Amanda Scott (33 page)

“Lord, he don’t have to wear the stuff to be a lacy sort,” Lyndhurst informed her. “But come along, love. We’re in the way of this set that’s forming. You’ll forgive us, Manningford.”

“No,” Brandon said, staying put and looking steadily from one to the other. He was not as large as the viscount, but he was solid enough to provide an effective barrier, and there was a moment’s silence before he apparently realized that the single word was insufficient and added, “Thing is, don’t think you ought to.” He fixed his gaze on Carolyn. “Not the thing to be going outside with him, don’t you know. Saint-Denis wouldn’t like it.”

At the sight of the viscount’s darkening brow, Carolyn experienced a delicious thrill at the base of her spine. Not only was he as handsome as she had imagined the heroes of her favorite books to be, but he had the dangerous look that was
de rigueur
with them, as well. Brandon, too, was looking dangerous, although she had never before thought him a heroic type. Reckless, perhaps, even irresponsibly madcap, but not heroic. Still, he had filled out a bit since she had last seen him in London, and he did not look at all reckless or foolish when he met Lyndhurst’s glare with a steady, stubborn scowl.

The viscount growled, “You are in the way, Manningford.”

“Don’t be a clunch, Lyndhurst. We can scarcely initiate a brawl right here in the hotel.”

“You can name your seconds, however,” the viscount observed with a gentle malice that made Carolyn gasp.

“Daresay I could,” Brandon agreed, “if I were such a nodcock as to consent to meet you. I’m not, though, so you needn’t think to count me among your victims. Even if I were a veritable prince of Corinth, which I’m not,” he added frankly, “I wouldn’t be fool enough to meet you. I know your reputation too well.”

“Coward.”

The word, hissed between the viscount’s teeth, set Carolyn’s skin a-prickle. She glanced around, but no one appeared to have noticed that the two men were nearly at daggers drawn. Knowing there would soon be a fight if no one moved to prevent it, she wracked her brain for something to say to ease the tension.

Brandon’s jaw had tightened when Lyndhurst spoke the single word, and for that long, anxious moment, he said nothing. But then, relaxing, he said without rancor, “Daresay I am a coward if bravery is measured by one’s willingness to be murdered. But unless you’re prepared to knock me down in front of all these chits and old folks, you might as well take yourself off like a gentleman and leave Caro to dance with me.”

“Carolyn?” The viscount looked down his nose at her in clear and haughty expectation that she would snub Brandon.

Breathing more easily, she said, “Perhaps we can walk later, sir, but for me to go outside with you now would be to set all the tabbies talking, which is a thing I could not like.”

Without another word to either of them, Lyndhurst bowed stiffly and turned on his heel, whereupon Brandon let out an audible sigh of relief.

“Don’t mind telling you,” he confided, “I’m dashed glad to see the back of that fellow. Really, Caro, you ought never to have agreed to go outside with him. Not a wise thing to do, m’dear, not wise at all, assure you.”

She shook her head at him with a look of amused reproach. “I did no such thing, but even if I had, are you, who put a bear to bed with a stranger, and who purchased a full suit of livery for his kitchen cat, daring to preach propriety to me?”

“Dashed good notion, that livery,” he said, chuckling. “If old Puss ever mislays himself, the neighbors will know precisely where to return him. M’ father threw a fit when he discovered what I’d done, or so his man told me. Didn’t see the old fellow m’self, of course.”

“I think it is sad that your papa never leaves the Royal Crescent,” Carolyn said, remembering the many tales she had heard about the eccentric Sir Mortimer Manningford.

“The crescent! He never leaves the third floor of the house. Sits up there in his library behind his great desk, scribbling his memoirs or some such muck all day. Has done since m’ mother passed on. Or so I’m told. Don’t remember that far back, m’self, but I never see him. Leaves notes for the servants if he wants something. Sees m’ brother, Charlie, once a year, of course, but Charlie’s the heir. And even he has to make an appointment. Stays twenty minutes and goes away until the next year. M’ sister Ramsbury was used to see him on the odd occasion, but now she’s married and lives in London, of course.”

“He sounds fascinating,” Carolyn said wistfully. “I should like very much to meet him. Don’t you sometimes just itch to peek in and see precisely what he’s doing?”

“Lord, no,” Brandon said. “Why would I? Dashed prickly sort of fellow, if you ask me. Don’t do to rile him.”

“But don’t you sometimes get lonely and wish he would pay you more heed?”

“I should say not. One has one’s friends, after all, and I’d as lief not have a parent always looking over m’ shoulder, quizzing me about what I’m doing. M’ sister Ramsbury used to do that frequently, and I can tell you, I prefer to do as I please without a lot of dashed interference.”

Carolyn chuckled. “You sound just like Godmama.”

“What?” He looked hastily around again. “Look here, m’ girl, we’ve missed our set altogether, so we might just as well take a turn about the garden as stand here like a pair of dashed gateposts. You can explain that piece of nonsense to me outside where no one else is likely to overhear you.”

She laughed. “In the garden? Brandon, really, ’tis just as improper for me to go outside with you as with Lyndhurst!”

“Fustian, it can be no such thing,” he insisted as he drew her toward the tall french doors leading into the garden. “I ain’t a loose screw, for one thing—well, not with the ladies, at all events, so take that dashed impertinent grin off your face! I certainly ain’t likely to seduce you behind the nearest bramble bush. Unlikely to do that to anyone,” he added with a comical look. “Too dashed prickly, by half.”

“There are no brambles in these gardens,” she retorted as he reached to open the door, but as she spoke, another thought occurred to her, halting her in her tracks. “Would he?”

“Would who, do what?”

“Lyndhurst. Would he try to seduce me?”

“No doubt about it. Man’s a blasted bounder. Surprised you don’t know that. He falls tail over top in love forever at least once a fortnight and don’t count the cost. Ruined more than one reputation, I can tell you, so you don’t want to encourage him, Caro. Dashed dangerous, Lyndhurst is.” He frowned. “Shouldn’t have said that. Fatal. Noticed before that you fool women dote on dangerous men. Always thinking you can tame them. Can’t, you know, but it’s probably why you got yourself betrothed to those poor fellows in London and it’s why you’re standing right there in front of me now, thinking you can tame Lyndhurst. Forget him and tell me what the deuce you meant, telling me I talk like old Lady Skipton. Dashed silly thing to say, if you ask me.”

Carolyn didn’t answer him at once. Instead, she glanced back over her shoulder, looking for the viscount, wondering if he was at all like either of the two gentlemen to whom she had been so briefly betrothed. When she saw him and realized that his dark gaze still rested intently upon her and that his eyes still glittered with that delicious look of danger, another blazing thrill shot up her spine. Deciding that he was indeed very like them, she allowed her gaze to lock briefly with his.

“Caro!”

Startled as much by the unfamiliar snap in Brandon’s voice as by the impatient tug of his arm beneath her fingers, she looked quickly back at him to see that he was holding the door open with an exasperated grimace on his face. “Forget about him,” he said, drawing her across the threshold. “Tell me.”

“Tell you what? Oh, about Godmama? It was only that I once asked her if she missed Lord Skipton—her late husband, that is, not Sydney’s brother—and she said, ‘Not a bit,’ that she was free now to do as she liked without having to answer to anyone else. When you said what you did about doing as you please, you sounded just like her.”

“Oh, well, if that’s all.” He drew in a deep breath of the chilly night air as the door swung shut behind them, muffling the sounds of music and dancers, as well as the constant underlying hum of conversation. The torchlit garden before them was lovely, and she ignored the cold when Brandon drew her toward the widest of several gravel pathways that seemed to beckon to them. “I say, Caro, coming out here was a dashed good notion. One can scarcely breathe inside. And look,” he added with increased enthusiasm a moment later as they approached a lighted open area. “Some of the lads are playing at bowls on that green yonder.”

When they drew nearer, Carolyn, shivering, saw that “the lads” were a mixed lot of older and middle-aged gentlemen—with but one or two younger—who had escaped the festivities inside, and also that most were a good deal merrier than a simple game of bowls might warrant. “They’re drunk,” she said shrewdly as she hastily stepped back into the shadows cast by shrubs lining the gravel pathway, hoping they had not seen her.

“Only a bit well to live,” Brandon said, watching them. “Someone must have slipped a jug or two past the master of ceremonies’ long nose. Oh, that was a fine shot, that was,” he added, absently drawing her nearer, oblivious to her reluctance.

“I’m freezing, Brandon. I think we ought to—”

“Oh, don’t spoil sport. Look, Honeyford has the shot now. He’s a particular friend of mine. Dash it, don’t the fellow know how to do the thing? Here, Honeyford,” he called out, releasing Carolyn and striding toward the group, “I’ll show you how, man.”

His appearance in the midst of the gamesters was greeted by laughter and a number of ribald comments. A jug was promptly passed to him, and he drank thirstily before passing it on to another man. Reaching for the ball, he bowled it straight toward the pins, and when the shot was declared an excellent one, he shouted his pleasure and snatched up the jug again, tilting his head back and guzzling deeply.

Carolyn watched in dismay, as the others laughingly urged him on. She knew they had not seen her, and she had no wish to emerge from her place in the shadows or to call out to Brandon, but she felt cold and vulnerable where she was. No other couples or any ladies at all had come out, for at this season few people wished to wander at night to visit the grottoes, labyrinths, groves, and waterfalls that made the gardens such a treat in warmer months. She had reached the point of wondering if there was any way at all by which she might recall her erstwhile escort without drawing the attention of the others when Lyndhurst’s deep voice sounded close behind her, startling her so that only her own hand clapped across her mouth prevented her from shrieking.

“A man who would abandon beauty in this wilderness is no gentleman,” he murmured low in his throat, and when she whirled about, she found him disturbingly close to her. There was enough light from nearby torches to see that he was smiling, gazing at her with the intensity that was so characteristic of him. For once, however, his attitude moved her only to sharp anger.

“You ought not to startle a person like that,” she snapped, keeping her voice down with an effort.

His expression did not alter, nor did he look away, and the torchlight seemed to set hot sparks leaping in his eyes, filling them with a smoldering heat that, although it made her feel increasingly feminine and desirable, made her hope that Brandon had not forgotten her very existence, as indeed it seemed he had.

She shivered.

“You’re cold.”

“No, no, the night is not so very cold.”

“Nor yet warm enough for that dress,” he said. “Come, walk with me. ’Twill set your blood moving and warm you.” There was meaning in his voice that sent more shivers through her.

She believed she had only to insist upon returning to the warmth inside for him to take her back, and so it was that her hand found itself tucked into the crook of his arm instead, and somehow she found herself, within minutes, whisked out of sight of the bowlers, whose laughing voices soon faded into the distance, making the garden seem strangely quiet.

It was daring, and very thrilling. She had never done such a thing before in all her life. To be sure, there had been other stolen moments, even a few stolen kisses shared with other handsome young men. But never like this. The others had managed to lure her behind a curtain or perhaps even into a separate room, but she had never felt so alone with another man, so distant from her own party, so vulnerable.

When Lyndhurst guided her down a turning and into the shadow of a large overhanging willow tree, she felt momentary panic. There was no torchlight here, only the light from the slender crescent moon and blanket of stars overhead, and that heavily filtered through tree branches. Suppressing her fears, she told herself again that she could easily manage the viscount, that there was nothing to frighten her in his company. She reminded herself that his mama and her godmama were bosom bows, that he would therefore have to respect her wishes and behave himself or suffer dire consequences if he did not.

“Caro, you are so beautiful,” he murmured as he came to a halt and turned to face her, placing his large hands upon her shoulders and letting his fingertips explore the warm flesh beneath the lace edging of her low-cut bodice.

Heady words, and his voice was so low and caressing, surely not the voice of a dangerous man. His very confidence and air of experience lulled her fears, and she smiled up at him. “Thank you, sir.” Even in the dim light, she was aware of the intense look in his eyes.

His fingers tightened against her flesh as he said huskily, “I couldn’t bear it when you came out here with that idiot, Manningford. You are too good for him, Caro. You need a man who knows how to treat you, who understands you need a firm hand on the rein. I’m going to kiss you, love. I can wait no longer.”

Every nerve ending in her body came alive, and although she disliked hearing him call Brandon an idiot, the description was apt enough just then for her to ignore any immediate inclination to defend him. Thus it was that when Lyndhurst pulled her into his arms, she went willingly enough, albeit with more curiosity aroused than passion, since the scene had begun just as all her favorite authors were wont to describe such moments.