Newport Summer (9 page)

“I can be,” Gannon said in a cryptic tone that caused
Audrey to look at him strangely. His gaze was intent on
her, and she looked away quickly. He was too handsome for his own good, and they’d both do better to remember that this was a game, only a game.

“Well, don’t be too masterful. It’s been a short week
since our formal acquaintance, and Mother is already
convinced you’ll propose. We have to keep her dangling
for another six weeks without committing ourselves to
anything significant,” Audrey cautioned.

Gannon smiled. “We’ll manage. Your father and
friends have offered me a chance to invest with them in
a short line railroad that seems promising.”

“The Hudson River Line?” Audrey asked sharply, surprised that her father would have brought that particular
issue up with someone he’d just met. He’d discussed it a
few times over dinner.

“Yes, I believe that was it. Do you know it?”

“Do you know what they mean to do with the railroad?” Audrey queried, wondering how much her father
had disclosed to Gannon. She didn’t want to be between
Gannon and her father. When it came to business, Wilson St. Clair was ruthless. But Audrey didn’t want to see
Gannon used as a pawn. She had not anticipated this
type of development when she proposed her plan.

Gannon furrowed his brow. “This is all somewhat new
to me, but I believe we’re to acquire the railroad and then
sell it to a larger line for enormous profit so that the
larger line can expand. Yes, that’s right,” he said, thinking through it all out loud. “We’re buying low and selling
high.”

Audrey smiled. “You’re doing admirably. That’s precisely what he and his cronies intend to do. Did you
never invest in England?” Investments and stocks had
been such an ongoing fixture in her life that it seemed
odd that Gannon hadn’t thought to seek out investment
as an avenue to secure his finances earlier.

“I’ve invested before” Gannon leaned his elbows on
the stone fence and looked out over the Atlantic, calm
and blue under the summer sky. “But not like this. I’ve
invested in cargoes and boats, of course. I’ve invested
in canal projects. But the intent was never to invest to
sell; it was more of investing to acquire. I’d receive a
profit from the cargo when it returned to port and was
sold. What your father proposes with the railroad is a
bit different. There’s no end product”

“At the end there’s money. Quite a lot of it,” Audrey
corrected. “He must like you to offer you a place with
them, and he must trust you as well. The success of the
venture depends exclusively on two things: money and
secrecy” Audrey gripped the stone fence, her anxiety growing. She knew enough about the railroad’s situation
to know that the Hudson River Line was nearly bankrupt and that shares in the railroad would shortly hit an
all-time low. When that low came, her father’s group
would swoop in and buy up the majority of the stock so
that he and his group could control the railroad. If others
heard of the plan, they would definitely move to block
it. Timing was everything.

Audrey gave Gannon a hard look. “You will keep his
secret, won’t you?” Now that the plan had become real,
the risk was far larger than she’d realized. She was risking more than money.

Gannon reached for her hand where it lay on the rough
stone and squeezed it. “I will keep his trust and yours. A
gentleman’s word is not to be doubted”

The sincerity of his gesture moved her unexpectedly.
Worse, it threatened to undo her carefully steeled feelings. She’d been prepared to like Gannon Maddox since
that first day on the beach but nothing more. Now, the
more she saw of the diverse faces he showed the world,
the more difficult it was becoming to keep her emotions
detached.

“You’re a surprising man, Gannon Maddox. When
you’re with my parents and out in society, you’re sleek,
urbane, confident, commanding. There’s a certain aura
of unassailability about you that says, `Watch me, but
don’t come too close.”’ Audrey turned sideways to face
him straight on. “Yet when we’re alone like we were on
the beach, like we are now, you’re completely .. ” She struggled for the word, lifting a hand to push back her
hair from her face where the breeze had loosed it. “Accessible,” she said firmly. “When we’re together, you’re
very accessible.” Audrey gave a short laugh at her conclusion, feeling slightly self-conscious after that. She’d
probably said far too much. She regrouped. “You’re a
very complex man, Gannon. Are all Englishmen this
complicated?”

Gannon shook his head with a laugh, turning his body
sideways to face her directly as well. “I suspect only
earls are, and only then because we have to be. I don’t
think anyone has ever spoken to me about myself so
thoroughly before. It’s quite a novel experience to hear
oneself so entirely dissected. Are all heiresses this plainspoken?”

Audrey felt her breath catch against her will. She
didn’t want to feel this attraction to him that went beyond the liking she was prepared to give him. But in this
moment, all she could think was, I want this forever,
this laughing, talking, bantering with this handsome man
who, for some reason, is accessibleyes, accessible-to
me and me alone. The unbidden thought struck like lightning and was gone as quickly, nothing more than a flash.
Yet, like the lightning of the late-summer storms that often ravaged the coastline, it was potentially dangerous.

“I suspect I am alone in that commodity,” Audrey
joked, trying to regain her sanity when it came to Gannon Maddox. But his next comment unnerved her as
much as his earlier one had.

“And in much else, unless I am sadly mistaken, Audrey St. Clair. You are what we’d call an `original’ in London,”
Gannon said softly, meeting her eyes and raising a hand
to push back a strand of hair that had fallen over her face
again.

The moment, the gesture, were distinctively intimate.
She could not brush off the poignant hush that had fallen
between them, broken only by the far-off roar of the
ocean below them. She swallowed, trying not to tremble
when his hand moved to softly cup her jaw. Everything
seemed to happen in slowed motion. Gannon cocked his
head slightly to the left, giving her a long look. He was
going to kiss her, Audrey realized. Surely he knew he
couldn’t? It would ruin everything. Most of all, it would
ruin her perspective. Audrey said the first thing that came
to mind. “Penny for your thoughts?”

I want to kiss you, and I shouldn’t. Gannon answered
Audrey’s well-timed question silently in his head. Thank
goodness for the intervention. A few seconds more and
he would have acted on his impulse to sweep her into
his arms and kiss her senseless, an impulse he’d been
fighting since he’d walked into the sitting room and
seen her serenely reading in the window seat, sun filtering through the panes and catching her hair so that she
appeared to him as a chocolate-haired angel.

Gannon stepped back, schooling his features into impassivity. A kiss would be anathema to her. Audrey had
been very clear about that. A kiss might very well drive
her away, and he needed her too much for Camberly’s
sake to risk creating a divide between them. Yet he
couldn’t believe she was entirely indifferent, regardless of her plan. Even now, when she was exerting a conscious effort to resist him, her eyes told a different story
as they searched his face with stunned recognition of
what they’d fleetingly seen there. Perhaps later, when
she had the objectivity of distance between then and
now, she’d forget what she’d seen or convince herself
she was mistaken. He hoped so.

“Are the roses nearby?” Gannon asked in a neutral
tone. “I want to be able to give your mother a full report”
He pulled out his pocket watch and made a show of
studying it. “Then I must be going. I’ll want to arrange
for funds for the railroad venture.”

“They’re over here” Audrey gestured to a side path
that led to a tall, white, arched arbor. Roses climbed up
the arbor’s trellised sides and grew along the path in
well-tended bushes. Bees buzzed happily, ignorant of
the pair’s approach.

The roses were lovely, well worth the visit, but Gannon watched Audrey bend toward a rich red bloom and
immediately understood why Violet St. Clair had insisted on Audrey’s showing off the flowers. In her pale
pink afternoon gown, Audrey was the perfect complement to the lush, dark crimson roses. A painter could
ask for no better setting.

Gannon thought of the herb garden at Camberly, with
its mixture of soft scents-lavender and rosemary,
mixed with thyme and basil. His mind’s eye placed Audrey at Camberly, a long basket on her arm while she
gathered herbs and flowers in his gardens. Gannon shook himself. Such thoughts were not helpful. In fact, they
were quite detrimental.

“Thinking of home?” Audrey straightened and steered
them toward the house, remarking on his silence.

“Thinking of your mother,” Gannon responded. “I imagine if you were wearing blue, we’d be looking at the
lilacs or the bluebells against the wall.”

Audrey shrugged. “I won’t apologize for her, and I
won’t say you’re wrong.”

Gannon shot her a sidelong look, struck by a moment’s intuition. “Is that what you want with your freedom? A chance to escape all this?”

“You’re very perceptive, Gannon Maddox,” Audrey
said quietly. “I don’t want to be forty-two and have nothing more to look forward to than arranging my daughter’s wedding. There should be more than that, don’t
you think?” Audrey sighed heavily and shook her head.
“But there isn’t,” she said, answering her own question.
“All around me, there’s nothing but women who waited to
come out, had a year or two of socializing, then married,
established households, and spent their lives trying to
marry off their children to one another in spite of all the
competition to outdo each other.” Audrey sighed heavily.
“There’s a new world out there. It doesn’t have to be that
way. Not for me at least”

There was desperation in her voice, not disgust, Gannon noted. She might have said more, but Wilson St.
Clair appeared from the house and waved to them with a loud “Halloo! Camberly, I hear you’ve come to talk
business.”

“Duty calls,” Gannon said in a low voice to Audrey.
“May I see you tomorrow?”

Audrey nodded. “But it will only be for a few minutes.
We’re going to the Casino to do some shopping in the
morning. You can see me then”

Wilson St. Clair was eager to see him and discuss the
railroad. Gannon found himself swept into St. Clair’s
study while Audrey was left to her own devices.

Within moments, Gannon was ensconced in a deepseated leather chair across from Wilson St. Clair’s
massive desk, an expensive brandy in a heavy, cut-glass
tumbler in his hand. Gannon tried to pay attention to all
the information St. Clair was imparting about stock dividends, but his mind kept returning to his conversation
with Audrey. Now he had an idea why she wanted her
freedom. But what did she think she would do with it?
Had she thought beyond the immediate goal? Did she
recognize how difficult it would be to live with that
freedom? The choices she’d have to make?

Gannon knew. He had a few female acquaintances
in London who owned their own homes and held political salons. They were widows who’d elected not to
marry again. But even with one marriage behind them,
society continued to look askance at them for being
plainspoken and single. Still, it did occur to him that
married English women had more freedom than married American women, especially when they had the right
husband.

“He’s the right husband for you, Audrey,” Violet St.
Clair announced over dinner that night, an hour after
Gannon had departed from her father’s study.

Audrey stopped eating, her fork in midair. “Who’s the
right husband?” she asked in shock. This was the kind
of talk she’d wanted to avoid all summer. What had she
missed while she was lining up railroad connections for
Gannon?

Her mother gave her a placating smile like the kind
given to little children who needed to have something
repeated to them. “The earl. Camberly, of course.”

Audrey breathed easier. “We’ve hardly had time to get
to know him.” This was part of the plan. This was good.

“He’s all but invited her to his home, Wilson,” Violet went on, ignoring Audrey entirely as she recounted Gannon’s visit. “He brought a picture book of his estate to
show her,” Violet said meaningfully. “We’ll need to look
ahead and start thinking about booking passage to England”

Wilson nodded. “I’m setting him up with a fortune to
be gleaned from this Hudson River Line deal. I can’t
have my girl marrying a poor noble. If he lacks funds, I
won’t have anyone knowing it. No one will say my girl
was married for her money” He beamed proudly.

Her father’s pronouncement got her attention. This
was bad. She’d expected her mother to react with en thusiasm, but she’d not expected the same zeal from
her father. She’d counted on her father’s providing
some resistance, putting up obstacles that would take
time-ideally, the whole summer-to overcome if at
all. Mutual capitulation was not a good sign. Maybe she
could have Gannon acquire an annoying habit or a nervous tic.