Flirting with Ruin (5 page)

‘What will you do, now that you have left the army?’ she asked.

‘I have no idea.’

‘Do you wish to settle down?’

‘That’s one of the things I’m certain I don’t want to do. It’s not for lack of funds, mind. I’ve not enough to buy an estate like Castonbury, but I dare say I could afford something along the lines of that Dower House of theirs if I wanted to. I don’t though. I’ve seen a fair bit more of the world than most, but it’s a big world, and life is short.’

Rosalind sighed enviously. ‘I would love to travel.’

‘Why don’t you? You’ve the money, you said.’

‘It is different for a woman, Fraser, don’t tease me. It would be dangerous, for a start. And yes, before you ask, I do like the idea of danger, but not the sort that would actually cause me physical harm.’

‘What sort do you mean?’

Rosalind chewed on her lip, a frown drawing her brows together. ‘I suppose I mean the thrill of the unknown. I want to wake up each day and wonder what it will bring. I want the chance to pit my wits against others. I want — oh, I know it sounds silly, but I want my life to be exciting. Unpredictable. I want to take chances.’

‘You took a chance on me today. Do you regret it?’

She laughed, a full-throated laugh that startled her, for it had a sultry quality about it she hadn’t known she possessed. ‘Not only do I not regret it, Major Lennox, but I am quite willing to take another chance on you, right now.’

‘And if, Lady Rosalind, I am not willing?’

He was looking at her as if he was quite prepared to devour her, and it was really quite a heady experience. ‘I think,’ Rosalind said, throwing off his coat and pushing herself upright, stretching her arms above her head, arching her back and enjoying the effect of all this on Fraser, ‘that I can persuade you.’

‘You are very confident of your abilities, my lady.’ He held the weight of her breasts in his hands, running his thumbs over her nipples in the most tantalising of caresses.

She shifted down his body, pushing his legs apart so that she could kneel between them just as he had done to her. Her vicariously debauched life was proving useful after all, for she knew exactly what she was going to do. ‘Major Lennox,’ she said, wrapping her hand around his thickening shaft, ‘I have cause to be.’

She flicked her thumb over the sensitive tip of him. He bucked under her. She bent over him, her hair trailing over his thighs.

‘Rosalind.’ His voice was quite hoarse. She looked up, still holding him, and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘You have every cause to be,’ Fraser said hoarsely.

She laughed, her newly discovered throaty laugh. And then she set about proving, with mouth and lips and tongue, that he was quite right.

Chapter Five

At Rosalind’s insistence, Fraser dropped her at the gates to Castonbury Park before returning himself to the Rothermere Arms in the village. They did not discuss what happened next, but nor did Fraser make any plans to leave.

Walking slowly up the sweep of the drive to the big house, Rosalind’s mind was curiously blank, floating like her body in the aftermath of her first truly satisfying experience of lovemaking. She did not want to think, nor to analyse nor to discuss what had happened. Kate was too distracted to notice that she was being palmed off with a half truth when Rosalind said that she had spent the afternoon outdoors enjoying the countryside, but by the next morning over breakfast, when the two friends were again alone, it was a different matter.

‘What are you smiling at?’ Kate asked.

‘Was I?’

‘You were.’ Kate’s shrewd gaze met Rosalind’s across the breakfast table. ‘You look as if something particularly pleasant has happened to you. What were you up to yesterday?’

‘I told you, I was enjoying the fresh air.’

‘Alone?’

Rosalind wished her friend were not so sharp. She tried not to blush, but she could feel the telltale heat spreading across her cheeks.

‘You were with
him,
weren’t you?’ Kate said.

‘You knew I was, for you saw us leaving,’ Rosalind replied. She was flustered and realised too late that Kate had not actually made the connection between Major Lennox and her harvest moon mystery man. But Kate had certainly made the link now, for she dropped her coffee cup with a clatter into the delicate china saucer.

‘It was Major Lennox? Rosalind! My God.’ Kate burst into a peel of laughter. ‘Did you know? Before he walked into the drawing room yesterday, I mean?’

‘No. It was a—a shock.’

‘I’ll wager it was. I can’t believe I didn’t notice.’

‘You naturally had other things on your mind.’

‘Yes. He told us a very consoling story, didn’t he? Oh, don’t look like that. Of course I knew it was a story, but I confess, Rosalind, I’m glad he did. Even though I knew that at the very least he had glossed over some of the facts, it helped. In time I may even come to believe it was the truth. Phaedra already does. And Smithers, my father’s valet, says that His Grace slept with the medal under his pillow.’

‘Fraser did not mean to deceive you, Kate.’

‘Oh, goodness, I know that. He seems like a very nice man. Is he?’

She had known him less than two days, but Rosalind had no hesitation in answering. ‘He is,’ she said with conviction, ‘very nice.’

‘So what happens now?’

‘I think I must return to London. I have intruded on your family’s grief long enough.’

‘You plan a fresh start?’

‘Whatever that means. A change, certainly.’

Kate stared down into her empty cup, running her index finger round the rim. ‘There will be a fresh start here at Castonbury Park of sorts, soon enough. Father is not fit to look after the estate, and though he has a sound enough manager, William Everett does not own the land. Jamie is—is dead and Giles is now the heir to the dukedom, whether he likes it or not. He must come back from London and take up the reins before his heritage falls to rack and ruin.’

‘I did see Giles, a few weeks ago in London. If you’ll pardon my speaking bluntly, Kate, it is he who has gone to rack and ruin. If you can persuade him to come here…’

‘It is not a question of persuasion, but one of duty. And it is our father who must see to that,’ Kate said brusquely. ‘You have not answered my question, Rosalind. Does Major Lennox feature in your future plans?’

‘You are as tenacious as a terrier.’

‘Yes, I am.’

Rosalind laughed. ‘The truth? I would like him to, but I have no idea what to do about it. Do you have any advice?’

‘The truth?’ Kate pushed back her chair and got to her feet. ‘Don’t be like me, Rosalind. Circumstances, combined with my own very ill judgement, have tied me to a life here doing my family’s bidding. You have the means to escape and no ties to keep you. You can have a life of adventure, excitement, passion, if you wish it, or you can lock yourself away from the world and enjoy a life of solitude. Whatever you do, do it on your own terms. That is true freedom. Now, I must go and see how my aunt. She has agreed that we can put off some of our blacks for greys, and that means we must stop off at Ripley and Hall, the cloth merchants in the village, before visiting the seamstress in Buxton.’ Kate surprised her by giving her a quick hug. ‘Today is a fresh start for all of us, it seems.’

* * *

Kate had given her much food for thought, but no concrete advice. Telling herself that it was foolish beyond measure to consider any sort of future based on such a very brief—if also exceedingly intimate—acquaintance, Rosalind took herself off to the village in the hopes of another chance encounter with Fraser. Though when she bumped into him coming out of the Rothermere Arms, she forgot all about feigning surprise and simply smiled up at him like a besotted puppy. ‘You haven’t gone,’ she said inanely.

‘Did you think I would, without saying goodbye?’

‘No. Yes. No. I don’t really know anything about you.’

‘You should know enough to be sure that I wouldn’t just walk away without a word, Rosalind.’

He was serious, and he was also right. ‘I did. I do.’

‘Walk with me, wont you?’ He took her hand and tucked it into his arm. ‘Show me some of the parklands at the big house. Tell me how the family do. Did my visit help?’

Upon this matter, she was able to reassure him. They walked and talked of everything and nothing, noticing little of Castonbury Park’s rusticated landscaping, nor its extensive formal gardens, nor any of the carefully constructed aspects that the architect Robert Adam had so thoughtfully taken into account when positioning the house. Only when they reached the fishing pavilion at the top of the biggest of the lakes did they take stock of their surroundings, and only then because the pavilion could not but remind them of yesterday.

The slow burn of awareness that they had both been carefully ignoring flickered into vibrant life between them as they stood with their backs to the pavilion, staring out over the water at the island. ‘Rosalind, you know that for me, yesterday was not just a—a—it was not like anything I have experienced before,’ Fraser said.

‘It was the same for me.’

‘Thank God.’ He put his arms tight around her and kissed her, swiftly but hard, so that she was in no doubt that she had been kissed. ‘I haven’t slept. I wasn’t able to sleep.’ Fraser leaned back against the wall of the building, staring up at the pale blue of the sky. ‘All night, I kept telling myself that it was just my imagination, telling myself that it was folly, to even consider—but I have considered. I can’t help but consider it.’

‘What?’

‘Us. The future. Whatever it is. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t really care too much, as long as you’re in it.’ He pulled her back into his arms, his eyes alight with excitement. ‘Take a chance, Rosalind. I can’t tell you what you’d be taking a chance on. Life. Adventure. Us. Come away with me.’

Her heart was thudding wildly. Recklessness, that’s what it was that had her in its clutch. And passion too. Everything seemed to be intensified as she stood there in his arms. The light. The grain of the wood from which the fishing pavilion was constructed. The smell of the damp grass they were standing on. The lap of the water on the lake. Her skin felt stretched, yearning for his skin. And her mouth for his. ‘Come away where?’ she asked, realising as she did so that the question of whether she would or not was already answered.

‘Anywhere.’

‘France? Corsica? Spain?’

‘Greece. Egypt. Turkey, if you like.’

‘America,’ Rosalind said, laughing now.

‘Arabia,’ Fraser countered, pulling her tighter against him.

‘Australia,’ Rosalind said, rubbing her cheek against his, turning her head to nuzzle a soft kiss on the jagged outline of his scar.

‘New Zealand,’ Fraser replied, running his hand down her side, brushing her breast, her waist, settling on her hip.

‘The North Pole,’ Rosalind said, her lips just touching his.

‘The North Pole,’ Fraser agreed. ‘We will go to the North Pole, and the South Pole too.’ And then his lips fastened on hers.

She kissed him back, aware that her kiss was a promise, deepening it so he would know it was so. Her breathing was ragged when they stopped.

‘You mean it?’ Fraser asked. ‘Just like that? You’ll take a chance?’

Rosalind laughed. The same throaty, sensual laugh she had discovered not twenty-four hours ago, though it had grown in confidence. ‘Just like that,’ she said. ‘I’ll take a chance.’

They made love in the little bathhouse that was formed underneath the fishing pavilion. Though they were wild for each other, they made love slowly, knowing that this was the first of however long their lifetime together would be. The took their time kissing, touching, as they divested themselves of their clothing. Their mouths lingered in creases and curves, watching each other, smiling at each other, tangled up in each other, and then finally joined, inside each other, perched precariously on the edge of the sunken bath, slowly pulsing, pushing, rousing each other into a climax that was all the more fierce for having been so long delayed.

They did not speak their feelings. In time, perhaps they would. Perhaps they never would. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that there would be time.

‘You will write and let me know where you are?’ Kate said anxiously.

‘And that I am safe, you mean?’ Rosalind said.

‘That you are happy is what I mean.’

‘I am happy now,’ Rosalind said, moving closer to Fraser in the gloom of the great hall. ‘Who knows what the future will bring.’

‘Wherever you are, it will be more exciting than being at Castonbury,’ Kate said. ‘Nothing ever happens here.’

‘I met Fraser here.’ Rosalind stepped forward to embrace her friend. ‘It’s true,’ she whispered, ‘what they say about passion. It can happen. It has happened to me, and I can give you several years. Don’t give up hope.’

Kate’s smile was sceptical. ‘Take care of her,’ she said to Fraser, taking him by surprise and shaking his hand firmly. ‘Now, go, the pair of you, or I shall cry and I have shed enough tears for a lifetime. I won’t wave you off. I’ve done enough of that too.’

A brief salute and she turned her back, running lightly up the stairs, leaving Lumsden to see to their departure. The post chaise and four that Fraser had hired was waiting on the carriageway, their baggage already strapped to it. As she settled into the squabs beside Fraser, and the horses headed at a walk down the drive, Rosalind leaned out the window to look back at Castonbury Park. ‘You know, there is a whole world here, just on this estate,’ she said. ‘Gardeners, servants, farmers, villagers, shopkeepers, even clergy, as well as that extended family living in the big house. I wonder, if we came back a year hence, what differences there would be?’

Fraser pulled her back into the carriage. ‘No doubt there will be a hundred different stories to tell, but right now I’m only interested in one. Ours.’ He leaned forwards and produced a bottle of champagne with two crystal glasses, which he gave Kate to hold while he loosened the cork. It popped just as the carriage turned out of the gates. The ruts in the road made the champagne slop about the glasses as they clinked together.

‘To our story,’ Fraser said, ‘whatever it may be.’

‘To us,’ Rosalind replied, sipping the warm bubbles. ‘And to Castonbury,’ she added, ‘a place of beginnings.’

Fraser leaned over to kiss her, and then across her to pull down the window blind.

‘What are you doing?’

He raised his glass and drained it in one gulp. ‘Another first, my love,’ he said, pulling down the other blind. ‘At least, for me it is.’

‘You can’t mean—in the carriage?’

‘Ah, so it is a first for you too. Excellent. And I do mean it.’ He was already shrugging himself out of his coat. ‘Now,’ he said, gazing at her with a devilish look in his eye, ‘I think we should start the way we mean to go on. You choose. Which way would you like me?’

Rosalind swallowed her champagne and threw the glass onto the opposite seat. ‘I think I shall learn to like you any way,’ she said, ‘and every.’

* * * * *