Like No Other Lover (14 page)

She added this last part almost gently. And noticeably didn’t look at Cynthia when she said it.

Cynthia glanced quickly at Violet, who was still looking innocently straight ahead. She’d never confided the entire desperation of her circumstances to her. Had Violet sensed them?

Her pride gave a great, unpleasant throb.

What must it be like to be a Redmond, with choice abounding? With safety and certainty a constant? With brothers to look after and tease you? Cynthia squelched an unworthy rush of envy, because she knew in truth Violet was attempting to be kind.

“No. Not entirely homely,” she agreed.

They smiled together.

“Cynthia, where will you go when you leave the house party?” Violet sounded carefully disinterested, which only further abraded Cynthia’s pride.

“Oh, I shall be a companion to a nasty old woman called Mrs. Mundi-Dickson in Northumberland,” she said lightly.

Violet went utterly silent. “It will never come to that.” She was so aghast her voice was a hush.

Cynthia produced a laugh. “I was jesting, Violet! Can you
imagine
?”

“Not for even a second.” Violet shuddered.

Ahead of them, the two cynical married ladies had sandwiched Lady Georgina, and all were talking pleasantly of mutual acquaintances in Sussex. As long as they don’t start talking about the
ton
, Cynthia thought.

Cynthia and Violet were quiet together for a moment.

“I wonder if Miles is experiencing a return of his fever,” Violet said to her, sounding a trifle worried. “They do come back now and again, you know—the tropical ones. So I’ve heard. It’s just that he’s been so odd lately. I hope he hasn’t been rude to you yet again. I saw his face when he spoke to you earlier today. He can be very strict, you know. Rank is very important to him,” Violet added, obliviously cruel. “It is to every Redmond. And ever since…” She hesitated, as though the word was difficult to pronounce still. “…Lyon left, I know Papa relies on Miles to do just the right thing. Miles has
always
done the right thing.”

Had Miles been
rude
? Cynthia wasn’t certain it was the word she’d choose.

“Perhaps he’s just preoccupied with thinking about his next expedition,” she offered.

“Oh!” Violet lowered her voice. “You could be correct. And possibly his nuptials too. That could make any man jumpy, I suppose,” she said blithely.

“Naturally.” Cynthia matched Violet’s tone. But suddenly she felt as though she’d swallowed a brick.

She glanced at Lady Georgina. Would Miles willingly spend the rest of his life with that colorless girl?

For heaven’s sake. Be practical.
Cynthia took in a deep breath. Kitten or no, she must be
practical
.

“I think I should apologize to Mr. Goodkind,” she told the ladies, and Violet gave her a knowing and encouraging glance.

Cynthia made her way back over the green toward where Goodkind was last seen, putting her feet down lightly in an attempt to spare her boots.

The rest of the shooting party was now long gone from view. In the distance she heard the throaty boom of a musket, saw smoke drifting upward, thought of a grouse plummeting to the earth, and shook off the thought. She found grouse delicious enough, when it came to that.

She found Mr. Goodkind hatless and admiring a bank of heavy-headed damask roses. Their scent was powerful. Those roses would need to be topped soon, she thought. Only a week or so left before they were done for. Just like me, she thought with some grim amusement.

When she was closer, she saw why he was hatless: he was holding his hat in one hand, and it featured a large dent.

He turned. He was visibly surprised to see her, but visibly pleased, too. “Why, Miss Brightly!” The dark scrap of hair on his head lifted and fell in a mischievous breeze like a trapdoor.

“I’ve come to apologize for the mishap, Mr. Goodkind. I do hope you’re uninjured.”

“Quite sound. Quite sound. Thank you for inquiring, Miss Brightly. But why do
you
need to apologize?”

“I fear I am entirely responsible. You see, I had never before shot a fowling piece quite like that one, and I missed.” She’d decided it wise to omit the bit about the dog and the nose and precisely
what
had struck him in the hat.

“Well, I’m quite all right, and given that no harm was done, doubtless a valuable lesson was learned. Women should never be handed firearms. I don’t know what Redmond was thinking. I’ll have a word with his father.”

It struck her as ridiculous that anyone would have a word about a man like Miles Redmond with his father. And she’d heard of women in America being armed with muskets, but thought it unwise to begin a debate on that particular subject.

“You are very likely correct, sir,” she said diplomatically instead.

He nodded, satisfied. “Do you happen to know what struck off my hat? Looks like a bit of statue.” He held up a white fragment.

You were struck in the hat by a great marble penis
.

“Yes, part of the statue of David, I believe. Mr. Redmond assures me, however, that it wasn’t valuable. The statue. It was a replica of some sort.”

“Ah, well. The damage to the statue will linger as a reminder not to hand firearms to women.”

You’ve already made your point, Cynthia thought. She began to suspect Violet was quite correct about Goodkind. Whereas Argosy was self-satisfied and Milthorpe was by turns shy and blustery, one’s first opinion of Mr. Goodkind was…
pompous
. A nice juicy word, she thought, all those bouncy
p
’s in it, like the cushion in that extravagantly gilded coronation carriage.

Then again, she supposed everyone would come home from the war differently. Mr. Chase Eversea, of the delightfully controversial Pennyroyal Green clan, had come home with a limp, Violet had told her, and seemed to be drinking a good deal more than he ought. One ever found him, she’d once said, darkly satisfied, in the opposite corner of the Pig & Thistle. Sometimes completely alone. Here was another Eversea on his way to dissolution, she seemed to think. And wasn’t Chase an ironic name for a man who couldn’t run?

Violet could be cutting on the subject of the Everseas.

And then Cynthia recalled that the famous poet known as the Libertine, the Earl of Rawden, had returned from the war to write poetry.

She decided—for Goodkind’s sake and her own—to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“You were very absorbed in a book when we were shooting, Mr. Goodkind.”

“Do
you
read, Miss Brightly?” Mr. Goodkind seemed a tad condescending and resigned, as though he fully expected her to ask him what on earth “reading” might be.

“Oh, at every opportunity, sir.” Which was
partially
true. The gaiety of the past few years had left very little time for reading.

Mr. Goodkind produced the little dark book from his coat. It looked like a well-thumbed prayer book. Piety required constant maintenance, apparently.

“I ask, you see, because I am publishing—at my own expense, unless I obtain funds, though I do have the cooperation of the very reputable London printer Withnail & Son—a book of essays on proper behavior for young men and women. I’ve been at work on it for the past year or so. I do feel the subject is timelier than ever. I have been recently in London among society, and it is…iniquity.” He took his time over the word’s syllables, relishing it. “Sheer
iniquity
among the young there. The close dancing, the horse racing, the gaming.”

She stared at him cautiously.

His flap of hair waved gaily at her.

Any man can be charming, she told herself stoutly. One need only
look
.

“Perhaps it is simply the nature of youth, sir,” she suggested carefully. “One can more effectively give advice on whether or not to drive a fast carriage or to gamble and the like if one has suffered the effects of such behavior, and repented.”

He looked with sudden delight at her: perhaps the word “repent” had excited him.

“You pose an interesting theory, my dear. Would you care to continue?”

She had the sense he wished to take notes for his book.

And she suddenly thought of Miles Redmond, and the spider rebuilding its broken web to be stronger than before. She knew a perfect analogy.

“Well, do they not say that when a…tree is cut, it is stronger than ever where the branches scar over? If you do yourself an injury through”—
having a wonderful time
—“an inordinate amount of frivolity and recklessness, and you truly do regret it and make a choice to repent, does this not mean your soul is stronger than it was before? Does it not take more moral strength to overcome a wicked nature and transform it into a good one than it does to
maintain
one already good?”

She thought of Lady Georgina. That girl would need to expend no effort at
all
to be good, she thought, half resentfully.

Mr. Goodkind stopped walking abruptly. He turned to her. He seemed speechless. He was, in fact, looking at her as though she was a revelation.

And slowly his face lit with epiphany.

“What I am saying, sir is…perhaps there is great merit in being just a little wicked once in a while, Mr. Goodkind.”

His head went back in astonishment. He continued to stare at her. His hair swayed to and fro now; the breeze had changed direction.

And then Mr. Goodkind smiled very slowly, and the smile became a laugh, a sort of “Oh
ho
!” sound. A reluctant, if genuine, sound.

And many, many degrees less pompous than previously.

She smiled up at him. His eyes twinkled back at her. His eyes were pale blue, with deep lines etched into the corners, which made his smile appealing.

She clasped her hands piously behind her back. Which, she was fully aware, had the effect of lifting her bosom just…so. Just a little movement, just enough to catch the eye of a red-blooded man. It was a test.

Ah. He was a red-blooded man.

His blue gaze flickered back up from her bosom to her face. He didn’t blush or even look disconcerted. He looked, in fact, downright cheerful, which reminded her that he’d been a soldier, had known blood and grit and doubtless a camp follower or two.

“May I pay you a compliment, Miss Brightly?”

It was the first time anyone had ever requested
permission
to do such a thing. She was distantly amused. But far be it for her to deny a man an opportunity to compliment her.

“I would be honored to receive a compliment from you, Mr. Goodkind.” She said this somberly. Her eyes were glinting.

“You could tempt a pious man into being wicked.”

Oh!
Very
good compliment indeed.

“I shouldn’t fear the temptation, Mr. Goodkind. As we’ve established, a little wickedness is good for the soul.”

And at this he laughed genuinely, a hearty sound, and she laughed, too.

Again, she considered the fact that nearly any man could become charming given the right encouragement.

She wasn’t certain any of this constituted progress toward matrimony. And because she was practical, the first thing she did was locate a footman to ask about her mail.

“I’m sorry, Miss Brightly,” she was told. “If a letter comes for you, you can be certain I will bring it up to your rooms straight away.”

So she went downstairs and spent a dutiful hour in the company of ladies sewing very sedately, but contributed little to the conversation. And then she couldn’t bear it, retiring to her room, because she wanted to play with her cat, and she wanted to think, perhaps have a rare restorative wallow in self-pity.

She took off her shoes, sat on her bed and held Spider in her lap, demanding comfort.

Spider didn’t wish to cooperate. He squirmed out of her hands like a silky little bar of soap and attacked her toes. Cynthia gave it her best effort, but she could not be morose when she needed to defend her toes.

By dinnertime she’d recovered her spirits and was ready to renew her campaign.