Almost a Gentleman (31 page)

It was pleasant finally having the carriage to themselves. A few lascivious fantasies flitted through Phoebe's head as David handed her in. After he'd climbed in beside her and shut the door behind him she turned toward him for a kiss, but stopped herself abruptly.

Because once we begin making love, she thought, we won't want to stop. She giggled softly at the thought of the carriage rolling to a stop in front of his house and some very proper butler opening the door to find the earl and herself in flagrante delicto.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked.

"Oh nothing, just how nice it is to be alone together. And how difficult I find it not to fling myself at you."

"I was thinking of doing some flinging of my own, but it's only two miles to the house itself, and…"

"Quite."

They moved decorously apart on the velvet seat. A few stars shined through the coach window.

"And so I shall introduce you around as Miss Browne, if that's all right," he said.

"Yes, I rather like the name. I have some papers, you see, that belonged to the girl who was buried in my stead. Oddly, she was also a Phoebe. So to the extent that I have a legal identity, I expect that I'm Phoebe Browne."

"I love you, Phoebe Browne."

It suddenly became a lot more difficult not to fling herself at him.

"And I love you, David Hervey."

She paused, as though still tasting the sweetness of the words in her mouth.

"But," she added now, "'David Hervey' is far too short a name for a nobleman. What long procession of ancestral and geographical appellations come marching in between the 'David' and the 'Hervey'?"

"Not so many as all that. Just 'Arthur' and 'Saint George.' David Arthur Saint George Hervey."

"The same Saint George as Mr. Goulding's cat?"

"The very same. Saint George is a folk hero here in Lincolnshire. He figures prominently in the Plough play we'll be seeing the Monday after next."

"Plough play?"

"Ah, I see that I shall have to educate you on some of our customs. The Plough plays used to be performed to herald the beginning of planting season after the Christmas holidays; at one time, you see, we didn't begin planting the winter wheat until the Monday after Twelfth Night. Nowadays we plant earlier: the seeds have been in the ground since before Christmas, but we still have the play and a celebration on Plough Monday.

"The play's performed at my house. The local troupe has been practicing it for weeks. It's great fun, lots of clowning and morris dancing too. We crowd the entire village into the Great Hall and there's a banquet afterwards."

"Is that customary?"

"Well, in most parishes it's a simpler affair: the mummers simply go from kitchen to village kitchen. But it's how
we
do it—couldn't do without it.

"I feel quite guilty already, you see, for having spent Christmas in London rather than at home. It would be utterly unthinkable for me to miss a Plough Monday."

"And will your son be there too?"

"Yes, of course. You'll like him, Phoebe. Well, I'm rather proud of him, actually. You'll see why when you meet him. And I know that he'll like you."

"Yes, I hope so." She also hoped that her voice was calm enough to mask her sudden discomfiture.

An entire village gaping at her while they should be watching the morris dancing. And they
would
gape, she was sure of it, because any lady the earl brought home with him was bound to arouse their curiosity.

Foolishly, she'd imagined something rather more intimate: a simple series of brisk quiet days on the wolds and long hot nights of lovemaking. What a goose you are, Phoebe, she scolded herself silently, you probably also imagined that the meals would be served by elves and the fires lit by invisible hands.

The prospect of meeting David's son was hardly a comfortable one either. Suppose he disapproved of her or was in some way jealous of his father's affections? Suppose he was greedy, worried about new half-siblings who might diminish his inheritance? Her mouth took a wry turn here. The young gentleman needn't concern himself about
that
eventuality, she thought sadly.

Luckily, David hadn't seemed to notice her sudden attack of nerves. He was peering through the carriage windows into the black starry night as though he could see every detail of the landscape.

"We're in the park now," he told her excitedly. "If it were light you could see the lake to the left, the hermit's hut down there to the right in that little declivity…"

He stopped himself. "I must sound awfully silly to you."

"No," she said, "you sound lovely."

Their hands had crept together across the space that separated them. She linked her fingers tightly within his. Perhaps just one kiss? But her natural competitiveness forbade it; if he could discipline himself, so could she. She scoured her mind for more questions to ask about the local customs.

"When did you change your planting schedule to get the wheat in before Christmas?" It sounded rather forced to her, but he seemed to find it a quite reasonable and interesting query.

"I'm not quite sure," he answered slowly. "Two hundred years ago, perhaps? I think it was under the Tudors, but I'm not absolutely…"

"
Two hundred years
ago?"

"Well, or thereabout."

"But when you said, '
we
didn't plant our winter wheat until after the Christmas holidays,' I thought you'd meant that you, personally…"

"Lord, no, Phoebe, that was an ancient way of farming." He chuckled.

"You said
we
."

"I simply meant my family, the people of this district,
whoever was
doing the farming then."

"You feel a part of them."

"Shouldn't I?"

"Yes, you should."

And it was a lesson for her, she thought. A fine example of how there could never be an intimate, "private" visit to him here at Linseley Manor. Not only was the entire village population utterly and irrevocably present in his consciousness, but so were all the generations who'd worked the land before him.

He squeezed her hand, still chuckling at the notion of himself farming according to that ancient calendar.

"Yes, I think introducing you as Miss Browne will be the right thing. You'll like Mrs. Oughton, my housekeeper. And you'll meet my steward, Mr. Neville, tomorrow. One of the first things I'll have to do, of course, is have a long talk with the cook about the banquet…"

Of course.

Well, I am a lord, don't forget
, he'd said when he'd told her to undress for him. Oh yes, he'd been utterly, marvelously lordly about taking what he wanted in bed.

But, as she was beginning to realize, there was a great deal more to him than the easy sense of entitlement that made him so irresistible. His being Lord Linseley didn't just mean he owned a lot of land; it meant he'd made certain promises to the land and its people.

She'd forgotten—as he never would—the weight of duty that he carried. It probably wasn't very exciting on a daily basis: his days must be crowded with nagging petty responsibilities, stupid trivial obligations. But he stood faithful to them; she knew that what was best in him was his sense of obligation, his heroic willingness to accept the challenges good fortune had thrust upon him. It was, she supposed, what she most loved in him.

"I want to share it with you, Phoebe."

Had he read her thoughts? No, that was impossible, thank heaven.

She felt ashamed, choked by the emotions coursing through her.
Tell him now. It's cruel to let him go on thinking that I can give him what he wants
.

Anyway—
she
didn't want it. She wanted her London life: smooth, stylish, and elegant; unencumbered by responsibility or obligation; answerable to no one but herself.

Then tell him. Tell him
that.

Too late. Here they were. She could see the lights of the house from the carriage window. The butler who handed her out was as proper as Phoebe had imagined; a good thing, she thought, that they'd managed to maintain such rectitude on this last few miles of their journey.

"And may I bid you welcome to Linseley Manor, Miss Browne, and wish you a pleasant stay?"

"Thank you, Stevens, I'm sure it will be."

They climbed the wide steps to double doors that opened to embrace them. Stevens's lantern threw soft light on mellow, honey-colored stone, on well-trimmed ivy climbing to generous curtained windows.

A pleasant stay and nothing else. No matter if, in an unguarded moment, I may wish for more.

Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One hundred
. Kate put down her silver hairbrush and prepared to plait her hair for the night. The new hairstyle—a knot of curls ringed by small, looped braids—had been a success. If the success of a hairstyle, she thought, blushing happily, might be measured by how sweetly disordered it could become—and simply from an evening spent kissing John in front of the fire. Imagine, she thought, what might happen to one's coiffure after an evening of doing… well, rather more.

She smiled at herself in the mirror. It was easier, she'd learned, to discipline one's hair than one's body. A host of delightfully anarchic sensations coursed through her: throbs, stirrings, and tingles, all new and unpredictable. It was as though she'd somehow been given a new body, open, alive, achingly ripe and ready. Of course, one might also call what she was feeling "frustration"—yes, there was certainly something of
that
too, she thought—because kissing, delightful as it was, clearly wasn't all that she wanted from John. But a better word might be "anticipation." Happiness could be gulped or it could be savored; having waited so long for hers, Kate was happy to savor it. Unlike Phoebe, who'd always wanted to swallow her happiness in one immense, glorious, unseemly gulp—
as perhaps she's doing at this moment
, Kate found herself thinking quite suddenly. She smiled in mock consternation at the double entendre that had wafted, unbidden, into her consciousness. Wherever had the very proper Lady Kate Beverredge gotten such ideas? No matter, Kate intended to have a great many more such ideas, to think a great many more such thoughts. And not merely to
think
about such things either, she resolved.