Dangerous to Love (31 page)

“I do hope the rain holds off,” was what she finally hit upon.

Letty wasn’t listening. She was leaning over the box, studying the crowd below, giving back stare for stare to the passing bucks who ogled her.

Mr. Hadley clicked his tongue. “I advise you, Miss Ward, not to encourage these impertinent young fops, or before you know it, they will have invited themselves into our box. One can’t be too careful in this sort of crowd, you know.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” derided Letty, her eyes snapping. “I happen to be acquainted with some of those gentlemen whom you are pleased to call fops.”

“All the same,” went on Mr. Hadley, unperturbed, “it were better if you followed your sister’s example and sat well back in the box.”

The color was high in Letty’s cheeks. “I thought the whole point of coming here was to see and be seen?”

Before Mr. Hadley could make matters worse, Serena quickly intervened. “Perhaps we could all sit forward a little? I know that Phoebe Cole will be here this evening, and we promised to look out for each other. It has only just occurred to me that if I am sitting at the back of the box, we may miss each other.”

The compromise was accepted with good grace and the
chairs were duly arranged. From the Rotunda came the strains of an orchestra tuning up.

“Dancing,” said Letty rapturously. She jiggled in her place and waved to someone below.

Lord Harry Egremont, Lord Kirkland’s heir, called out, “Letty, come down and dance with me.”

“Young unmarried ladies of breeding,” said Mr. Hadley, “do not make a spectacle of themselves by dancing in public pleasure gardens.”

Green fire flashed from Letty’s eyes, but her smile was dulcet. “How old are you, Trev?”

Though he winced at the familiarity, he answered readily, “Thirty. Why?”

“To hear you speak, one would think you had one foot in the grave. Serena, may I dance with Lord Harry?”

Serena’s annoyance was profound though she did not know whether she was annoyed with her beau, or her sister, or even herself for having arranged tonight’s debacle.

“I can’t see any harm in it,” she temporized, and before she could say one more word, Letty was out of the box in a flounce of petticoats.

“ Pon my soul!” Mr. Hadley stared at the door that was still vibrating after Letty’s precipitous exit. “What did I say to bring that on?”

Floundering, Serena answered, “She is at a difficult age. Try to be patient with her, all right?”

She couldn’t tell him the truth, that Letty was reacting to Jeremy’s hopes for a brilliant match for her. Letty had a young girl’s dreams of marrying for love, and had steadfastly turned up her nose at the several eligible gentlemen her brother had thrown her way. In this, Serena was her staunchest ally. Letty was young with her whole life before her. She shouldn’t be made to accept second best; she shouldn’t be made to give up her dreams of love and
fulfillment. She should have her chance at happiness. She should be free to accept a man who loved her, whether or not he came with title and fortune.

She swallowed a small lump in her throat. Her own case was not the same as Letty’s. She was older, more worldly-wise. Love held no allure for her. Her ambitions were more modest, more suited to her years and experience. Affection and children to love her—that was the most she could hope for.

For a girl with no dowry to speak of, she really was very fortunate. Trevor Hadley was not precisely wealthy, but he was no pauper either. His square face was pleasant to look upon; his hazel eyes held intelligence. It was a comfortable face, a nice face, and one that would not be forever turning to the next breathtaking beauty who came into his line of vision. He wasn’t like Allardyce or Julian Raynor. He was more like Stephen. She could count herself the most fortunate of women.

Sighing, she turned to look out over the fashionables who were promenading about.

“Would you look at that!” exclaimed Mr. Hadley.

“What?” Serena obediently peered down at the couples who were milling about the Rotunda.

“Letty and Lord Harry! They’ve gone off by themselves! Look, over there, down one of those walks! Never fear, I shall bring her back to you.”

“But—”

Trevor did not wait for whatever it was Serena was about to say. One moment he was there, the next moment she was talking to thin air. She couldn’t remain in the box by herself. Grinding her teeth together, she went after him.

   As the group of gentlemen vying for her attention crowded around her, Amelia sent Julian a coy, sideways
glance. Relinquishing the lady with smiling grace, Julian turned aside to watch the fireworks display until Lady Amelia should grow bored with her little court.

It amused him to see that it was Lady Amelia and not the fireworks that was the cynosure of all masculine eyes. She drew men to her like moths to a flame. He wasn’t jealous. He understood her allure only too well. She was a born coquette, a creature of the senses who appealed unashamedly to a man’s carnal nature. This was not to say that she was any man’s for the taking. Many men had made that mistake only to discover that they had been toyed with as a cat toys with a mouse. Amelia could be cruel when she had a mind to be, and never more so than when a gentleman truly lost his heart to her.

Chuckling, Julian wandered over to one of the small treed arbors which were set out at regular intervals around the man-made lake. Finding the arbor unoccupied, he paused for a moment to take snuff. Out on the lake, young bucks in punts were using their poles to try to knock each other into the water. His eyes lifted as a rocket flared over the lake and burst into a thousand stars. Pocketing his snuffbox, he leaned one hand against the twisted trunk of an old rhododendron which was just coming into bloom. When a woman’s voice carried to him from the other side of the arbor, he dropped his hand and straightened. There was a rustling sound as her skirts brushed against the hedge of rhododendron, then she was there before him.

“Letty? Harry? Where .  .  . ?”

Serena paused at the entrance to the arbor. The light from the overhead lantern filtered through the dense screen of vines and branches like dappled moonlight, casting an unearthly glow. She took a small step forward, then another, before coming to a halt. The man in the shadows might have been anyone, broad shoulders tapering
to a narrow waist, one hand on the hilt of his smallsword. Even if she had been blindfolded, she would have recognized him. The air between them was charged.

“Julian.”

“So, it is you,” he said.

F
rom the moment she knew he had landed on English soil, she had rehearsed in her mind how she would act and what she would say when they finally came face-to-face. Flynn had convinced her that there was no point now in demanding explanations and apportioning blame for something that no longer mattered to either of them, and Flynn was right. Julian had a new life in America. She had her life in England. Only one thing was important. They must forgive and forget. Then they could destroy the evidence of their brief union and they would be free of each other forever.

She had not foreseen that Julian Raynor in the flesh would have such a profound effect on her. Her heart was thundering against her ribs. Her mouth was dry. The pat little speech she had rehearsed so religiously skirted the edges of her mind, then quietly slipped into oblivion.

Clearing her throat, she said, “I’m glad everything worked out so well for you, Julian.”

Whatever he said in reply was lost in the deafening report of exploding fireworks. Light streaked across the sky and for the space of a few seconds, inside the shelter of rhododendrons, there was enough light to see by.

He looked leaner to her, his face harsher, and there were new lines etched around his eyes. She’d always thought of him as a force to be reckoned with. Now she sensed a different kind of strength in him. Julian Raynor was a man who knew who he was and where he was going. America had done this for him. Then the light
faded, and the darkness pressed in on them, seeming to draw them closer together.

In that interval of blinding illumination, Julian also had taken her impression. She was exactly as he remembered her—delicately molded features as pure as a cameo; finely spun gold hair that framed her face in clusters of waves. Her gown was just what he would have expected of Serena, nothing too much, nothing too showy. But even that unrevealing gown could not conceal her high-breasted womanly form, the graceful sweep of her throat, the tiny waist that was no more than a man’s handspan. As the escort of Lady Amelia, the most desirable woman in London, he knew he was the envy of his peers. He also knew that if it weren’t for the past, there was no woman he would rather have escorted than the one standing before him.

Smiling a little, he said, “You are looking well, Serena.”

Encouraged by his cordial tone, she edged closer. “As you are, Julian. I think America must agree with you.”

What he had not remembered was the perfume she always wore. He inhaled the fresh fragrance of wild poppies, and the recollections her scent stirred in him slipped through his defenses as easily as a fog invading an impregnable fortress. Within him, he felt some of the ice begin to melt.

As he watched the play of light across her lovely face, it seemed to him that he wasn’t the only one who regretted the past. When her dander was up, she was a termagant. Had she struck out at him in that rash way of hers only to come to her senses when it was too late? Or had she come to see in retrospect that he had never been a threat to her precious escape route?

She stood there as docile as he had ever seen her, her
eyes huge in her white face, her breathing shallow as she waited for him to speak.

“Are you happy, Serena?”

She let out a pent-up breath. For no reason that she could think of, moisture pooled in her eyes. She had a sudden, irresistible impulse to try and make everything right between them. “I’m happier for seeing you, Julian. I’m sorry for the way things turned out, truly I am. I don’t want us to remember each other with loathing. Life is too short for that. Can’t we forgive and forget?”

Her appeal worked on him powerfully. And really, she was doing no more than voicing his own sentiments. The time had come to put the past behind them. “Yes,” he said, extending his hands palm up. “Let’s forgive and forget, shall we? As you say, life is too short for anything less.”

She slipped her hands into his. He squeezed gently, and for one timeless moment, the harmony between them was consummate.

He smiled.

She smiled.

Drawing her hands away, but naturally, so as not to disturb this newfound harmony between them, she said, “I really shouldn’t be here, you know. I’m supposed to be looking for my sister. Letty is at a bad age, if you see what I mean.”

“You mean she slipped her leash to go gallivanting with her beau?”

She nodded and they both laughed.

“You should have written to me,” she said, “to tell me you were coming to England.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

He had certainly done that, but she wouldn’t think now about the chagrin she’d endured, knowing that he was in London and had made no move to come to her.
Forgive and forget.
That was the course Flynn had advised her to follow.

There was a burst of applause from the spectators on the lawns outside their shelter. “I must go,” said Serena, “before Letty does something outrageous.”

“No, don’t run away.” He blocked her exit by stepping in front of her. “Tell me about yourself, Serena.”

The last thing she wanted to do was argue with him, especially over something as inconsequential as searching for her sister. There had been enough discord between Julian Raynor and herself to last her a lifetime,
ten
lifetimes. For once, Letty could look out for herself.

“I suppose,” she said, feeling a little nervous to think that they were having a normal conversation, like any two normal people, “that the most important thing that has happened to me is that I am engaged to be married.”

“Are you engaged? I understood that you were holding off until things were settled between us?”

This was a jarring note, and her eyes flew to his face. The flash of his teeth as he smiled at her was vastly reassuring. “Naturally,” she said, “there will be no announcement until our marriage certificate is consigned to the fire.” She laughed, and he laughed along with her.

“Do you have it, Julian?”

“Let me reassure you on that point. It is in a very safe place.”

“You sound like a cautious man.”

“In some things.”

She didn’t know how to answer this without stirring up old quarrels. “Well then,” she said, “how soon may I expect to hear that it has been destroyed?”

He smiled at her eager tone. “Your suitor, Trevor Hadley, is it not? He must be a remarkably patient fellow?”

“Trevor is a very fine, upstanding man,” she agreed amicably.

There was an interval of silence, then he said, “How have you managed to hold him off?”

“Hold him off?”

“Come now, Serena, I think you understand the question well enough. Your suitor must have pressed you for a reason for the delay in making your engagement public knowledge. Does he know about us?”