this afternoon?’
‘We were reading Henry Vaughan,’ Deb said coolly. She knew that she had blushed; she could feel her face radiating the heat like a glowing fire. Life was going to be excessively difficult if she could not conquer this curious susceptibility she had to Richard Kestrel. It seemed to get worse every time she saw him.
Olivia came in and Richard turned to greet her, giving Deb the breathing space she desperately needed. She took the opportunity of surreptitiously trying to put her book back together again. However, when she looked at the loose sheet she realised that it was not poetry at all and could not have come from the same book. It was a curious page of printed symbols. There was an anchor and a seagull and a ship and some wavy lines that she thought must represent the sea. Deb frowned. Her first thought was that it looked rather like a coded message, with the symbols representing certain words…
‘May I pass you a cup of tea, Mrs Stratton?’ Richard Kestrel said, at her elbow. Deb jumped. She had not noticed his approach and now she put the book and the sheet aside on the rosewood bookcase and reluctantly allowed Richard to draw her over to the long French windows that looked out over the garden. Olivia and Ross were sitting on the sofa, conversing in low voices over the relative merits of chicken or lamb for dinner. Deb sighed. She supposed that she should be grateful they were talking at all.
Rather than accept a tete-a-tete with Richard as he so clearly wished, Deb spiked his guns by raising her voice to include the whole group.
‘Did Olivia tell you that we saw a copy of Lady Sally’s watercolour book this afternoon, Ross?’ she asked. ‘We thought that you looked very fine.’
Ross laughed. He looked pleased. ‘Thank you, Deb. I imagine that Lady Sally’s calendar will cause quite a stir.’
‘It will cause a riot,’ Deb agreed ruefully.
‘You also observed that Lord Richard’s picture looked most elegant, did you not, Deb?’ Olivia said sweetly. ‘I remember you commenting specifically on it on our way home.’
Deb bit her lip. It was true that she had made an unguarded remark to Olivia on the subject, but she had hardly expected her sister to repeat it. Richard was laughing at her, his brows raised quizzically.
‘I am flattered, Mrs Stratton.’
‘I suppose you looked quite well to a pass,’ Deb said ungraciously, fidgeting with her teaspoon, ‘but then, Mr Daubenay is a very talented artist.’
She heard Lord Richard smother a laugh in his teacup. ‘I imagine he must be, to make something of such unpromising material,’ he agreed.
Deb frowned. It was difficult to try and depress a man’s pretensions when he had no vanity to deflate. Despite the fact that Lord Richard Kestrel was one of the most handsome men of her acquaintance, it appeared that he actually had very little personal conceit. It was rather annoying when she so earnestly wished to take him down a peg.
‘I am sure that you do not need me to add my praises to the positive cacophony of other ladies,’ she said. ‘If you wish for acclaim, then you need only wait for the private view, when I am persuaded you will be drowned in a sea of feminine admiration!’
In response, Richard put his hand on her wrist and drew her slightly apart. Her hand shook slightly; the teacup rattled and she placed it quickly on the windowsill.
‘You mistake me, Mrs Stratton, if you think I wish for general acclaim,’ he said in an undertone. ‘Yours is the only good opinion I seek.’
Deb’s eyes widened. ‘I may lead a sheltered life, Lord Richard, but I recognise a line of flattery when it is spun for me.’
Richard laughed. He leaned closer so that his lips brushed her ear and all the hairs down the back of Deb’s neck stood on end.
‘If you wished your life to be less sheltered, you could reconsider my dare,’ he murmured. ‘A private view of our own would be far more enjoyable…’
Deb gasped. She threw a hasty glance over her shoulder, but Ross was now moodily perusing The Times and Olivia was apparently engrossed in the Ladies Magazine and neither of them was paying their guests the slightest attention. Deb could not believe that they were so insensitive to the atmosphere in the drawing room when she felt as though she was about to spontaneously combust. Her head was buzzing with tension and awareness and Lord Richard was still holding her wrist lightly. The touch of his fingers against her bare skin was sufficient to send a prickly kind of sensation all the way along her nerves.
‘Thank you,’ she said, hoping that her voice was steady, ‘but you have no need to repeat your offer. My refusal still stands.’
She saw Richard’s lips curve into a wicked smile. ‘And yet you kissed me as though you meant it. Several times, in fact…’
Deb met his gaze. This was a tricky statement to rebut since she was all too aware that she had succumbed to Richard’s skilful seduction with what could be considered a certain amount of enthusiasm. In fact, she had succumbed not once, but twice, so there was no possible way that she could dismiss it as an aberration.
She burned to think of their kisses. She had enjoyed being in Richard’s arms and wanted to be there again. Yet she remembered the comparison with eating the truffles. They seemed like such a good idea at the time. They were delicious, sinful, a wicked indulgence to which she knew she should not surrender. She was equally certain that she should not surrender to Richard. She gave him a cool smile.
‘Remember that I have consigned you to the same category as drinking too much wine, my lord,’ she said, ‘the category of being very, very bad for me.’ She spun away from him and turned towards the door. ‘Excuse me, I must go home. I am promised to drive along the river with Mr Lang this afternoon and do not wish to be late.’
Richard smiled easily. ‘My route takes me back the same way as yours. I will escort you.’
‘No thank you,’ Deb said. ‘I enjoy walking alone. Besides, you know full well that Mallow is not on the way to Kestrel Court.’
‘It could be,’ Richard said, smiling engagingly. ‘Besides, I feel that it would be safer for you to be accompanied.’
Deb arched her brows. ‘Having an escort may be safer in general but in this specific case I do not require your company.’
Richard laughed. ‘You are always refusing me.’
‘I am.’ Deb smiled sweetly. ‘That should tell you something, I believe.’ She called a hasty farewell to Ross and Olivia and slipped out into the hall, congratulating herself on her swift escape.
She had not gone more than a few paces before she heard Richard’s footsteps behind her and he caught her up as she reached the main door, putting a hand on her arm.
‘A moment, Mrs Stratton,’ he said. ‘You have left your book behind.’
Deb felt annoyed at her carelessness. She had hurried out, wishing to escape his troubling presence, but in doing so she had given him a genuine reason to follow her. Now she could hardly be uncivil as a result. She took the book of poetry and tucked it under her arm, reining in her exasperation as Richard held the door open for her and accompanied her down the steps and on to the gravel.
‘Thank you,’ she said, trying not to sound too grumpy. ‘There really is no need for you to escort me to Mallow, you know.’
Richard smiled and fell into step beside her. ‘No need other than to take pleasure in your company.’
Deb laughed. ‘Why do you persist where there is no hope, my lord?’
Richard gave her a very straight look. ‘Perhaps I am of stubborn disposition, like you yourself, madam.’
He held open the little white-painted gate that opened on to the path to Mallow and stood aside for her to precede him. To Deb’s surprise he made no attempt to engage her in teasing repartee and even less to force his attentions on her. They spoke politely enough on a number of topics, from the state of the roads to the current invasion threat and the political situation. To converse with Richard in an entirely natural manner proved dangerously enjoyable to Deb, for he was a most interesting man to talk with. Occasionally he would hold a gate open for her or pull aside a spray of briars from her path with exemplary courtesy. Deb found it disconcerting, not because she had imagined him without manners, but because it made her feel quite ridiculously cherished. She was rather annoyed with herself for being so receptive to his thoughtfulness, but she could not deny that the walk, in the late summer sunshine, was a very pleasant experience.
