very kindly broke my fall,’ Elliot finished for her. ‘For which I am most grateful, believe me.’
Deborah blushed. ‘You expressed your gratitude at the time, as I recall.’
‘Not as thoroughly as I’d have liked to.’
‘I didn’t tell,’ she blurted out in confusion.
‘That I kissed you?’
‘No. I mean I didn’t report you. I should have. I know I should have. But I didn’t.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Elliot stared at her in astonishment.
Her eyes were coffee brown, almost black, with a sort of hazel or gold colour around the rim of the iris. A strange combination, with that flaxen hair. The pink tip of her tongue flicked out along the full length of her lower lip to moisten it.
He dragged his eyes away. They were in danger of making a show of themselves, standing stock still at the busy entrance gates. Taking her arm, he ushered her into the park. ‘Let’s find somewhere more private, away from the crowds.’
Deborah tingled where his fingers clasped her arm. It was most—strange. In a nice way. So nice that she allowed herself to be led down one of the more secluded paths without protest.
He was taller than she remembered. In daylight his countenance was swarthy, the colour of one who had spent much time in the sun. The lines around his eyes, too, which gave him that fierce quality, looked as if they came from squinting in bright light. Snatching a glance up at him, she noticed a scar slicing through his left eyebrow, and another, a thin thread on his forehead just below the hairline. A soldier? Certainly it would explain his bearing, the upright stance, the quick stride which even her long legs were struggling to keep up with.
He was exceedingly well dressed, in a rich blue double-breasted tailcoat with brass buttons, and the snowy white of his cravat was carefully tied, enhancing the strong line of his jaw, the tanned complexion. Brown trousers, black boots, a single fob, a beaver hat—though the crown was not tall enough to be truly fashionable. His toilette was elegant but simple. Like herself, he eschewed ostentation, though unlike herself his reason did not appear to be lack of funds. Housebreaking must be a lucrative profession.
No, she could not bring herself to believe that he stole in order to dress well. Whatever reason he had for breaking into houses, it was not avarice. It appealed to her sense of irony that the famous Peacock was decidedly no peacock. Maybe his choice of calling card was deliberately self-mocking.
‘What is so amusing?’ Elliot brought them both to a halt by a rustic bench facing the sun.
‘Just an idle thought.’
‘We can sit here awhile,’ he said, after carefully wiping the wood down with his kerchief. ‘As long as the sun prevails we shall not get cold.’
Obediently, Deborah sat down. There were so many things she wanted to ask, but as she stared up at him she was too overwhelmed by the reality of him, which was so much more than the memory of him, to order her thoughts properly. ‘Are you really the Peacock?’
A word from her in the right ear and he would be dancing on the end of a rope at Tyburn. Though so far she had of her own admission said nothing. ‘Yes,’ Elliot replied, ‘I really am the Peacock.’
‘When I saw Jacob holding up the feather I could scarcely believe it.’
It was a small bench. Elliot’s knees touched her leg as he angled himself to face her. A spark of awareness shot through him at the contact. He remembered the way she’d felt beneath him. He remembered, too, the things he’d imagined her doing to him since and prayed none of it showed on his face. He had to remind himself that she was married. Married! In England, that mattered.
‘Why?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Why did you say nothing to your husband?’
‘You mentioned him during our first conversation—if it could be called a conversation,’ Deborah said with a frown. ‘You said that I must blame him, or some such words. Blame him for what? What has Jeremy to do with your breaking into Kinsail Manor?’
Jeremy! It had slipped his mind, but he remembered now that was the name she’d given Kinsail. ‘You mean Jacob, surely?’ Elliot said, also frowning. ‘Jacob, the Earl of Kinsail. Your husband.’
Her eyes widened with surprise and she burst into a peal of laughter, brimming with amusement like a champagne flute full of bubbles. Then, as if she was quite unused to the sound, she stopped abruptly. ‘I am not the current Lady Kinsail. Jacob is my husband’s cousin, the Fifth Earl. Jeremy was the fourth.’
‘Was? You’re a widow?’ She was a widow!
‘Of some two years’ standing,’ the widow replied.
‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear that.’ The words were out before he could stop them.
‘I doubt very much that the pleasure you take from my status could rival mine.’
‘That, if you don’t mind my saying so, was an even more telling remark than my own.’
Deborah coloured. ‘I am aware of that.’
‘It was not a love-match, then, I take it?’
‘No. Yes. I thought it was. I was just eighteen when we met—my head stuffed full of romantic fancies, as foolish and unworldly as it’s possible to imagine a person could be—and Jeremy was … seemed to be … well, he swept me off my feet, to put it in the sort of terms I’d have used myself then,’ Deborah said with a twisted smile. ‘When Jeremy proposed I thought all my birthdays had come at once. My guardian—my uncle—my parents died when I was very young—was only too glad to be able to wash his hands of me, so we were married three months after we met. I thought myself wildly in love, but it was all a sham. Jeremy was only interested in my money. Pathetic, isn’t it? I don’t know why I have told you all this, but you did ask.’
‘I think it’s sad, not pathetic. Were you very unhappy?’
Deborah shrugged. ‘I was very naïve and very set upon the match. I was not the only one who suffered as a result. I should never have married him. You know, this is all rather boring. Do you mind if we change the subject?’
Her husband sounded like a complete bastard. Elliot couldn’t understand why she was so determined to lay the blame on herself but, much as he wished to probe deeper, her closed look was back. He doubted he would get anywhere. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You didn’t,’ Deborah replied, tilting her chin and sniffing.
He wanted to kiss her then, for that defiant little look. Actually, he’d wanted to kiss her before that. ‘You know, you don’t look a bit like a dowager,’ Elliot said lightly. ‘Not a trace of grey hair, you don’t dab at your eyes with a black lace kerchief, or sniff at your smelling salts, and I’ve seen not a trace of an obnoxious little lap dog—unless he’s too precious to be allowed outside in the cold. The Dowager Countess of Kinsail.’ He shook his head. ‘No, it’s just not you.’
He was rewarded with a weak smile. ‘I prefer not to use the title. It’s Deborah Napier. And if I don’t
