arrangements of a kept mistress to the coy flirtations of society maidens, all of whom, he was sure, would have smiled at him and fluttered their eyelashes and hung on his every word even if he had been a cross-eyed stuttering fool, as long as they might acquire the Neville name and fortune by doing so.
But even with the elegant, attractive women whom he had kept as his mistresses, he had always known that they earned their living by pleasing him, and he had never been able to trust their protestations of love or even the elementary sounds of their passions.
But last night, there had been no artifice, no deception. The young lady had responded unconsciously, instinctively, and her arousal at his touch had been immediate and unmistakable. Such honest desire intrigued him. Indeed, just thinking about it now, he could feel himself hardening once again.
He stopped and turned to look back toward the house, searching, he had to admit, for the sight of Miss Moulton. He had been doing so most of the morning. He wanted to talk to her again, to hear her warm, pleasant voice, free of the soft, babyish affectations toward which young women of his acquaintance were so often prone. He wanted to see her in the daylight, to assure himself that her creamy skin and luminous eyes were as he remembered them from last night. So far, however, the young lady had been disappointingly absent, though he had met several other young women who had been more than happy to stroll with him in the fragrant garden, annoying him with their chatter.
He wondered if she was simply a late riser or if he should perhaps seek her inside. It was possible, he supposed, that she was one of those delicate creatures who never ventured out into the sun.
As he stood searching the garden and the distant terrace, there was the crunch of a footstep behind him on the gravel, and a woman’s voice said, “Ah! Sir Philip. We meet again.”
It was her voice. He whirled to face her. She was tall and carried herself with pride, seemingly unaware or uncaring that she loomed over many men. She was slender, with high, enticing breasts, though her figure was concealed in a brown bombazine gown that Sir Philip would have expected to see on a governess rather than on Ardis Moulton’s niece. Her hair was hidden beneath a straw hat, and its wide brim shadowed her face, as well.
He stepped forward, unaware of the smile that touched his usually impassive face. He looked down into her face, seeing once again the firm, generous mouth, smiling unaffectedly at him, and the wide, intelligent gray eyes under curving dark brows. He knew that her facial bones were too strong for her to be considered a proper beauty, but their lines appealed to him. Hers was the sort of face one did not easily forget, and he knew that he had been guilty of not really looking at her the day before, for he would not have forgotten that face. He wished she was not wearing the bonnet, so that he could see her hair in the sunlight. His fingers itched to take it off her head.
“Miss Moulton, what a pleasant surprise. I fear my walk in the morning is usually a dull affair, but you, I am sure, will enliven it. If you will walk with me...?” His voice trailed off questioningly, and he offered his arm.
Cassandra took it, smiling. She hoped that the heightened color in her face would not betray her. She had spotted Sir Philip in the garden some minutes earlier, and she had been walking around, working up her courage to speak to him, ever since. When she had finally approached him, and he had turned to her and smiled, her heart had done the most unusual flip-flop in her chest, and her lungs seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. She had never before felt this way when she talked to a man, nor had she ever had the silly desire to grin at a man for no reason, as she feared she was doing now. It was, she told herself, some odd reaction caused by her trepidation at speaking to him.
She tried to ignore the way her heart pounded in her chest as they strolled through a vine arbor and out into the less formally restrained yard at the rear of the gardens. “My name is not Moulton,” she began.
“I beg your pardon. I had thought, since your aunt’s name was Moulton—”
“Of course. But she is the wife of my mother’s brother.”
“I see. Then I am afraid you have the advantage of me. What is your name?”
Her courage failed her at the last minute, and she said only, “Cassandra.”
“Cassandra!” Amusement lit his eyes, and Cassandra noticed that in the sunlight they looked more gold than brown. “A rather gloomy name to put on a child, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps Papa and Mama thought it would give me prophetic powers. Papa was in his Greek period then, so I suppose that I am lucky that they didn’t decide to name me Persephone or Electra.”
“Mmm. Quite true.” He looked much struck by the thought.
“Of course, my brothers and sister call me Cassie. That’s not so bad.”
“Neither is bad. I assure you, I didn’t mean that. Cassandra is a lovely name. It is just not—”
“I know. The sort of name most people would inflict on a baby.”
He smiled faintly. “I wouldn’t have put it quite that way.”
“Only because you are too polite.”
“And was your father in his ‘Greek period’ when your brothers and sister were born?” he asked delicately.
Laughter bubbled up out of Cassandra’s throat, a delicious sound that Sir Philip found sizzled along his nerves. “You mean, are they named Ajax, Agamemnon and Demeter?”
“Precisely.” His eyes twinkled down at her.
“My sister’s name is Olivia. That is close, I suppose. It comes from Latin, does it not? But I think he had left that phase by the time the twins were born. Their names are Crispin and Hart. Not exactly Ned or Tom, but at least they are not classical.”
“No. Proper British names, both of them.”
They were nearing the maze, and Cassandra nodded toward it. “Would you like to go in the maze? I explored it yesterday and worked it out. There is a lovely fountain in the center.”
Philip thought of wandering through the high green walls of the maze with Cassandra, alone in its quiet seclusion, and his loins tightened. “Yes,” he replied a little huskily. He cleared his throat. “It sounds delightful.”
“It is nice—though it’s not terribly difficult. The one we had at home was dreadfully complicated. It was easy to get lost in it, even for us. Once, when Hart and Crispin were little, they went in, and it took us hours to realize where they were. Papa threatened to close it off, but I persuaded him merely to block the entrance until they were older.”
She did not add that in the past few years the maze had been let go; the once-trimmed shrubs had in many places grown together, with grass and even weeds cropping up everywhere. They had not had the money to continue to pay a gardener to keep it in proper form.
“Where is your home?”
“In the Cotswolds, near Fairbourne. Actually, we live with Aunt Ardis now, since Papa died. It’s not far away from our home, but we do miss it.” She smiled, her jaw setting in a determined way. “But our circumstances are about to change, and then we will be able to go home again.”
They turned into the maze and began to follow its twistings and turnings. The air was still within its corridors, and hushed, with only the occasional twittering of a
