Midsummer madness, p.5
Midsummer Madness, page 5
“And this is interesting to you?”
Hope glanced sharply at Elodie, but her sister merely smiled serenely back.
“Only insofar as he is new to the neighborhood. I shouldn’t like to commit some faux pas or other when speaking to him.”
“Hmm. And we all know how conscious you are of never putting a foot wrong in a social situation.”
Now Hope knew that Elle was teasing her. But before she could defend herself, Elodie continued and put her out of her misery.
“I’ve never met the vicar, though I am somewhat acquainted with his brother, the earl. But yes, I did hear that there was an engagement to a local woman that ended under strange circumstances. Nobody really knew what happened. The old earl passed away, and the current earl left the country abruptly. This was, oh, a year or so ago. Nobody has heard anything since. It was all a little mysterious, but you know the ton. It became old news as soon as the next on dit arrived.”
Hope quietly absorbed everything Elodie told her. Elle had never been much of a gossip, and she wouldn’t speculate about someone’s life. She was far too kind for that, unfortunately.
And really, Hope shouldn’t care. Didn’t care. But…
“So, he’s not engaged then?” She could have kicked herself for asking as soon as Elodie bit her lip in a gesture that Hope knew was to keep her from smiling.
“No, not to my knowledge in any case.”
They walked in silence for a moment or two while Hope fought the urge to defend herself against Elodie’s knowing smirk. It was the same as Cheska’s and equally annoying. But she had a feeling that the more she argued, the more she’d convince her irritating sisters that she cared about the vicar. So, she kept her mouth shut until the silence grew unbearable.
Finally, she opened her mouth to tell Elodie in no uncertain terms that she didn’t care a whit about whether Mr. Bell was single, engaged, married, or anything in between. But before she could even take a breath, Christian’s shout rent the air, and they turned to see Sophia and Mercury jump a fence and tear off toward the fields with Christian racing after them both.
“It certainly won’t be dull around here,” Elodie laughed as her husband turned the air blue with his cursing.
“No, it certainly won’t,” Hope agreed, her own laugh sounding brittle in her ears.
She had a sneaking suspicion that being around the new reverend would be the furthest thing from dull. In fact, it would be quite the opposite.
Chapter Eight
“Oh, my dear Lady Brentford, how wonderful it is to have you home.”
Hope couldn’t help but roll her eyes at Mrs. Bell’s exuberant greeting. She had practically shoved Hope out of the way to get to where Elodie stood with Christian, waiting to greet their hosts.
But rather than find it offensive, Hope merely gazed at Francesca, who’d been given the same treatment.
The vicar, at least, was more pleasant than his wife. As was Kit, or Lord Claremont, Hope supposed, who smiled and welcomed them as old friends.
A surreptitious glance told Hope there was no sign of Gideon. Surely the man wouldn’t miss his own party? To ask after him would be abhorrent, especially after the teasing from both Cheska and Elle she’d endured on the way over here. Sophia had only refused to join in because she’d been too busy sulking about the taffeta on her ivory gown.
It wasn’t especially fussy, they’d all assured her, but it was no use. As soon as she’d seen the pearls to accompany the gown, she’d refused to speak a single word to any of them.
“Is your brother not joining us this evening?” Cheska asked bluntly after the earl had bowed over both their hands. And Hope could have kissed her for her forthrightness.
“Ah, I–I am sure he will. At some point. He’s not terribly fond of parties.”
“But surely he must attend this one,” Francesca pushed while Hope listened avidly to every word. “He’s the reason we’re all here, is he not?”
“Er…” The young lord looked flustered whilst he pulled at his cravat, and Hope couldn’t help but think he was terribly meek to hold a title as lofty as the Earl of Claremont and the many responsibilities that surely came with it.
She had no idea just how far the arm of Claremont stretched since when she’d gone to research it, she’d found that the family’s copy of Debrett’s was missing. Questioning her sisters as to its whereabouts had resulted in an argument that had lasted until it was time to dress for the party, and so she was none the wiser.
Not that it mattered. Or had anything to do with her, come to that. She’d just been curious. And there was nothing wrong with a little curiosity.
Hope found herself chivvied along the receiving line before she could hear anything else about the whereabouts of Gideon, and so she reluctantly moved toward the large dining room where they would eat before dancing.
The Bells had made an effort with the decorations for tonight’s party, and Hope took her time studying the arrangements of peonies and lilies in shades of white and pink as she moved around the room.
She knew everybody in attendance, and she smiled and batted her lashes. And she found herself vaguely wondering if she’d always found it so tedious here.
Perhaps it was just that after the size and noise of London, Halton seemed quieter and more unrefined than ever. Whatever it was, it left her feeling angsty and out of sorts, and suddenly the last thing she wanted was to sit at that table and either flirt shamelessly or fall asleep in her soup listening to the chatter of her mother and her cronies.
Hearing her mother’s sycophantic tittering and Christian’s long-suffering mumbling, spurred Hope into action. Her family would be here in seconds, and she’d be stuck. So, without looking left or right, she hurried as gracefully and nonchalantly as possible to the French doors, then slipped out into the blissfully quiet courtyard.
The sun was still shining overhead, and though it had cooled significantly, it was still warm enough that Hope didn’t feel cold in her short-sleeved, daffodil-yellow dress. The color was so striking that Hope had only paired it with white gloves and a white ribbon in her hair. She’d been quite pleased with how she’d looked leaving the house, but now the dress felt like a beacon should anyone look for her. Even amongst the carefully tended flowerbeds of Mrs. Bell’s modest garden, the gown stood out.
Cursing the satin material to perdition, she hurried out of sight of the doors. Thankfully, she knew this garden well having spent years running around it as a child while Mama took tea with the reverend’s wife. And she knew that tucked away in a corner by the pond was the crumbling ruin of an old stone cottage. It had no doors, windows, or even a roof. But what it did have was the ability to hide someone who didn’t wish to be seen from the house.
Hope knew this because she’d utilized it many, many times over the years along with her sisters. Excepting Elodie of course, who’d been happy to sit and take tea with Mrs. Bell since she’d been in short skirts.
Hitching the train of the gown up around her ankles, Hope made light work of hurrying down the garden path to the ruin. She couldn’t hide forever, of course. Though it wouldn’t be the first party she’d spent in the garden. Ordinarily, though, she at least had company. Cheska had almost always been with her on her dashes through Mrs. Bell’s rose bushes. Still, if she could just take a moment alone, she would be well pleased.
Reaching the stone archway, Hope heaved a sigh of relief and stepped through it into blissful, peaceful silence.
“You don’t strike me as the hiding type.”
Hope screeched and spun around, a hand moving to press against her racing heart.
Standing behind her, grinning widely, was Mr. Bell.
“You scared the wits out of me,” Hope complained.
“I can see that. You could wake the dead with your caterwauling,” he quipped. “Though they might forgive you once they see how delectable you look this evening.”
Hope felt her jaw drop at the bold words, even as her heart stuttered. Oh, he was devilishly charming. As unlike a man of the cloth as any she’d ever encountered.
“Don’t you think you should be inside, given that you’re the guest of honor?” The words came out a touch more sharply than she’d intended. But she was more affected by seeing him than she liked, and his standing so close, the smell of his cologne, the breadth of his shoulders in his black superfine, the wicked glint in his dark eyes. It was overwhelming. And she wasn’t used to being overwhelmed by men. Usually, it was quite the other way around, truth be told.
“Ah.” Gideon stepped closer, and Hope had to steel herself not to move away. “Because the party is to welcome the new reverend.”
“Er, yes,” Hope answered hesitantly, confused by his odd phrasing. “Tell me, Mr. Bell, do you often refer to yourself in the third person?”
His grin was positively sinful.
“No,” he answered softly. “Never.”
Before she could question him further on yet another cryptic quip, he stepped closer still. This time, Hope did step away, only for her back to come into contact with the cool stone of the ramshackle cottage wall.
“So, why are you hiding?” he asked, that low, seductive voice shivering along her nerve endings.
“Who says I’m hiding?”
His mouth quirked in a way that set Hope’s stomach flip-flopping alarmingly.
“Well, you ran down here as though the hounds of Hell were chasing you. And I can only assume that’s because you didn’t want anyone spotting you in your eye-catching gown. Unless …”
His eyes, already the color of the most decadent chocolate, darkened suddenly as he frowned.
“Unless you’re meeting someone here for an assignation?”
“I beg your pardon?” she asked, affronted, though she knew she shouldn’t be. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d snuck off to meet someone, after all. But she’d never allowed anyone to take more liberties than a kiss, and even at that, it was more a peck than anything else. In fact, only one man had ever kissed her fully on the lips. Eugene Jeffords, the apothecary’s son, and it had been so grotesque that she’d shoved him away and spent the evening drinking gallons of bitter lemonade just to try to forget it.
“To my mind, there are only two reasons for a beautiful woman to be sneaking around the garden at a party. Either she’s running from someone, or she’s running to someone. So, which is it?”
“You are insufferably presumptuous, do you know that?”
She couldn’t say why exactly she found his questions so irritating. Perhaps it was that the only man she would be interested in an assignation with was him. And he was surely far too moral to engage in such activities.
Vicars wanted ladies like Elodie. Not termagants like Hope.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I am not meeting anyone for anything. I just wanted some peace and quiet. Which is ruined now, thanks to you.”
Rather than look insulted, he looked fiercely amused. Perhaps even relieved.
“And might I remind you that you’re out here, too. So, should I assume that you are out here for a secret tryst? Not exactly the lofty behavior of a man of the cloth, Mr. Bell.”
“My, my. What a temper you have. Does the idea of my meeting someone upset you so?”
Hope snorted in the most unladylike fashion. Sophia would be proud of such a sound.
“Why should I be upset? Surprised, perhaps. But upset? Hardly. Though I should imagine that such conduct will be intolerable to whichever poor woman ends up with you. Something to keep in mind when you…”
“Why does the idea of my being a reverend bother you so?” he interrupted rudely, as though he hadn’t even heard a word she said.
“I–you–it doesn’t bother me,” she spluttered, well and truly up in the boughs without quite knowing why.
“Oh, I think it does,” he answered smoothly. “And would you like to know what else I think?”
“Absolutely not,” she barked, but again he ignored her.
“I think that you are as attracted to me as I am to you. I think that you feel the connection between us as much as I do. But for some reason, you are loathe to admit it. A vicar just isn’t good enough, is that it? You’re holding out for something better? Something loftier?”
Hope was so insulted by the scathing tone to his questions, by his assumptions, that she was some title-chaser, and truthfully, by her own body’s reaction to his nearness, that she lashed out.
“That’s exactly right,” she spat, even though it absolutely wasn’t right. “You think that I would take one look at that chiseled jaw and decide that it was worth lowering myself for? You presume to know me, to know what I’m thinking. Then you should know that someone like me would never deign to entertain a small-town vicar. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
His bark of humorless laughter stopped Hope in the act of stomping away, and she swung her head back to see anger flash in the dark depths of his eyes.
“I should have known,” he said in a voice so filled with disdain that she winced. “You’re all the same. Beautiful, far too aware of it, and far too willing to use it for your own machinations.”
Hope’s own anger was momentarily stalled by the bitterness in Gideon’s words. He didn’t know her well enough to have formed such an unflattering opinion of her character, so she knew that it must be something else, some other woman, perhaps his betrothed, to make him so hostile, so resentful. But it still hurt. And so, she lashed out some more.
“And why shouldn’t I? If the whole world thinks my looks are the only worthy part of me, why shouldn’t I use them to my advantage? Secure myself a title. Perhaps even an earl. Your brother is single, is he not?”
She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but at her taunting words, Gideon’s eyes grew darker still, and Hope swallowed nervously.
“Yes, he is. And decent and kind-hearted and good. Docile and unchallenging. All the things I am not. And all the things that you don’t really want.”
She opened her mouth to argue again. To tell him that he had no idea what she wanted.
But before she could get a word out, he pulled her firmly against him and pressed his lips against her own in a searing kiss.
Chapter Nine
Gideon knew better than to let his feelings get the better of him. But damned if he didn’t lose control every time he was around the maddening, beautiful woman in his arms.
Never to the extent that he breached that final gap between them. At least not until now.
But he’d taken leave of his senses apparently, for he was allowing himself to be ruled by feelings alone. And the touch of her mouth beneath his own was exquisite, as he’d known it would be. With a muffled curse against her lips, the last of Gideon’s control snapped, and he reached up to clasp her face in his hands, angling it so he could deepen their kiss.
Perhaps it was that need had finally won out over caution, or that he’d seen red as jealousy clawed at him while she spoke of another man, even his own brother, damn it, touching her like this, holding her like this. Kissing her like this. He couldn’t stand the thought of it. Couldn’t stand the thought of anyone being right where he was now, being swept away in a tidal wave of unadulterated lust.
He ran his tongue along her lip and used her gasp of surprise to delve inside her mouth, delighting in her moan, exulting in her arms snaking around his waist and pulling herself closer to him.
She was warm and pliant against him, the little sounds she made in the back of her throat driving him wild, and when her tongue darted out to dance with his own, Gideon couldn’t contain his desperate groan of desire.
He wanted her with a fierceness he’d never felt before. Not with Elaine. Not with any of the lovers or mistresses he’d taken over the years. It was a madness, a compulsion, a violent need that only grew with every second that he held her, every moment that he tasted her lips and inhaled the floral scent of her skin.
His hands moved as though of their own accord, one sweeping up to bury itself in the soft, smooth tendrils of her hair, the other to grasp the feminine flair of her hip, to pull her closer to the raging evidence of his desire.
This time, her gasp was tinged with a desperation that he knew matched his own. He could do it right now. Happily and irrevocably. He could lay her on the verdant grass beneath his feet and taste every inch of her, bury himself in her and take what he wanted. What she wanted, though, she might be too innocent to realize what her body was begging for.
It was that thought alone that pulled Gideon back from the brink of no return. Hope was the very embodiment of temptation, but she was innocent. And she deserved more than to have her virtue stolen by a man who was lying about his identity in a rundown cottage.
Reluctantly and with more strength than he knew he had, he pulled back from her, reaching out to steady her as she stumbled forward.
He watched, feeling a surge of masculine smugness as she opened dazed eyes and blinked rapidly. He’d done that. He’d put that blush on her cheeks, that glaze of lust in those eyes.
“That’s one way to win an argument, I suppose.”
Gideon blinked in shock at the irreverent tone, the outrageous quip.
He’d just kissed the wits out of her. The very least she could do was swoon a bit, he thought, feeling more than a little put out.
Here, he’d been having the very ground beneath him rock at the impact of their embrace. And she was making jokes.
Nobody and nothing had ever managed to put him quite so in his place. To bruise his ego quite so well.
“I imagine that you hoped to shut me up by kissing me senseless?” she continued, insultingly unperturbed by their kiss. “And you’ll be happy to know that it worked. At least the shutting me up part. I think it would be better all-round if I returned to the rectory and behaved myself for the remainder of your party. I suggest you do the same.”
