Serena (6 page)

She should just confess that she had been trying to get Freddy to return to school for weeks. She should not allow his lordship to think so poorly of her, but some wayward flicker of temper still had control of her, and she said, her chin well up, “I think, my lord, that I have tarried here with you too long. I must now return to my uncle.” So saying, she took her horse’s reins and, still seething, started to turn away from him.

He reached out and caught her kid-gloved wrist. “Stay … just another moment, if only to give me the chance to beg your forgiveness. My concern for my nephew’s future compromised my good sense. Please, Miss Moorely, do forgive my rudeness.”

She looked at him through narrowed eyes. Was he being sincere? Or was this just part of his plan? What did it matter? She wanted him to take Freddy off. She wanted to be done with the entire ordeal and have this … this man out of her life. Why the thought that he would soon return home made her want to cry, she could not say. He was too handsome, too tall, too charming, too arrogant … too …

She did not believe his apology, but it didn’t matter. He had behaved badly, and then so had she. Her answer was quiet as she avoided his eye. “Yes, of course. Now if you will unhand and excuse me.”

She pulled her wrist from his hold, gave him a cold look, and set her horse off at a fast-paced trot. She didn’t look back, but she wanted to. She didn’t cry, but she wanted to do that as well.

~ Seven ~

SERENA MOORELY HAD been respected and coddled by everyone she knew all her life. She had never thought of herself as spoiled and usually spent her ‘pin money’ on her uncle’s tenants, visiting them often, making a mental note of what they might need in the way of personal items and then purchasing it for them.

She enjoyed giving. She enjoyed helping, and she enjoyed the affection she was given in return. She had never before been treated as though she were nothing more than a tart out to entrap a young man the Lord of Pendleton thought far above her station.

If she had not been horseback, she would have stomped her foot at him, paced and ranted at him at great length, and finished by telling him that she had refused Freddy’s offers.

“How dare he think I would take advantage of Freddy … or anyone? How dare he?” she asked her mare. Somehow it hurt her a great deal, so much that she couldn’t for the moment see past his words. She had been attracted to his lordship from the first moment she had seen him, and this event had been cold water in the face. When her eyes had met his … when he first rode up to her, she had felt her heart begin to pound. Had she hoped he might feel the same way?

“What does he take me for? And why should he think such a thing of me? I have a lovely situation here at Moorely. I may be nearing spinster age, but it is because I chose not to marry … yet. I want for nothing, but he thinks I am trying to entrap his nephew—his nephew who is little more than a boy.” She took the stone wall on her way home and landed to canter off towards the stables. Breathlessly, she continued to give a piece of her mind about his lordship to her mare, who did not seem overly interested.

“He is an arrogant, annoying busy-body. He is ill-mannered and judgmental. He is puffed up in his own consequence, and he deserves a lesson. I should have put him in his place. I should have told him I have been trying to get Freddy home. He made up his mind before he came. That is what he did. He has put me into a mold of his own making. What is wrong with him? He says he can’t be taken in … by a pretty face, eh? Well, as to that, I am sure he has had a surfeit of beautiful women chasing after him.” She sighed. “Brandy … he is … well, when he doesn’t open his mouth to spout off nonsense, he is quite, quite handsome.”

She went silent and then remembered how quickly he had apologized. “He means to lure me into thinking he doesn’t believe I am trying to bring Freddy up to scratch. He doesn’t know that Freddy has already proposed twice and that I have turned him down. Well, perhaps we should let him stew? What do you think, Brandy?”

Brandy apparently had been listening, as she nodded her head at that moment, and Serena was most pleased. “Precisely what I mean to do. Let him stew. Let him think what he will. Why should I care?”

Indeed, why should she care?

* * *

The Reverend Eustace Bailey’s height was enough to catch a lady’s eye. His light brown hair, though not combed in the latest London fashion, was thick and wavy and fell in attractive lines across his forehead and around his face. His countenance was chiseled in classic good looks. His eyes were light brown, cool and gave little away.

What was more to the point was that he was certain the object of his affection, Serena, was sure to find him attractive. He was sure of this from the way she always smiled when they chanced to meet.

He had a problem, however, and one that was forever hanging about. Not Frederick of Radburn, for the reverend considered the lad nothing but an errant boy. It was Warren Beverly that worried him.

Eustace stood in the central hall of the Moorely home eyeing Warren with great distaste, for they had arrived within moments of one another.

Warren snorted and offered, “Come on, ol’ boy, make the best of it. You couldn’t expect that a woman like Serena would have just one man hanging on to her petticoats, now could you?”

“You are beneath her, and I do expect she knows that,” the young reverend returned with something of a sneer.

“Well, as to that, the squire himself asked me to join the two of you tonight.”

The reverend turned openly astonished eyes to him and seemed unable to comment to this.

Warren grinned wickedly and wagged a finger. “There, there, you didn’t really think that the squire completely approves of your suit, did you? No, I am not sure he even likes you. Likes me, though.”

“Oh, and you know this how?”

“I have known the family for years,” Warren answered vaguely as he removed an invisible speck from his dress cloak. “I am privy to many things.”

“Dandy!” the reverend said with contempt.

Warren laughed.

* * *

Serena unbent from kissing her uncle’s forehead to find their elderly butler hovering at the door. “Miss Serena, both Mr. Waverly and the Reverend Bailey are here to escort you to the Merriweather ball.”

She turned a surprised face to her uncle. “Warren is here? I thought that the reverend was chaperone enough.” She eyed him, quizzically. “Whatever are you up to?”

“Didn’t want that prosy fellow Bailey taking you into the ball. It would make it look as though you and he had sealed the deal, and you haven’t. He isn’t for you, Serena. Something about the fellow makes me want to spit.”

Serena swallowed her laughter and turned to the retainer. “Thank you, Davis.” Seeing the slight smile curve his lips, she shook her head. “Oh, I suppose you agree with my uncle. You awful men. Right then, please advise the gentlemen that I will be down momentarily.”

She turned back to her uncle and, once the door was shut, wiggled a finger at him. “High-handed, my dear, very high-handed. I forgive you, for in this I will be, actually, more comfortable. Ah, escorted by not one man, but two. It is quite exciting and wonderful—this life, this spinster’s life,” she teased affectionately.

“Spinster? You, my dear-heart, are the Diamond of Hampshire, and though you are still unwed, you have them all beat. Disgraceful is what people will say about me. They will say ’
tis me
keeping you from marrying.” He eyed her. “You like Warren, and the two of you would go on comfortably … his estate is near, and I would have you close by.”

“Uncle, please, we have been through this. I love you dearly, but I don’t love Warren in that particular way. Besides that, I have come to see that he would make a dreadful husband.” She sighed. “What I do want is for you to get out of this bed and come down and have breakfast with me tomorrow morning. The doctor says you are well enough to do so. So we, you and I, shall breakfast tomorrow in the breakfast room.”

She was almost out the door when he grumbled after her, “That minister means to have you. He told me so.”

She laughed, blew him a kiss, and said, “Don’t fret yourself over what he told you. What matters is not what any of them want, or think they want, because it takes two. This part of the two says loudly and clearly that I am already spoken for.” Oddly enough, an image came into her mind, and she chided herself. His Lord Arrogant was what he was, and he had no business in her thoughts.

“Aye then, playing word games with me, are you? You can’t be tending an old man all your life. You need a life of your own.”

“So I do,” she said patiently and waved herself off. “I shall look in on you when I return.”

He grumbled as she closed the door, and she sighed quietly as she made her way down the stairs with a swish of her emerald velvet gown. Her maid had dressed her honey-gold hair at the top of her head and allowed cascading curls to fall down her neckline like a waterfall, and she had to admit when she passed the hall mirror that the style was quite alluring. She wore her mother’s pearl teardrops in her ears and the matching single strand of pearls around her neck. She looked down at the bodice of her gown and frowned. Her seamstress had cut it a bit lower than she liked to wear, displaying the fullness of her breasts to advantage. She hoped it wasn’t too low.

She took up the black velvet cloak and draped it over her arm as she made her way to the central hall, where her escorts awaited her.

She heard Warren’s outrageous flattery with an accompanying patient eye as she pulled on her cream-colored lace gloves and smiled a greeting.

Warren murmured, “Egad … woman
, damn
, but you are exquisite.”

She smiled to herself as Eustace frowned at Warren but turned to tell her with a soft smile, “You are, you know, quite ravishing.”

Serena thanked them, and as both gentlemen offered their bent arms, she laid a gloved hand on each, thinking that, honestly, a woman could do worse than to marry one of these pleasant men. She then chided herself.
What are you thinking
?
Eustace would bore you with his lectures and his staid take on life within a week, and Warren would be Warren, and you could never passionately love either.
You don’t want a marriage of convenience
, she told herself soundly
.

She noted that Eustace’s ball clothes were quite fashionable and was surprised because she was nearly certain they were also fairly expensive. Perhaps he had a private income?

Warren’s pockets were forever to let, but that never hampered his style. It was most absurd, but it was none of her business.

“My carriage awaits,” Warren stuck in. “It is a great deal more comfortable than the minister’s coach, and he may follow, if he likes.”

“No, I prefer to go with you both. Eustace may join us, as your carriage is large enough for the three of us,” Serena countered.

“Very well,” Warren conceded and tweaked her chin. “Whatever my lady wishes.”

“Neatly done, Warren,” she teased.

“You are too good,” answered the minister while he glared at Warren.

Serena giggled as the gentlemen attempted to help her climb inside the coach, for while they fought for position to aid her into the carriage, she nimbly climbed inside without either’s ministrations. She saw them exchange challenging looks before they took up position on the seat in front of her. She pulled her cloak around herself against the chill of the night as the driver clicked the horses forward and covered the three miles to the ball.

* * *

Freddy stood in his black velvet finery in anxious, desperate, childish anticipation of Serena’s arrival. Suddenly a look of severe consternation took over his face, and it was as if all pleasure in the evening ahead was momentarily suspended.

His uncle stood back and eyed him thoughtfully.
Curious
, Daniel Pendleton thought as he approached his nephew and said, “Waiting for Serena’s arrival, I take it?”

“Yes, but she has arrived, with them!” he wailed.

“With them?” His lordship’s expression was thoughtful as he looked to see what his nephew was talking about.

“The reverend, who you must know is a fool. I am not concerned about him, for he is, after all, a man of the cloth and probably doesn’t even know how to woo a woman, especially one as independent as Serena.” He shook his head. “It is the other … that dashed fellow, Warren Beverly.” He sighed and added, “Uncle, you will never credit it, but I daresay he is perhaps even older than you are and is forever dangling after her. Why, I think he is nearly thirty … a veritable ancient.”

“I am nearly thirty,” His uncle amusedly offered.

“Well, yes, but you aren’t chasing about trying to win Serena’s hand, and though he may be old, he is a bruising rider to hounds, a notable whip, and the ladies seem to like him. I have watched him, and he is a most accomplished flirt. Dash it, Uncle, I do hope she isn’t taken in by him. Half the ladies in the New Forest are after him … and look how he holds her arm, as though she already belongs to him. I have a notion to plant him a facer!”

Freddy had the look of a man about to do just that, but his uncle assuaged him by saying, “I doubt that would help. Serena would not like a scene enacted, would she?”

“No, I suppose you are in the right of it,” Freddy agreed, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side.

Lord Pendleton watched Serena’s entrance with both the reverend and Warren Beverly at her side.

Looking at her nearly made him gasp.

He physically felt the air pulled out of his lungs. He felt it being extracted from his throat, and he was left breathless.
She was ravishing
. Everything about her, from her golden hair to her glittering dark eyes, to her full, enticing breasts and her small waist. Damn, bloody damn! She was stunning!

He watched with narrowed eyes as Warren hovered possessively near. He could see the man was something of a rake. He managed to stand protectively with Serena while casting his eyes about and flirting with half a dozen women.

His lordship watched the lady in question as she gave both gentlemen a wave of her fingers because a group of young women, evidently her friends, had come to surround her and take her off.

Freddy tried to get her attention but was unsuccessful and turned a sullen face as he downed his glass of champagne.

His uncle wondered at Serena’s behavior towards Freddy, which seemed nonchalant and disinterested. How did she mean to secure her position with him if she did not allow him some attention?