Before The Scandal (6 page)

“Yellow. I want yellow flowers, and a yellow ribbon. I won’t have you attempting to make me look foolish. We could send you back to your great-aunt, you know.”

“I beg your pardon, Aunt Ernesta,” Alyse sighed. “I’ll fetch the yellow ribbon.”

“I thought you would.”

As she stood up, Saunders knocked and leaned into the room. “Mrs. Donnelly, Miss Donnelly, Colonel Phin Bromley.”

Crisp, precise, and commanding, Phin strolled into the room and sketched a shallow bow. “Good morning, ladies.”

Aunt Ernesta stood. “Colonel. What in the world brings you here today?”

“I thought I would take Miss Donnelly riding, if you can spare her for a time.”

Alyse’s heart skipped a beat. He’d said he wanted to go riding with her, but she hadn’t realized that he’d meant it. “I…I’m mending my aunt’s h—”

“You will return her by luncheon,” her aunt said, and motioned at her to leave the room. “I’ll never have a decent conversation out of her if she doesn’t get her way.”

Well, that was uncalled-for. And a lie. But arguing would be worse than pointless, since she’d never be allowed to go riding if she reacted. “Thank you, Aunt Ernesta.”

“Humph.”

“I took the liberty of asking that a horse be saddled for you,” Phin said, offering his arm as they left the morning room.

“I have to change my dress,” she said, rushing her words and half worried that he would change his mind.

“I’ll wait outside, shall I?”

“Yes, please.”

She hadn’t worn her sea-green riding dress in over three years, but luckily it still fit. Swiftly she buttoned it up the front and stomped into her riding boots, then hurried down the stairs again.

Saunders opened the door for her, and she took a breath to steady herself. “I shall return shortly,” she said, and walked onto the front portico. And burst out laughing. “Oh, my.”

Phineas lifted his scarred right eyebrow. “I will assume my mount amuses you,” he said dryly.

“The poor dear. What’s his name?”

“Saffron. He’s reputedly a butter chestnut. Shall we?” With a glance at the groom holding the bridle of the bay that had been saddled for her, Phin turned Alyse to face him and then lifted her up into the saddle.

The sensation of being lifted effortlessly into the air left her breathless. No one did such things for her any longer. Heavens, no one had even given her flowers in over four years—except for last night.

Phin led the way down the drive, and she urged her mare up to keep pace with the striking Saffron. Belatedly she noticed the groom falling in behind them. A chaperon. It had been years since she’d warranted one of those.

“Two conversations within two days,” she said aloud, trying to collect herself. “You’re not becoming infatuated with me, are you?”

“I’ve always been infatuated with you,” he returned easily, his gaze focusing on her mouth.
Trouble
, she repeated to herself as he looked away again. He was trouble, and that was something she couldn’t afford.

“I suppose that explains the plethora of frogs I received.” Alyse was relieved that her voice sounded level and amused. She had learned some things over the past few years about hiding her true feelings.

“I can safely promise there will be no more frogs.” He looked over at her again. “After all, you’re not twelve any longer.”

“Not for thirteen years.”

“I’m long past being seventeen, myself.” He hesitated. “How is it that you’re unmarried, Alyse? Even at fifteen you had every lad in East Sussex following you about.”

She snorted. “You don’t mess about with chitchat, do you?”

“I’m not a chit. And as a soldier I’ve found it wise to speed to the heart of the matter as swiftly as possible.”

“Why do you wish to know?” she asked, not certain what she wanted to hear him say.

“Because I’ve made a great many mistakes in my life, and I’ve begun to think that leaving here just when…just when I did was the largest of them.” He headed them down toward the narrow path along the river.

“After you hear what happened, you may count yourself grateful.” She couldn’t stop the abrupt bitterness in her voice. Oh, she’d been so young, and so stupid.

“Technically, I believe you and I may already be married,” he said unexpectedly, “considering the ceremony that William performed for us. We might have been only eight and ten, but I do think it’s a possibility.”

Alyse laughed reluctantly. “You only pretended to marry me so that you could pretend to go off to war and be killed in battle to leave me a grieving widow.”

“In hindsight it was probably more entertaining for me than for you.” He stopped Saffron and dismounted, circling around to slide his arms around Alyse’s waist and lower her to the ground. His warm hands stayed where they were for a moment too long. “Wait here,” he instructed the groom, and offered her his arm.

She wrapped her fingers around his crimson sleeve, and side by side they made their way down to the willow-edged riverbank. “I don’t want to tell you what happened,” she said slowly.

“Then don’t. I intend to find out, though, and I prefer to hear it from you. If it helps, I’m nowhere close to perfection myself, and I don’t expect it from anyone else.”

Blowing out her breath and pretending to be more annoyed than worried he would turn around and simply leave her there, whatever he might say, she shrugged. “Very well, then. To touch on the plot points of a very long tale, I had a wondrous debut Season in London. Four proposals of marriage within a fortnight. But I wanted to fall in love, so I waited.” So foolish, she’d been, thinking that she would love and be loved and that everything would be daisies and waltzes. She should have married the first man to ask her.

“You were set on marrying a prince, or a duke at the very least, as I recall.”

“Yes, well, I was a silly girl.”

“Go on.”

She liked the way he said that, as though he were truly interested in hearing what she had to say. “At the beginning of my third Season, I met him. Phillip Ambry, the Marquis of Layton.”

Phin scowled, the muscles in his arm tightening. “But he—”

“Yes, he rather famously married Roberta Engles, that American heiress.” She paused, but her pride didn’t sting as it used to—too many other things had given her a better perspective on the relative importance of her heart. “He asked Papa’s permission to marry me, and my father refused to grant it. Phillip was a fortune hunter, you see, and everyone knew it. Everyone but me. Or I suppose I did know, but I thought that he hadn’t pursued me because of money. He was so very dashing, you know.”

“I believe I know the type.”

“When he suggested that we elope to Gretna Green, it was the most romantic thing I could imagine. I was to pack a bag, and then halfway through the Windicott soiree he would whisk me away in his coach and no one would be able to stop us.”

“Something stopped you.”

“A fortnight before the ball, Papa died, and Mama four days after that.”

“I’m so sorry, Alyse,” Phin murmured.

“Thank you,” she returned automatically. “I miss them.”

“Layton begged off because your parents died? That’s—”

“A few days after the funerals, my father’s solicitor called on me. Everything—all of the Donnelly property—was entailed. Everything—the paintings on the walls, the furniture, my clothes, even—was to go to my cousin Richard. I panicked, tried to find Phillip and tell him that I wanted to leave with him immediately. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Richard take possession of my family’s home and title and…everything. But I couldn’t find him.”

“You went to the soiree, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “With my bag packed. He was there, dancing with that awful Roberta Engles. At first he pretended that he didn’t even know me. Then he took my bag and threw it onto the floor and said that I was mad and should stop following him about before he had someone deliver me to Bedlam.”

Phin muttered a word that she couldn’t quite make out, but that sounded exceedingly rude. “What about a stipend for you? An inheritance?”

“It was to be up to the discretion of Richard.”

“‘Was to be,’” he repeated. “What happened?”

“I had ruined myself. I couldn’t stay in London with everyone laughing at how stupid and blind I’d been, so Richard sent me to Cornwall to live with an aunt.” She couldn’t quite suppress her shudder as she remembered the overpowering smell of cats and mildew. “We weren’t compatible. And I…still had far too much pride to suit everyone, including myself.”

“Alyse, you were never proud.”

She gave a humorless smile. “Yes, I was. Remember, I wanted a prince. And love. I thought I deserved them. After all, as you said, half the young men here wanted to marry me. Half the men in London did, too—until my fortunes turned and I made a complete fool of myself. And the women to whom I should have been nicer weren’t quiet about their satisfaction with my new circumstances. That proverb about pride and a fall is very true, you know.”

Her voice quavered a little, but either he didn’t notice or he pretended not to. She thought it was probably the latter. When he stopped at the edge of the slow-flowing water it seemed quite natural for her to keep her fingers gripped into his arm, and they both gazed out at the river and the hovering dragonflies as she continued to speak.

“I wrote to Richard and asked him to please let me return to London, but he wrote back that I wouldn’t find anything more pleasant there. Instead he sent me to a second cousin, but she and her husband couldn’t afford to keep me there. After several more changes of address, Richard brought me back to Donnelly House here. As a bachelor he wanted someone able to serve as hostess while he set up a household, and his mother, my aunt, is frail.”

“You’re her companion,” he said slowly.

She nodded. “I’m her companion.”

Well, he knew her story now, knew that to the amusement of a great many of her acquaintances she’d been pushed off her pedestal—or jumped off it herself, rather—and then made to clean it. She watched his expression and waited to see how long it would be before he began searching for an excuse to return her to Donnelly House. After all, she wasn’t the sought-after daughter of a viscount any longer. She was a seven-Seasons-unmarried companion to a viscount’s mother with absolutely no prospect of her situation ever improving.

“However much you thought you deserved happiness, Alyse,” Phin finally commented, his gaze turning from the water, “you weren’t wrong.” He drew a breath. “I should never have left here.”

“And what in the world would you have done?” she asked, though she had the feeling that he wasn’t talking about her as much as he was his own family.

His hazel eyes met hers, and then he took a single step forward. Taking her face in his hands, he leaned down and kissed her. Warm lips touched hers, soft and seeking and not the least bit comforting. The sensation…lit her on fire. A long moment later he lifted his head away from hers a few inches.

“If I’d stayed, Alyse, at least neither of us would have been alone,” he murmured.

It took several tries for her breath to return. Good heavens, he’d learned how to kiss since the peck he’d given her during the faux-marriage game and the infrequent occasions after that. But she’d learned some lessons about life, as well—none of them as pleasant as that kiss. “What do you want of me, Phin?” she asked, keeping her voice fairly steady. “We both know you didn’t return to Quence Park because of me.”

He smiled fleetingly. “What do I want of you?” he repeated. “Perhaps you’ll grant me more than two days back to figure that out. For both our sakes. And no, I didn’t return because of you. Because I didn’t know.”

“I know how you like adventure and strife, Phin. Don’t make trouble for me.”

“I will try not to make any more trouble for you. But I don’t frighten easily.” He glanced back in the direction of the horses. “There’s an opera tonight in town and a public ball tomorrow night, I believe. Will you be attending either of them?”

Did he actually intend to court her? Phin? “Not the opera. Aunt Ernesta finds it dull.”

“The ball, then.”

“I don’t know yet. It depends on whether she wishes to go.”

“Perhaps I should try to persuade her.”

She blanched. “Don’t you dare.”

“Very well,” he said, chuckling probably to ease her obvious alarm. “I shall attempt to behave. Save a dance for me if you do attend, dark-eyed Alyse. Because I want to see you again.”

They stood there for another few moments, then returned to the horses and continued their ride. It wasn’t until he’d returned her to Donnelly House that she recalled what he’d said—he would try not to make
any more
trouble for her. Had he done something already? Or perhaps he’d simply referred to that kiss. Because from they way her heart had pounded, that in itself could signal a great deal of trouble.