The Notorious Lord (25 page)

Rachel pulled the brush through her hair with brief, distracted strokes, then put it down on the nightstand, lay down, and pulled the blankets up about her shoulders. It seemed a little unfair to Cory to think that he would view the matter as nothing more than a flirtation. She was sure that he cared for her. She had heard the tender note in his voice when he had asked her if she was all right. Yet loving and being in love were two very different matters. She knew that she loved Cory and for a moment she trembled on the edge of wondering whether she was falling in love with him. Then she turned her thoughts from that troubling idea. Such a way would lie nothing but disappointment and unhappiness, for they were utterly incompatible.

Rachel lay with her eyes wide open, staring into the dark. Briefly she wondered what might have happened if her parents had not burst upon them at that point. She could not answer the question with any certitude. Presumably Cory would have stopped kissing her at some point—she did not pretend that she had had either the inclination or the will to stop it herself. Or perhaps, being a rake, Cory would have taken matters to their natural conclusion and proved once and for all that if he had set out to seduce her completely he would not fail in his aim.

Rachel turned over on her side and curled up tightly. She could not let it happen again. One kiss was a mistake, two was carelessness, but three…Three would prove that she wanted Cory to be more than a friend to her. And even if she did, she could not have him.

She fell asleep on the thought and was most disconcerted in the morning to discover that she had left her clothes strewn all over the room and had had no thought at all to put them away.

The following morning was a Sunday, a fact for which Rachel was profoundly grateful. It meant that there was no work on the excavation site and that her mind was fully
occupied with the task of marshalling Sir Arthur and Lady Odell and the servants for the trip to church in Midwinter Mallow. This was no small matter. Sir Arthur was completely oblivious of which day of the week it was and when he discovered that it was Sunday, grumbled that Mr Lang was as windy a parson as he had ever met, and his preaching was a dead bore. Lady Odell fussed vaguely over the fact that Rachel would not let her wear her Inuit tribal dress to church, and Mrs Goodfellow threatened that they would be obliged to have a cold collation for dinner if she had to walk all the way to and from Midwinter Mallow with her bunions in the state they were. Eventually the party was packed into the carriage that Olivia and Ross Marney had sent to convey them to church, and Rachel, feeling exhausted, clambered in as well.

Despite the length of the Reverend Lang’s sermons, there was an excellent turn out at St Martin’s that morning. The Duke of Kestrel was in the front pew and had graciously invited Lady Sally Saltire to join him. Rachel sat one row behind and admired the elegant curl of the jaunty feather in Lady Sally’s hat. Concentrating on the feather also prevented her gaze from sliding sideways to where Cory Newlyn sat. Cory had come in very late, just when Rachel’s nerves had settled with the thought that he would not be present. He had taken a seat directly in her line of sight, and studying his clear-cut profile distracted Rachel completely from the message that Reverend Lang took a good forty minutes to deliver from the pulpit. As his voice droned on Rachel fixed her gaze on Lady Sally’s hat, but her mind kept returning to Cory with increasing repetition. She wondered if he would approach her and, if he did, how she would feel and what she would say. She wondered if he would make reference to the previous night and, if so, how she could respond. Then she wondered why everyone was
looking at her and realised that they had all moved on to the prayers whilst she was still standing up.

Once the service was over, they all stood about the church door and on the path to the lych gate, chatting in the sunshine. Mr Lang had buttonholed Sir Arthur and was trying to persuade him to agree to take a party around the excavations. Sir Arthur, who hated groups of what he referred to as antiquity tourists, was being decidedly awkward about it. Rachel fretted. She could see Cory moving towards her, pausing for a word with the Marneys, exchanging a greeting with Lady Sally Saltire, working his way unobtrusively in her direction. She repressed a childish desire to dive for cover behind the nearest gravestone.

‘Papa…’ she said beseechingly, ‘I am sure there can be no difficulty in showing some of our neighbours the work that is progressing on the excavation.’

‘Splendid idea,’ Cory said. He was standing beside her. ‘Lady Sally has just been asking if she might join a party to view our work.’

‘Sightseers, tourists,’ Sir Arthur grumbled, under his breath.

‘I think that was an agreement,’ Rachel said, smiling sweetly at Mr Lang. ‘I will make the necessary arrangements.’

Cory took her arm and drew her to one side. Rachel went, a little unwillingly. She was very conscious of the milling crowds and curious glances.

‘I would like to talk to you, Rae,’ Cory said. ‘About last night. Please.’

Rachel looked around again. It seemed a rather public place to be choosing for such a discussion.

‘I cannot,’ she whispered. ‘Mama and Papa—’

‘Will be perfectly safe if you leave them for a few moments,’ Cory said smoothly.

He took her arm and drew her towards the relative privacy of the lych gate. Rachel went with him, scarcely aware of
where she was going. Now that Cory was here with her again she felt almost paralysed with embarrassment and awareness. It felt as though she was obliged to discuss a peculiarly intimate topic with someone who should be no more than a friend. Something felt out of kilter. A wave of heat washed up from her toes to envelop her whole body.

‘I am not certain that this is a good idea, Cory,’ she said. ‘May we not pretend that it simply did not happen?’

‘Not this time,’ Cory said, a little grimly.

‘I thought,’ Rachel said a little desperately, ‘that it was a mistake.’ She looked at him, willing him to agree with her.

‘A mistake,’ Cory said thoughtfully. A smile curled the corners of his mouth and Rachel’s pulse jumped in response to the expression she saw in his eyes. ‘Was it a mistake that you responded to my kiss like that?’

A burning blush swept over Rachel again. She clutched at another idea. ‘Perhaps that is not the correct word. Shall we say that it was just an accident?’

‘It was an accident waiting to happen,’ Cory said. ‘You must see, Rachel, that it was bound to occur sooner or later.’

That stopped Rachel in her tracks. She looked at him. ‘Was it? How do you know?’

Cory smiled at her. ‘Now I think about it, I think that I have always known it. One day you and I were going to kiss each other. It was inevitable.’

They looked at each other. Rachel thought that Cory looked rather pleased with himself and she felt her temper rise, rather as it had done when they were younger and Cory had been so brash and conceited and she had wanted to take him down several pegs.

‘Well, I wish you had told me,’ she said crossly.

Cory cocked an eyebrow. ‘Do you? What would you have liked me to say to you? Something along the lines of “Rachel, you and I are strongly attracted to each other and it is to be expected that at some point we shall kiss each other?”’

Rachel frowned harder. ‘It would have helped.’

‘Helped you do what—run away from me?’ Cory spread his hands wide. ‘I think you have done quite enough of that already, Rae. The very fact that you are always running leads me to believe that you feel exactly as I do.’

Rachel bit her lip. She could not contradict him. ‘I do not deny that I have been somewhat…taken by surprise by my feelings for you,’ she said.

Cory made a move towards her and she took an instinctive step away.

‘No! Wait! That does not mean that I think what we did should be repeated.’ She looked around. ‘Certainly not here!’

The tense lines about Cory’s mouth softened slightly. ‘Might you be prepared to consider it elsewhere?’

Rachel repressed a smile. He was very persuasive. ‘I think not,’ she said reluctantly. She sighed and looked at him appealingly. ‘This is very awkward. What are we to do now?’

She saw the answer in his eyes. He wanted to kiss her again and she felt an answering tug of desire deep within her. It was terribly tempting.

‘I do not think so,’ she said softly, again, in answer to the unspoken thought. ‘One kiss is not so terrible, but any more is quite out of the question.’

Cory looked quizzical. ‘So it was not so terrible?’

Rachel blushed. ‘Not really. Indeed, not at all, but that is not the point.’ She pulled herself together. ‘The point is that it is over now. We have done it and I dare say that we should not think of it again.’

Cory took her arm and drew her deeper into the shadow of the gate. ‘I confess I had not viewed it in quite that way, Rachel,’ he said. He stepped in close, until she could feel his body just brushing against hers. ‘I spent most of last night thinking about it, not to mention the best part of the
service this morning. My mind was on matters of which the Reverend Mr Lang could not approve.’

Rachel blushed. She had had the same difficulty.

‘I do not think that this is something so easily dismissed,’ Cory continued, ‘and this time I cannot permit you to dismiss it either.’

Rachel looked at him with troubled eyes. ‘But I do not understand why this has happened to us! We are
friends,
Cory, and friends do not kiss each other like that.’ She scuffed at the soft sandy earth beneath her feet. ‘You must promise me that you will not kiss me again.’

She saw the slight, negative shake of his head even as she spoke. He took her hand.

‘I cannot give you that assurance,’ Cory said, and though he spoke quietly his words had an undertone of steel now. ‘If you wish to take refuge in thoughts of friendship, that is your choice, Rae.’ His fingers tightened and she looked up and met the blazing light in his eyes. ‘It will, however, be my ardent endeavour to prove to you how much more than friends we have become.’

And he gave her a curt bow and walked away.

Chapter Fifteen

T
he Deben Regatta fell on the following day, which was a public holiday. It was another bright blue summer’s day. Rachel viewed the arrival of James Kestrel to escort her with something less than enthusiasm. As she tied the ribbons of her straw bonnet beneath her chin, she wished that she had not accepted James’s invitation. Unfortunately the arrangement had been of such long standing that Rachel had thought it discourteous to snub him at so late a stage. Even so, her thoughts were full of another man entirely as she went downstairs and allowed James to help her up into his curricle.

She was to regret her choice even more when James stationed his curricle at the very back of the crowd and she had to crane her neck to see anything at all. The river was some hundred yards distant and Rachel wished she had brought her opera glasses.

‘I hope that we shall be quite safe here,’ James said, viewing the shining water with disfavour. ‘I should not wish to be splashed.’

‘I do not believe there is any possibility of that,’ Rachel said, trying not to sound snappish.

The entire town seemed to have turned out for the regatta. Across the river at Woodbridge, Rachel could see that the
quay was colourful with the uniforms of the soldiers and the bright summer dresses of the ladies. The residents of the Midwinter villages had elected to line the opposite riverbank, however, and were all assembled on the sloping grassy incline that led down to the water’s edge, where there was also a refreshment tent and a musical quartet playing. A light wind came off the river, ruffling the ladies’ bonnets and setting the spinnakers of the yachts ringing.

Up ahead of them, Rachel could see a barouche containing the Marneys and Deborah Stratton. Justin Kestrel and Cory Newlyn were both lounging by the side of it, deep in conversation with the occupants. There was much laughter and chatter, particularly when Lady Sally Saltire and Lily Benedict came up to join the party. Rachel could not help feeling a little like the plain girl stuck on a rout chair at the ball, especially as James Kestrel was not paying her a great deal of attention, but appeared to be looking around for someone else entirely. Nor did Cory seem interested in making good the promise he had delivered in the churchyard only the previous day. He had glanced across at Rachel when she and James had arrived; he had smiled and sketched a bow, but he had not approached her yet. Rachel, whose errant heart had been racing at the thought of seeing him again, felt extremely disappointed.

The ringing of the church bells was the signal for the races to begin and a cheer went up from the other bank. First were the various rowing competitions for prizes of a few guineas, and the townspeople of Woodbridge threw themselves wholeheartedly into these. Rachel could not see the races very well, since Mr Kestrel’s curricle was too far back and the boats were low on the water, but when the yacht race began she had a fine view. Five yachts had entered, and the contest was keenly fought. In the end Sir John Norton was the winner with his elegant craft,
Breath of Scandal,
just beating the yacht
Ariel,
by a head. He carried
off the silver trophy and beautifully engraved glass bowl in triumph.

‘Excuse me, Miss Odell,’ James Kestrel said suddenly. ‘I shall be back directly.’

He swung himself down from the curricle and disappeared past the refreshment tent.

For a while, Rachel sat alone and watched the Duck Hunt, which was the culmination of the regatta. There was much merriment as one of the local fishermen in a wildfowling punt took the part of the ‘duck’ and was chased by four other oarsmen. The punt was quick, but the rowers were quicker and the duck ended up jumping over the side and being chased over the mudflats and into the crowd on the Midwinter bank, where the ladies screamed and twitched their skirts aside from the mud and the water he sent flying.