The Random Gentleman (11 page)

“Indeed, sweetheart, you are right,” he said, and flashed a lightning glance at her in which she read unholy amusement. The next instant he had taken advantage of her request by placing his arm around her waist and guiding her out of the group. “Yes, sweetheart! I wish above all things to have our affairs quickly settled.” This was uttered with such prim complacence that the girl longed to deliver him a blistering setdown. Her eyes flashed him a promise of the reckoning to come, but she held the smile on her face as she accepted his guidance.

“I’ll just pick up Ben from the line as I leave,” he called softly to the now-grinning Bracho. “My thanks for good company on the road!” His wave embraced them all. “Kushti bok!”

Belinda waited until the three—man, horse, and girl—were well out of sight and hearing of the camp before turning a wrathful face upon the culprit. The duke forestalled her attack.

“Thank God you were so quick off the mark in apprehending a dangerous situation—and so cool in handling it!”

The warmth of his commendation momentarily checked her anger. “Dangerous?”

“Very. The chief was just looking for an excuse. He’s never forgiven me for beating him at his own game when first we met upon the highroad. I believe he had decided not to let me leave without a mill.”

“You must tell me the story some day,” Belinda said coldly. “But surely there was the little matter of the girl, also?”

The Duke nodded. “He is beyond reason jealous of Lara. She is his chosen bride, but she is a minx and has been doing her possible to rouse his jealousy.”

“Of you?” challenged Belinda.

“I was a honey-fall for her,” the Duke admitted with a grin. “A stranger to the tribe——a Gorgio—my credentials and business unknown to them—above all, no one to report my loss if The Whip decided I was s serious rival for the girl’s affections.”

“Which, of course, you had made not the slightest push to win,” added Belinda, a shade waspishly. She had been very well aware of the vicious look Lara had given the fair-haired man as they entered the camp. It had been neither provocative nor languishing—surely, not anything to rouse anger or jealousy in even the most possessive of husbands-to-be! Had there been some other cause for the obvious animosity exhibited by the gypsy chieftain? Could the attempt at seduction have come from this man rather than from Lara? That would explain her angry revulsion. Belinda felt she must have time to evaluate the story her companion was telling her. Time, and more information.

“Is there truth in a girl living hereabouts to whom you are pledged—or was that a Banbury tale to discourage Lara?” she asked.

To her surprise, the man said, “Yes, there is,” and then fell into a maddening silence as they wended their way along the shady path through the Home Woods.

“Well?” persisted Belinda. “Does she live in Sayre Village?” Rapidly she catalogued the unmarried girls of suitable age in the neighborhood: the Vicar’s three daughters (well, four, if you counted Miss Amelia, but she surely was a little too long in the tooth to suit so handsome a man); the Doctor’s lovely Cleo, perhaps a shade too young; Lawyer Morris’s only child, Mary-Joan, but she was plump and carrot-thatched as well—oh! she was forgetting Squire Highcastle’s daughter Helen, a beautiful dark-haired girl of sixteen. Would the Squire have countenanced so gothic an arrangement for his daughter with this gypsy rogue? But he wasn’t a gypsy, whatever else he was!

“What is your name?” she snapped regarding the creature’s innocent expression with a frown. “I cannot be forever calling you
‘You’
!”

“Peregrine—er—Random,” offered the Duke hopefully.

“Ridiculous,” said the Earl’s granddaughter shortly.

“Would you say ‘ridiculous’?” protested the creature.

“It means wandering haphazardly,” said the well-educated Belinda, “and is obviously an assumed name.
No
person is named Wandering Haphazardly,”

“I recently heard of a man whose father called him Waiting-for-the-Light,” argued the Duke, “and another named Parsifal Galahad. Of course
he
joined the army as Peter George. One cannot quite blame him.”

“That,” remarked Belinda austerely, “is quite another matter. Peregrine Random has a distinctly theatrical flavor.”

The Duke was tempted for a moment to pursue this fascinating alternative, but decided the role of a traveling actor might be too fatiguing to sustain. Instead he offered, “My mother was a romantic?” with the air of one defending
à outrance
an untenable position.

“You are a Banbury man,” accused the girl, “and you are enjoying all this too much for it to be a serious problem to you!”

The Duke’s lazily provocative smile was wiped suddenly from his lips, and he stared soberly at the delightful little face under the tumbled golden curls. “On the contrary, Miss Oliphant, the problem is a most serious one, and my peace of mind—to say nothing of my future happiness—may well depend upon the events of the next few days.”

The impact of this sudden gravity, combined with the Duke’s undeniable virility and masculine beauty, struck Belinda with the force of a thunderbolt. She had had nothing in her life to prepare her for this man. Her grandfather had been middle-aged when she first became aware of his part in her life. She had never really known her father. The young sprigs of fashion she had met in London were either titled youths or dashing junior officers, not mature and sophisticated men of the world like the Duke. The Honorable Belinda Sayre had been carefully protected from such as these—partly by her youth, and partly by the efficient system of chaperonage perfected unobtrusively by her grandfather and Lady Tulliver. Now, her velvet brown eyes wide with concern, her cheeks pink with unaccustomed emotion, she scanned the handsome face above her.

“Are you in trouble?” she faltered. He could have lost his fortune at the gaming tables—she had heard of such things happening. Or he could be in one of those mysterious scrapes the young officers were frequently alluding to and always refusing to discuss with her. That would explain his traveling with a band of gypsies rather than by more conventional means. She scrutinized his rather grubby clothing. It seemed to her untrained eye to have been at one time of good quality, if a shade exotic. The short green velvet jacket and the silk shirt were really not the usual wear for Englishmen, but the riding boots—and Belinda did know about well-made boots—were of excellent style, although dreadfully in need of polish. And the stained buckskins fitted the man’s strong, well-muscled thighs as though they had been made for him.

Belinda’s cheeks grew even rosier as she raised her eyes to encounter his knowing gaze. It was essential to remove that warm, intent look from his face. The general’s granddaughter attacked.

“I think you are cutting a wheedle, sirrah! You do not appear to me to be concerned about anything more serious than another man’s girl!”

The Duke at once favored her with a delightful smile. “That, my child, can mean more trouble than you could dream of! But you must allow me to keep my guilty secret, Miss Oliphant. It would not be to my advantage to disclose it at the moment.”

Belinda could think of no way to pursue this engrossing subject. They continued to walk along the path. After a few minutes the man said, “I shall be putting up for a few days at The Climbing Man, Miss Oliphant. When I have—uh—brought my costume into conformity with the polite mode, may I have the honor of calling upon you at Sayre Court?”

Belinda’s gaze flashed up to the smiling countenance of the
soi-disant
Peregrine Random. “Why,
yes!
That is—no! I am not sure . . .” she hesitated, estimating the amount of conniving and explaining she would have to do to bring Dittisham and especially Mrs. Mayo to accept the grimy, enigmatic character beside her with any degree of equanimity.

The Duke, fully aware of Belinda’s dilemma, took an unholy delight in the situation she had landed herself in. “I see what it is,” he said, in tones of chagrin. “You are not allowed, in your position as distant connection of the family, to invite a guest. Are the Sayres so high-in-the-instep?”

“Of course they are not!” cried the Honorable Belinda.

“Then it must be myself who is an unworthy guest?” prodded the Duke, trying to look wistful and put-upon. He must have succeeded, for Miss Sayre was understood to say that, for her part, she would be very pleased to welcome Mr. Random to Sayre Court whenever he chose to present himself.

The Duke hastened to secure the territory he had won. “Then I may do myself the honor of waiting upon you as soon as I can correct the deficiencies of my wardrobe?”

“Yes, of course!” said the beleaguered Belinda, with the feeling she had been outmaneuvered.

Once again, the irritating creature grinned at her. “Thank you! At that time I shall endeavor to explain to you the rather odd circumstances in which you found me—”

“That will be quite unnecessary,” interrupted Belinda. She was already fabricating plans for explaining his presence to Dittisham, but took time to raise her brown eyes to his face with a smile that would have done credit to a dowager hostess of the
ton
. “Why do you not bring your fiancée with you, sir?” she asked graciously. “She resides, I collect, in the district?”

The Duke, becoming momentarily more enchanted with his future wife, was at pains to admit that, yes, his fiancée resided in the district, and that he hoped indeed that she would be with him when he called at Sayre Court.

These civilities concluded, the couple found strangely little to say to one another as they approached the boundary of the Home Woods. Belinda was hoping that no employee of the Earl would see her with her raffish companion, for they had all known her from a child, and felt privileged to make impudent inquiries into her actions. The Duke, for his part, had begun to wonder just how long it would take to get his portmanteaux and his valet down from London. What with one thing and another, the abstracted pair walked so slowly that Ben, a most sagacious and long-suffering beast, was finally constrained to nudge his master quite sharply. Since he nudged him toward Belinda, the gentleman blundered against the lady and was compelled to throw his arms around her to prevent her from falling. This position was found to be unexpectedly comfortable by both parties, and after a long moment of staring rather foolishly into one another’s eyes at close range, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that they should place their lips together.

A satisfying interval later, the Duke lifted his head. He was feeling dazed. He had kissed some of the most beautiful women in Europe, and been kissed by them in return, but not one of those admittedly pleasurable embraces had had the effect upon him of this simple pressure of lips. He had never experienced this tingling of every nerve in his body, this swelling sense of joy, this really remarkable hunger for more of the same pleasure.
By God!
thought the Duke joyfully,
I had no idea how soft and sweet a woman’s lips could be!
And he looked at the soft red mouth, lost in wonder.

Under that bemused stare Belinda felt color rising in her face. For a timeless moment she had felt quite dizzy and wondered if she were going to swoon and miss the rest of this enchanting procedure. Her eyelids closed over the brown eyes. Unlike the Duke, she was not dazed. When they had kissed before, it had been a discovery, but this second kiss was much more. It came with such a sense of
rightness
that the shock of it sharpened Belinda’s whole life into focus. That the man was promised to another, that she herself faced an arranged marriage, became at that moment irrelevant to the feeling of wholeness, of fated completion, which the touch of mouths had announced. She opened her eyes and looked, as if for the first time, at the man’s face. Golden locks fell casually across a tanned forehead; clear gray eyes looked out at her from beneath sun-bleached eyebrows. A haze of dark golden beard glistened on his unshaven cheeks, but that did not in the least put her off. An arrogant straight nose, firm, well-cut lips, and a strong jaw completed an attractive male countenance, one schooled to self-discipline, the girl realized, and accustomed to keeping its own counsel. Belinda’s gaze returned to the gray eyes, trying to read the man’s nature and character. It seemed to her that although he was a stranger she had known him forever.

She thought, with a new wisdom she did not question, that the sense of recognition she felt must be love. She was, however, enough her grandfather’s pupil to understand the nature of an obligation. The man had confessed to a contract with a local girl. In her own case, there was still the agreement between the Duke’s father and her own. Such commitments must be honored; she had grown enough in the past week to understand that. So this walk through the woods, with the sunlight slanting tenderly through the green leaves and all the delicate scents of summer in the air, could well be all she would ever have—an hour out of time. It did not occur to Belinda that the man might have experienced a blaze of enlightenment similar to hers. She said, very softly, “I would like to kiss you once more—for farewell, Peregrine Random,” and put her two small hands gently on either side of his face and drew it down to her lips.

The Duke accepted the embrace as though it were an accolade, holding his leaping senses in iron control and keeping his arms at his sides.

Belinda drew away. “Please bring your fiancée when you come to Sayre Court,” she said. “She will be welcome.”