A Reckless Desire (11 page)

“My uncle Lorenzo learned what was proper when he was a member of the Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris, my lord,” she said, hating herself for babbling like this but unable to stop. “He said a quick, common bob-curtsey was well enough for every day, but for a prince or higher, we must do—”

“That's not what I meant,” he said abruptly, cutting her off. “I meant how you walked, how you crossed the room, how you
were.
Where did you learn that?”

“I did what you said, my lord,” she said, bewildered. “I put aside Madame Adelaide, and instead only thought of how I should be as the noble lady you described. Did I misunderstand, my lord? Was I wrong?”

“Not at all,” he said slowly. “You were very nearly perfect.”

She gasped with delight and at last slipped free of him, stepping back to clap her hands together in amazement.

“Oh, my lord, I am so pleased!” she exclaimed happily. “Now you'll believe that I'll do whatever you say, whatever you want, to be the actress I know I can be.”

But to her confusion, he didn't smile in return.

“That will be enough lessons for today, Mrs. Willow,” he said, looking past her. “I do not wish to tire you.”

“But I'm not tired, my lord, not at all,” she pleaded, disappointed. “We have so little time to accomplish so much, and I—”

“I said that will be all,” he repeated, an unmistakable distance to his voice that hadn't been there earlier. “I have made arrangements to dine with a friend. Request whatever you wish for your own dinner. I shall leave word with Mrs. Barber to oblige you and send a tray to your room.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said wistfully, the prospect of a solitary dinner and evening alone yawning before her. She supposed she should be grateful for his hospitality, but she'd much rather continue to work. “As you wish.”

“Yes,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I will have the copy of
Hamlet
brought to your room, so you may begin reading it in its entirety.”

“Yes, yes, my lord,” she said eagerly. “The sooner I can begin to learn my role, the better.”

He nodded, still avoiding her gaze as if her enthusiasm made him uncomfortable. He whistled low, and Spot rose, sleepily wagging his tail.

“Well, then,” he said, retreating. “Until tomorrow morning. Good day, Mrs. Willow.”

And just like that, he—and his dog—were gone.

In Rivers
'
s experience
,
there was no better place for composing an apology than on the back of a horse, preferably alone and by moonlight, or so he told himself that night as he made his way home from the Four Chimneys, an inn not far from the Lodge. Which was just as well, considering that he once again owed Lucia an apology, and he hadn't the faintest notion of how to begin.

It was late, very late, or perhaps very early, as he finally turned his horse through the stone gates to the Lodge. When he had met Squire Ralston while riding earlier in the day (or was that now yesterday?), he had politely declined the squire's enthusiastic invitation to join the Breconridge Hunt for a turtle feast at Four Chimneys. While he often rode with them (he was always welcome, considering how the hunt had borrowed its name from his family) when he was in residence at the Lodge, he'd no desire to spend a long evening in a low, smoky room watching country gentlemen consume more turtle soup and strong drink than was good for any mortal.

But that had been before he'd met with Lucia—or rather, Mrs. Willow—in the parlor. Not that renaming her had made any difference in how he'd behaved, the way he'd convinced himself it would.

It was entirely his own fault, of course, every bit of it. Lucia had done everything he'd asked of her and done it splendidly, too. She hadn't once tried to entice him or beguile him, the way her cousin most certainly would have done. Instead she'd made it clear as could be that her only purpose in being here was to become the actress he'd promised. When he'd made that wager, he'd thought that was his only purpose, too, believing everything would be businesslike between them. How could it not, given what a plain and untempting little thing she was?

Yet the more time he'd spent in her company, the less plain and untempting she'd become. He couldn't fathom it. He'd concede that she could amuse him; she was surprisingly clever with words, and her inventive storytelling last night had kept him so enthralled that he'd regretted their journey's end.

But she still dressed like a drab lower servant with her hair scraped back beneath that dreadful white cap. Her eyes were still too big for her face, and her body too slight for her clothes. She still scurried rather than walked, and this afternoon she'd devoured his entire tea.

Yet that last time when she'd walked across the carpet toward him she'd been so delicately graceful that all he'd been able to do was stare, as if she were some sort of ethereal sprite dropped into his green parlor. Her dark eyes were like magic, drawing him in, and when she'd sunk into a curtsey at his feet, he'd nearly gulped aloud at the grace and vulnerability of the pale nape of her neck.

Her
neck.
Damnation, what kind of fool was he?

He swore crossly at himself, remembering exactly what kind of fool he had been. He'd told her how to make herself irresistible to audiences, and she'd listened, and done it. He simply hadn't expected it to work on him the same way.

As a result, he'd blustered and stammered and then fled to the dubious blandishments of the Hunt's turtle feast, abruptly leaving her in a confusion that she hadn't deserved.

Now he half-expected to learn that she'd disappeared, too, gone back to London instead of being trapped here with him. He could hardly blame her if she had.

Glumly he left his horse at the stable with a sleepy groom, and headed into the house, where he was greeted by an equally sleepy footman. Only the night lantern was lit in the front hall, casting angular shadows across the old portraits that were gloomy enough by daylight. In their stiff ruffs and pointed beards, the portraits were never good company, but as Rivers climbed the stairs, he decided they were likely no better than he deserved.

Perhaps in the morning he'd know what to say to Lucia.

Perhaps with a good night's sleep, the right words would come to him, and they could begin afresh.

The hall to his bedchamber was even more murky and shadowed, lit only by the moonlight through the diamond-paned windows. He should have stopped for a candlestick, but hadn't bothered, and now he'd have to rely on his familiarity with the old place to find his way. He smiled, remembering how as a boy he'd been convinced the Lodge was haunted by those old Elizabethans in their fussy ruffs.

He heard a door open behind him, and turned swiftly at the sound. A figure in white with long trailing hair raced toward him through the shadows, and instinctively he drew back, too startled to reply.

“Lord Rivers!” Lucia called breathlessly as she hurried toward him. “At last you are returned, my lord. I've been waiting and
waiting
to speak with you, and I'm so glad you're finally here.”

Candlelight from her open bedroom door sliced into the hall, and by it he could see that she wore only her shift, with the coverlet from the bed wrapped haphazardly around her shoulders. Her hair was combed out, falling like a dark cloak nearly to her waist, and if he'd thought her eyes seemed too large for her face by daylight, now in the near-darkness they truly belonged to another world.

“It's very late, Mrs. Willow,” he said, striving to regain some semblance of propriety. “Whatever you wish to discuss can surely wait until the morning.”

“Forgive me, my lord, but it cannot,” she said with dramatic conviction. “There are things that I must say to you, things that cannot wait.”

Damnation, here it was. Of course she wanted to speak to him after he'd left her with such awkward haste. He couldn't avoid it, or her, any longer. He was going to have to apologize now whether his apology was composed or not.

“Very well, then,” he said reluctantly, pushing the door to his rooms open. “This way.”

Gathering her coverlet-shawl more tightly about her shoulders, she swept ahead of him, her bare feet making no sound on the floorboards and her dark hair streaming behind her. The first of his rooms was a small chamber where he often took his breakfast and read his mail, and there close to the banked fire sat his manservant, Rooke, asleep and slumped to one side in a chair, his mouth open and his wig askew.

“Rooke!” he said sharply, more irritated at himself for forgetting Rooke would be here waiting to help him undress. “Rooke, wake yourself.”

The manservant jolted awake and rose immediately, unperturbed as he straightened his wig.

“My lord,” he murmured, his glance flicking past Rivers to Lucia. So much for discretion, thought Rivers with dismay; the rest of the household would know by morning that Mrs. Willow had been in his rooms in a state of undress in the middle of the night.

“You may retire for the night, Rooke,” Rivers said. “I'll look after myself.”

The servant bowed and backed from the room, closing the door quietly after himself. At the same time, Rivers hurried to close the other door, the one to his adjoining bedchamber. The last thing he needed now for a difficult conversation with a young woman was to have his bedstead looming in view as an unwelcome intruder.

But then, he had to recall that was what Lucia was: a young woman of a dubious foreign family with equally dubious morals. She wasn't a lady, which was why she thought nothing of coming alone to the country with him, and standing here in his room wrapped in a bedcover, and why, too, she hadn't seemed distressed by having Rooke see her. When she'd complained about her reception by Mrs. Barber, her reason had been because the cook hadn't liked her, not because the woman had believed Lucia to be his mistress. If she didn't care, then he shouldn't, either. Her virtue didn't need protecting by him, if her virtue even still existed—a possibility that he realized he'd never considered until this moment.

It was also a possibility that his conscience now heard in his father's voice. Father would understand none of this. Of course it would come as a warning, sternly admonishing Rivers to take care not to put himself in a difficult situation with a vulgar creature like this, to stop squandering his time on cunning playhouse doxies and instead consider a suitable young lady as a wife.

Irritated more than was reasonable, Rivers jabbed at the banked fire with the poker to bring the coals back to life, and lit one of the candles from the flame. He was twenty-six years old. He could do as he damned well pleased. He set the candlestick on the table between a pair of chairs, and motioned for Lucia to sit.

“No thank you, my lord,” she said, shaking her head for extra emphasis. She seemed to be vibrating with inexplicable energy, unable to keep still. “I needn't sit, not for this. I don't believe I could sit now anyway, I'm that on edge and turned about.”

“Then it's up to me to begin,” he said, not sitting, either. If she insisted on standing, then he would, too. It was already disconcerting enough standing here in the middle of the night, still in his riding boots and spurs, while she had clearly tumbled directly from her bed. If he weren't feeling so guilty about disappearing this afternoon, he would never have agreed to anything as inappropriate as having her here at this hour.

“I can only imagine what you must think of me, Mrs. Willow,” he continued, “after my, ah, hasty departure earlier this afternoon. It was an, ah, a very low thing of me to do.”

“Oh, but it wasn't!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “That is, at first I thought so, and I felt sure you'd left because you were angry with me for having eaten your tea.”

“Not at all,” he said, surprised. “You could have consumed every last crumb in Mrs. Barber's larder and I wouldn't have objected. You're my guest here, and I do not wish you to be hungry.”

“Thank you, my lord,” she said, and he could tell by the slight tremor in her voice that at last she'd blushed; strange how he'd already learned that of her. “I waited for you for a bit in the parlor, hoping you'd return, and when you didn't I went upstairs to pack my trunk, because I thought you'd send word that you wanted me gone.”

How could she be so mistaken? “I would never do that,” he said. “We had—have—an agreement, and I gave you my word.”

She smiled wistfully, making it obvious without words that she believed a gentleman's word to be an untrustworthy thing where she was concerned.

“It doesn't matter now, my lord,” she said, so swiftly that it clearly wasn't of any consequence to her. “Because now I understand. I understand
everything.
”

“Do you?” he said, taken aback. Again he had to remind himself that she wasn't a lady, but a young woman whose life had been spent in the tiring room of a theater. She might well understand more than he did himself.

She nodded, taking a step closer to him in her excitement. “While I was packing my trunk, one of the footmen brought me your book with the
Hamlet
play, as you wished. And I read it, my lord, I read it all the way through and I did not stop until I was done. And, oh, my lord, it was
glorious,
just as you said it was!”

“Ahh,” he said with guilty relief. “You mean you understood the play.”

“Yes, my lord, yes, yes,” she said. She reached up to tuck her hair behind one ear, the coverlet slipping to reveal her bare collarbone and the slightest swell of her breast. By the candlelight her skin was like polished ivory, and with effort he made himself look once again to her face. “It's perfect and sad and tragic and filled with swords and knives and death, and the crowd will
love
it.”

“They already do,” he said. “It was written over a century and a half ago, and it's been vastly popular ever since.”

“It should be, my lord,” she said eagerly. “And now that I've read it all, I understand why you left as you did, and what you wanted me to learn.”

He frowned, again not following her. He'd always considered himself a clever man, but she could make him feel like the most ignorant fool. Fortunately in her excitement, she continued, so he didn't have to admit it.