A Summer to Remember (6 page)

He grinned as he ran down the steps outside the house a few minutes later and summoned his tiger, who was walking the horses about the square. Breaching the formidable defenses of Miss Lauren Edgeworth was going to be a challenge worthy of his best efforts. He must hope, perhaps, that all her relatives and friends would come to his assistance by persistently warning her against him and attempting to shield her from him—the idiots.

But for a while at least later in the afternoon he would have her all to himself.

Lauren sat straight-backed beside Viscount Ravensberg, holding her parasol over her head with both hands to shield her complexion from the harmful rays of the sun. She was unaccustomed to riding in a sporting curricle, and she felt very far above the ground and alarmingly unsafe. But it would be unladylike to show a lack of trust in the skill of the gentleman plying the ribbons by clinging to the rail beside her.

The gloved hands that held the ribbons were slim. They were also demonstrably capable of controlling his high-spirited and perfectly matched pair of grays. His legs, encased in tight, biscuit-colored pantaloons and supple, highly polished Hessian boots, were slender but shapely and well muscled in all the right places.

Shocked at the direction her thoughts had taken, Lauren flexed her hands on the handle of her parasol and looked determinedly away from him as he turned his team with effortless skill between the gateposts into the park. It was the fashionable hour, the time of day when the
beau monde
turned out in large numbers to parade on horseback, on foot, and in a variety of different carriages, intent upon seeing and being seen, upon imparting and ingesting all the latest gossip.

Lauren was about to provide them with a new topic, if Wilma was to be believed. She had raised a number of eyebrows by consenting to waltz with the infamous Viscount Ravensberg last evening. Yet now, just the day after, she had agreed to drive with him in the park. In a sporting vehicle, no less. Without a maid. Wilma had quite untruthfully declared herself speechless and had called upon Joseph, Lord Sutton, and Elizabeth to talk sense into Lauren. Only Lord Sutton had complied with her request. Miss Edgeworth must invent some indisposition and send down her regrets when Viscount Ravensberg came to fetch her, he had advised. She would not, after all, he was certain, wish to put her spotless reputation in jeopardy simply because she was too courteous to give a rogue the cut direct.

“If anyone has anything to say on the subject of Lauren’s reputation,” the Duke of Portfrey had said with languid hauteur, directing his quizzing glass at Wilma’s betrothed, “he may address himself to me.”

Lauren’s lips quirked with unexpected amusement at the memory. But really, would she be here now if everyone had left her alone to make her own response to Lord Ravensberg’s invitation? She had never thought of herself as a willfully stubborn person.
Was
she? Certainly she had avoided the parade in the park since her arrival in London. But there was no need to continue to do so. She had faced the
ton
last evening. And it was unexceptionable to drive out in public places with a gentleman who had been properly presented to her, even if he was a notorious rake.

“Well, Miss Edgeworth.” Having negotiated the tricky turn into the park, the viscount turned his head to look at her. “We seem to have exhausted the topic of the weather.”

Lauren twirled her parasol. She
had
been unmannerly enough to allow their conversation to lapse. She wondered briefly if he had practiced that particular look before a glass until he had perfected it—that laughter-filled expression that started in his eyes and sometimes did not even reach his mouth to become a proper smile. It was quite disconcerting and interfered considerably with her thought processes. It was one of those things that made a rake appealing to women, she supposed.

“Your father is the Earl of Redfield, my lord?” she asked.

“I am his heir,” he replied, “the elder of his two surviving sons. My elder brother died almost two years ago.”

“I am sorry,” she said.

“So am I.” He flashed her a rueful glance. “The last time I saw Jerome I broke his nose and my father banished me from Alvesley and told me never to return.”

Gracious! Lauren was intensely embarrassed. That it might be true was shocking enough, but why would he air such very dirty linen before a stranger—and a lady, at that?

“I have shocked you.” The viscount grinned at her.

“I believe, my lord,” she said with sudden insight, “you fully intended to do so. I ought not to have asked about your father.”

“Let me return the favor,” he said. “You have lived most of your life at Newbury Abbey, but you have no blood relationship to the family there. Who is—or was—your father?”

“He was Viscount Whitleaf,” she said. “He died when I was two years old. Less than a year later my mother took me to Newbury and married the Earl of Kilbourne’s brother.”

“Indeed?” he said. “And does your mother still live?”

“They left on a wedding journey two days after their nuptials,” she told him, “and never returned. There were occasional letters and packages for a number of years and then . . . nothing.”

The smile was gone from his face when he glanced at her this time. “You do not know, then,” he asked her, “whether your mother lives or has died? Or your stepfather?”

“Certainly they are both dead,” she said, “though where or when or how I do not know.” It was something she almost never spoke of. She had locked away the hurt, the sense of abandonment, the feeling of incompletion, a long time ago.

They were drawing closer to the press of carriages and horses and pedestrians that were making the slow circuit of the daily parade.

Lauren determinedly changed the subject. “Do you come here often?” she asked.

He laughed across at her. “You mean apart from the mornings,” he asked in his turn, “on or close to Rotten Row?”

She could feel herself flush and twirled her parasol again. More and more, she was convinced that he was no gentleman. He
had
seen her, then? And was not ashamed to admit it? No gentleman . . .

“You ride there in the mornings?” she asked.

But he was unwilling to have the subject turned. “That kiss,” he said, “was a milkmaid’s way of thanking me for felling the three thugs who had accosted her and demanded certain favors she was unwilling to grant.”

Was
that
what the fight had been all about? He had taken on
three
men in order to defend a milkmaid’s honor?

“It was
ample
reward,” he said before she could frame the words with which to approve his motive even if not his actions. He was deliberately trying to shock her—again, she realized. Why? He touched his whip to the brim of his hat as two ladies rode by with their grooms, their eyes avid with curiosity.

“A gentleman,” Lauren said with prim reproof, “would not have asked any payment at all.”

“But how ungallant,” he said, “to refuse a reward freely offered. Could a gentleman do such a thing, Miss Edgeworth?”

“A gentleman would not so obviously enjoy himself,” she said and then glared at him indignantly when he threw back his head and laughed—just when they were close enough to a vast crowd of their peers to draw attention. She twirled her parasol smartly, but there was no chance of further conversation on the topic. Why had she allowed herself to be drawn anyway?

The following fifteen minutes were spent driving at a snail’s pace around the circuit taken by other carriages and riders, smiling and nodding, stopping every few yards to converse with acquaintances. Wilma and Lord Sutton were there, of course, as was Joseph. There were a few other people Lauren knew, Elizabeth’s friends whom she had met during the past three weeks, and others to whom she had been presented at the ball last evening. And there were a number of Lord Ravensberg’s friends, who rode up beside the curricle to exchange pleasantries with him and to be presented to her.

It was not a difficult occasion to endure. Having made a public appearance last evening, she no longer felt the dread that had kept her in virtual hiding for over a year. It was a bright, sunny day and she was enjoying herself far more than she ought—and far more than she would have in Mr. Bartlett-Howe’s company, she thought treacherously. But how could the viscount have openly referred to that scandalous fight in the park when he should be properly mortified to realize that she had witnessed it? He had fought in a woman’s defense—in a milkmaid’s defense. Most men would not even have noticed the distress of a woman so far beneath them in rank.

Most gentlemen within hailing distance acknowledged him and seemed genuinely pleased to see him. Most ladies either openly ignored him or nodded to him with distant hauteur. But many of them, old and young alike, stole covert glances at him. He was indeed a gentleman whom it was impossible not to notice. He exuded vitality, laughter, and a careless disregard of sober propriety. And
she
was the only woman with whom he had danced last evening.
She
was the one he had invited to drive with him this afternoon. She, Lauren Edgeworth, the very personification of sober propriety.

The thought ought not to be flattering at all.

Viscount Ravensberg steered his curricle clear of the crowds before they had made the complete circuit. Soon, she thought, disappointed despite herself, they would be back in Grosvenor Square and she must make clear to him that she would not welcome any further attempt to make her the object of his gallantry. But there was a question she could not resist asking, unmannerly as it might be.

“Why did you invite me to dance last evening?” she asked him. “And why only me? You left immediately afterward. Why did you send me roses on the strength of that single encounter? Why did you ask me to drive with you this afternoon?”

Oh, dear. More than one question, all of them unpardonably rude. And she had plenty of time in which to realize the fact and feel increasingly uncomfortable. So uncomfortable that she did not immediately notice that he had turned his curricle, not onto the main thoroughfare leading out onto the streets of London but onto another path that led deeper into a less traveled, more wooded area of the park. By the time she did notice, it was too late to protest.
This
would certainly be remarked upon, she thought—first she had waltzed with a notorious rakehell, then she had driven with him, and now she was allowing him to drive off alone with her.

“Perhaps you have not looked at yourself in a glass lately, Miss Edgeworth,” he said at last.

“But Lady Mannering’s ballroom was filled with ladies lovelier than I,” she said. “And most of them considerably younger.”

“I cannot answer for your youth,” he said, “but I can for your beauty. If you did not realize that you were by far the loveliest lady at the ball, then indeed you have not looked at your reflection lately.”

“How absurd.” She had never had a great deal of patience with flattery. Or with ladies who fished for compliments. Was that what she had just done? If so, she had been served well. The loveliest lady at the ball, indeed! The path dipped into a hollow bordered on either side by giant oak trees, whose branches met in an arch over-head.

“It is your eyes that make you uniquely lovely, of course.” He slanted her a look. “I have never seen any others of quite their color or beauty.”

This was all highly improper. But she had only herself to blame.

“You knew who I was, I suppose,” she said. “Someone had pointed me out to you. You knew what happened to me last year. Was it curiosity, then?”

He angled a penetrating look at her. “To dance with a bride who had been abandoned at the altar?” he said. “I hope the park at Newbury is a large one. My guess is that Kilbourne must be constantly whipping himself all about its perimeter at his foolishness in having married someone else, doubtless on a momentary impulse, and so having lost the chance of having you.”

She despised herself for taking comfort from his words. For longer than a year she had felt so . . . unattractive. “Well, you are wrong, sir,” she said. “His marriage to the countess was and is a love match.” They were driving in a cool, verdant shade. Lauren lowered her parasol to her lap though she did not close it.

“And yours to him would not have been?” Again that swift, penetrating look.

Lauren raised her chin and stared straight ahead. How had she trapped herself into this? “That is an impertinent question, my lord.”

He chuckled softly. “My humblest apologies, ma’am,” he said. “But Kilbourne’s loss is my gain. I asked you to dance because even across Lady Mannering’s ballroom I was struck by your loveliness and felt compelled to discover who you were. I sent the roses because after waltzing with you I could do nothing else but return home and lie awake half the night thinking of you. I called upon you this afternoon and invited you to drive with me here because I knew that if I did not see you again you would haunt my waking thoughts and my sleeping dreams for the rest of the summer.”

Lauren’s eyes widened with shock, but by the time he had finished speaking she was glaring at him in speechless anger. How foolishly gullible did he think she was?

“My lord,” she said with all the cool dignity with which she had armed herself for most of her life, “no
gentleman
would so mock a lady. But then I have been warned that you are no gentleman, and with my own eyes I have beheld that it is true. Now my ears tell the same story. I would be obliged if you would return me to Grosvenor Square without further delay.”

He had the gall to look across at her and chuckle softly. “You
did
ask, you know,” he said, rearranging the ribbons so that they were in his right hand. With his left he possessed himself of one of her hands and raised it to his lips. “It would have been ungentlemanly of me to lie to a lady, would it not?”

“I suppose,” she said with icy dignity, “you expected me to be easy prey to this blatant gallantry, Lord Ravensberg, since I am an
abandoned bride
. You thought to have some sport with me. You have failed. I came to town to offer my companionship to the Duchess of Portfrey, who is awaiting a confinement. I did not come to parade myself in the marriage mart. I am not in search of a husband and never will be. And even if I were, I would not fall an easy prey to such as you.”