Page 58 of Nothing But a Rakehell
He looked down at her and after a moment his puzzled expression gave way. “No.” He took her hand and bent over it. “No. Do not think to compare yourself to that harpy. I do thank you for your intervention, but I think I should go to Tensford.” He placed a kiss on her gloved hand.
They stayed, frozen in that position, for several heartbeats too long.
His breath warmed the leather and sent heated currents flowing up her arm and on to all the peaks and crevices inside her. The space between them felt alive with the spark and clash of gathering forces. She could not have pulled away, even if she wanted to.
He broke the contact, eventually. “Good day, Glory.” Looking more than a little dazed, he turned to leave.
She watched him go, her mind racing. He disappeared into Tensford’s workshop and she clutched her arm tight to her chest. “Good day,” she whispered.
* * *
Dinner that evening felt interminable.Miss Vernon had clearly altered the seating arrangements so that she was seated next to him, which had visibly flustered both the countess and her footmen. Little good it did the chit. Keswick couldn’t focus. He could barely summon the energy to answer her myriad questions. He spoke absently and shot an occasional furtive glance down the table, where Glory and Mr. Sommers were talking of equine bloodlines. He ate little, said less and partook of the wine freely.
After the last course had been cleared, Keswick allowed the footman to pour him another glass of port. He tossed this one back as quickly as he had the first and nodded when the servant silently offered again.
Around him, the gentlemen talked and laughed around the dining room table. The women had gone through, and the men enjoyed their masculine solidarity with rich wine and expensive cigars, but Keswick’s mind wandered elsewhere.
“Are you all right, old man?” asked Sterne.
“You do look rather . . . distracted,” Lycett remarked from his seat nearby. “Something on your mind, Keswick?” He sniggered. “Or someone?”
“Someone, yes.”
“Oh, ho!” Lycett crowed. “Shall we take guesses as to who it is?”
“The tavern wench at the Crown and Cock does go on about him,” Sir Blackwell said wryly.
Keswick ignored him. “You might guess, but it would be of no use,” he told Lycett. “I was thinking of an old gypsy woman.”
“Why?” Lycett frowned. “Is there an encampment nearby?”
“Not that I know of. No, I was recalling a night in Covent Garden.”
“Tell us,” Sterne urged.
He looked around at the men at this end of the table. Several were looking the other way, toward Tensford, asking about the next day’s plans, but a few waited expectantly for him to speak. He sighed. “It was late, but things were still in full swing in the Garden, as is often the case. Walking through, I saw an old gypsy woman in a decrepit stall. I don’t know which looked older or more worn, but she and her stall were both draped in colorful cloths. The wood of the structure looked wormy, as if only habit and the dust of the place kept it upright.” He paused and took a drink. “The strange thing was, I’d been in that part of the Garden a hundred times, and I’d never noticed her there before.”
“Odd,” said Sterne.
“Yes. She sat outside the place, smoking a pipe. She called out to me as I passed and invited me in. She said she would tell me of my past lives. If I untangled the troubles I’d been through already, they would lend clarity to the path I walked now.”
“Past lives?” Sterne mused. “That Eastern belief that we are born again and again, a new person each time?”
“Such balderdash,” Lycett scoffed. “It doesn’t sound very English to me.”
He said it as if there could be no greater insult.
“Nor did it sound so to me,” Keswick admitted. “I walked on and went on my way. Yet, I had the strangest dreams that night and I could not get her out of my mind.”
“You went back?” Sterne asked.
“The very next night. But there was no sign of her or her stall.”
“What nonsense,” Lycett snorted. “If you want to occupy your mind, you should do better to think about what spot you’d like for tomorrow’s shooting.” He turned away. “Tensford, I’d like to lay claim to the blind near the bend in the river where the sand stretches out into the water.”
“I don’t believe there is a blind located there,” Tensford replied with a frown.
“Surely there must be. I gather you’ve invited Mr. Stillwater to shoot with us?”
