The gentleman hastened back to a thin elderly man who sat in a wheeled chair, swathed in robes. “Nearly ran down these ladies on the sidewalk, I’m afraid, grandpapa.”
“Lord Masterson!” Lady Alice said, a smile of delight breaking out on her face. “You look much improved! I trust the waters are proving beneficial, or perhaps it is the reviving presence of your grandson Mr.—”
“This jackanapes?” the old man said with a jerk of his chin toward the young man. “My grandson, Jeffrey Masterson, come to turn me up sweet enough to leave him some of my geld when I’m gone, no doubt—but he’s tolerably amusing, so perhaps I shall,” he said, ignoring the young man’s strangled protest. “And the waters are as nasty as ever, my lady. I suggest you avoid them. Take me home, now, Jeffrey. These old bones are longing for their bed.”
The embarrassment in the young man’s eyes swiftly changed to concern. “At once, grandpapa. Lady Alice, will you be remaining at the Pump Room?” At her nod, he continued, “Then please give me leave, after I’ve gotten grandfather settled, to return and deliver my apologies to you and your charming companion at more length. Ladies.”
After bowing, he pushed his grandfather’s chair out.
Lady Alice gazed after them for a moment, her bright blue eyes shining. “What a fortuitous encounter! I’d heard Lord Masterson’s grandson was visiting but had not yet had occasion to meet him. So attractive, and quite young! A bachelor possessing a large fortune from his mother’s side, ’tis said he has no need of his grandfather’s money. Most charming, did you not think?”
“Indeed, Aunt Alice,” Gwen replied, impressed, but resisting the urge to succumb to the pleasant imaginings which Lady Alice was doubtless entertaining. “If he isn’t hopeful of a bequest, it speaks well of him that he would come spend time with his grandfather.” Especially a man who appeared as irascible as Lord Masterson.
Fool, she told herself, sternly damping down a niggle of hope as they walked from the entry into the Pump Room itself. Just because Mr. Masterson appeared to possess the kindness and tolerance of infirmity that might make him accept Parry did not mean he would be impressed enough with her to come courting.
She’d better not set her hopes higher than the infirm gentleman stricken in years and wishful of a handmaiden’s assistance whom she’d originally envisioned for herself.
Perhaps then she might banish the disturbing memories that, once they’d been accepted under Lady Alice’s roof and she’d stopped living in constant fear of pursuit from cousin Nigel, returned all too frequently to plague her.
Memories of a tall blond gentleman whose handsome face and broad shoulders had elicited an immediate, visceral pull of attraction. Whose clever banter had delighted her mind even as she knew she ought to deplore its fixation on the physical. Who, after their encounter and despite her shame over her unprecedented reaction to it, she could not help wishing she might have met instead under proper circumstances, so she might, with the same shivery agitation his presence had excited, look forward to his calling on her, riding with her, becoming a friend.
She suppressed a scornful chuckle at so naive a wish. ’Twas not platonic friendship he’d wanted from her. But given her inexplicable response to his audacious kiss, she could not very well condemn only the stranger’s behavior.
Still, the very thought of that kiss refired within her a simmering urgency previously unimaginable in the bounds of her staid existence. A kiss unlike any she’d ever experienced, that within an instant had marshaled the vague longings that had often roiled within her and forged them into irresistible, all-compelling desire.
Instead of exhibiting the horror one would expect of a virtuous maiden suddenly assaulted by a man with whom she’d been acquainted for barely half an hour, her hands had ceased their protesting resistance to clasp about his neck. And her lips had not just yielded to his, but actively responded to the stranger’s caress.
Just as bad, once compelled to it, she had to admit she’d enjoyed dancing for him—the erotic freedom of the wild music that matched the fire flaming through her blood. Such incredible behavior must have originated in some previously unsuspected but obviously deep vein of carnality of which she’d heretofore been completely unaware.
The whole experience had been shameful, appalling—and marvelous.
However, if she wished to contract a respectable alliance, she’d best thrust those rash and wanton responses back into the Pandora’s box from which they’d sprung. Much as her body might protest, she was probably better off setting her matrimonial sights on a staid and possibly infirm gentleman many years her senior—or an obvious gentleman like Mr. Masterson, who would expect virtuous and restrained behavior from his bride.
And who would have no wish to evoke in her so exhilarating, intense—and frighteningly uncontrollable a reaction.
Chapter Five
“Oh, I see Colonel Haversham—with Colonel Howard!” Lady Alice exclaimed.
Jolted back to the present, Gwennor watched Aunt Alice wave across the room at the gentlemen. “Excellent!” she said as the men approached. “Two eligible suitors already this morning, and only our first day!”
Gwen’s trepidation at meeting one of the prospects her aunt expected her to attract faded as soon as the two men arrived and she perceived the lines of suffering that marked Colonel Howard’s too-thin face. Her ready sympathy immediately activated, as soon as the introductions had been performed and Lady Alice, with a wink at Gwen, sent the two off to procure a cup of the waters, Gwennor set about trying to put the colonel, who seemed rather shy and diffident for a military man, more at ease.
“My first cousin, Major Harry Hartwell, was in India before transferring with his unit to the Peninsula,” Gwen said as she took the colonel’s arm. “He wrote us there were any number of dreadful maladies that plagued Englishmen there. Did you happen to meet my cousin on the continent, Colonel?”
“‘Heedless Harry’ is your cousin? A fine lad, full of enthusiasm, an exemplary rider and marksman besides. I fear he’s correct—there are any number of diseases, each one more noxious than the last, as my pitiful frame can testify. I’m sure Wellington is glad to have your cousin with him in Spain!” The colonel grimaced. “How it grates me, knowing the import of the business going on there, and being forced to remain here so far from the action.”
They reached the basin, where a waterspout delivered a continuous stream of the heated, faintly sulfur-scented mineral water from a natural spring beneath the pump-house floor. “Aunt Alice tells me you are much improved of late,” Gwennor said as he filled two glasses. “Perhaps before long you shall be able to rejoin your unit.”
“So I keep trying to tell myself! If I could just shake this curst fever…” He sighed and, glasses brimming, turned back to her. “Malaria, they tell me. But so young and lovely a lady cannot wish to hear of pills and potions. Nor is it comforting to a man’s pride to demonstrate how thoroughly he’s been defeated by his own constitution.”
Her sympathy increased a notch as they walked together back toward her waiting aunt. So much of a man’s self-esteem, she knew from observing her father as he battled his final illness, derived from his sense of having mastery of the responsibilities given into his charge. For a military man accustomed to command, it must be especially galling to have been invalided out of his post. Perhaps here, too, was a man who could understand and exhibit a tolerance for infirmity.
“I should suppose a malady is no more discerning than a bullet in battle, nor any more avoidable,” she replied.
Surprise lit the eyes that glanced over to her. “I never thought of it in quite that way, but I imagine you are correct.” His assessing gaze lingered on her face before he murmured, “You are a perceptive young lady.”
She flushed a little. “Only a practical one, I fear.”
“As