The Wedding Affair (8 page)

He was not the tulip of fashion that she had expected any friend of the Duke of Somervale to be. Instead, he was neatly but soberly dressed in well-worn riding garb, and at the railing by the base of the stairs a roan horse waited—saddled, bridled, and fresh from the stable. He was not as elegant or highbred as the earl’s carriage team; this was an animal intended to cover long distances efficiently.

Andrew Carlisle had come prepared to ride. Despite what the earl had said, Penelope was not going to be the pressed-ham filling in one of those ridiculous sandwiches the gentlemen called for when they were too absorbed in gambling to rise from the table.

She chewed her lip and looked warily at the young man. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Carlisle. I didn’t realize how disobliging I would be to take your place in the curricle. Surely you can’t intend to ride all the way.”

“Take my place?” the young man said blankly. Then he started to grin. “You mean Charles let you believe I would allow him to drive me to Halstead? The truth is, Lady Townsend, I detest riding in a carriage of any sort. It’s a milk-toast sort of man who needs a curricle and a team and an entire system of roads to get himself across country.”

“Milk toast? Keep talking that way, Andrew, and I’ll have to plant you a facer.”

“Have no fear your husband will come to fisticuffs on your front step, my lady,” Andrew Carlisle said, “for he knows quite well he couldn’t carry out his threat. Give me a horse any day. I’ll cross the fields, jump the gates, and be there long before the curricle arrives.”

For the first time in the three months of her marriage, she heard the earl laugh as if he was genuinely entertained. “Don’t believe him, ma’am. Andrew’s real reason for riding everywhere is that if the company is dull, he can saddle up his horse and escape before anyone is the wiser.”

Penelope was so startled at the idea that the earl might have
teased
her—misled her on purpose simply because it amused him—that she whirled to face her husband, tripped over her ruffled hem, and nearly slipped off the step.

Each man shot out a hand to steady her, but the earl moved more quickly, catching her arm as she flailed madly in an attempt to keep her balance. She felt as clumsy as a cow, having to be pulled back onto the stair.

Andrew Carlisle looked thoughtful. “Now, Charles, don’t manhandle the lady. Even though she did look for a moment as though she would take a swing at you, I’m quite certain you deserve it.” His smile was endearingly crooked and his green eyes were alight as he swept a bow. “May I help you into your chariot, my lady, and show you how a gentleman comports himself? It’s dead sure Charles will never be able to demonstrate the finer points of—”

The earl’s right hand was still firm on Penelope’s elbow; his left feinted toward Andrew Carlisle’s jaw, and the young man stepped nimbly back out of reach with a grin.

Penelope’s cloak had slipped aside, and through the thin muslin of her sleeve she could feel the suppleness of the earl’s driving glove, the kid as warm as his own skin would be, barely an inch from her breast. Her nipple seemed to reach out for him, and she felt herself flush and tense. If he turned his hand in the slightest…

“Yes, Andrew,” the earl mocked. “Do demonstrate. Seeing
you
giving lessons in etiquette will be something new.”

Penelope’s breast felt chilly as her husband’s fingers relaxed and dropped away. She forced a laugh as she allowed Andrew Carlisle to take her hand and help her up into the curricle.

But she wished the earl had been the one who stood there while she climbed up, with her skirt brushing his coat sleeve and him supporting her with the iron strength of his arm.

***

Shopping was not a major pastime for the females of Steadham village, for the shops were small and mainly devoted to necessities. But in a dusty little corner of the dry-goods store, high above the bolts of plain coarse cloth, Olivia discovered a box piled with lace and trimmings.

“Left over when the dressmaker died,” the proprietor said. “Back in the old duchess’s day, Halstead kept her busy. Now the ladies shop mostly in London.”

“Fashions were different then.” Olivia sorted through the box. The lace was good, though it was mostly scraps too small to make anything but a pincushion, but the braid might be useful. “A dressmaker would have been occupied just keeping all the embroidery and ruffled lace in good shape in those days.”

“Nobody knew what to do with these things, so they ended up here.” The shopkeeper poked at a bit of lace with a stubby finger. “Not much call for delicate things here in Steadham. Not that the womenfolk around here wouldn’t like them, but they’ve a need to be practical. What use is a piece of lace with no more strength than a cobweb?”

He was no doubt right about the durability, Olivia thought, considering the contents of the box must be twenty years old. Still, if her fingers were nimble enough, she could retrim her best dress in such a way that she wouldn’t stand out as a three-years-out-of-style dowd at Lady Daphne’s wedding. The new decoration would only have to last one wearing, for no matter how long Olivia lived in Steadham, there would never be such a social occasion again.

She fingered a length of braid. “How much for this?”

The proprietor eyed her steadily. “You’d be doing me a kindness to take the whole box off my hands,” he said, and named a price.

He was asking little enough, but she had no coins to spare. Olivia kept her smile in place. “Just the braid,” she said steadily, and the proprietor grumbled as he untangled the braid and wound it up neatly for her.

As Olivia left the dim shop, blinking against the strong afternoon sunlight, a group of young women came down the street. They strolled along in pairs, their brilliant array of gowns and stylish parade of hats and parasols a sharp contrast to the duller colors of the fabric bolts she had just surveyed.

Toward the back of the group, Olivia spotted Kate. As the parade paused outside the dry-goods shop to debate the question of going in, Kate stepped aside to join her friend.

Olivia said quietly, “Are you walking them to the village to keep them out of trouble?”

“
Out
of trouble? The duke commented that he would be absorbed in business this afternoon—in the village—so suddenly Daphne’s bridesmaids felt in need of taking the air. They all started out, though some turned back. Too far to walk on a warm day, they said.”

“Even to admire a duke? Though surely they would find it easier to brush up against him at Halstead.”

“I’m sure you don’t need me to explain that he’s escaped to the village rather than summoning the tradesmen to come to him. There he is now, coming out of the inn.”

From the corner of her eye, Olivia had already noted the duke. His sheer size and the breadth of his shoulders in a finely cut, dark blue riding coat would have commanded the attention of anyone passing on the street. But beyond good looks, there was something about the way he carried himself…

A sense of entitlement well wrapped in arrogance.
She turned her back to him.

“Truly,” Kate said, “I’ve never seen such a pack of females outside of a kennel.”

“They’re not as well-bred as you’d hoped, then? I’m sorry, Kate.”

“They’re too naive to realize how notorious he is.”

“Perhaps they don’t care, so long as there’s a chance to end up as a duchess. It would be quite a coup if one of them nipped in under the very noses of all her friends to snatch him up.”

“They’re guileless, that’s certain. They were all excited last night when Daphne said she’d ask the duke to put up a diamond bracelet as a prize in an archery contest she’s planning for later in the week.”

“Surely the Duke of Somervale has more sense than to go around giving diamond bracelets to girls who’ve barely come out.”

“Of course he does. But when Daphne whispered that Simon’s valet keeps a selection always at hand—an entire chest full of diamond bracelets, she said, so the duke is never without a gift to woo a mistress—the girls were drawn like moths to a flame.”

The only surprise there, Olivia mused, was that the duke’s sister knew of his exploits. “A chest full of diamond bracelets to woo a mistress?” She gave a gurgle of laughter. “To get rid of her afterwards, more likely. If that is the sort of tale being shared at Halstead, how I wish I could be around when Lady Daphne starts telling ghost stories to her friends!”

A deep voice interrupted. “Lady Reyne, I hardly thought it possible to insult me, my sister, and every one of her friends in less than a minute. But I should have realized
you
would find a way.”

Olivia had expected he would already be surrounded by the half-dozen eager young women, so she had felt it safe—as well as advisable—not to watch him. What a foolish idea that had been. She faced him and raised her chin. She should be getting used to him looming over her… but surely yesterday he hadn’t seemed quite so tall. “I intended no insult, Your Grace.”

“Really? You expect me to believe it was an accident for you to call me a cad, my sister an embroiderer of tales, and her friends gullible—all in the same breath?”

Olivia smiled. “You’ll have to choose one or the other, Your Grace. Either I believe you
do
have a chest full of diamond bracelets and your sister told the simple truth, or I believe you
don’t
and she was having fun with her friends. I’m afraid it’s impossible for me to have insulted you both.” She congratulated herself for avoiding the question of Lady Daphne’s bridesmaids altogether. If they believed that faradiddle, then
gullible
was hardly a strong enough word.

Kate bobbed a curtsey. “Your Grace, I…”

“I don’t blame
you
, Miss Blakely, though your taste in friends seems questionable.”

“Sir!” Kate’s fair skin flushed. “I must protest.” Then she seemed to think better of it.

The bridesmaids, having found the dry-goods store wanting, had flocked back onto the street, surrounding the duke. Kate began shooing them away toward the potter’s shop.

Olivia didn’t move.
Diamond bracelets
, she thought.

If only Sir Jasper had thought to offer her a diamond bracelet—something worthwhile, instead of merely forgiving her rent—she might have been tempted… No, not even the most expensive diamond bracelet in the world could make Sir Jasper tempting.

But the Duke of Somervale was a different proposition altogether. Diamond bracelets, and the security such jewels represented, must be merely the icing on the cake for his mistresses.

What Olivia herself couldn’t do with the proceeds of a diamond bracelet!

“
Do
you keep a chest of diamond bracelets to woo your mistresses, Your Grace?” she asked sweetly.

“Certainly not, Lady Reyne.”

Olivia told herself it was just as well, if only because she wouldn’t know the first thing about converting a diamond bracelet into ready money. “What a relief it is to know that, sir.”

His expression didn’t change, but his eyebrows went up. They were, despite what Olivia had thought yesterday in the midst of their confrontation over Charlotte’s too-still body, nice eyebrows—aristocratic, with a strong arch.

Walk away
, she told herself. But the sparkle in his midnight-blue eyes said that if she did, he would consider he had routed her.

“A relief, I mean, to be assured you’re so sensible,” she went on. “Surely you keep rubies and sapphires and emeralds on hand as well, set in necklaces and brooches. After all, not
every
woman appreciates diamonds—or bracelets, for that matter.”

For an instant he stared at her, and Olivia’s insides quaked. However great the temptation to bait him, what in heaven’s name had made her succumb to it?

Then he threw back his head and laughed.

He really was gorgeous, she thought. Kate was right. He could be charming and funny and delightful…

Stop right there
, Olivia told herself,
and think before you dig yourself into a hole you can’t climb out of.

But she opened her mouth again anyway. “However,” she said softly, “I happen to be one of the ones who does. Appreciate diamond bracelets, I mean. So if you’re thinking of wooing another mistress anytime soon, Your Grace, do keep me in mind.”

Four

And then the infuriating female smiled at him and walked away.

So Lady Reyne was the kind of woman who appreciated diamond bracelets! She didn’t look it, Simon thought. There wasn’t a drop of ornamentation anywhere around her today, and while her gown was more attractive than the bag she’d been wearing yesterday in her garden, that was saying very little. Her dress was no indication that the woman had expensive tastes. Its style was at least three years out of date, as was the bonnet that perched saucily on her glossy dark curls.

The gown was also the style of a younger woman. Not that Lady Reyne was exactly in her dotage, but pale pink muslin was more appropriate for a debutante. However, no mere debutante would be capable of flinging forth a lure like the one she had just dangled before him.