Nearly a Lady (18 page)

Was that all? But what if she wanted it to happen again? What if she wanted more?

She might have asked him that if Lilly’s voice hadn’t chosen that moment to sound in her head.

Propositioning any man, for any reason, is nothing short of unforgivably forward and therefore
immensely
stupid.

It seemed unlikely that propositioning a man after kissing him was
immensely
stupid, but since Winnefred remained unclear on the specifics of acceptable behavior for a lady, she decided to keep her question to herself. There would be time enough for her to explore her attraction to Gideon. An isolated place like Murdoch House ought to provide plenty of opportunity for a gentleman and lady to find a few moments alone.

“I should hate for things to be uneasy between us because of this,” she told him, and then, to make sure they weren’t, she stepped over to pick up Samson’s lead and hand it to Gideon with a smile. “I should also hate a lecture from Lilly about dawdling. Take me home.”

I
n retrospect, Winnefred realized she should have known that what an isolated farm
ought
to provide and what it
will
provide are two entirely different animals. Murdoch House ought to have yielded a fine crop of carrots last year, and it ought to have given her another opportunity to kiss Gideon in the days since their trip to the prison. Neither of those expectations had been met.

Gideon attended one meal a day as promised, but immediately disappeared after, going to his room or into Enscrum. During the few hours of the day he did spend in her company, he acted as though nothing unusual had passed between them. He certainly gave no indication he desired for something unusual to pass between them again.

Once or twice, she had considered knocking on the door to his chambers with some excuse or other, but she’d not been able to gather up the nerve. It was one thing to kiss a man while standing in a moonlit field. It was something else altogether to imagine herself capable of re-creating that moment . . . without the fields and moonlight.

It occurred to her that he might be avoiding her on purpose, but she couldn’t think of a single reason he should.

He’d kissed her, for pity’s sake. That had to be an indication of
some
liking.

Didn’t it? Lilly still had not expanded her knowledge of men, and Winnefred very much wished her own understanding of what went on between males and females extended beyond what she had gleaned from breeding Giddy. She was at a complete loss when it came to matters of the heart, even more so when it came to the courting rituals of gentlemen and ladies. Lilly
had
provided a few more do-not-evers in the past week, but there had to be more to it than that—subtle rules and signals she could only guess at.

She wondered if she’d given him an unintentional signal of disinterest, and she worried she might have missed one from him.

Just the idea of Gideon turning her away made her feel ill. She was no stranger to rejection, to the awful, crushing pain of it. The memory of that pain was enough for her to briefly contemplate putting her pursuit of Gideon aside. She might have done just that, were it not for three reasons. First, he
had
kissed her, which she was willing to take on faith indicated some interest on his part. Second, she had a difficult time backing down from a challenge.

Finally, and perhaps most important, she wanted him.

And if there was one thing she knew very, very well, it was how to fight for what she wanted.

Winnefred found this skill to be useful under a variety of circumstances. Including the morning Lilly stepped into the front parlor to announce they would be accepting an invitation to dinner at the Howards.

“This is absolutely ridiculous.” Winnefred plucked the invitation out of Lilly’s hand. “You loathe the Howards.”

“That is patently untrue,” Lilly countered. “I’m rather fond of the vicar. I just loathe his wife.”

“Because Clarisse is a pretentious ninny and a right bi—”

“It is Mrs. Howard, Freddie.”

“Certainly
now
, it’s Mrs. Howard. You never bothered to call her so before.”

“She wasn’t of any use to us before.”

Though she appreciated the honesty of that statement, it did little to sway Winnefred’s opinion of Mrs. Howard. “I sincerely doubt she’s been of use to anyone a single moment of her life.”

“I suspect her children would disagree.” Lilly snatched the invitation back. “We will be attending the dinner. You need the practice.”

“I need to practice pretending to enjoy the company of someone I cannot countenance and who does not like me, all because that someone may be of use to me?”

“Yes.
Exactly
,” Lilly exclaimed as if Winnefred had just successfully completed a particularly difficult lesson. “Oh, you are getting a grasp of things. Now, I think you should wear the green gown. The color is not so flattering as the peach, but the cut—”

“Wait. I’ve not agreed to go as of yet.”

“You are going.”

She had no doubt that was true, and she had to admit that Lilly’s reasons for attending the dinner party were sound, but she had no intention of saying as much aloud . . . yet. “I will go, but I want something in return.”

“And what might that be?” Lilly asked warily.

“A respite. I want a day, a full day, without lessons, without fancy dinners, without anything but you and I, and Gideon, if he can be persuaded to join us, simply having fun. We could go to town, or have a picnic and play games on the lawn, or . . . do anything really. Anything but speak of London or practice for London or plan for London or—”

“I gave you the afternoon to go to the prison just days ago.”

“That wasn’t a respite, that was a chore, and you weren’t there. I want a day for both of us—”

“A full day is too long,” Lilly cut in. “We can take a morning.”

“A full day,” she returned, folding her arms over her chest, “or I’ll not go.”

Lilly pressed her lips together, breathed loudly through her nose, and tapped her foot. All very positive signs.

“If I agree to this,” she finally said, “you will attend the Howards’ dinner, without complaint, and put every effort into being a pleasant and well-behaved guest?”

“It’s not as if I’d planned to have a go at it with one of the footmen in the parlor.”

“I want your word, Winnefred.”

“Yes, all right,” she groaned. “I promise to do my very best to behave as a proper lady.”

Lilly switched tapping her foot for tapping her finger against the back of the invitation—an even more encouraging sign. “Very well, we have an agreement.”

“Excellent.” She unfolded her arms. “When is the dinner party?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight? And we’ve only just received the invitation?”

“No, it arrived two days ago. I just put off telling you.”

Because she wasn’t particularly surprised by that, Winnefred merely shrugged and said, “Still rather late.” And a result, no doubt, of Mrs. Howard trying to decide if it was worth having two undesirables in her home for the sake of one brother to a marquess. “She probably hopes Gideon will go without us.”

“There, you see?” Lilly shook the invitation at her. “A chance to thwart and disappoint Mrs. Howard. You should be thrilled.”

Winnefred decided the most appropriate response was a noncommittal “hmm,” followed by a prompt exit from the room.

In truth, she wasn’t quite as resistant to the idea of Mrs. Howard’s dinner party as she would lead Lilly to believe. It was a practical way to test her new manners. If she made a misstep at the party, it would be of little consequence, because if Mrs. Howard had any sort of influence in the ton, there would be no point in Winnefred preparing for a trip to London. Her name would already be ruined.

But feigning opposition allowed her to demand the day of respite, and she certainly hadn’t exaggerated how little she was looking forward to an evening spent with the Howards.

She could still recall with perfect clarity the day Mrs. Howard had made her first, and only, visit to Murdoch House. She’d arrived full of probing questions, pompous opinions, and insufferable arrogance. Even at the age of thirteen, Winnefred could see how miserable and awkward the woman had made Lilly feel. The third comment on the deplorable lack of comfortable places in the house on which to sit had been the last straw for Winnefred. The moment the topic of Sunday service was broached, she had leapt at the chance to shock Mrs. Howard into an early departure. She regretted the action later, but not as strongly as she regretted ever having met Mrs. Howard.

Hours later, as the carriage rolled to a stop in front of the Howards’ large Tudor home, Winnefred wondered how much she was going to regret agreeing to attend the dinner party.

Mrs. Howard could be seen standing on the other side of the open front door. She was wearing a dark orange gown that clashed painfully with her pale yellow hair and some sort of head wrap with what looked to be a very large peacock feather sticking straight out of the top.

“I hate peacocks,” Winnefred muttered.

Across from her, Gideon lifted a dark brow. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

She pasted on a serene expression as she climbed from the carriage and up the front steps. Introductions, bows, and curtsies were exchanged, the latter of which Winnefred thought fairly well executed on her part. As expected, Mrs. Howard made a small fuss over Gideon, exhibited a reasonable politeness to Lilly, and strained her features into something roughly approximating a smile, but more closely resembling a snarl, when addressing Winnefred.

Despite the fact she had very rarely encountered Mrs. Howard over the years, Winnefred was quite certain that every time she saw the woman, her eyes had grown a little beadier in her head. Bird eyes, she thought and glanced at the peacock feather. How very fitting.

“Miss Blythe,” Mrs. Howard said stiffly. “How fortunate you could join us.”

“I am delighted to be here,” Winnefred recited, just as she had, at Lilly’s insistence, a dozen times on the carriage ride over.

There was a full five seconds of awkward silence following this exchange and likely would have been a full five more had she not been saved from further interaction by the arrival of new guests.

Lilly whispered into her ear as they moved from the front hall into the parlor. “Well done, Freddie.”

Winnefred barely heard her, and she scarcely noticed the furnishings in the front hall and parlor. Her attention was focused on the guests. There were a dozen of them, most of whom she recognized as Mrs. Howard’s dearest friends, along with two women she’d never seen before.

Not surprisingly, the two strangers were the only guests who did not, upon being introduced, eye her up and down like a yard of muslin they had no intention of buying.

She curtsied until her knees felt wobbly. And she recited the words “it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance” until her tongue felt wooden, and then she said a silent prayer of thanks when dinner was announced before anyone could draw her into an actual conversation.

Winnefred followed the other guests into the dining hall, very much hoping to be seated next to Lilly or Gideon or, if she were very fortunate, between them both. But she was placed in the middle of the table between an elderly gentleman with pungent breath and a name she could not recall and Mrs. Howard’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Cress—a stout, gray-haired woman who used a walking cane and wore what even Winnefred knew was an unfashionable amount of lace about the neck.

Fortunately, the gentleman seemed disinclined to speak, and Mrs. Cress had been one of the guests who had greeted her with a warm and open smile. Winnefred thought perhaps she could attempt a civil conversation with Mrs. Cress . . . or simply keep her mouth closed for the duration of the meal.

Mrs. Howard had other ideas. “Miss Blythe. Miss Ilestone informs me you are to go to London. Such a reversal of fortune you have experienced, my dear. However did it come about?”

A dozen sets of eyes turned to her.

“I . . .” Winnefred swallowed and looked from Lilly to Gideon. How was she to answer such a question without embarrassing Gideon’s family, or refuse to answer without embarrassing Mrs. Howard and, more important, herself?

Fortunately, Gideon appeared unperturbed by the question. “It is a long and complicated business,” he informed Mrs. Howard. “We’ll not bore you with the details.”

“But you must tell us how you came to be acquainted with our dear Miss Blythe,” Mrs. Howard insisted. “We’d no idea she had friends in London.”

“Neither did she. Our friendship is a new one.”

“Oh, do tell.”

Gideon looked relaxed at present, but Winnefred clearly remembered his first day at Murdoch House and his obvious distaste for relating his stepmother’s crimes.