The Scoundrel's Secret Siren (14 page)

Lorelei stared a moment, taken aback. She would never admit that it had been the thought of him alone and wounded that had driven her out of doors in search of hi
m. The thought had made it entirely impossible for her to remain safely abed, knowing he might be facing his death at that very moment. That he would not even bring a second! He was presumptuous, a cold and spoilt man, but that somehow did not quench the fire of protectiveness that had sparked in her chest at the thought that he might be in danger.

“Coronet?” she echoed, and laughed coolly. “Oh, no, you are mistaken.
Your
coronet holds not the least appeal for me. I imagine that despite what I have already said to you on this head, you still think me some poor soldier’s daughter? There are ladies at the assemblies who seemed to think so, certainly, but they are mistaken. Papa is modest, not poor. So, you see, I am not out to snare a fortune or even a title. If you must know, I do not wish to marry anyone at present. Furthermore, I must inform you that your behaviour thus far suggests that you would make the worst possible husband.”

The earl of Winbourne had not expected such a speech. He had heard denial before, of course, but never such impassioned denial. “A commendable sentiment, my dear. And one I share. Marriage is a necessity, an alliance of interests, and if one need not marry for fortune or status, why marry at all?”

Lorelei cocked her head to the side in a disarming manner that made his hand itch to brush her slightly-dishevelled blonde curls out of her eyes. “I meant only that I did not wish to marry now, for it would curtail my freedom and there is not a man who would make up the loss to me. But it is an entirely different matter when one is in love.”

“This love of which you speak leads only to disappointment. It is a fairy tale meant to keep children entertained. There is attraction, of course, but we need not ascribe
that
more value that it deserves.” He was looking away from her, somewhere into the past. She could not imagine what he was seeing and she did not like that he was obviously all alone there.

The bitterness in his voice made Lorelei look down at her
hands for a moment. She was sure the whiskey and the blood-loss were making him speak more freely than he ever would have done otherwise. In a moment, the young lady decided to take a liberty of her own.

“I know about your disappointment!” she blurted out, and regretted it instantly.

“Oh you do, do you?” His voice was suddenly dark with bitterness that spilled into his eyes.

It was too late to back out. The expression on his face suggested that she was on a runaway carriage headed straight for disaster. Lorelei steeled herself and decided to go on. “Yes,” she said bravely. “The lady and her officer. It was an infamous thing to do, and I am sorry you were wounded by her thoughtlessness.”

“You seem uncommonly well informed, Miss Lindon. I wonder who it was that has taken the liberty to speak of this with you? But keep your secrets. You are wrong – I assure you, my feelings remain quite unbruised. The lady was fortuitous – she proved to me what I had long suspected. I am not the sort of man to marry.”

Lorelei was unconvinced. There was old pain lingering in his eyes and the cynical twist of his smile. It was that elusive thing that lived beneath his blasé façade. She’d glimpsed it earlier but failed to recognise it.

Winbourne chuckled, and brushed her curls behind her ear, while she sat unmoving. “But you do not believe me.”

She gulped, caught in a spell she didn’t quite understand. “I don’t,” Lorelei breathed.
She rose from her chair and moved to perch on the edge of his bed, frowning. “Nor do I pity you, before you accuse me. But it is a shame, none the less, whatever heartlessness you may wish to claim for your own.”

“Heartlessness? Oh, no, my dear Miss Lindon. No. Never that.” With those words he swept her into his arms before she knew what was happening.

Pressing her against him, while one of her hands clutched his uninjured shoulder, he plundered her mouth with his own. It was not a gentle kiss by any means, but Lorelei found herself caught up in the pressure of his lips on hers. Her heart hammered furiously against her chest as she enthusiastically responded to his ardour.

She knew it was most improper, but the entire situation was so far beyond the pale, that somehow she felt her common sense and propriety momentarily suspended. His mouth left hers and trailed down her throat, while she gasped a breath she hadn’t been aware she needed. His hand left fiery trails up and down her back and he branded her pale throat with a trail of burning kisses.

Winbourne was vaguely aware that he had lost his mind: his wounded shoulder was on fire and if anyone should happen upon them, Miss Lindon would be utterly compromised. He would not have liked to end up on the wrong end of her father’s sword. Her pulse felt like a fluttering bird against his lips: at once strong and delicate.

The creaking of a floorboard in the room below brought them back to earth. Lorelei jerked away – startled and blinking
at him. Her face was burning and her hair was mussed, she saw, catching a glimpse of herself in the dingy mirror. Winbourne winced, favouring his shoulder.

“I must go! This is not what I – ”

Lorelei was gone before he could say anything further to stop her. She did not trust herself to stay clear-headed if he uttered so much as another word. She had come to be aware that the very timbre of his cultured voice was enough to send her heart racing furiously – and the look in his eyes had been a ravishment in itself.

Lord Winbourne got worse in the night – feverish and shivering. Doing her best to break the fever, Lorelei sat up at his bedside applying a cool cloth to his burning skin.
If his fever did not break by morning, she would be forced call for a physician, regardless of Winbourne’s opinion of country doctors – or, indeed, her own.

She had dispatched a brief note to Eloise. Lady Gilmont, though a woman of high spirits, was sensible, and Lorelei felt that they might just need an ally at the house, as well as a clean shirt for Winbourne.

It rained all of the following day and Lorelei held vigil at his bedside, waiting for the fever to break. It gave her an opportunity to think more on what she had learnt about the man and his disappointment.

Winbourne did not appear as a man who had been callously discarded. Surely such treatment would have diminished him somewhat, but perhaps his distant manner and cool humour were exactly the hallmarks of disappointment.
Perhaps
, Lorelei thought with a stab of sorrow, the arrogance was just a means of masking the pain which still tormented him after all these years.

It would certainly explain the fact that he seemed genuinely close to nobody at all, though Lady Gilmont came nearest that mark, possibly because she was his youngest sister and so very lively. And it would explain why he never revealed the whole of himself to any one person.

She hardly dared move from his side lest he call for her, though Mrs Avery had come upstairs again to insist she rest and had even taken Lorelei’s place next to the patient.

“I pray you will forgi
ve an old woman her curiosity, Miss Lindon,” Mrs Avery said, when Lorelei came back less than an hour later, “but I see you must love his lordship very much, to sit with him thus. He is a very fortunate man.”

Lorelei was duly astonished.
Did the lady still suspect them of elopement? Her face pinked instantly. “Oh, no, Mrs Avery, you are mistaken. He is only a friend. It is just as I have told you: I am merely a guest of Lady Gilmont. I happened upon him quite by accident.”

“Ah, of course,
miss.” With a knowing smile, the woman left her in the room. Lorelei took her seat again, and found that she was suddenly very disconcerted. What utter nonsense. Love Lord Winbourne! They would not suit at all – he was much too icy, devious and spoilt.

She shivered, remembering the masquerade, when they had both behaved as though they could suit very well indeed. After a moment of such heated reflection, Lorelei scolded herself severely: she had a patient to care for. There was no time to be lewd or shameful!

His fever broke just before noon and she sat next to him, reading a novel, as he slept.

She did not notice him wake up, until she felt his gaze on her face. He looked disoriented, but much improved. What followed was a day of arguments as Lorelei did her best to force him to remain in bed, though he insisted that he was now perfectly well. He seemed restless and unwilling to sleep, and so she read to him and talked in an effort to distract him.

Winbourne found that the brisk gentle patience with which Lorelei remained by his side only made his inner turmoil worse. He had dreamt of Valerie de Beaumont in his feverish dreams: as she had been the last time he had seen her, when she had come to cry off from their engagement. He had dreamt of her dark beauty and her infectious laugh.

She had gone home shortly after breaking with him, in the company of the French officer she had married instead, and he had not seen her since. It had been a memory Winbourne had done his best to push well out of his mind, and now he never thought of it at all. He had learned his lesson.

He supposed it was because that wretched girl had brought up his ‘disappointment’ at such a time that he had dreamt of Valerie at all. He knew he no longer loved that woman, but the memory of her, so very different from the woman who sat with him now, unsettled him. He supposed his brain was still befuddled by the fever he had suffered, in turn hot and cold. For there was no other reason he would have ever compared the two.

On the second night after his fever broke, quite against all arguments, Lord Winbourne insisted on joining Lorelei for supper in the inn’s little parlour. He declared supping in his room to be intolerable. Lorelei thought he looked very drawn and tired. He was obviously still very uneasy in his movements, but there had been no confining him to his bed.

The parlour was a shabby room, but the lady of the house kept it clean, and while the meal was modest, it was perfectly acceptable. There was ham, roast chicken and potatoes. Lorelei, however, insisted that Winbourne have light broth: he resisted with all his might until finally surrendering to her absurd whim. He found that it was much easier to humour her than to argue.

Taking a sip of his wine, Winbourne watched with amusement as Lorelei carefully ate her supper. Her back was stiff, her shoulders modestly covered by her shawl, and her every movement was the very picture of fine deportment.

She was obviously trying to pretend that nothing had happened between them, whereas any other female might have already been threatening and weeping in the hopes of securing an offer. It was, he thought, very refreshing to be in the company of a lady who did not wish to snare him.

Possessed by the inexplicable urge to shatter her icy resolve, Winbourne produced her pendant from his pocket, careful not to jostle his wounded shoulder.  He leant indolently back in his chair and let the silver chain swing in his fingers.

Lorelei looked up at the sound, and her breath caught. Truly, she was not sure what it was that had struck her more – the fact that his face looked more feral than ever in the candlelight, the mocking smile curving his thin lips, or the fact that he was once again dangling her mother’s precious pendant under her nose, though he obviously had not the least intention of returning it.

“Tell me, Miss Lindon,” he said casually, as though they were conversing at a garden party, “why were you out on the road that night we met? I don’t imagine your father approves of riding expeditions after dark. Was it an assignation, perhaps? Were you hurrying to meet some young buck? Perhaps one of those modish fellows with the starched collars and absurd pantaloons?”

He had expected anger: that had been his intention, after all. But he had not expected the obvious hurt that had momentarily flashed in her eyes before she hid it. It was the genuine hurt of an innocent rather than the dramatic front of a consummate flirt.

He found that he had not enjoyed seeing it. It rather ruined the fun of teasing her into another magnificent fury. Though it had been years since feminine tears had had any effect on him, it dawned on Winbourne that he would not have liked to see her cry.

“I do not know what kind of female you take me for, my lord Winbourne, but I assure you, you are mistaken,” she said, voice trembling with anger, two spots of colour appearing high on her cheeks.

He raised an eyebrow, his perfect poise in stark contrast to her obvious agitation.

“Your pardon, Miss Lindon,” he inclined his head, but the disillusioned smile on his face made her certain that he did not believe her. Privately, she marvelled that anyone could be so very cynical, even while anger drove her to speak without thinking.

“If you absolutely must know, I was on that road searching for ghosts.” It was not until after she had blurted out her explanation that Lorelei realised how childish she sounded. Lifting her chin stubbornly, she met his eyes which, to her utter outrage, twinkled with amusement.

Winbourne was utterly charmed by her artlessness. Ghosts indeed! He was sure no other woman one might meet at Almack’s would ever say the same. “Ghosts, my dear? Oh, but don’t stop now. You have me quite intrigued. Were they particular ghosts, or did you think to try your luck?”

“You’re
quizzing me. No doubt you think me foolish, but all that means is that I am not so cynical as you, though no doubt you consider yourself a man of sense.”

“Is that what it means? But let me be the judge of that. Pray, continue.”

Lorelei wondered if they were really talking about ghosts any more. His expression was suddenly intent.

“It is merely a story Nell, my abigail, told my sister and I when we were so dreadfully bored at Ledley. Well, I was – Constance has never been bored in her life, I dare say. There is a lady ghost, you see, supposedly haunting the road outside Ledley Court. She and her lover died there when they were eloping, a dreadful accident, and now her spirit is doomed forever to search for his.”

She wondered if she ought to have told him the part about the elopement – she did not wish to dredge up his own disappointment for the second time in as many days.

Winbourne snorted. “Romantic tripe! No one would doom themselves to wander the earth for an attachment – and if your ghost had done so after all, then she is a fool.  Believe me, Miss Lindon, such love is nothing but a fanciful fiction. Though, of course, I myself would not know. No doubt you have heard, my dear, that the Earl of Winbourne is quite incapable of love.” With those words, he put her pendant back in the pocket of his fashionable coat, into which he had stubbornly struggled despite the pain in his shoulder.

Her eyes met his and she set aside her silverware. Lorelei looked at Winbourne for a few moments, and he suddenly found himself wondering what it was that she could see there.

“I have heard it, Lord Winbourne. But I do not think that it is true, though the skill with which you play the part is admirable. No one is incapable of love. Simply unwilling or unlucky. And now I shall take my leave of you – we are to return to the manor tomorrow, if your arm allows, and it is only sensible to be well-rested. Goodnight.”

He watched, speechless, as she exited the room.

“Deuce take me!” The earl muttered under his breath. It seemed that Miss Lindon was an entirely different species of creature than he had imagined her. A species he did not understand in the least. He thought the look in her eyes would haunt him forever.

Kindness… Pity!
The silly chit, with her ridiculous ghost stories and novels, pitied him, he who had everything in the world and could not want a thing more! He, who had a score of eager debutantes hopefully watching his every move, despite their certainty that he lacked any warm feeling or moral fibre.
Unwilling or unlucky!

*

Something had changed between them. Irrevocably, utterly changed, Lorelei knew. After the harshness and intimacy of their words and gestures the night before, there was a new edge to the undeniable attraction between them. And attraction it was – she knew she could not lie to herself and call it anything else, but she resolved not to like it one bit.

The next morning, Winbourne was still pale and much too weak to travel, which was probably for the best because it had started raining and the country lane outside the window quickly turned as muddy as the sky was bleak. Lorelei occupied herself by continuing with one of the few books available at the inn.

The subject matter of most of these was far from inspiring, as she cared neither for farming nor rare birds of the West Indies, and the only thing of interest she could find once she had done with her novel, was a book of French fairy tales.

She took the hefty volume with her when she went to check up on the patient, and it caught his attention as she set it on the side table, before asking him how he did.

“Just fine, Miss Lindon. It is you and not I who chooses to be difficult about my well-being. But I see you have found a way to keep yourself amused.” He indicated the book and Lorelei flushed. No doubt he already thought her the silliest of creatures, and this was bound to enforce his opinion tenfold.

“Tolerably amused,” she replied, taking a seat in her accustomed chair.

“Only tolerably? I’ve always thought such stories to be most diverting.” The patient’s eyes sparkled at her despite his obvious indisposition.

“You are quizzing me, sir. You think no such thing,” she replied, her own eyes returning the challenge.

“No such thing! Why, I always enjoyed them as a boy, and perhaps one day I shall read them to my own son or daughter. They have a strange kind of truth in them, Miss Lindon, don’t you think? Provided one has the sense to look past the obvious.”

Lorelei was taken aback by the note of earnestness in his answer. She also felt an almost-crippling tenderness flood her heart as she pictured him reading to his children, seated eagerly around a winter fire in his study.

It took her a moment to clear this idyllic image from her mind. She did her best to add, in a wry tone, “But are they not full to the brim of love – the exact sentiment which you so ardently profess to be nothing but foolishness?”

“Not always. But then they are also full of magic, and you’ll allow, Miss Lindon, that such is merely fiction also. One allows for more frivolity in fairy tales then in real life. Besides, there are many truths to be found alongside the fiction.”

“Well, I have never yet
seen
magic,” she said wistfully, “but that does not mean a most subtle magic does not exist all around us, hidden in the little things. But perhaps you will one day have occasion to revise your opinion.”

Winbourne took in the gentle set of her pretty face and the way her eyes gazed wistfully out of the window and a part of him wondered if he just might not reconsider, after all. Then he came back to his senses. Had he learned nothing from Valerie? The effects of his fever were, he decided, more grave than he had supposed them.