Page 9 of A Gentleman's Wager
It wasn’t that Lucerne suspected his friend so much as feared it, and worse—that his friend had actually fallen for the girl. “I expect we’re reading more intimacy into an innocent conversation than we should. It is, however, time the captain and I bade our farewells. I have another guest arriving, and I should make the effort to be home when he arrives.”
“We will see you again, though? You ride? Perhaps I could show you the best places to go?”
“Perhaps.” She was standing close enough that he could feel the heat of her body through his clothing, and it stirred feelings he’d be wise to keep in check. He feared any sort of gallop with Bella Rushdale might result in an entirely different sort of a jockeying, and one that in no way fit with his expectations of himself as the respectable, responsible master of Lauwine Hall. “I shall be here in the county a while yet, perhaps as far as winter, or even next spring, I’m sure our paths will cross.”
“Are you sure you won’t hare off back to town the moment the first flake of snow falls?”
“I guess that is a possibility,” he allowed, realising that she’d taken his non-commitment as a rebuke. He held her gaze a moment, then broke eye contact and pulled out his timepiece. “Wakefield,” he summoned his friend.
The captain joined them along with Louisa. “It’s time we took our leave.”
“It’s been a delight meeting you all,” Wakefield claimed, giving Bella the very briefest of nods, but exchanging a lingering look with Louisa that caused Lucerne to set his jaw.
Lucerne offered them both a more formal bow. “Ladies, thank you for your generous hospitality. Please pass on our thanks and regards to your brother.” He touched his lips to Bella’s hand, holding her there a fraction too long for decorum, before letting go and was pleased to see her smile return. Still, he’d be wise to avoid that piece of temptation, the same as Wakefield would be wise to stop his nonsensical flirtation with Miss Stanley.
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Lucerne
Lucerne waited only until they reached the lane, where high hedges on both sides shielded them from view of the house and surrounding fields, before he drove his horse alongside Frederick’s. “What sort of fool’s game are you playing?” he demanded.
His friend, resplendent in his dress uniform of scarlet and silver, plus gleaming gorget, replied, “I might say the same thing of you. If this is to be a reprimand over my perceived behaviour, do save it. Nothing remotely untoward happened between me and Miss Stanley today or on the journey north. I only leant assistance where it was required, and expressly invited. I can’t believe you’d imply otherwise and risk besmirching her reputation. Have things changed so greatly in my absence, Lucerne, that it’s no longer permitted for a man to aid a lady in such a way?”
“It’s what you assisted her with that concerns me. Don’t try and blow me off, Freddy. I’ve just witnessed the way you were looking at one another, which was akin to two ice sculptures ready to melt together, before you take it upon yourself to ask.”
“Oh, very poetic.” Wakefield gave him a clap. “But I think you greatly exaggerate matters. Miss Stanley is simply unerringly polite, and I a gentleman.”
“Who talked incessantly about her for four hours last night without once making mention of the fact she was staying on the neighbouring estate.”
“I was not aware of that particular piece of information.”
He hoped he wasn’t expected to believe that fact. “So, you’ve no designs upon the chit?”
Wakefield huffed and gave his head a shake. “I don’t know how you dare ask.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
His friend responded with a second huff.
“What? You can’t think I have designs upon either of them. I barely exchanged a word with Miss Stanley as you were dominating her so, and Miss Rushdale’s attire was—”
“—frightfully outdated.” Lucerne’s dedicated love of exquisite tailoring was well known. “And yet I’m not the one riding home with an aching dick, or is there another reason you’re standing in your stirrups?”
He had no direct comeback to that. It was true that he was still in need of a certain amount of readjusting after his enlightening conversation with Miss Rushdale, and if in the back of his mind he was already concocting elaborate fantasies involving a certain dark haired, blue-eyed woodland dryad with a pleasingly abundant bosom falling out of a tree and landing astride his rampant prick, that wasn’t a matter for public airing, just for him and his hand after the drapes were drawn around his bed later tonight.
“Lucerne, please don’t glower at me. I have sisters for Christ’s sake. I think you can credit me with some measure of propriety pertaining to the matter of a woman’s virtue. It’s not in my nature to randomly go about debauching young ladies.”
“You’re also a soldier. Don’t pretend you’ve not left a score of conquests all over these lands and others.”
“Widows. Courtesans. Not young ladies.”
Lucerne cocked his brows to emphasize his incredulity.
“Very few… Very, very few, young ladies,” his friend reiterated, patting his horse’s neck. “And every single one of them, I was genuinely committed to and more than ready to walk down the aisle. You can hardly lay the fault that they came to naught in the end at my door.” He sniffed and trotted on, only to rein in the horse almost immediately, so that Lucerne was parallel to him once again as the lane forked. “You’re no saint yourself, Marlinscar, and as for some of the swains you name friends—”
“Ah,” Lucerne drawled. They took the left path, then turned at once off the road and onto one of the many trails that wound across the moorlands. They were back upon his property now, though still some distance from the hall. The only boundary marker was a drystone wall in need of urgent repair. “This might be a good moment to apprise you of the arrival—”
“No!” Wakefield cut him off before he’d even got the words out. He jerked the reins so hard he caused his horse to rear. “You’ve not.” The stallion danced about a moment, shaking its head and attempting to dislodge its rider, until Wakefield had it back under control again. Whence, he looked askance at Lucerne. “Please tell me you haven’t.”
