Chapter 9

CHAPTER9

“What did you say that for? What did you do that for?” George growled at himself as he rode across the rolling hills and dipping dales that divided the Finch Estate from Brockton House.

He had purchased the little countryside manor after inheriting the Crampton dukedom to ensure he could always be close to the woman who had raised him. Meanwhile, the Crampton Estate remained in the safe hands of his steward, rarely visited but often rented to anyone who cared to make it their home for a while. Anything to prevent it from being a complete drain upon his ever-growing wealth.

“The woman is intolerable!” he barked, startling a cluster of crows and a handful of sheep that grazed nearby. “She bested me again, and yet… Oh, this will not do. This will drive me to madness!”

He had been locked in a quarrel with himself since leaving the Dowager House in a hurry, chased from the grounds by the unusual current of shame that pulsed in his veins. Normally, he would not think twice about stealing a kiss and certainly not when it was just upon the hand of a lady. Yet, remorse hounded him—remorse for how Agnes might perceive him after he had behaved so recklessly.

Why do I care? Why should I feel shame? She is the one who has barreled into my life like an angry bull, saying coarse things, riling me, taking pleasure in trouncing me with her wit! She ought to feel ashamed, not me! Indeed, kissing her hand and shocking her should have made him feel pleased, for it had taken back some of the power that she had stolen from him. But his mind kept returning to the same sentence, whispered over and over in his head, “I suppose I should have asked permission first.”

“When the season is over and Lady Rose has her engagement to some… bland Viscount, Agnes will return to the North, never to be seen or heard from again,” he muttered, hoping to dull the spikes of his jagged emotions.

Instead, his traitorous heart jumped in his chest, and his disloyal lips burned with the desire to feel Agnes’ soft, smooth skin again. If she returned to where she had come from, he would never have the opportunity to discover more of her. But, perhaps, that was for the best.

She is tormenting me, he mused bitterly, fearing that she had been sent from the heavens as punishment for the years of mischief and misdeeds that he had enjoyed. A taste of his own medicine.

“Ahoy there!” a loud, deep voice boomed, yanking him out of his pit of turmoil.

George shifted in the saddle of his silver stallion, raising a hand to his brow to block out the bright sunlight as he searched the green hills for the voice’s origin.

Coming down a slope to his east, a chestnut gelding gleamed. Sitting atop it, a proud figure swayed with the movement of the horse, at ease with the beast as any gifted horseman should be. The smiling face, shadowed by the round peak of a top hat, was very welcome indeed.

“What in heaven’s name are you doing here, Reid?” George shouted back, bringing his stallion to a halt to let the rider catch up.

The rider in question was George’s oldest and dearest friend: William Reid, the Earl of Mullens. It had been weeks since the two men had seen one another, and as George dwelled upon that realization, he wondered if that was the reason behind his new feelings of shame and remorse for past behavior. His friend would assure him that he had nothing to be guilty about, for they were alike in all ways, including their enjoyment of the fairer sex.

“I was on my way to Brockton to see you,” William replied, leaning over to shake his friend’s hand. “Fortuitous, really, that we should cross paths. I do hate to ride alone.”

George relaxed, grateful for the distraction. “I did not think I would encounter you until the season began. Did Scotland bore you so soon?”

“On the contrary,” William replied. “I have news, my good man.”

George hesitated. “News?”

“I am to be married, Buxton,” William said proudly, calling him by the surname he had always used, just as George did with him.

All of George’s enthusiasm bled away. “Married, Reid? You have only been gone a matter of weeks!”

“Peculiar, is it not?” William grinned.

“But who would have you?” George cleared his anxious throat. “Have you finally managed to find a lady who has not read a single scandal sheet?”

“Those awful rags do not seem to reach as far as Aberdeen,” William confirmed, laughing. “No, in truth, my beloved knows everything about me. I thought it wise to be honest with someone as lovely as her and give her the choice of taking me as I am or casting me aside. To my joy and relief, she has accepted me.”

“Is she quite mad?” George laughed, but it echoed hollow.

William sat taller in the saddle. “I am a changed man, Buxton. For as long as I may live, my attention and affection shall never wander again.” He sighed dreamily. “You must meet her, Buxton. She is… unlike any lady I have ever encountered. I think it is the Scottish air—they are created differently up there.”

Watching his stallion’s ears flick back and forth, George brooded over the news in silence for a while. Of all the people he had thought he could rely upon, he had never expected William to betray him by marrying. They had vowed to be perpetual bachelors, reveling in every delight that the world had to offer, and after the day he had endured, he could have done without another unexpected surprise.

“She must be quite the enchantress to have snared you,” he said, at last, putting on a show of happiness. “Does she possess a name? What manner of lady is she? I suppose your mother is thrilled.”

William nodded, squinting at his friend in confusion. “More thrilled than you appear to be, my good man.”

“Oh, I am, but I just ate a luncheon that did not agree with me,” George explained. “This is fine news, Reid. I suggest we return to Brockton and open a bottle of something to celebrate your induction into the institution of marriage. Long have you avoided it, but it seems you have stumbled in the chase at last.”

William brightened, evidently not hearing the sarcasm in George’s voice. “I do not know what I was so afraid of,” he went on, spurring his horse into a lope. “Fiona is everything I did not know I needed. She is amusing, she is fierce, she is passionate, and she is… to be my wife. Why, when I think of her, I am like a boy catching sight of a maiden undressing for the first time.”

“Do you remember that?” George raised his eyebrows at his friend, who sighed and clasped a hand to his heart.

“How could I forget Maria? I swear upon my life that she bathed in that river, knowing we could all see her.”

George laughed. “Certainly.”

Maria had been a young woman from a nearby village when they were schoolboys at Eton. Every second Friday evening in the summer at the stroke of midnight, she would appear from the trees like a mythical creature and shed her clothes, slipping naked into the cool waters of the brook that ran right by the college. It had only ceased when one of the boys, who thought it unseemly, had informed the schoolmasters. After that, they never saw Maria again.

“What of you? What news do you have for me?” William asked as the gentlemen rode together along the dirt track that meandered through the greenery of the countryside.

George’s mind drowned in visions of Agnes— the side-to-side sway of her hips, the graceful movements of her arms when she spoke as if they were an extension of her voice, the slight gasp that had slipped from her lips when he had kissed her bare hand— but he could admit none of his desire to William, for that would have meant admitting it to himself.

I have had infatuations before. They pass. This one shall, too. Although, usually, they passed once he had satisfied that desire in one way or another. Indeed, his previous infatuations had always come to him willingly; they did not torment him or dismiss him as Agnes did.

“There are newcomers to Lady Finch’s house for waifs and strays,” George said, pretending to observe some sheep in a faraway field, lest his face should betray anything.

William tilted his head to one side. “Ladies?”

George nodded.

“Do any of them appeal to you?”

“They are two sisters,” George continued cautiously. “Pretty but nothing extraordinary, and I know better than to dip my toe into Lady Finch’s pool. She would wring my neck if I dared to tempt one of her ingenues into my sordid realm.”

William chuckled, leaning forward in the saddle. “She surely would, and I imagine there is still some strength in those old hands. How is she?”

“She claims this is her last season,” George disclosed with a pang of sorrow. Society would not be the same without Lady Finch though he still doubted that she would be able to stay away.

“Is she unwell?”

George shook his head. “She does not appear to be. I think she has grown weary of it all, and I cannot say that I blame her. You seem to agree, too, since you are abandoning me to the constraints of wedded bliss.”

“You could always find yourself a wife, too,” William urged, smiling. “If you cannot relinquish the pleasures that you presently enjoy, you could seek a wife who would not mind your… habits. I hear there are many in society. A widow, perhaps, or a lady who favors the company of other ladies?”

Nothing shocked the pair anymore, for they had seen everything that society did its best to hide.

Is that why my charms have no influence upon Agnes? It was a foolish thought, suppressed as soon as he had allowed it to sneak into his head. That was not the reason. He knew it keenly.

“Let us speak of less troublesome things,” George pleaded. “Tell me of your bride. Tell me everything. And when we reach Brockton, let us open several bottles of potent liquor until all seems right with the world again, for you have rather upended it.”

William chuckled. “Of course, my good man. Shall we race?”

“Always.” Before William could react, George spurred his stallion into a charge, pounding away from his friend as fast as he could. The countryside became a blur of emerald green, the sky above a streak of palest blue, yet he could not ride fast enough to escape the haunting thoughts of Agnes. For, in truth, he understood exactly why he left no charming impression upon her; she had told him herself.

“I see you,” she had said,but what she had neglected to add out loud, yet shouted with her behavior toward him, was, “And I do not like what I see.”

She kept holding up a mirror to him, and he feared that if he continued to be near to her, he might not like what he saw in himself, either.