Three
One more turn in the village street and Serena would be alone in open country. Or at least she would be, had Sir Adam not been sitting in his curricle, waiting for her to appear, like a rather handsome spider in the midst of a well-spun web. How had the wretched man managed to summon up such a neat equipage at short notice? she wondered crossly.
‘You’re late, Lady Summerton,’ he said, by way of greeting.
‘I’m ten minutes early,’ she was flustered into saying. Then could have kicked herself for making it sound as if their assignation existed anywhere but in his head.
‘On the contrary, you’re at least five minutes after I expected you,’ he argued. ‘If you wanted to confound me, you should have slipped out of your friend’s back door.’
It was quite true; the shortcut across the fields would have got her to Windham much more quickly and he would never have seen her. Whatever had she been thinking of not to use it? Did a secret, rebellious part of her really want his company so badly that quarrelling with him was preferable to not seeing him at all? Next time there was the least chance of avoiding him she must seize it determinedly—if only to prove to herself he meant nothing to her. Maybe then he would take the hint and stop plaguing her.
She was so sunk in gloom at this happy notion that she let him hand her into his curricle before she noticed she was doing as he had planned all along.
‘I haven’t the least wish to ride home with you,’ she protested idiotically, and she didn’t need his amused grin to feel a fool when she was doing such a good job by herself.
‘Your reluctance is duly noted,’ he said solemnly, and set his team in motion.
‘And you fully intend to ignore it?’
‘Precisely. The fact that you’re here speaks for itself.’
‘You are ungallant, Sir Adam.’
‘And you’re in the mood to argue with your own nose today, my lady.’
‘I’m not considered in the least contrary by anyone else I know,’ she told him between clenched teeth.
‘Of course not. You’re far too busy trying to please them all to argue with anybody. Which makes me wonder why you resist my perfectly natural wish to make your life more comfortable so stubbornly.’
‘I have an aversion to being managed, and milk-and-water misses get trampled all over,’ she said with an audible sniff.
‘How would you know?’
‘I have observed it,’ she said, and shivered.
‘Cold, my dear?’
‘No, and I’m not your dear.’
‘Even you can’t police my thoughts, Lady Summerton,’ he said, with that wicked glint back in eyes she had no intention of meeting, despite the shiver of awareness that shot through her at the intriguing idea of reading those thoughts there.
‘Then pray govern your tongue, Sir Adam,’ she said primly, fervently hoping her waspishness would divert him from the silly blush that had stolen over every exposed inch of skin.
‘I’ll endeavour to do so, my lady,’ he said smoothly, sounding not in the least bit chastened as he gave his pair the office to trot.
Something told her their thoughts were in a most embarrassing harmony on the forbidden subject of her finding out just what it might be like to be mercilessly ravished by the handsome, intelligent and uniquely intriguing gentleman who was Sir Adam Langthorne. She felt ridiculously ignorant of such sensual delights, and she was quite certain they would indeed be almost too delightful. He might be arrogant, and far too certain that he knew best, but she suspected he’d be a lover to eclipse all others. Not that she intended taking any more. Appalled at the direction of her own unwary thoughts, she mentally corrected herself. No, she never intended taking any lovers.
Not that he wouldn’t be a magnificent lover, she conceded silently. It was there in his heated appreciation of her, the way his eyes lingered on her slender curves and played over her slightly too generous mouth, as if intent on reassuring her that their pleasure would be absolutely mutual when she finally yielded to him. She believed it emphatically. It had been quite a revelation when she’d first caught the feral gleam in his dark and light eyes, and a warm shudder shook her at the memory of the flowering of heat it had awakened in her wilful body. Considering they could never be more than neighbours, however he might persuade her, such thoughts really were no help in her battle with her baser impulses. And neither was he, she decided militantly, as she once more caught that look of sensual amusement on his far too fascinating mouth, as if he could read her struggle with the ultimate temptation in her stormy eyes.
‘We’re going the wrong way,’ she informed him stiffly.
‘Not if we intend going via Thornfield Churchyard.’
‘Well, I certainly have no wish to visit the wretched place.’
‘It’s not dark, and you have told me many other things I intend to disprove today, my lady, so we might as well start with Thornfield and work our way down the list.’
‘No, let’s go to Windham Dower House instead, so I can take my leave of you, Sir Adam. Once I’m home you can chase ghosts all day and night with my heartfelt blessing. Take half the neighbourhood with you, as long as you leave me out of it.’
‘Shush. We’re nearly there, and you really shouldn’t be so uncivil to your neighbours—myself included.’
‘I won’t hush, and I like being uncivil. I didn’t want to come and I have no desire to racket about the countryside with a person who never listens to a single word I say,’ she said smartly, fervently wishing it were true. Something told her she might go with him to the ends of the earth if he asked with just the right pitch of need and hunger in his dark voice.
‘Coward. But why not just humour me for once? I would never have brought you if I thought you were in the slightest danger.’
‘Then your definition of danger and mine must be wildly out of kilter,’ she muttered darkly, then subsided into silence as he halted the curricle well short of the church and passed her the reins.
‘If I’m not back within a quarter of an hour fetch my head groom from the smithy, then go home,’ he ordered quietly, before jumping lithely down and ghosting off into the shadows himself, before she could think up a sufficiently indignant and crushing protest.
‘Insufferable, ungovernable, insensitive man,’ she muttered under her breath, but she sat and kept the pair as quiet as she could even so.
If it hadn’t been for her nagging fear that Sir Adam might end up lying disabled and hurt in the ancient churchyard, she might even have found this peaceful interlude quite pleasant, she decided, as she listened to the triumphant fugue of birdsong. Instead she had to force herself not to imagine ruthless villains lying in wait for him, and reluctantly considered his ridiculous scheme to find Rachel a husband to distract herself.
Her friend might be happier, more fulfilled than she was now if she were married to a good man. But after so many years of longing for her dead love, would a mere everyday one ever satisfy her? In such
