Scandal's Virgin

Chapter Five

‘Astride! In breeches?’ Avery sounded as scandalised as any prudish matron.

‘Certainly astride,’ Laura countered. ‘Then she can learn balance and control and gain confidence before she has to deal with a side-saddle.’

Alice, clad in clothes borrowed from Cook’s grandson, stood watching them, her head moving back and forth like a spectator at a shuttlecock game. The argument had been going on for ten minutes now and the groom holding the little grey pony’s head was staring blankly across the paddock, obviously wishing himself elsewhere.

‘Is that how you learned to ride?’ Avery demanded.

‘Certainly.’ And she still did when she could get away with it. ‘I am only concerned with Alice’s safety.’

‘Very well.’ As she had guessed, that clinched the argument. Avery lifted the child and swung her into the saddle. ‘Now you—’

Alice promptly slid her feet into the stirrups, heel down, toes out, and gathered up the reins. ‘Aunt Caroline showed me on the rocking horse in the nursery yesterday while you were out.’

‘Aunt?’

Laura shrugged, her nonchalance hiding the warm glow of pride at Alice’s quick learning, her trust. ‘I appear to have been adopted.’

‘So long as you do not mind the familiarity.’ Avery took the leading rein from the groom. ‘I will take her this first time, Ferris.’

‘I am coming, too.’ As if she would not watch her daughter’s first riding lesson!

Avery cast a dubious look from the paddock’s rough grass and muddy patches to her neat leather half-boots, but did not argue. Sensible man, she thought. I wonder where he has learned to humour women. But he would not be so casual about anything that actually mattered to him.

‘Gather up the reins so you can feel the contact with his mouth, press in with your knees and just give him a touch with your heels to tell him to walk on,’ Avery ordered.

Alice gave a little squeak of excitement as the pony moved, then sat silent, her face a frown of concentration.

‘Let your hands and wrists relax.’ Laura reached across to lay her hand over the child’s clenched fingers just as Avery did the same thing. Their gloved fingers met, tangled, held. Alice giggled. ‘Poor Snowdrop, now we’re all riding him.’

‘Relax,’ Avery murmured and Laura shot him a stern glance. It had not been the child he was speaking to. ‘Shoulders back,’ he added as he released her hand to correct Alice’s posture.

‘And seat in.’ Laura patted the target area. ‘That’s perfect. When you ride side-saddle your back and posterior will be in exactly the same position as now.’

They walked around the paddock twice, speaking only to the child, hands bumping and touching as they reached to adjust her position or steady her. Laura was in heaven. Despite the looming masculine presence on the other side of the pony, and despite the crackle of awareness at every touch, she was with her daughter, able to help her, see her delight. She praised, she reassured, she smiled back as Alice beamed at her, and fought down the emotion that lurked so close to the surface. Five days left.

‘I want to trot now.’

‘No,’ Avery said flatly.

‘Why not?’ Laura countered. ‘It is hard work, Alice. You must push down with your heels, tighten your knees and rise up and down with the stride or you’ll be jolted until your teeth rattle.’

‘She’ll not be able to post when she’s riding side-saddle,’ Avery pointed out.

‘Which is why you see ladies trotting so infrequently, but it will strengthen her legs. Pay attention to your balance and don’t jab his mouth, Alice. Use your heels, that’s it.’

Off they went, the tall man jogging beside the pony, the excited child bouncing in the saddle, bump, bump and then, ‘Aunt Caroline, look! I’m going up and down!’

She stood by the gate and watched them until the circuit was completed and Avery came to a halt beside her, not in the least out of breath. For a diplomat he was remarkably fit. She had supposed he would spend all his day at a desk or a conference table, but it seemed she was mistaken.

‘Enough, Alice. You’ll be stiff in the morning as it is.’ He lifted her down. ‘Now run inside to Blackie and get changed into something respectable before luncheon.’

He took Laura’s arm as the child gave her pony one last pat and then ran off towards the house. ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’ For indulging myself with my daughter’s presence for an hour? For reassuring myself that you really do care for her and will look after her?

‘For finding her those clothes and persuading me of the benefits of allowing her to learn to ride astride. She is very confident now and that’s half the battle. In a week or two we can try her with a side-saddle.’

Laura was not aware of making a sound, but he glanced at her. ‘We won’t have to have one made. Ferris found a small one in the stable loft. You will stay for luncheon?’

‘I—’ I would move in if I could, absorb every impression, every memory. In a week or two we could teach her to ride side-saddle... Oh, the temptation to stay, to dig herself deeper and deeper into Alice’s life, into her affections.

‘You hesitate to come inside a bachelor household when I am at home? Alice and her nurse will be adequate chaperons, don’t you think?’

‘Of course they will. I would be happy to accept.’ Not that she now had any worries about what the ladies of the parish might say if they found out. She would be gone in a few days and her purpose in meeting them, to help find Alice some little playmates, had been fulfilled. It was her own equilibrium she was concerned about. That and the man by her side.

Without Alice’s presence to distract her Avery seemed to loom over her, tall, solid, an immovable object as much in her mind as in reality. Alice loved him; he, Laura was forced to accept, loved her. He was intelligent, good company, handsome and part of her wanted to like him, wanted...him. And yet he had stolen her child with every intention of keeping her from her mother. He had bribed another man’s tenants into lying and he would ruthlessly do whatever it took to get what he wanted. She should hate him, but she could not. Instead she envied him, she was jealous of him and she feared him.

And none of those emotions were attractive ones. Hatred was condemned from the pulpit as a sin, of course, but somehow it seemed a more straightforward feeling. If one could express it, of course, Laura pondered as she walked beside Avery Falconer to the house. Piers’s house. That was another pain, the way Avery had slipped so easily into the role of master here. And it was something else she should not resent, for the tenants were being treated well, the land was in good heart, the servants had employment. It was not this man’s fault that his cousin had died, that Piers had broken his word to her, left her before they could marry, abandoned her for some romantic notion of duty and valour.

She was not wearing a bonnet and the breeze blew strands of her hair across her face. Laura pushed them back, wishing she could hold her head in her hands and think, clearly, rationally and not be filled with so many conflicting feelings.

She was conscious that Avery was looking at her, but she kept her eyes down, reluctant to meet his now she was the sole focus of his attention. Ever since he had made that remark about physical attraction he had said or done nothing the slightest bit improper or provocative. As a result Laura found she was constantly braced for words and actions that never came. And she was thinking about him as a man, an attractive man, a desirable man.

Was it a strategy? Was Avery playing with her, hoping she would be intrigued by that statement? Perhaps this was an opening gambit in a game of seduction.

‘That was a heavy sigh. Are you tired?’

‘Yes. Yes, I am,’ she said before she could think better of it. ‘I am tired of playing games. Two days ago you spoke of physical attraction between us and then nothing. You do not explain yourself, you do not flirt, you do not try to make love to me. I do not want any of those things, you understand. It is just very unsettling to have them...hovering.’

Under her arm his guiding hand tensed. ‘I did explain. I said I felt that attraction and tried to understand it.’

‘You had no need to mention it at all.’ It had kept her awake at night. ‘It makes me uneasy. And I suspect you intended that.’

‘Do you want me to flirt with you?’ he asked. Then, when she did not answer, ‘Do you want me to make love to you?’

‘No!’ Laura wrenched her arm away. Avery caught her hand in his, the impetus of her movement swinging her around so they were face-to-face. His face was serious, his eyes dark and intent and assessing. He desired her, she could read it in his face, could see it in his parted lips and the stillness of him. ‘I do not flirt.’ It was a lie. Her entire life away from this place was a game, a flirtation, an empty farce.

It was very quiet. The stable block was behind them and they had just entered the shrubbery that swept around the east side of the house, thick with laurels and box, the smell of the evergreens aromatic and astringent. A robin was singing high up in an ash tree and the gravel of the path crunched beneath Avery’s booted feet. Her pulse was thudding.

‘No, you have not done anything that might be construed as flirtation. I wonder then that I sensed what I did. Wishful thinking, perhaps,’ Avery said and she saw from the faint smile that he had seen her colour rise. ‘You said you did not trust men. Have you come to trust me a little, Caroline?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, wary now, only half-believing what she said. Or what she felt. He was going to kiss her. And then what would she do?

‘Why?’ He was so close now that their toes bumped. She was aware of the smell of saddle soap and horse from his gloves and the warmth of his breath and the cock robin overhead flinging his challenge at every other bird in the vicinity. Another arrogant male.

‘Because Alice loves you,’ she replied with simple truth and watched his mouth, only his mouth, as the smile deepened, slightly askew so a faint dimple appeared on the right, but not on the left. And even then, even though she expected it, the kiss surprised her when it came.

Avery bent his head and brushed his lips across hers, an electric, tickling touch that made every hair on her nape stand up. He did not touch her or try to deepen the caress, but simply tucked her hand under his arm again and walked on.

‘You are a wise woman to trust the innocent judgement of a child over your own fears.’

‘I did not say I was afraid of you.’ Her mouth trembled and she pressed her lips together. A proper kiss she could have dealt with. She would have returned it as an equal and then, as she always did, have made it very clear that nothing would follow. A crude attempt to do more she could have dealt with, too. She had no scruple about kneeing a man in the groin or biting an ear or whatever unladylike manoeuvre was necessary to leave him gasping on the ground in fear for his manhood. She had done that also, more than once.

But that brush of the lips—what was that? Was she being teased as she had so often teased? Best to ignore it, pretend it never happened, pretend that there was no heat in her belly and that she did not ache for his hands on her breasts and his mouth, open over hers. Oh, Piers, how could I feel like this for another man? Was it because of the resemblance between the cousins? She pushed away the thought that she could be so foolish.

‘I have drafted an advertisement for a governess,’ Avery remarked as they came out of the shrubbery onto the lawn.

‘Which newspapers will you put it in?’ So, he can ignore it, too, infuriating man. It should make me like him less, but somehow it does not. Yet I suspect he knows that. Games. We are both playing games.

‘All the London ones and the local press, as well. Will you check it over for me?’ She nodded. ‘In that case, if you would like to join Alice in the dining room, I will fetch it. Just through here.’

The long windows that faced the garden front were all raised to let in the balmy spring air and Avery helped her over the low sill into a blue-painted room with a table set for luncheon. As she stepped down onto the polished floor he continued outside, presumably to his study.

There was no sign of Alice yet. No doubt Miss Blackstock was scrubbing off every trace of pony and stables and dressing her in a suitable dress for a proper little girl. She should wash, too.

‘Can you show me where I can wash my hands?’ she asked the maid setting a bowl of fruit on the table.

‘Yes, ma’am, this way if you please.’

It was an unexceptional way of exploring, although, disappointingly, all the inner doors off the hall were closed. The girl led her through to a small room with a water closet on one side and a washstand on the other and left her. Laura lingered over cleaning her hands, working up a froth of lavender-scented soap, trickling the cool water through her fingers.

A fantasy was forming in her mind. She would write to her solicitor, her steward, everyone, and explain she was going abroad for an indefinite period. Then she would tell Avery that she would become Alice’s governess. He could not deny that the child liked her, responded well to her. He trusted her enough to ask her opinion, he knew from conversation that she was educated, cultured. A lady.

Laura blotted the wetness on a linen towel, watched the fabric grow darker, limp with the water from her hands. It seemed very important to focus on getting every inch of skin quite dry while her mind scrabbled at that fantasy like an overexcited child tearing the wrappings from a present.

And then, as though she had opened the gift and found not the expected doll or sweetmeats, but a book of sermons, acrid as dust, her hands were dry and her mind clear. She could not do it. How long could she live so close to Alice and not betray herself? She would be a servant in her own daughter’s home, someone with no real power, no control. Sooner or later Avery would find her out and then she would have to leave and Alice would lose someone she might have grown very fond of. It was too painful to think the word love.

Avery was crossing the hall when she emerged, her hair smooth, her expression calm, even the trace of a blush from that kiss subdued by cool water and willpower.

‘What do you think?’ He handed her a sheet of paper. ‘Will you look at it now in the study, before Alice comes down?’

* * *

He watched Laura as she stood, head bent over the draft. Her hair was rigorously tidy, each strand disciplined back into a severe chignon. It did not look like hair that relished control, it looked as though it wanted to be loose, waving, its colours catching the sun in shades from blonde to soft brown. Her cheeks were smooth, pale with less than the natural colour of health in them and none of the blush that had stained them when she had thrown that challenge at him in the shrubbery.

Her lips moved slightly, parted, and her tongue emerged just to touch the centre of her upper lip. He guessed it was a habitual sign of concentration, but it sent the blood straight to his groin. Those lips under his, smooth and warm. They had clung for a moment against his while he had wrestled with the urge to possess, feel her open under him, to taste her. He was confusing her and he wished he understood why.

‘You state that the person appointed must be willing to travel.’

‘Yes, that is essential. I expect to be sent abroad again before the year is out and I will take Alice with me.’

‘You had best say it means to the Continent, then, and not simply on a tour of the Lakes.’ Her lips quivered into a slight smile and were serious again.

Avery fought with temptation and yielded to it. ‘I was wondering... I know you said Alice would benefit from a younger governess, but I wondered about a widow.’

A shiver went through Caroline, so faint he saw it merely in the movement of her pearl earbobs. He held his breath. Was he being too obvious? And what, in blazes, was he thinking of in any case?

Chapter Six

What could he tell from Caroline’s stillness? The downcast lids did not lift, nor the dark lashes move. Perhaps he had imagined that shiver, perhaps she had no notion he was talking about her. ‘Not all widows are middle-aged,’ she pointed out after a moment.

‘No, indeed. Such as yourself.’ Avery wondered just how old she was. The ageing effect of her black clothes, and the paleness of her skin, made it difficult to tell, but he doubted she could be much over twenty-five. ‘I was just wondering if someone with more experience of children would be better.’

‘And not all widows have had children,’ Caroline said, her voice so lacking in expression it might as well have been a scream.

Hell and damnation. She told you she had lost a child. Get your great boot out of your mouth, Falconer, and stop daydreaming. It had been a nice little fantasy about Caroline Jordan as Alice’s governess, but what did that make him, lusting after his daughter’s teacher, a woman who would be under his protection in his house? A lecher, that’s what, Avery told himself. He despised men who took advantage of their female dependants.

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