Faith (6 page)

As if summoned by his thoughts, Faith quietly stepped out onto the terrace, her large gray eyes skipping almost nervously around the deserted space and reluctantly down the lighted pathway. Seeing no sign of Gareth, she turned and looked uncertainly back at the doors, wondering if he had decided not to show.

“I’m here, Faith.” He stepped out from behind the hedge.

The uncertainty disappeared from her face so quickly that Gareth was not sure it had been there to begin with. She stepped right up to the edge of the terrace and looked down at him, nearly swallowed by shadows, dressed all in black and standing just off the lighted path. She said nothing, however, and Gareth found himself wondering if this was how Shakespeare’s Romeo had felt as he stood beneath Juliet’s balcony.

She looked so regally aloof that he mentally shook his head. Faith Ackerly would never behave with the impetuous spontaneity that had caused young Juliet Capulet to first fall in love with Romeo, then throw caution to the winds and secretly marry the sworn enemy of her family. Faith’s passions and loyalties would be quieter, though no less deep, no less strong.

She broke the locked gaze that held them both and started down the terrace steps, her long elegant fingers delicately lifting the hem of her dress so it wouldn’t trail on the rough stone. She dropped it when she reached the cobbled path, and walked sedately to stand as close to Gareth as it would allow. She looked at him from her position of torchlit safety.

“There is a rumor circulating inside that you came tonight merely to dance one dance, and that you then left, my lord,” she said. She stood between two of the torches placed at regular intervals along the pathway, their dancing glow turning her hair to shimmering gold.

“I did,” he answered simply.

Faith felt an absurd burst of pleasure at the thought that he might have come just to dance with her.

His next words banished that brief spurt of happiness. “I’d have stayed longer, but you wished to speak with me privately, and I hoped to minimize any chance of causing your reputation harm. People might have correctly speculated that we disappeared together if we left at the same time.”

Startled, Faith realized she had never even considered what others might think, which was unusual for her. Normally, she carefully considered all aspects of a situation before making a decision. Suddenly angry with herself, she gave him a curt nod in grudging deference to his superior logic.

“A prudent precaution, my lord. Thank you.”

Gareth drew his eyebrows together, sensing she’d retreated within herself for some unknown cause. The expression in her large gray eyes remained inscrutable. Still, she had asked him to meet her, and he was more interested than ever in finding out what she had to say that was important enough to her that she would risk her pristine reputation to meet him alone.

“You wished to say something to me, Miss Ackerly?” he prodded gently.

Faith nodded and took a deep breath. Gareth stood quietly beside the boxwood hedge, patiently awaiting her reply. Now was the time for the prim speech of apology she had rehearsed all afternoon, the apology that would relieve her of the burden of knowing she’d behaved inappropriately toward him but would drive home the knowledge that she wished to have no further encounters. It was time, she knew, so why did she feel this fleeting instant of sorrow, this odd twinge of regret that they would never dance again? She hesitated.

At that second, the doors to the ballroom opened, allowing music, conversation, laughter, and light to spill out into the garden. Faith gave Gareth a stricken look, then turned her head to see who was coming outside.

Gareth didn’t stop to think. In the blink of an eye, he stepped from behind the hedge and grasped Faith’s arm with one hand, clamping the other hand over her mouth. He yanked her off the path and behind the hedge, out of sight of the people who were coming out onto the terrace.

The move startled a small shriek from Faith, a sound muffled by Gareth’s hand. Once he had her safely out of sight, Gareth held her close, his hand still over her mouth, his other arm now wrapped securely around her midsection. She’d never felt so safely cocooned—or so infuriatingly imprisoned.

Gareth peered around the side of the hedge and saw his sister-in-law talking with a small group of ladies who had apparently decided that they needed some air. He straightened and looked down at the still figure he held in his arms. The gray eyes looking back from over his hand were coldly furious, but she held still. Her very stillness was at such odds with the murderous expression in her eyes that Gareth felt his mouth quirk in an unbidden smile.

Faith saw the amusement cross Gareth’s face. In an instant, she felt her anger go from restrained indignation to white-hot ire. Without thinking, she reverted to pure instinct. She kicked him in the shin.

The slippers she wore were delicate affairs meant only for dancing, and thus lacked anything resembling strength or substance. They were definitely not constructed for kicking, but the resulting sharp ache in her foot was well worth the satisfaction of watching the smile fade from his face and hearing him stifle a grunt of sudden pain. His eyebrows snapped together as he looked at Faith again, noting that this time her expression was one of smug satisfaction.

“What the bloody hell did you do that for?” he hissed.

She didn’t answer. Gareth belatedly realized that he still held his hand over her mouth. He released her, no longer caring if she was set on ruining her own reputation by screaming at him or by walking away to be discovered by the ladies on the terrace.

Faith took a small step away from him but wisely remained out of sight of the house. “You held me too closely,” she spat back in a low voice. She drew herself up primly. “It isn’t proper.”

The steady murmur of the women talking on the terrace continued, and Gareth jerked his head back toward the sound. “Did you want them to see you?”

Faith’s ire faded. “No,” she admitted in a whisper.

Gareth’s anger ebbed, too, as he looked at Faith, who was now fidgeting, a girlish look of guilt on her lovely face.

Amanda’s voice came floating over the call hedge. “Would you like to take a stroll through the gardens?” The voices with her grew louder, a couple of them declining, but at least one agreeing to the evening walk. Sudden panic replaced the look of guilt on Faith’s face.

Gareth momentarily considered pressing Faith up against the hedge, hoping none of the women would look toward them when they passed on the path. That hope immediately died when he looked at Faith again. Her white dress reflected the light from the torches and would stand out like a beacon, as would her golden hair. Faith apparently reached the same conclusion, for she put out her hand and gave him a beseeching look.

He grasped the hand she offered and looked down at her. Silently willing her to trust him, he tugged on her arm and led her away from the path and into the darkness.

Eight

F
aith felt a dreamlike sense of unreality surround her as she followed Gareth into the gardens. She had been here many times with Amanda, of course, who had a real fondness for all things growing, the result of which was a lovingly tended paradise many times larger than the gardens of most towns. So, because she was mostly familiar with the layout, she knew precisely where Gareth was heading. He was making for the hedge maze.

Odd, how mazes were a fixture of many English gardens. Her aunt had one, Grace had one, and so did most of her friends in town. None, however, were as elaborate or as complex as Amanda Lloyd’s. Faith had never been inside. Nonetheless, she was instantly transported back in time, running through that overgrown maze of her childhood, unable to find an exit. Scenes from those hours flashed through her mind.

The shadows of the hedges stretching toward her as darkness began falling.

Every sound she could not explain renewing her fears that a monstrous spider would come.

Duncan’s cruel mouth clamped on the servant girl’s breast while she writhed beneath him.

Faith’s eyes widened, and her breathing quickened as Gareth pulled her inexorably closer to Amanda’s garden maze. She looked with deepening trepidation at the dark entrance and knew she couldn’t go inside, especially at night.

She planted her feet and abruptly stopped walking. “I won’t go in there,” she whispered.

Gareth looked back in surprise. “Why not?” he asked.

Now
that
was a very good question, thought Faith, wondering what he would think if she told him the truth. She bit back a wayward giggle as she imagined the look on his face when she told him she couldn’t go in because she was certain they were in grave danger of being devoured by an enormous arachnid. But as he was still looking at her, her hysterical mirth faded.

“I just won’t,” she said, her chin set stubbornly.

Gareth looked exasperated. He incorrectly assumed she was refusing as part of some sense of misplaced propriety. He hastened to reassure her. “Look, princess, I give you my word as a gentleman that I won’t ravish you inside that maze.

Still Faith stalled. “I’ve been gone from the ball for so long. Surely Aunt Cleo will worry. What if we were to get lost?”

“That won’t happen,” he assured her. “I grew up spending each Season in this house, and I know the maze well. I even helped Amanda expand it when she married Jon. We’ll simply come out on the side of the house, completely out of sight of the terrace, at which point I can deposit you quite safely back inside, no one the wiser and none the worse for wear.”

Faith bit her lip uncertainly. “You promise we won’t be in there long?”

Gareth shook his head and tugged insistently on her hand. That bit of prodding, combined with the voices of Amanda and her companions drawing closer, decided it for her. She took a deep breath and allowed herself to be pulled into the maze.

It was much darker inside than she’d thought it would be. The light from the torch-lit paths couldn’t completely penetrate the thick hedge walls, especially when she and Gareth left the outer paths to work their way inward. The marquess’s dark clothes made it nearly impossible for her to see him, so she was silently grateful that he held her hand so securely.

He began making a series of turns through the maze, and Faith tried to keep count in her head of the lefts and the rights, but with each turn that carried them farther from the entrance she could feel the old panic building in the pit of her stomach. Her knees began trembling, so she tried to focus on making her feet follow Gareth’s, but her ears were beginning to ring, too. She found she couldn’t concentrate.

How much farther,
she wondered desperately, trying to control her breathing so Gareth wouldn’t know how agitated she was becoming. He had said that it would only be a short time before they came out, she reminded herself.

And then she stumbled.

Her hand slipped from Gareth’s grasp just as he turned another corner. Instantly, the threatening gray fog descended. “Don’t let go!” she cried out, and knelt and pressed both hands to her ears, waiting for the encroaching blackness to replace the enveloping mist as she fainted. Just before she lost consciousness, Faith felt herself being lifted and carried. With a thankful sob, she wrapped her arms around Gareth’s neck and pressed her face into his dark jacket.

Nine

G
areth carried Faith the short distance out of the maze. She felt him climb a small flight of steps, then sit down and settle her across his lap. She was beginning to feel a bit better, although she still trembled from head to toe. Her ears had stopped ringing, and she found she could breathe normally. Still, acutely embarrassed by what had just happened, she didn’t raise her head from his shoulder.

“Faith?”

She didn’t move.

“Faith, why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Her voice was muffled by his shoulder.

“That it wasn’t me you feared.” His voice was patient and tender, and Faith felt a ribbon of warmth unfurl in the pit of her stomach. He stroked her hair. “It was the maze that had you frightened, wasn’t it, princess?”

She sat up and tried to move away from him, but he held her tightly. Her arms were still shaking much too hard for her to put much effort into insisting, so she shrugged. “It’s too silly,” she said, looking away.

He turned her chin back so she faced him, and laid a finger across her lips. “One’s fears are never silly,” he chided gently. “Why does the maze affect you so?”

She shuddered slightly. “If I needed to get out quickly, I couldn’t,” she said in a halting voice. She felt ridiculous, but his smile was encouraging, and she’d never told anybody how she felt before, hadn’t spoken of her experience as a child since it had occurred. “It happens whenever I’m closed in somewhere and unsure of the way out.” Her eyes turned distant, and a vision of Duncan, his mouth locked on that chambermaid’s breast, danced through her mind. She shuddered again.

“I’ve known grown men who didn’t like small places.”

She shook her head. “It isn’t small places,” she corrected. “It’s places from which I cannot escape.”

“How long have you felt this way?” he asked.

She pulled away. “As long as I can remember,” she murmured evasively, knowing it hadn’t been just the maze. Duncan’s sneering face danced in and out of her head again, and she wriggled off Gareth’s lap to the bench beside him. “I’m fine now,” she added.

She looked around, realizing for the first time that they were in a small white gazebo that opened on four of its eight sides. The closed walls were lined with benches, and it was on one of these that they were seated. “Where are we?”

“On the side of the town house,” Gareth answered. “Amanda is expanding the gardens again to make a play area for little Geoffrey, but this part isn’t finished.” He smiled wryly. “I don’t think my brother is aware he will be hosting yet another party this Season. I’m sure Amanda will want to show off this newest part of the most beautiful gardens in London.”

Faith managed a small smile. Gareth decided it was time for her to tell him why she’d wanted to talk to him in the first place. She was rapidly regaining her composure. With it would return a large measure of the wariness she typically evidenced when dealing with him.

He stood, took a few steps away from the bench, and turned to smile disarmingly at her. “I don’t mean to change the subject, but you did wish to speak with me privately, didn’t you?” He leaned a shoulder negligently against a post and looked down at her with a steady gaze.

Faith felt a bit disadvantaged with him standing over her like that, but didn’t quite trust her legs to hold her up yet. She cleared her throat and started to speak, but lost her voice when she saw him cross his powerful arms, remembering how she’d told Grace she wished he would kiss her. An unbidden vision of how easily those arms had held her when he’d carried her out of the maze only moments earlier went through her mind. She blushed, her face hot with embarrassment. It quickly changed to fury when she saw a knowing grin sweep across Gareth’s face, as if he knew precisely what she was thinking.

Before she could stop herself, she leapt to her feet and crossed the gazebo. Her hand flashed out almost of its own accord and soundly slapped his cheek. Satisfaction spread warmly through her as she watched his smile begin to fade, and she slapped him again, then dropped her hand. She deliberately ignored the feeling of shamed horror rapidly spreading through her, concentrating instead on the intense anger.

“It galls me to think, my lord,” she hissed through clenched teeth, “that the only reason I’m standing here with you tonight is because I’d intended to apologize to you.”

Gareth slowly rubbed his cheek. “I take it, then, that you’ve changed your mind,” he remarked, his eyes narrowing on her pallid face.

Faith was growing increasingly distressed by what she’d done. She quaked inwardly at the quiet menace in his voice, but gamely stood her ground. “I have, my lord, and I would appreciate it if we were to have no further encounters.”

She turned to leave, intending to walk away with quiet dignity, but Gareth’s hand shot out and closed around her forearm. “Not so fast, Miss Ackerly.”

Faith tried to pull her arm away. “Let go of me,” she hissed.

Gareth ignored her. “It seems as though you and I are forever
not
apologizing to one another.”

Faith stopped trying to pull her arm from his grasp and instead stood still, glaring up into his taut, angry face. “Only because you’ve been so impossibly boorish that you’ve provoked me into behaving in ways I normally wouldn’t.”

“Is that why you slapped me?” he taunted, still holding her arm.

Faith’s gray eyes sparked. “I slapped you because…because…” She stopped, unable to come up with a reason that sounded more plausible than the truth.

Gareth stepped closer. With an involuntary cry of shock, Faith found herself tugged against his body. She looked up at him helplessly, her heart pounding nearly as hard as it had in the maze.

“If you haven’t a reason,” he said softly, “then perhaps I should give you one.” And his mouth claimed hers with a swift urgency that caught Faith completely off guard.

Shocked into inaction, she stood within his embrace, letting him kiss her, feeling his lips move over hers with insistence at first, and then with sudden melting tenderness. Something white-hot unfurled inside Faith, demanding a response, insisting she return the kiss. She fought it for a moment, but gave up and melted against him with a helpless little whimper. His mouth gentled on hers as her hands clutched at his jacket, then slid inside and around his waist for support. She opened her mouth a bit, instinctively following his lead.

Gareth held his breath and tentatively ran his tongue lightly around her parted lips, reveling in the feeling of her body crushed against his, unable to believe the awakening response she stirred in him. When she shyly imitated the way he’d used his tongue on her, Gareth came apart.

With one arm, he pulled her closer still, his other hand sliding up her back to bury itself in her golden hair. With gentle insistence, he tilted her head back, lifting her face to his and deepening the kiss. His tongue plunged more deeply into her mouth, and still she responded. Gareth suddenly realized she was duplicating everything he did to her, not understanding, in her innocence, that she was only fueling a fire he should never have ignited.

With a groan, he tore his mouth from hers and gently pulled her head to his chest, staring into the darkness in an effort to bring his raging need back under control. He took a deep breath, silently commanding his heart to cease its pounding. When he could trust himself to speak, he said, “Now, princess.
Now
I think I deserve that slap.”

Faith didn’t respond, but Gareth felt a shudder go through her body. Her slim shoulders began shaking.

Alarmed, Gareth pulled back, trying to get her to look up at him, silently cursing himself for pushing a young lady of her innocent breeding too far. When she refused to look up, he reached down and tipped up her chin. “Faith, I’m so sor—,” he began, then stopped abruptly.

Faith’s eyes were shining, her face was flushed, and her shoulders were still shaking…but with laughter, not with tears.

“What do you find so funny?” His tone was slightly indignant, but his lips twitched, betraying his attempt to suppress the urge to laugh along with her.

Faith stopped laughing and bit her lip, though her eyes still danced with gentle humor. “I was just thinking,” she responded a bit shyly, “that if your intention was to punish me with that kiss, I only got half of what I deserved.” Gareth caught his breath as the merriment faded from her face and she took a step forward to look up at him, her eyes glowing with unabashed tenderness. “You see, my lord,” she explained in an aching voice, “I actually slapped you
twice.
”

His heart slammed into his ribs as he looked down at her angelic face. He found himself torn between shouting with laughter and kissing her again. It was really not a difficult decision. He gathered her into his arms for a kiss intended to right all the wrongs between them, a kiss that would allow them to begin anew…a kiss that never happened.

Over Faith’s shoulder Gareth saw his sister-in-law, frozen in shock, standing on the path that led from the maze. Beside her stood Evelyn Hedgepath, his former lover, unquestionably the most vicious gossip in London. And the look of outraged shock on her face was quickly changing to one of malicious glee.