Page 30 of Miss Dashing
“Did you believe that of yourself?”
“I knew the truth. My nanny, my mother—who visited me occasionally—and the household staff made certain I knew my own patrimony. Explaining the details to a young lady upon whom I had matrimonial designs would have been awkward, and yet, a fellow gets… lonely.”
She believed he meant that. Meant that he had beenlonelyfor closeness and affection, for a cuddle and a romp, not merely for the romp itself.
“Spinsters get lonely, too, or some of us do. Why won’t you sit beside me, Phillip?”
“Because if I sit beside you, I will take your hand. If I take your hand, I will want to stroke your fingers and kiss your palm and catch a whiff of the particular spot on your wrist where you casually dab a drop of scent when you are dressing for the day. If such liberties are permitted, I will want to kiss your mouth, Hecate Brompton, and then I will want to do more than kiss you.”
He might have been discoursing on his preferred method of crop rotation as he stood at the railing, gaze on puffy summer clouds drifting across a blue sky.
Hecate rose and took his hand. “I have seen men unclothed, though my family would never believe me capable of such a lapse of propriety. If one is discreet, one can bend many rules. They were simply men without clothing, and pleased to be so. This morning…”
He brought her fingers to his lips. “Yes?”
“You were so joyous. You exuded such vitality and exuberance. To wield that scythe, to join in the songs, to sweat and toil and labor for a worthy goal… I was captivated by your jubilation. Exhilarated vicariously.” She rested her head against his shoulder, as if the recitation had exhausted her as much as haying could exhaust a fit, grown man.
“I heard the dog cart clattering up from behind me,” Phillip said, squeezing her fingers, “and I expected the vicar had come to bless the blades, or something equally innocuous. I turned, and there you were, but not as I’d seen you in London. You wore a straw hat with a ribbon that perfectly matches your eyes, and the bow was crooked, and the ends of the ribbons trailed so fetchingly. You eschewed your usual proper, mincing steps and marched about, skirts swinging, and that was fetching too. You have freckles. I noticed that you have freckles, and I adore your freckles. Somebody should kiss those freckles, and that somebody, I pray God, should be me.”
His arms came around her gently, and Hecate stood for a moment, reveling in a wonder that felt as mutual as any kiss.Moremutual for being unlooked for and unhoped for.
“My mother was trying to conceive a son,” Hecate said. “She told me that, but she said instead she got the best possible gift in me, and in my father’s love. He was a sea captain, handsome, generous, kind, and he knew exactly what she was about and loved her anyway. I’ve never met him, but I want you to know my provenance.”
“Then your provenance is a loving, honest union, and nobody should ask for more than that.” He kissed her forehead again, a request for assurances, and Hecate kissed his cheek. Her arms slipped around his waist, and she rested against him as the urge to cry and the need to laugh waltzed in her heart.
Phillip stroked her hair and her shoulders. His thumb brushed lazy circles over her nape, and Hecate felt like a cat who’d found a warm patch of sunlight in deepest midwinter. She held very still, every particle attuned to Phillip’s touch. She breathed with him. She memorized the scent of him this close—lavender, a hint of starch, and meadow grass.
The rhythm of his heart matched the slow, graceful sweep of the curved blade that had so enthralled Hecate earlier, and when Phillip cupped her cheek and brushed his lips against hers, she fell into his kisses as gently as scythed grass came to rest upon the earth.
ChapterSeven
“If they aren’t out riding, and they aren’t in the library, and they aren’t strolling the garden,” Portia asked, “where could they have got off to?” She’d been worrying that question for the better part of an hour, and she was growing both hot and cross.
“This is so like a pair of eligible bachelors,” Flavia groused, marching at her side. “To be invited to a lovely house party full of congenial and attractive company and then to simply disappear. I had thought better of Mr. DeWitt. Truly, I had.”
“Lord Phillip is a marquess’s brother and heir,” Portia fumed as the arched bridge came into view. “He ought to be moreau faitregarding such matters. I love you dearly, Flave, but a handsome, masculine escort on this little constitutional would have been ever so agreeable.”
“One takes your point, sister dearest, and my slippers will be ruined for all this trekking through the wilds. I wore my favorite pair for everyday too.”
Flavia’s favorite pair bore a suspicious resemblance to Mama’s favorite pair. Darling Flavia was prone to creatively borrowing whatever caught her eye, but she’d better not think to borrow Lord Phillip.
“Unconscionable rogues,” Portia grumbled, “to force us to hike over hill and dale in pursuit. This is what comes from Mama allowing Hecate to make up the guest list. Poor Hecate’s on the shelf, as is known to all, and she can hardly—ouch!”
Flavia had stopped halfway across the bridge and smacked Portia in the ribs. “Give me your field glasses, Portia.”
“Why?” As soon as Portia posed the question, she caught sight of the figures on the distant gallery balcony. A man and a woman, both bare-headed. The fellow was tall, while the lady…
“Is thatHecate?” Portia whispered, using her field glasses to confirm the unthinkable. “That is Hecate, and she is in a most inappropriate embrace with a man.”
Flavia snatched the field glasses. “With Lord Phillip Vincent. I don’t know whether to be appalled at his poor taste or aghast at her lack of decorum.”
“They don’t appear to be kissing.”
“They are kissing now.”
Portia snatched back her field glasses and halfway wished she hadn’t. Lord Phillip was a leisurely kisser, and before her very eyes, Hecate Brompton, pattern card of probity, pence, and quid, became a siren in his arms. She kissed him back with the same sumptuous languor, her hands trailing over his broad shoulders and long back.
“We ought not to be watching,” Flavia said, gaze riveted on the balcony. “This is private.”
