Page 16 of Private Arrangements
When there were no more stones to be had, she sat down on a tree stump, her chin on her knee, her long, lugubrious blue cape flapping about her ankles in the unrelenting gust. From where Camden stood at the top of the opposite bank, he couldn't see her face beneath the rim of her hat. But he felt the loneliness that emanated from her, a loneliness that echoed somewhere deep within him.
He'd been able to think of nothing else except her.
Years ago, he'd come to accept that courting Theodora—a woman who couldn't make up her mind about him, whom he hadn't seen in a year and a half—opened him up to temptations in the here and now.
Somehow, a young man of reasonable looks and sexual restraint posed an irresistible challenge to a certain subset of women, across class strata, in every capital of Europe. If he had a franc, a mark, or a ruble for every time he had been propositioned from the age of sixteen onward, he could retire to the country and live the life of a prosperous squire.
He'd turned down every last one of those offers, with tact and dignity when possible and ingenuity otherwise. A man of honor did not profess love for one woman while welcoming a host of others into his bed.
It wasn't easy, but it was doable. Being busy helped. Having no moral or philosophical opposition to solitary releases helped. Immersing himself in his chosen field helped—thermodynamic equations and advanced calculus tended to keep one's mind off breasts and buttocks.
But nothing helped now. He was busy all day long, seeing to the beast of an estate that was Twelve Pillars, yet thoughts of Miss Rowland clamored every other minute. Whatever he did in the privacy of his bedchamber only created more fantasies of her to agitate him the next day. Thoughts ofherbreasts and buttocks—not to mention her morosely hungry eyes and her heavy, cool spill of hair—rendered him slow and bungling before simple quadratic equations and utterly impotent in the face of integrals of logarithms.
And yet if it were only a case of simple, rampant lust. That would be perfectly understandable in the case of a young man of robust appetites who stubbornly refused to surrender his virginity. But he wanted more than just to touch her. He wanted to know her.
Theodora's mother, as pushy and determined as she was, had nothing on Mrs. Rowland, the patron goddess of all ambitious mamas. At least Countess von Schweppenburg had the excuse of being poor and needing the security of a well-married daughter, whereas Mrs. Rowland was driven entirely by—he felt—her own unfulfilled ambition, something that cracked a harder whip than did any of Beelzebub's lieutenants.
And yet Miss Rowland did not fear her mother, not one little bit. If anything, Mrs. Rowland was in awe of her daughter, amazed beyond all expectations by this Hannibal of social climbing, who managed to bring her pound-sterling elephants across the figurative Alps of aristocratic disdain to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting London society.
Two days after their accidental meeting, he'd paid a formal call to the Rowlands, in the company of his parents and his siblings, Claudia and a bored Christopher. Claudia, impressed by the Greek marbles, Louis XIV furniture, and Renaissance paintings stretching as far as the eyes could see, begged to have a tour of Briarmeadow.
While his parents continued to converse with Mrs. Rowland, Miss Rowland obligingly conducted the three callers of her generation through the drawing rooms, the library, and the solarium. Christopher became more and more restless and, finally, in the gallery, before a miniature portrait of Carrington that must have been given to Miss Rowland upon their engagement, he lost his company manners and reverted to fourteen-year-old loutishness.
“Mother always said Cousin Carrington was a terrible example,” said Christopher. “I guess you'll marry any bounder who has a coronet of strawberry leaves.”
She didn't even break her stride. “My Lord Christopher, with your family's depleted resources and your vast personal charm, I predict you'll marry any heiress who would have you, teeth and literacy on her part strictly optional.”
Camden's face hurt from not laughing out loud at his brother's dismay. Christopher might be an oaf, but he was still the son of an English duke and the grandson of a Bavarian prince. Another young woman in her place, feeling the inferiority of her station, would have suffered his rudeness or, at best, laughed it off. She, however, smacked the boy hard and put him in his place with the ruthless efficiency of a born predator.
Unlike her mother, who garnished the house with subtle reminders of her erudition—Mycenaean bronze, possibly older seals from the island of Crete, glass-encased fragments of papyrus dating to the time of the pharaohs—Miss Rowland felt no need to prove to the world that she knew Antiphanes from Aristophanes. She was fine, thank you, with being the daughter of a man whose forebears, only a few generations ago, had washed laundry and carried coal for those exalted families into which she intended to marry.
He admired her surety. She knew her own worth and did not pretend otherwise for those who judged her on her parentage. But by refusing to tolerate fools and play nice, she'd condemned herself to a solitary path, both in defeat and in victory.
Camden walked his horse down the incline until he was nearly at water's edge and mounted it to cross the stream. As soon as he reached dry land, he dismounted and tethered the horse. By then she was already standing up, shaking the dust from her skirts.
“Miss Rowland.” On impulse he didn't offer to shake her hand but took her by the shoulders and kissed her on each cold, satiny cheek. He was still a foreigner to these parts, and he wasn't above taking advantage of it. “I beg your pardon. I must have thought myself still in France.”
Their gazes entangled. Her eyes were a nearly absolute black, the boundary between pupil and iris impossible to discern at any civilized distance. She glanced down momentarily, her eyelashes long and striking against the paleness of her skin. Then she looked back at him. “No need to beg pardon, my lord. It's quite acceptable to flirt with a girl you don't plan to marry. I don't mind.”
He should be embarrassed, but he wasn't. “Do you flirt with men you don't plan to marry?”
“Certainly not,” she said. “I don't even flirt with men I do plan to marry.”
His darling little tigress. All blunt grandeur during the day. All melting fire at night. “You talk to them about their ledgers instead,” he teased.
That elicited a small smile from her. “I prefer the direct approach.”
He grew hot from these mere words. Had her approach to him been any more direct that night, he'd have kept her in bed so long, they'd have been discovered by Mrs. Rowland herself.
“It's cold,” he said. “You should be inside.”
The winter here was nothing like that of the true North, where temperatures plunged to such abysmal lows that she'd need much more than a cup of hot chocolate to warm up: She'd require a bottle of vodka and a man's naked body.
She sighed. “I know. I can hardly feel my toes. But it's the only way I can have a bit of peace, away from my mother. She hasn't stopped talking of you since your stay. And she would not be convinced that I've already done my level best to make you her son-in-law. After my success with Carrington, she thinks I've but to will it and a man will stride forth to offer his hand.”
“I could dispel her illusions for you,” he said.
She shook her head. “She met Miss von Schweppenburg last season. No offense to Miss von Schweppenburg, but nothing you can say will persuade her that I'm not a better match for you.”
