Candice Hern (80 page)

Bristol Blue.

Damnation! Was there nothing that would not remind him of her? Sedge flung the empty decanter wildly, and it crashed to pieces against the iron grate. How was he ever to force her from his memory if even a blasted brandy decanter brought her to mind?

Ever since his return to London almost two weeks ago, he had done his damnedest to expunge the memory of that redheaded hoyden from his mind. Once it was known that he was in Town, friends began to call. Finding him more often than not in a foul mood, they began to drag him out for nights of drink and cards and general revelry. He managed the nuisance of crutches at first. Since graduating to a cane last week after the splint was removed, it had become easier to carouse about Town with his young cronies. He had spent most of his nights at various clubs or at any number of gaming hells, getting blistering drunk and losing small fortunes. He spent most of his days recovering from his nights.

Invitations arrived for a few of the early events of the Season, but Sedge had no stomach for the formality of Society functions just yet. For the first time in his life, the broad smile did not come so easily. He declined all invitations.

Nothing seemed to cheer him. He became more and more belligerent toward his companions, more and more intolerant of their good humor and high spirits. He had come home two nights ago, aggravated with the world at large, and had ripped the knocker off the front door. If he was going to get drunk and wallow in misery, he would as soon do it in the privacy of his own home, alone and undisturbed.

The servants had given him a wide berth; only Pargeter and Wigan, his butler, daring to come near. Wigan had strict orders that he was at home to no one, should anyone be bold enough to ignore the removed knocker. Wigan had defied that order once, when Albert had come to call. Apparently Sedge had not been specific enough to include relatives in the collective ban. Albert had ostensibly called to check on Sedge's leg and general well-being, but before long he had begun once again to berate Sedge's recklessness in having shot the highwayman.

"God's teeth, Bertie, must you continue to sing the same old refrain? I'm bloody tired of it."

"You're bloody drunk," Albert had replied.

"So what if I am?"

"It's the middle of the afternoon, cuz, in case you hadn't noticed."

"So?"

"So, you'd better go easy, old man," Albert had said. "You're becoming more and more reckless. It ain't like you, Sedge."

"Bugger off, Bertie. I'll do as I please."

Albert had departed in a fury that Sedge's clouded wits did not comprehend. What business was it of Albert's if Sedge got quietly foxed in his own house?

Sedge glared down at the blue glass shards littering the grate and thought perhaps he could no longer lay claim to being quiet. In fact, before he could formulate another coherent thought, Wigan entered the study. Damn. He was in for it now, Sedge thought as Wigan turned a gimlet eye toward the broken mess. Might as well have smashed the whole blasted set. Harder to replace just one.

Wigan raised his brows without comment and announced that a visitor waited in the hall.

"Dammit, Wigan! How many times must I tell you that I wish to see no one? And who the hell forces himself into a house with no knocker, anyway?"

"I beg your pardon, my lord," Wigan said. "I thought you might wish to make an exception this time. It is Lord Pemerton."

"Jack? Well, send him in, for God's sake. Don't make the man wait in the hallway." Sedge raised his voice to a shout. "Jack? Jack? Is that you? Come on in."

Wigan rolled his eyes heavenward, and stepped aside to allow the Marquess of Pemerton to enter. Nodding toward the grate, the butler said, "My lord, would you like me to—"

"Leave it, Wigan. You may go. Oh, and bring more brandy, please."

Wigan's eyes strayed briefly to the broken decanter. "Yes, my lord," he said before leaving the room.

Lord Pemerton's eyes had followed Wigan's to the shattered decanter and he now raised his black brows in question. "Heard you were in Town, Sedge," he said. "Heard you'd been drinking quite a lot. Hadn't heard you'd taken to smashing things."

"Sit down, Jack." Sedge waved a slack arm toward a chair.

Jack pulled the chair closer and set it at a right angle to Sedge's chair. Seating himself, he was forced to angle it away a bit in order to make more room, as Sedge was incapable just then of tucking in the long legs stretched out before him. "So," Jack said, settling back into the chair, "what happened?"

"I broke the bloody decanter. So what?"

"That's not what I mean," Jack said.

"What, then?"

"What really happened, Sedge?" his friend asked in a quiet, deep voice. "What's eating away at you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Give over, Sedge. I've never seen you like this. You've seen me like this more times than I would wish."

"Like what? Drunk, you mean?" He let out a mirthless crack of laughter. "Yeah, I've seen you drunk plenty of times. Plenty of times. You ain't here to preach to me, are you? 'Cause if you are, you can leave right now. I don't need preaching. Mary hasn't turned you up temperate, has she?"

Jack laughed. "Not a chance. Too many years of dissipation to give it all up flat. In fact, if I may ..." He stood, moved to the side table, and gestured toward the row of decanters.

Sedge fluttered a limp hand in a wave of dismissal. "Sorry, old man. Should have offered. Pour yourself a drink. Out of brandy at the moment, I'm afraid."

Jack looked at the broken glass in the grate and nodded. He picked up one of the matching blue bottles and held it up to read the word Hollands written across the front in gold letters. He wrinkled his nose in distaste and replaced it in the silver holder. He then reached for one of the larger, clear etched glass decanters and held it up toward the light. There was no label on this one.

"Claret" Sedge volunteered.

Jack nodded again and poured himself a glass. Just then, Wigan returned with a new decanter of brandy. Sedge held out his glass and Wigan refilled it, his face puckered up in a scowl of disapproval. As the butler left the room, Sedge watched his retreating back with an irritated scowl of his own. Who the devil did the fellow think he was, anyway? Sedge did not have to put up with that sort of insolence. By God, he did not.

Jack had resumed his chair. He took a long swallow of the red wine, and sighed with pleasure.

"You gonna get drunk with me, then?" Sedge asked, grinning at his friend.

"No."

"You gonna preach at me?"

"No." Jack kept his eyes on the shattered glass in the grate. "I was just wondering what got you mad enough to fling that decanter."

Sedge snorted but did not reply.

"Come on, Sedge. I owe you one, you know. Remember how you towed me out of Covent Garden and tried to shake some sense into my drunken head?"

Sedge laughed. "What a mess you were, Jack."

"Don't I know it. I was pretty miserable when Mary left me." He took another swallow of wine. "That's why I realize how you feel right now. Miserable." His brows knotted together as he stared into the fire, then raised slightly in concern as he looked over at Sedge. "I just don't know why."

Sedge turned away, drained his glass, and stared into the fire.

"Thought you might want to talk about it," Jack said. "Perhaps I can help in some way. I owe you that, Sedge."

Sedge remained silent. Why did everyone have to harp at him? Why couldn't they all just leave him alone?

"Tell me why you smashed the decanter, Sedge."

"Because it reminded me of her!" he blurted without thinking.

"Who?"

Sedge shifted his stiff leg and crossed his ankles. Damn Jack, anyway, for poking his nose where it did not belong. "No one," he said.

Jack bent to pick up a piece of broken glass and rubbed the smooth surface between his fingers. "No one, eh?" He turned the shard over and studied it. "No one in particular. No one with eyes the color of'—he paused as he held the blue glass up to the light—"sapphires, perhaps?"

"Sherry."

Jack looked at Sedge's empty glass and raised his brows in question. "You want some sherry?" he asked in an astonished voice.

"No, no," Sedge replied impatiently. "Her eyes."

"What?"

"Her eyes. The color of sherry, not sapphires."

"Ah." Jack leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Sherry- colored eyes. I see." He fingered the blue glass shard, furrowing his brows as he studied it, then looked at Sedge in question. Getting no response, he shrugged, tossed the shard back in the grate, and picked up his wineglass. He took a long swallow, then returned his gaze to the fire. His elbows rested on the arms of his chair and he absently tapped a finger on the rim of his glass. It was several moments before he broke the companionable silence.

"And what about her hair?" he asked.

Sedge had been conjuring up images of those sherry eyes, darkened and heavy-lidded just after he had kissed her. He expanded the image to include her hair. Unruly wisps escaping the severe knot at her nape and framing her face like a soft halo. How could he describe the color of Meg's hair? It was red, of course. But somehow that simple description did not suffice. He thought for a moment. "You know those cliffs down at your Devon estate?" he asked.

"Pemworth? The cliffs at Pemworth?"

"Yes. The red ones. Sort of that color."

"Ah," Jack said. "Terra-cotta."

"Yes, that's it. Like old Tudor brick. Like... like at Hampton Court, or some such place. Or... or maybe more like an October sunset. You know, all sort of fiery and bright?" Sedge's hands fluttered in circles around his own head as he struggled to describe Meg's hair. He caught Jack's eyes, flashing with amusement, and quickly dropped his hands.

"So," Jack said, smiling broadly, "fiery red hair and sherry eyes. I am intrigued. What else?"

Sedge's lips curled up into a grin. "You won't believe this, Jack. She's taller than you. Almost as tall as me."

"Good God!"

"With the longest, most beautiful legs you've ever seen."

Jack threw back his head and laughed. "So, who is this no one in particular with red hair and sherry eyes and legs up to here?"

And so Sedge, his tongue surprisingly loose, told his friend everything. Without having intended to do so, he found himself telling Jack all about his accident, his rescue by the fiery- haired angel, his recovery at Thornhill, and all that had happened with Meg.

"She turned you down flat?" Jack shook his head in astonishment.

"Just like that!" Sedge said as he reached over and snapped his fingers in front of Jack's face. "'I think you had better leave,' she said. Now what's a fellow to think of something like that, I ask you?"

"And you have no idea what could have set her off?" Jack asked.

"None."

"Hmm. And you say that up until that moment she had been very receptive to your... your attentions?"

"So I had thought," Sedge replied, staring into the bottom of his empty glass.

"And you had thought that you ... that she was The One?"

"God help me, I did." Sedge ran his fingers through his hair. "I did. What a bloody fool!"

"Ah, don't be so hard on yourself, old man," Jack said. "Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall any other woman ever before affecting you this way. If you think she is The One, then she probably is. In which case, I would advise you not to give up just yet. Let her cool down. Then try again. Perhaps she was just playing coy, and wanted to be chased a bit, wooed a bit longer."

"Not this woman."

"How can you be so sure?"

Sedge slid deeper into his chair and groaned. "That's just it," he wailed. "I can't be! 'Pon my word, Jack, I shall never understand women!"

Jack raised his glass in salute. "I'll drink to that."

* * *

Meg tossed and turned and could not seem to fall asleep. She pounded the pillow again, the thick, muffled sound an echo of her loneliness. How could she be lonely in this busy farm, with people coming and going every day? But the truth was, she was lonely for Sedge. She missed him. How could she have grown so used to him in so short a time? And what business did she have missing someone who had treated her so shabbily?

Her head still told her to forget him, but her heart could not forget. She rolled to her side and hugged a pillow to her stomach, remembering his kiss. Maybe Terrence had been right after all. Perhaps she had never had the typical feminine sensibilities where men were concerned. But not once in all that time had a man stirred the feelings in her that Sedge had awakened. The memory of those feelings—warm, sensual, breathless, yearning for more—caused her body to relive them all over again. She hugged the pillow tighter and smiled against it. At the ripe old age of twenty-four, she had finally discovered what all the fuss was about.

As quickly as those warm feelings were resurrected, an enormous sense of loss overwhelmed her. She choked on an unexpected sob, and tears began to course down her cheeks. She clutched the pillow more tightly against her breast and sobbed for what could never be. Meg had been shown a glimpse of the secrets of love; but that tantalizing glimpse was all she would ever know. For she had lost Colin Herriot, Viscount Sedgewick, the one man in all the world who could have taught her those secrets.

But how could she lose what she had never possessed?

Ah, but she could have had him. If only she had accepted his offer, she could have had him.

Meg sat bolt upright in bed. Now, where had that notion come from?
If
she had accepted his offer. There was no question about accepting that hateful offer. Was there? No, of course not. She was being ridiculous. She sat back against the headboard, propping a pillow behind her head. To accept an offer such as Sedge had made was unthinkable for a young, gently bred female such as herself. Then, why had he made it? He should have known she could not accept. Shouldn't he? But perhaps such liaisons were more common among his social set. Perhaps she was simply too sheltered here at Thornhill to know how other people, more sophisticated people, went on. Still, it was not the sort of thing that Meg Ashburton could do. She could never live with herself if she agreed to such a tiling. Could she?