The Secret Mistress

you ask, I adore today’s bonnet. I assume there is straw beneath all the flowers? You must have a particularly strong neck to hold up all that weight.”

And then they were both laughing, their noses brushing together.

“You lie through your teeth,” she said. “You think it is hideous.”

“Not so,” he protested. “On this occasion I speak the solemn truth. When I stepped into the parlor downstairs earlier, I thought for a moment that I had opened the wrong door and had gone into the garden by mistake. A beautiful garden.”

She gazed wistfully up at him.

“You punched Lord Windrow on the chin,” she said, “because you thought he was abducting me.”

“So much,” he said ruefully, “for unnecessary violence.”

“You were quite, quite splendid,” she told him. “But poor Lord Windrow, when really he has eyes for no one but Miss Goddard.”

He frowned.

“He had better not hurt or compromise her,” he said, “or he is going to meet with more than just a single punch to the jaw.”

“But she has eyes for no one but him,” she said, wrapping her arms about his neck. “Can you not see, Edward, that they are perfect for each other?”

The logic of women again!

“He really is not a committed rake,” she said. “I have realized that for some time. He has merely been waiting to fall in love with someone who will hold him steady for the rest of his life. Besides, he loves his mother.”

He frowned for a second or two longer, for he really was not convinced. But then he could not help laughing. Perhaps there was room in this life for women’s logic as well as for his own far more sensible reasoning skills.

He kissed her, an action that took care of an indeterminate number of minutes— but who was counting?—before he withdrew somewhat reluctantly.

“We must stop there while I still can,” he said. “We must not go any further yet, perhaps not even tonight. You must be very sore.”

“A little,” she admitted. “It feels good.”

“It would not,” he said, “if I were to try acting the great lover again.”

“No, probably not,” she agreed.

“Are you hungry?” he asked her.

“Starved,” she said.

He rolled away from her and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He got to his feet and crossed the room to the washstand.

“Stay where you are,” he said. “I am going to wash you.”

“Oh,” she said. As he approached the bed again with a wet cloth and the bowl, her eyes moved over his naked body and she smiled. “I love you terribly much, you know, Edward. I just wish there were words.”

Perhaps it was just as well there were not. She might never stop talking.

“If there were,” he said, sitting down on the side of the bed and setting about his task, “I would be the one saying them, Angie.”

EUNICE WAS SITTING very upright in the carriage, her back straight and barely touching the cushions behind her. Her feet were set neatly side by side on the floor. Her hands were cupped one above the other in her lap. Her eyes were on them.

Lord Windrow was slouched comfortably across the corner beside her, his hat tipped slightly over his half-closed eyes. But beneath the indolent eyelids he was watching her keenly.

They had just taken leave of his mother and were on their way back to Hallings. They would stop at the Peacock Inn so that he could reclaim his own horses and see if Heyward and Lady Angeline Dudley were indeed still there.

Eunice’s maid had glanced at the sky before the carriage left Norton, seen with obvious relief that the clouds, though low, did not seem to harbor the intention of raining upon the earth beneath just yet, and hopped up onto the box to renew her acquaintance with the coachman, who made room for her without any apparent resentment.

“Lady Windrow was very kind and very gracious,” Eunice said, “considering what you said to her yesterday, which, by the way, you had no right saying. She must be dreadfully alarmed.”

“What I said,” he reminded her, “was that I intend to ask you to marry me when the time seems appropriate. I have every right to express my intentions to whoever is willing to listen. If I choose to tell you that I intend flying to the moon, you may feel justified in calling me a nincompoop or you may merely yawn and nod off to sleep, but you cannot challenge my right to express such an intention. If memory serves you correctly, you will be forced to admit that I did not say I was going to marry you, only that I was going to ask you. Am I right?”

She would have loved to say no. He could see that. But honesty compelled her to tell the truth—or to avoid it.

“You still had no right to embarrass me and alarm your mother,” she said.

He crossed his arms and braced one foot against the seat opposite.

“You are perfectly correct,” he said. “I did not have any such right.”

Her lips tightened.

“Let me get this right,” he said. “I embarrass you. I know that I also excite you, Eunice, but that is for private lustful moments only, is it? In public you are embarrassed to be seen with me. Dear me. I suppose it is lowering for an intelligent, bookish female to be seen in the company of a mindless rake.”

“That is not what I meant at all,” she said, turning her head to look at him. “Oh, you know very well it is not what I meant.”

His eyes grew sleepier as she glared at him, and he dipped his head a little lower so that his hat brim shaded them more.

“It must be the opposite, then,” he said. “The poor little bluestocking daughter of a university don is consumed by awkward embarrassment at being seen in the company of a rich, titled gentleman of the ton. She feels so far out of her depth that she fears drowning.”

She gazed mutely at him for a moment and then clucked her tongue.

“What utter drivel,” she said.

He sighed.

“I am running out of guesses,” he said. “I give in. You win. Tell me why my words to my mother embarrassed you.”

“Because …” she began. She shook her head. “Well, look at me.”

Plain, sensible shoes. Plain, sensible high-waisted dress and plain white gloves. Plain, sensible bonnet covering neatly combed brown hair caught in an equally neat knot at her neck. Sensible face—not plain. Neat figure, not voluptuous, not its opposite either.

“I know,” he said. “There is a wart or a mole hidden under those clothes, is there not? Either one would definitely do it. Confess and I will order the carriage turned around so that I can return and tell my mother that I am not after all going to offer you marriage.”

She looked at him with tight-lipped exasperation and then burst out laughing.

“Oh, come now,” she said. “Admit it. You did not mean a word. You could not