Darleston remarked dryly.
Emma gave a polite nod. What could she say? Foolish displays had never been her forte; she left such nonsense to Amelia, who would have stamped her foot and demanded a place in their conversation. ‘I’ll see to our other guests.’ She made to rise, but Lyle shooed her back into her seat.
‘No need to move, my sweet. Stay by the fire. We’ll walk. You don’t mind an evening stroll, do you, Darleston? You’re not afeared of the country vapours? I find it most beneficial to take a little wander before bed.’
‘Indeed, that sounds delightful. I’d appreciate the opportunity to stretch my legs. I’ve been stuck in a carriage for days.’
‘Where’ve you come from?’
‘Only from Shropshire today, but from London before that.’
‘Stopping in on the old family pile?’
The candlelight glowed bright copper among the fiery strands of Darleston’s hair as he shook his head. Lyle guided him towards the door.
‘I stayed the night at Pennerley. Do you know the marquis? I had intended a longer visit but he has business in Yorkshire to attend.’
‘And so you washed up here. How marvellous. How wonderful indeed.’
The door swung closed behind them. Emma stared at the abandoned cups of tea and poured herself another. A moment later she rang for Ada. ‘Could you ensure my sister’s bed is warmed, please?’ It was time she coaxed that little goose away from the ganders.
CHAPTER TWO
The proposed drink went forgotten. Darleston allowed Lyle to guide him across the hallway of Field House and down the front steps, eschewing overcoats and accoutrements. Twilight subsumed the last of the day as they crossed the lawn, stealing the colour from his vision. They didn’t really speak until they stood upon the bank of the Trent, well out of sight of the house amongst a copse of ancient sycamore trees.
‘I didn’t … I had no idea that you’d married Hill’s daughter,’ Darleston began. She’d told him her name and it hadn’t sparked a flicker of recognition. He’d met other Mrs Langleys before, but … ‘I mean, I knew you’d wed, but I’d really no idea there was a connection.’ Silence swallowed his words, which wasn’t such a surprise. What the hell did you say to someone you hadn’t seen for nine years and to whom you’d made promises you could never hope to keep? ‘Lyle.’ He put out his hand and touched the other man’s arm, making the briefest of connections. ‘If my presence is going to make things awkward, I can make my excuses.’ Hell only knows where he’d go when he left. He was fast running out of friends with country estates. The last place he wanted to end up was home, where Lucy could find him. Increasingly it looked as if he’d have to take a long, slow tour of the Scottish Highlands and grow a beard so that he’d blend in with the locals and not drawn undue attention.
Not drawing attention would be a damned fine strategy at this point.
The trickle of fear slowly running down his spine made him look about as if he might find spies perched within the tree bowers.
Lyle’s response acted as a burr upon his senses. ‘Is that what you think – that I’m afraid of you exposing my past?’ Lightly, tentatively, Lyle’s fingers rested upon his shoulder. Darleston turned towards the touch, so that they stood face to face, far too close to be friends, not quite close enough for lovers.
They had been lovers – extraordinary lovers.
He wouldn’t cause trouble. He refused to bring trouble.
Lyle’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. The shadows and hopes writ within them were not so very different from those he’d seen years before. Yet Lyle had aged, as had he. Nine years didn’t pass without scoring a few lines, even if the overall composition remained largely unchanged: same wide-set eyes and aquiline nose, the widow’s peak – more prominent than it had once been – that drew the gaze. And that same wicked-as-sin grin he’d spent years trying to imitate.
It hardly seemed appropriate to stare, given that he’d just been enjoying a pleasant welcome from the fellow’s wife. It wasn’t often he was treated with grace and respect any more. Since February, comely hostesses magically vanished whenever he came within forty feet.
He risked a quick glance into Lyle’s eyes. Desire so familiar he could almost taste it swam in the inky depths of those pupils. For a moment, it was as if no time had passed at all.
‘You don’t want your name sullied alongside mine,’ he insisted, already recognising the brewing danger. The problem was that he didn’t actually want to move away. Rather he wanted to press close and find himself entwined in Lyle’s embrace. It took every ounce of self-restraint to take a single step backwards instead.
Lyle’s lips quirked. ‘I don’t need you to sully my name. I’m capable of that all by myself.’ He followed Darleston’s retreat and extended his arm past Darleston’s ear, neatly trapping him betwixt his body and the thick trunk of a tree.
Conflicted, Darleston froze. Their last parting had been untidy. It seemed wholly rational that this beginning would be messy and awkward too.
‘By all means practise your excuses, Robert, but don’t leave on my account. Of course, if you feel you need to run away –’
‘Ought I?’ Of course he ought. Given the current euphoria bubbling beneath his skin, he ought to call his carriage right now and not look back until he’d crossed the county border. In an act of further lunacy, he maintained the eye contact they’d already made.
That wicked gleam – damn! Lyle’s ability, with barely more than a slight upturning of his lips, to reduce him to an irrational, seething ball of desire had ever been his downfall. The scent of port lingered on the other man’s breath, mixed with a trace of aniseed.
‘Christ, Robert! I can still hardly get over the fact that you’re here. For the longest time I didn’t know what they’d done to you. I wasn’t sure … I wasn’t informed, merely packed off like a piece of baggage and told to toughen up. I spent the first eighteen months in that Indian hellhole living off the memory of you.’
Darleston almost imperceptibly shook his head, having no comparable sentence to relate. ‘Nothing happened to me.’ It smarted a little to admit it. Lyle had taken the brunt of the punishment, though he was pleased to see the army hadn’t broken him. Meanwhile, he had suffered little more than embarrassment and his mother’s reproachful looks, both of which were quickly forgotten. No, his penalty hadn’t come until much later, when he’d stupidly committed the same crime twice. Then his mother had found him ‘a nice young bride’ to keep him busy and ‘out of the second footman’s underthings’. Not that it had worked. It’d been rather naïve of the countess to think it would. But then, she’d never been quite as bright as she liked to believe.
‘I sometimes imagined you’d write.’ Lyle’s words broke though his introspection.
Darleston gave a derisive little snort. ‘I sometimes imagined I’d write. But what the hell was there to say? What is there to say now?’ He couldn’t think of anything that would mend broken hearts and promises. Certainly nothing that would reverse the flow of time, or allow them to make that fateful
