‘I’ll leave the door open. Either she won’t know what it is, or she’ll assume someone has taken advantage of the empty carriage—but she won’t know who.’
‘I’ll be looking so guilty, she’ll guess,’ Bree said glumly, taking Max’s hand and jumping down.
‘Do you feel guilty?’ Max peered round the side of the drag, without waiting for her answer. ‘Look, see that group just on the fringe of the wood? If you cut across the corner, down that little path, you can join them without them noticing where you’ve come from. They’ve got a telescope and they’re looking at the view.’
‘All right.’ Bree picked up her skirts and began to walk towards the path, then turned back. ‘And, no, I do not feel guilty.’
‘Neither do I, and I should. Bree, we won’t be able to talk again today, not as I’d wish. I’ll come and see you tomorrow.’
He was gone before she could respond. What will he say tomorrow? Will he want to make me his lover? Can I? Should I? He won’t feel he has to offer for me, surely? She stopped dead, appalled at the thought. She had as good as begged him to make love to her, convinced that marriage was out of the question. But what if he felt honour bound to offer it? I will have to refuse. I must be strong enough to do that, she told herself as she slipped into the fringes of the group clustered around a telescope.
Then she recognised the bonnet in front of her. Rosa. Of all the bad luck, the one person in the party who could be guaranteed to recognise that this Miss Mallory was not the same person who had set out so blithely that morning.
With the uncanny ability to spot wrongdoing that Bree was convinced all teachers possessed, Rosa turned and looked at her. Her eyebrows lifted, but all she said was, ‘Miss Mallory, do come and see this wonderful view.’ As Bree passed her, Rosa added brightly, ‘Oh, my goodness, do stand still one moment, there is a spider just gone down the back of your gown.’
The other ladies moved sharply away, the gentlemen averted their gaze, and Rosa rapidly undid the hooks on the back of Bree’s gown and did them up again. ‘There,’ she said. ‘All safe now.’ She bent close. ‘And in the right holes this time,’ she hissed in Bree’s ear, her expression promising a close interrogation, all the way home.
‘Nevill.’ Max emerged just behind his cousin who was standing, arms crossed, gazing belligerently out across the park.
‘Latymer’s gone, but I am keeping an eye out in case he tries to sneak back, the cur.’ He curled a magnificent lip, which drooped ludicrously as he took in his cousin’s appearance. ‘What on earth have you been doing?’ he demanded. ‘Have you seen the state of your neckcloth?’
‘Give me yours,’ Max demanded.
‘What?’
‘Your neckcloth. Don’t tell me you haven’t got a Belcher handkerchief in the pocket of your greatcoat. Put that on instead.’
‘But, damn it, Max, it isn’t the sort of thing you wear when ladies are about,’ he protested as Max propelled him ruthlessly towards the stagecoach.
‘You’re young, you are coaching-mad, they’ll excuse you.’ Max was unsympathetic.
‘Oh, all right.’ His cousin rummaged in a pocket and came out with a red handkerchief, lavishly spotted with white. He unwound his own neckcloth carefully and handed it over to Max.
‘Thank you,’ He squinted in the panes of the stagecoach-door window as he arranged the still-crisp muslin. ‘How’s that?’
‘Better than yours looked. But what on earth have you been doing? It was perfectly fine, even after you hit Latymer.’ He stared at Max’s impassive face, the thoughts chasing themselves across his countenance with vivid clarity. Max gritted his teeth and kept his face bland.
‘Oh, Lord,’ Nevill said sympathetically. ‘Did Miss Mallory cry all over you? It’s awful, isn’t it, when they do that? I can recall Janey when she last got upset over some beau or other that Mama forbade her to see. She wept buckets. Flattened my neckcloth and made my shirt all soggy. I don’t think I handled it very well, looking back. I think you have to pat them on the shoulder and go “there, there” or something.’
He panted after Max as he strode back up the hill. ‘I’m glad she didn’t cry all over me. Miss Mallory, I mean. I’m sure you looked after her much better than I would have done.’
With his cousin heaping coals of fire on his conscience, Max scanned the park. Everyone was gathering at the picnic spot again, the servants were packing up the hampers and folding rugs and the grooms were beginning to harness up the vehicles.
And there, chatting with apparent composure to the Misses Collins, was Bree, Rosa at her side. He veered off towards his drag, wanting to give Bree as much time as possible to gather her composure before confronting her again.
Tomorrow he would see her, tell her everything and reveal the uncertainties that lay ahead. He realised he had no idea how she would react, either to his declaration, his offer or his story.
He knew her too well, deep in his heart, to believe that she had gone into his arms expecting to trap him into marriage. She said that she wanted him, and wanted his lovemaking, with an innocent honesty that had held no calculation. She had trusted him not to go beyond the bounds of what was safe for her, and, thank Heavens, he had controlled the need to take all he wanted of her.
Honesty forced him to acknowledge that was partly because he dreamed of taking her on his own wide bed, seeing the swathes of her hair spread out on the dark green silk coverlet, watching her eyes on him as he loved her into ecstasy …
‘My lord?’ Gregg was standing patiently beside the off leader.
It was said that no man was a hero to his valet. Max had a feeling that that applied equally to head grooms. ‘Have I been standing here long, Gregg?’ he enquired mildly.
‘About two minutes, my lord. You didn’t say anything, but you had an odd smile on your face, sort of dreamy.’
‘Thank you. I am not sure I wanted such a vivid description of my doubtless ludicrous appearance, though.’
Gregg grinned. ‘No, my lord, sorry, my lord. Are we ready to go?’
‘Yes.’ Max swung himself up onto the high box. ‘Miss Mallory and Miss Thorpe are over there.’ He gestured with his whip. ‘Go down, present my compliments and enquire if they would find it convenient to leave now.’
‘Aye, my lord.’ The groom touched his forehead and strode off. Max gathered the reins, brought his team up to their bits and watched the other drivers doing the same. He did not want to catch Bree’s eye, not yet while that contact might undermine her composure. He had no illusions about how shaken she was feeling. He could not recall feeling this mixture of delight, uncertainty and anticipation since the time he lost his virginity to a willing and cheerfully experienced dairymaid, or since the first time with Drusilla.
No. Max steadied the leaders, who were becoming restive, and thought back into the past. This was not how it had been with his wife. With Drusilla there had always been that faint, nagging feeling of something not being right. At the time he had put it down to his own conscience pricking him for making a clandestine marriage; now he saw only too clearly it was an instinct of wrongness about the woman herself and his own feelings. He should have listened to it then. He should listen to his heart now.
Voices beyond his right shoulder brought him back to the present. ‘There you are, ladies.’ It was Gregg, ushering his passengers into the carriage.
‘Thank you.’ Rosa Thorpe’s clear and pleasant tones. Nothing from Bree. Max found he was tensed, waiting for her voice. The realisation shook him with something that was almost resentment: he was being dragged from his comfortable state of emotional neutrality. He was having to feel again, and with that came the potential for hurt.
Gregg