning room doors were still open to the terrace; she walked through and out, into the welcome softness of the night. The scents of the summer garden wreathed around her as she strolled toward the lake; night stock, jasmine, and heavier perfumes mingled and teased her senses.
Moving through the shadows, she glimpsed a man—one of the gentlemen—standing on the lawns not far from the house. He was looking out into the darkness, apparently lost in thought. The path to the lake took her nearer; she recognized Ambrose, but he gave no sign of noticing her.
She was in no mood for polite conversation; she was sure Ambrose wasn’t either. Keeping to the shadows, she left him to his thoughts.
A little farther on, while crossing one of the many intersecting paths, she glanced to her right, and saw the young gypsy-cum-gardener—Dennis, she’d heard Lady Glossup call him—standing absolutely still in the shadows along the minor path.
She continued on without pause, sure Dennis hadn’t seen her. As before when she and Simon had seen him, his attention was focused on the private wing of the house. Presumably, he’d retreated deeper into the gardens because of Ambrose’s presence.
Quelling a frown, she pushed the matter from her mind; it left a lingering distaste. She didn’t want to dwell on what Dennis’s nocturnal vigil might mean.
The idea naturally brought Kitty to mind—she bundled her out of her thoughts, too. What had she been thinking about before?
Trust, emotion, and passion.
And love.
Kitty’s goal, and the stepping-stones to it that she was quite sure Kitty had scrambled. Kitty was approaching them in the wrong order, at least to her mind.
So what was the right order?
Letting her feet lead her down the last stretch of lawn to the lake, she considered. Trust and emotion were linked, true enough, but people being people, trust came first.
Once trust was there, emotion could grow—once one felt safe enough to let emotional ties, with their consequent vulnerability, develop.
As for passion—physical intimacy—that, surely, was an expression of emotion, a physical expression of an emotional connectedness; how could it be anything else?
Engrossed, she took the path to the summerhouse without thought.
Her mind led her inexorably onward in characteristically logical fashion. Walking through the deep shadows, her gaze on the ground, she frowned. By her reasoning, with which she could find no glaring fault, the compulsion to physical intimacy arose from an emotional link that, logically therefore, must already exist.
She’d reached the steps of the summerhouse. She looked up—and saw in the dimness within a tall figure uncurl his long legs and slowly come to his feet.
In order to feel the compulsion to intimacy, the emotional link must already be there.
For a long moment, she stood looking into the summerhouse, at Simon, waiting, silent and still in the dark. Then she lifted her skirts, climbed the steps, and went in.
The crucial question, of course, was what emotion was it that was growing between her and Simon. Was it lust, desire, or something deeper?
Whatever it was, she could feel it rising like heat between them as she walked across the bare boards—straight into his arms.
They closed around her; she lifted her face and their lips met.
In a kiss that acknowledged the power shimmering through them, yet held it at bay.
She drew back, looked into his face. “How did you know I’d come out here?”
“I didn’t.” His lips twisted, perhaps wrily—she couldn’t tell in the shadows. “James and Charlie decamped to the tavern in Ashmore. I wasn’t in the mood for ale and darts—I cried off, and came here.”
Simon drew her closer until her thighs met his. There was no resistance in her, yet she was watching, thinking . . .
He bent his head and took her lips, toyed with them until she threw aside her distance and answered him, kissed him back, taunted him. Then surrendered her mouth when he responded, wrapped her arms about his neck, and clung as he devoured.
And they were there, once again, at the center of a rising storm. Desire and pure passion licked about them, sending heat across their skins, feeding a yearning in their souls.
They broke from the kiss only to gauge the other’s commitment, eyes meeting briefly from under heavy lids. Neither could truly see in the darkness, yet the touch of a gaze was enough. To reassure, to have her pressing closer, to have his arms tightening before he angled his head and their lips met again.
Together, they stepped into the furnace. Knowingly. He didn’t need to urge her; her hand metaphorically in his, she stepped over the threshold at his side. They both welcomed the fire, the flames that caressed, that flared and grew.
Until they were both heated, burning, hungry for more.
He stepped back, taking her with him. The edge of the sofa met the back of his legs; he sat, sweeping her onto his lap, their lips parting for only a second before coming together again.
Her hand touched his cheek, caressed, cradled as she pressed a blatant invitation upon him. Where others might be reticent, she was bold, direct. Definite.
Sure. She sighed with satisfaction when he slid her loosened gown from her shoulders and laid her breasts bare, urged him on when he bent his head, set lips and hands to the swollen mounds, and feasted.
Her skin was unbelievably fine, so white it almost glowed, so delicate his fingertips tingled as they traced. Tightly puckered, her nipples beckoned; he took one in his mouth and suckled deeply, deeply, until she cried out, her fingers clenching tight on his skull.
Her breathing was rapid, fractured, when he lifted his head. Their lips met, brushed. From under heavy lids, their gazes met in a fleeting touch; their breaths mingled; heat lapped and wrapped about them.
“More.” Her whisper was like a waft of flame against his lips, through his mind.
His body was already tight, muscles rigid with desire, locked by his will against the all but overpowering need to seize, to take. To claim.
But not yet.
He didn’t bother asking if she was sure. Setting his lips to hers, he drew her back into his arms, sank back into the sofa, drawing her with him, across his lap.
Her knees were curled alongside his thigh; lying back, holding her to their kiss, he sent one hand stroking down her back, over the swell of her hip, tracing down the long line of her legs.
Drew her down into the heated darkness, step by small step drawing her deeper into the realm where passion and primitive wants held sway. Where the need to be touched grew and swelled to a compulsion, where the compulsion to be intimately known became an overriding need.
When he drew her skirts up and slipped his hand beneath, the only murmur she made was one of encouragement. He fought the urge to send her wits spinning, to befuddle her until he had captured her; with her, he was following a different script, one designed to capture more than just her body. He wanted her mind and her soul as well.
So he kept their kiss light, enough for her to be aware, to know, not just what he was doing, but every touch, every caress, every intimate liberty. And to know he knew it, too.
She was wearing silk stockings. His fingertips traced her calf, then trailed upward; he cupped the back of her knee, then slowly stroked higher, finding her garter, circling it with his fingers.
He felt the shudder that went through her when he reached higher and touched her bare skin. Like her breasts, fine, delicate, warm with desire. He traced, and knew she was with him, that her awareness was focused on the shifting connection between his hand and her thigh.
The edge of her chemise trapped his fingers; he flicked them free, slid his hand beneath the fine silk, cruising over the bare skin of her hip, over her bare bottom, over skin that heated and dewed at his touch.
She shuddered and clung to the kiss, for one moment shaken; he soothed with his lips, with his tongue, with his hand slowly, possessively, stroking, then, when she eased, more explicitly exploring.
She shivered, but stayed with him—followed and felt as he wished. Experienced the thrills, both his and her own, as they took the next step into intimacy.
When they’d both had their fill, he traced forward, over her hip, splayed his fingers over her bare stomach. Felt again the shudder of pure awareness that racked her, sensed her sudden tensing.