"Someone might see us," she said, a little light dawning in her eyes. Of course, she couldn't be seen with someone like himself. "I say that only because Rafe is quite nervous about my being chaperoned," she added, putting a hand on his arm again. "I would not want you to think that I did not wish to go."
"Why don't we go in disguise?" He heard himself say it, as if another person were speaking. And her face lit up.
"What fun that would be! Perhaps we could go to a rather out-of-the-way spot." Her eyes were glowing, clearly picturing all kinds of debauched environments about which he knew nothing.
Gabe suddenly remembered that he'd seen a broadside nailed to a tree in Silchester. "There's a singer from London performing at the Black Swan."
"This would be wonderful!" she whispered, looking more like a child anticipating a treat than a young woman fixing up an illicit liaison.
He bowed. "In that case, tomorrow night."
Her eyes were melting, with exquisite hints of laughter deep in them. Gabe knew with a bone-deep knowledge that to make love to Imogen Maitland—nay, even to spend an evening with her—would be the kind of pleasure that a man is lucky to have once in his life.
She disappeared into her bedchamber, presumably to drop her dressing gown and climb into bed in a swish of delicate silk.
And Gabe stayed there in the chilly hallway, staring at the two doors. It was like the old medieval mystery plays where a man was offered the choice of good and evil. Except as life always is, the doors were so much more complicated than that.
Gillian Pythian-Adams was coolly uninterested in him. Perhaps in all men, but certainly in him. And yet she had that old-fashioned quality, decency, that his very soul yearned for.
Imogen Maitland was a woman so beautiful that a smile from her, laced with desire, was as potent as sin itself. She was not indecent, nor yet sinful. She was… just Imogen, and she wanted him, the son of a chipper, who was only good for a liaison. Never for marriage.
Chapter 17
A Mustache and a West Wind
Rafe was not sleeping. It was such a new experience for him, to be up in the middle of the night and yet not inebriated, that he was bent on exploring it. He found himself hanging out of his own window, for all the world like a second housemaid with a blushing acquaintance with a groomsman. There was a soft west wind blowing: a night wind. His old nurse used to say that a night wind from the west made men tumble into love.
Night smelled different from the day. Leaves were drifting gently to the courtyard, blown inside out by the wind. They littered the ground, darker splotches on the soft gray of the cobblestones. Those cobblestones, Rafe thought, have been here since the 1300s. My ancestors walked those very stones.
It should have been a profoundly moving thought, but Rafe couldn't quite manage the proper emotion. All he could think about was his great-uncle Woodward, who used to prance about in pumps with high red heels, his hair powdered and his face carefully painted. He had been a quintessential Georgian rake, according to servants' gossip when Rafe was growing up.
It must have been difficult to negotiate cobblestones in such high heels, Rafe thought idly.
Just then there was a sound at his door, and he turned.
"Gabe!" And: "I'd offer you a drink, but water is so tedious." For some reason his brother looked as burnt to the socket as Rafe used to feel after a fourth brandy. "Is Mary all right?"
"She was crying again," Gabe said, throwing himself in a chair. "I apologize for bothering you, but I saw the light under your door."
"Isn't crying normal for children?" Rafe asked. "My understanding is that they are irksome at their best and pestilent at their worst."
"That has a faintly poetic quality."
"Trying to impress you," Rafe said honestly. "I find myself wishing that I'd paid more attention to books. Perhaps the two of us could discuss philosophy if I'd had."
"I'd rather discuss women," Gabe said, drumming his fingers against the chair.
Rafe's eyebrows rose. "A subject about which I know slightly more than I know about ancient philosophers. Only slightly, mind you."
"I've made an assignation for tomorrow night."
Rafe's heart sank so quickly that he almost imagined it was visible outside his body. In fact, it took a moment for him to gain control of his voice, and then he heard it as if he stood outside his body, oddly calm. "Ah, my ward, I presume. Much though I deplore her behavior, I have every belief that the invitation came from Imogen and not from you."
"No, I did issue the invitation," Gabe said.
"Ah."
"But only after she invited me to the library to help her find a book," he added.
The ice in Rafe's veins was replaced by fury. "Imogen is a remarkably light-heeled young woman. I don't know why I feel surprised."
Gabe waved a hand in the air. "I don't wish to meet your ward tomorrow evening."
"That is, of course, something the two of you must decide between yourselves," Rafe said rigidly. Then he couldn't help it and added: "I will note, Gabe, that Imogen is newly widowed. She is rather desperate."
Gabe nodded. "It surprises me that she seems to have suffered some sort of rejection in the past."
"Lord Mayne," Rafe said. "He understood that she didn't truly wish for the sort of scandal she was courting."
There was a veiled rage in his voice that made the hair on Gabe's neck stand on end. And told him, without words, that his instincts were correct. He would have to play this just right.
"We agreed to go in disguise to see a concert in Sil-chester tomorrow night. So that we wouldn't be recognized. She seems to be of the opinion that you would prefer her to be chaperoned."
"I would," Rafe said grimly.
"Yet she's a widow, of course, and on her own, is she not?"
Rafe's eyes were chilly. "She is not on her own. She has me, and make no mistake, I shall watch out for her interests."
Gabe opened his mouth, but Rafe held up his hand. "I may not be able to protect her from issuing inadvisable invitations to all and sundry but"—he leaned forward— "I can make damn sure that anyone who toys with her is tied to her. So make very certain, brother, that you wish for the parson's mousetrap before you take Imogen to Silchester tomorrow."
There was an odd, pulsating moment of silence in the room. "I don't," Gabe said.
"You don't what?"
"I don't wish to marry Lady Maitland."
"Then," Rafe said, leaning back in his chair and speaking very softly, "you might want to rethink the advisability of meeting her tomorrow night."
"It is my impression that Lady Maitland would be disappointed if I withdrew my invitation."
"Perhaps her disappointment will make her rethink her current ambition to become a vulgar lightskirt."
"Lady Maitland is no lightskirt," Gabe said. And then: "I should know."
"I would gather that you are implying that your mother should be known by that label," Rafe said. "I would never think such a thing. The family solicitor has recently told me of my father's devotion to your mother, as have you."