* * *
A loud, sputtering sound came from the gray, cloudy sky over his head.
Nigel froze, reining in Beelzebub so they were motionless on the long stretch of Brideswell’s gravel drive. He knew the sound. It was the tempestuous choking of an aeroplane’s engine. His heart pounded. He expected to hear the explosion of machine-gun fire. That was what you heard—the engine roar over your head, then the cracking sound as the ground around you was blasted by gunfire.
The war was over. Had been for four years. Four years that didn’t seem real at this moment....
Was he just imagining the sound? It was so damn clear against the other sounds he knew of Brideswell—the whip of the wind through trees, the caws of crows.
A bright yellow biplane flew out of a bank of thick cloud. It banked and made a wide turn over the trees that flanked the road at the end of the drive. The plane started to drop, and Nigel realized it was going to land on the lawn.
Then the engine stalled and his heart almost stopped in his chest.
The plane dropped fast. Then the engine roared and it swooped upward, clearing his head generously. As if it had struck Beelzebub, the spooked animal reared.
Nigel had let the reins go slack to watch the aeroplane. Too late, he gripped them, but he lost his balance—
He tumbled from his horse to wet ground. As he hit the earth, he saw the plane touch down.
He pushed up, his back sore and his arse aching. The yellow plane rumbled over the ground, coming to a stop just before the stone wall that bordered the lawn.
Zoe Gifford jumped out, pushed up her goggles and ran to him. “Are you all right? The damn engine is fickle. It ran fine yesterday when I purchased her, but on the way here, she decided to get temperamental.”
For two days after their run-in in the Savoy smoking room, he had avoided Miss Gifford. Dinner had been the only meal that had forced them into the same room at the same time. She would say things about women’s rights to goad him, but he refused to be drawn into the conversation.
He felt that if he started arguing with her, everyone in the room would know he’d kissed her. The incident hadn’t appeared in newspapers, so apparently his Oswald Warts story had worked.
But Sebastian knew. His brother had come to his study the next afternoon, demanding to know what had happened.
“It won’t happen again” was all Nigel had said.
He didn’t know why it had happened. Miss Gifford should be the last woman he wanted to kiss. She drove him mad.
Now she had flown her aeroplane too close to him and sent him falling off his horse onto his arse. So why was his blood thrumming as she reached for him?
Nigel jumped to his feet. He did not want her helping him up. He kept hearing a sound in his head—the droning sound an aeroplane made when it was shot down, just before it crashed.
“The engine had stalled. You could have killed yourself.”
She shrugged. “I got it going again. The trick is to not panic.”
“I saw more men than I can count crash in aeroplanes.” He’d seen the burned, mangled bodies of the pilots hauled by medics to ambulances. Most of them didn’t survive the crash.
She folded her arms over her chest. “And if a man can’t handle an airplane, obviously a woman can’t?”
“Why risk your life by flying, damn it?” His chest was heaving and his hands shook. He was losing control. “You don’t need to die. Millions of men had no choice but to go to war and be blown away. Why in God’s name would you want to die? Most of the beggars I saw at the end would have traded anything to hang on to life.”
She’d gone very white.
Bloody hell. He’d forgotten she had lost her brother. “I apologize, Miss Gifford.” He said it stiffly. If he unbent for a moment—or got too close to her—he feared he would kiss her again.
“I’m sorry I spooked your horse,” she said softly.
They both looked to Beelzebub at the same time. The horse had trotted close to the offending aeroplane and was nibbling grass.
Miss Gifford fell into step with him as he walked toward his horse. “Where are you riding?”
The mere sound of her voice made him hot, uncomfortable. He had no idea why. “I’m doing a tour of the estate. Visiting the tenants.”
“Let them get a glimpse at the grand duke?”
“No, I find out how they are faring, assess repairs that need to be made to their homes. In short, I learn about the problems the tenants are facing, then put in measures to fix them. Though right now, there is very little work that can be done, given our financial state.”
“Don’t you have a secretary or steward who does that for you?”
“Brideswell does have men in both those positions. However, I like to see for myself.”
“Do you? That surprises me.”
“Brideswell is my responsibility, first and foremost. In addition, Beelzebub needs to be ridden.”
“I’d like to go. I rode a mare named Daisy yesterday. Give me a minute, and I’ll get her saddled up and join you. I’d like to see what it’s like to be the tenant of a great house.”
“Probably no different than a manual worker or farmer in America,” he responded drily. “I thought my mother and Grandmama were taking you around for social visits.”
“For the past two days, that’s all I’ve done. I’ve met every peer within shooting distance. I’ve had battles with your grandmother over everything from tea to motorcars to music to the peerage. As to the last, I think it’s useless. Your grandmother thinks the world would collapse without it.” She smiled, and then a concerned look touched her face.
“Your mother is very kind,” she said, “but I can tell she is very sad and in pain over your brother. It’s...awkward.”
“Awkward because the engagement is a farce.”
“I’d rather be honest about it. I think that would be for the best. Even for your mother.”
“No,” he said softly. Dangerously. “It would not.”
“Can I come with you?”
He should say no. But it was not his head thinking when he said, “Yes.”
He watched her walk away to dress for riding with her jaunty, strong stride. She behaved as if the kiss had been of no account. It hadn’t seemed to unsettle her at all.
But as she’d said, kissing meant practically nothing to American girls.
The trouble was that kissing Miss Gifford had meant something to him. And it shouldn’t.
* * *
The clouds she’d flown through earlier were thicker now and a darker gray. Zoe shivered as she trotted Daisy beside the duke and Beelzebub.
Two days ago, the Duke of Langford had saved her life and kissed her senseless. It had all burst into a kind of explosion. Reporters had been swarming; flashbulbs went off. Sebastian had pulled Langford back and punched him. All hell had broken loose after that. People streamed out of Murray’s, hoping to see a brawl.
There hadn’t been one. The duke had not retaliated. She had taken care of a drunken Sebastian, pulling him away. The duke had taken hold of Julia, who was tending to his bleeding nose. Not caring about his injury, the duke had insisted they all spend the night at the Savoy.
Julia had apologized. “Nothing like this has ever happened. Sebastian frustrates Nigel—that’s