Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh

12

“Imust confess,” Sir Matthew Quentin said, “that I have occasionally enjoyed a glass of good brandy with an acquaintance or neighbor without inquiring too closely into its place of origin.”

“I suppose I have done the same,” Percy admitted. “I have never been keen on the idea of smuggling, though. Not just because the government is thereby defrauded of revenue, but more because the people who really benefit are not the ordinary man who does the hardest work and takes the biggest risk, but those few who direct operations from afar and terrorize anyone who threatens their operation. They make a fortune out of terror and oppression and the sure knowledge that there will always be a market for luxury goods and that even people with no direct involvement will join a conspiracy of silence. No one wants to stick his neck out over something that cannot be stopped anyway.”

“Oh, I agree,” Sir Matthew said. “I suppose you have been discovering, have you, that the old earl encouraged the trade and allowed it safe haven on Hardford land in return for some creature comforts? More ale?”

They were sitting at their ease in Sir Matthew’s library awaiting luncheon, to which Percy had been invited. Paul Knorr, his new steward, had arrived from Exeter the day before, three days after a letter from Higgins informed Percy of his appointment. The man was now conferring with Quentin’s steward over luncheon and ale at the village inn. Percy was optimistic about Knorr. He was young and well educated, son of a gentleman of Higgins’s acquaintance, and he was keen to get on with his new duties. He had managed his family’s land for a number of years before his father’s death, but now his elder brother had inherited and he had sought employment elsewhere.

“Thank you,” Percy said, and waited for his glass to be refilled. “The beach and the cellar of the dower house, you mean? That was all stopped, though, was it not, when Lady Barclay took up residence there?”

“Was it?” Sir Matthew looked at him with raised eyebrows. “But even if not then, it probably did come to an end two years ago. One can hardly imagine Lady Lavinia being agreeable to the idea of having smugglers and their goods in her home.”

Inher home? Inside the house, did he mean?

“I suppose not,” Percy said. “Now Mrs. Ferby . . .”

They both laughed.

They were interrupted by Lady Quentin, who came to inform them that luncheon was ready. She wanted to know more about Paul Knorr and whether Ratchett was likely to retire soon. Percy satisfied her curiosity as far as he was able. But mention of the elderly steward reminded him of something else.

“Ratchett has a nephew,” he asked, “who went to the Peninsula with Viscount Barclay as his batman, I believe?”

“Instead of that poor boy who broke both his legs no more than a month or two later,” Lady Quentin said. “He would have been safer in Portugal. What a dreadful accident that was, falling from the stable roof. We never did find out what he was doing up there.”

“A great-nephew, I believe,” Sir Matthew said. “He was appointed head gardener at Hardford after his return, though he was none too popular with some of us. He could give no account of what had happened to Barclay and his wife beyond the fact that they had been captured by a band of ferocious-looking French scouts while he was bringing them firewood and was without his musket. I suppose he could have done nothing to help them anyway. There were those, though, who felt that he ought at least to have waited until he did have word, one way or the other. If he had stayed, he might have helped escort Lady Barclay home. She was, I believe, in something of a state. Understandably so.”

“Poor Imogen,” Lady Quentin said. “She and her husband were quite devoted to each other. But that man, that so-called head gardener, does not know the difference between a geranium and a daisy, or between an oak tree and a gorse bush, I swear. His title is a sinecure. Oh, I do beg your pardon, Lord Hardford. I am being spiteful. You must be impatient for your mother’s arrival. All your neighbors, ourselves included, are agog with eagerness to meet her.”

The day was all but gone by the time Percy and Knorr returned to Hardford.

“I must remember to refer to you as the understeward,” he said. “One would not wish to hurt the feelings of an octogenarian.”

“Mr. Ratchett does have handwriting that I envy,” Knorr said with a smile. “And the books are very clear and easy to understand.”

He had missed a visit from Lady Barclay, Percy discovered. Lady Lavinia thought it a great pity. Percy did not. He went out of his way, in fact, to avoid her during the next couple of days, as he had done yesterday and today. He did not know what had possessed him that evening at the dower house. He still did not know why he had gone there. He also did not know why he had said some of the things he had.

I think I came to Cornwall in the hope of finding myself, though I did not realize that until this moment.

May I seek refuge here occasionally?

I want you as a lover. But failing that, friendship will do.

He squirmed at the memories, especially of that last exchange. Lord! He would swear that he had had no idea what was about to issue from his mouth when he had opened it.

Friendship seems unlikely but possible,she had replied. I am not sure about the other.

That was the point at which, far too late, he had leapt to his feet and fled. But not, he recalled, before kissing her.

No, he preferred to keep both his person and his thoughts well away from Lady Barclay until he had himself well in hand.

Whatever that meant.

*   *   *

Imogen did not set eyes upon the Earl of Hardford for four whole days after his evening visit to the dower house, even though she got up her courage on the second day to call upon Aunt Lavinia and Cousin Adelaide. He was out with the new understeward, acquainting him with Sir Matthew Quentin’s well-run farms and experienced, efficient steward. Mr. Knorr was a young gentleman of keen intelligence and pleasing looks and manners, her aunt reported, though why Cousin Percy would go to the expense of hiring a second steward when there was already Mr. Ratchett, she did not know.

Imogen thought it was probably because an active steward was desperately needed for Hardford, but the earl was too kind to force Mr. Ratchett into retirement. She had conceded, albeit reluctantly, that he was indeed capable of kindness.

She had also conceded that she found him more attractive than she had found any other man—and that, disturbingly, included her late husband. She had never thought of being attracted to Dicky. He had been her best friend, and everything about him had pleased her—even that. Lord Hardford had dared give it a name, in her hearing. It had really been quite shocking of him. Sex. There. Yes, sex with Dicky had pleased her. It had pleased him too. But . . . attraction?

Was not attraction just sex? Divorced from liking or friendship or love? It seemed distasteful.

She wanted it.

She wanted to satisfy a craving she had suppressed for most of her adult life. More than eight years. And she wanted to do it with a man of obvious experience and expertise. She did not doubt Lord Hardford had both.

She had even expressed some willingness—I am not sure about the other.

He could not possibly have mistaken her meaning.

She was still not sure.

Perhaps it would not be so very wrong. It was not as if she was planning to commit herself to any long-term relationship, after all, anything that would bring her real happiness. Only the satisfying of a natural craving. It was natural, was it not? For women as well as for men?

Perhaps she would be at peace again if she let it happen. He would go away after a while—she felt no doubt about that, especially now that he had hired another steward, who was young and intelligent and presumably competent. Lord Hardford would go away, probably never to return, and she would be at peace once more, or as much at peace as she ever could be.

In the meanwhile . . .

Would it be so wrong?

The thoughts and the mental debate teemed through Imogen’s mind even while she listened to her aunt’s animated chatter about the visitors that were expected, though she did not know how many were coming or even exactly when, and Cousin Percy did not know either. It was very unsettling. Aunt Lavinia went on to talk about the entertainments they must plan. It had been a veritable age, she said, since there was any evening entertainment at Hardford. Dear Brandon had not held with such things But now . . .

Imogen let her prattle happily on. And she was hugely relieved—and disappointed?—that the earl did not come home while she was there. He did not come back to the dower house either in four days, and Imogen paced, upstairs and down, unable to settle to any activity for longer than a few minutes at a time. She would have paced the cliff path and the beach too, but she was afraid of running into him. The farthest she went, except for that one visit to the hall, was the garden, where she found that the first snowdrop had bloomed.

He did not come, and she was safe from her own weakness and indecision. She did not have to decide if it would be wrong or not.

On the fifth day, Mrs. Primrose brought news with Imogen’s luncheon. A pageboy, sent from the hall with fresh eggs, had brought word of the arrival of two grand traveling carriages full of passengers and a few riders in addition and a great deal of baggage and noise and bustle. And then later in the afternoon the same pageboy returned with a hastily scrawled note in Aunt Lavinia’s hand inviting Imogen to dinner so that she might meet a number of long-lost cousins, though some of them were not strictly speaking relatives as they belonged to the maternal side of Cousin Percy’s family.

His mother had indeed not come alone, then.

Even while Imogen was thinking up excuses for not going, her eyes focused upon the last two sentences—Cousin Percy asked me particularly to write to you on his behalf, dearest Imogen, with apologies for not doing so himself. He is busy with his loved ones.

The invitation came from him, then, even if the apology was probably Aunt Lavinia’s invention. And it was only proper that he invite her, Imogen supposed reluctantly. She was, after all, the widow of his predecessor’s only son. And by the same token, it would be unpardonably rude of her not to put in an appearance.

She sighed and went to the kitchen to inform Mrs. Primrose that she need not prepare an evening meal.

*   *   *

It could have been worse, Percy thought as he dressed for dinner. All his relatives, both paternal and maternal, might have descended upon him—as they still might, of course. There could be a dozen packed carriages bowling along the highway at this very moment in the general direction of Hardford. One could not know for sure.

Aunt Edna, his father’s sister, had arrived late in the morning with Uncle Ted Eldridge. Their son, Cyril, had come with them, as had the three girls, Beth and the twins, Alma and Eva. They had been in London, kicking their heels according to Cyril, waiting for the Season to begin so that Beth could be fired off into society and onto the marriage mart. The prospect of passing some time by coming to see Percy in his proper milieu and to celebrate his thirtieth birthday, albeit belatedly, had appealed to them all, without exception.

Aunt Nora Herriott, his mother’s sister, had been equally enthusiastic over the invitation and had come with Uncle Ernest and their sons, Leonard and Gregory. They also had come from London and had met the Eldridges by chance at a toll booth and traveled with them thereafter.

One big, happy family come to jollificate with him, Percy thought as he considered the fall of his neckcloth with a critical eye and gave Watkins a nod of approval. Was jollificate a verb? If it was not, then it ought to be, for it perfectly described what his family clearly had in mind for the next week or so. One shuddered at the very thought.

And it might not be just family. According to Cyril, Sidney Welby and Arnold Biggs, Viscount Marwood, were thinking of ambling down this way too and might already have begun ambling.

And then, in the middle of the afternoon, just when things had been calming down at the house, Percy’s mother had arrived in company with Uncle Roderick Galliard, her brother, and his widowed daughter, Cousin Meredith, and her young son, Geoffrey.

The arrival of the infant had eclipsed all else and had brought everyone and his dog—or, rather, everyone and the Hardford strays, which had, as usual, escaped from the second housekeeper’s room—converging upon the child to offer unsolicited hugs and kisses and squeals and exclamations and yips and barks and a growl from Prudence. He was admittedly a pretty child with his mop of fair curls and big blue eyes. Percy had done his bit too by snatching up the boy and tossing him toward the ceiling to shrieks of glee from said infant, cheers of encouragement from the male cousins, and assorted squeals of fright and cries of alarm from the female cousins and aunts—while Meredith looked placidly on.

His mother had been filled with ecstasy on her arrival. Even Mrs. Ferby, whom she insisted upon calling Cousin Adelaide, had been unable to escape her hugging arms and delighted exclamations of bonhomie. To find some shared blood between those two would probably take the dedicated researcher all the way back to Adam and Eve, but to his mother, Mrs. F was family. His mother and Lady Lavinia were, in fact, a matched pair and had taken to each other like bees to pollen.

He was already dreaming of availing himself of the peace and sanity of the dower house, Percy thought grimly as he raised his chin for Watkins to position his diamond pin just so in his neckcloth. Though peace was probably not quite the right word. Lady Barclay did not much like him, and he was not sure he greatly liked her. Except that he had told her he wanted to be her lover but would settle for friendship. And she had told him that friendship was possible though improbable and that she was not sure about the other.

So were they friends or were they not? Could they be?

Shouldthey be?

He could not for the life of him make any sense of it.

She was coming for dinner. At least, she had been invited and would probably come out of a sense of duty if for no other reason. Anyway, she could not hope to hide out in the dower house for long before it was discovered and invaded by his family, and she must have the sense to realize that. His mother had already learned of her existence and simply could not wait to embrace her—not meet, but embrace.

It was enough to make a grown man wince.

“No, no,” he said in response to the stricken look on his valet’s face. “You did not stick the pin in me, Watkins. Carry on.”

Lord, he hoped she would come. And he hoped she would not.

She came.

They were all gathered in the drawing room when Crutchley announced her—yes, he actually did, his chest puffed out, his voice projecting his words into the room, silencing the hubbub as everyone turned curious eyes his way. He was behaving like a majordomo at a grand ton ball. Having all these visitors under his charge had gone to his head.

It must have been a bit daunting to walk alone into the room in a sort of silence, with every eye turned her way, but she did it with calm grace. Her near blond hair was smooth and shining, but it was styled quite simply, especially when one compared it with all the curled and crimped and ringleted heads of his aunts and cousins. Her dress was of dark green velvet, long-sleeved, only very slightly scoop-necked and falling in loose folds from beneath her bosom to her ankles. It was quite unadorned, and she wore no jewelry except tiny pearls in her earlobes and her wedding ring. She was not sparkling with bright smiles, though she was not scowling either.

She set every other woman in the room in the shade, including Beth, who was wearing some of her new London finery and whom he was certain was destined to become one of the acclaimed beauties of the upcoming Season.

The devil! When had he started to think of her as stunning?

He stepped forward and bowed. “Lady Barclay, Cousin Imogen,” he said, turning toward his avidly interested family members, “is the widow of Richard Hayes, Viscount Barclay, who would have been in my place here had he not died a hero’s death in the Peninsula. She lives—by choice—in the dower house. May I present my mother, Cousin Imogen—Mrs. Hayes?”

His mother hurried forward and hugged her and exclaimed over her and called her Cousin Imogen.

Percy took her about the room, introducing everyone and explaining relationships. He was not sure she would remember afterward, but she paid close attention and murmured something to all of them. She was a true lady.

I want you as a lover,he had said to her less than a week ago. She seemed as remote as the moon tonight—and as desirable as ever. Any hope that he had been temporarily out of his mind that evening or that the intervening days would cool his ardor was squashed.

Crutchley, still in his majordomo persona, was soon back to announce that dinner was served. Percy took his mother on his arm, while Uncle Roderick offered his to Lady Barclay and Uncle Ted escorted Lady Lavinia.

It was rather dizzying to see such a crowd in the dining room, Percy thought a few times during dinner. Extra leaves had been added to the table, and Mrs. Evans in the kitchen had risen magnificently to the occasion, as she had said she would when he had suggested employing someone to assist her.

It ought not to be dizzying. He had spent much of his life in company with crowds of people. Even as a child, when he had remained at home with tutors rather than going away to school, there had always been cousins and other relatives and neighbors and friends of his parents in the house. He had not been here long, but already he had grown accustomed to the quiet of Hardford, give or take a few distant cousins and a menagerie. He rather liked it, he thought in some surprise, though he would not stay. He would leave when his family did. Now that Knorr had arrived, there was no real reason for him to remain. There would be crops this year, a thinning of the flock, a new barn, repairs to the sheep pens, and numerous other improvements. Ratchett would have more detail to add to his books—and that would keep him happy.

“You are unusually quiet, Percy,” Aunt Edna remarked over the roast beef course.

“Am I?” He smiled. “It must be the sobering effect of being thirty years old.”

“Or it could be,” Uncle Roderick said, “that it is difficult to get a word in edgewise. Whatever must you think of us, Lady Lavinia?”

“I could positively weep with happiness,” she replied. “All this time there has been an estrangement between the two branches of the family because of a foolish quarrel so long ago that no one even remembers its cause.”

No one pointed out to her that about half their number were his mother’s family and bore no relationship to her at all. She was clearly happy, and so was Percy’s mother, who was beaming back at her and dabbing the corner of one eye with her handkerchief. No one could call his family unsentimental.

“And we have rediscovered one another, Cousin Lavinia, because Percy finally decided to come here where he belongs,” his mother said. “And also because of the sad demise of Cousin Imogen’s husband. How strange life is. Good things can arise from bad.”

Everyone looked suitably solemn over this less-than-profound pronouncement. Percy’s eyes locked upon Lady Barclay’s. She was still looking a bit marble.

The female cousins appropriated her attention in the drawing room after dinner, and Percy, who sat with his uncles and found himself talking, of all things, about farming, realized from the snatches of conversation he overheard that they had discovered she had been in the Peninsula with her husband and were peppering her with questions about her experiences there. Alma wanted to know if she had been much in demand as a partner at regimental balls and thought it must be simply divine to be at a ball and no one but officers with whom to dance.

Fortunately, perhaps, Percy did not hear Lady Barclay’s response, but she seemed to be humoring her listeners.

She rose to leave after the tea tray had been removed.

“You have your carriage, dear?” Aunt Nora asked.

“Oh, no,” she replied. “The dower house is not far away.”

“But the path is dark even on a bright night, Imogen,” Lady Lavinia said. “Do take a footman to carry a lantern for you.”

“I shall escort Cousin Imogen myself,” Percy said.

“There is no need,” she said.

“Ah, but there is,” he told her. “I must impress my relatives with how well I play the part of responsible lord of the manor.”

Most of the relatives laughed. She did not. She did not argue, though.

“I look forward to seeing your home, Cousin Imogen,” his mother said. “May I call?”

“But of course, ma’am,” Lady Barclay said. “I shall be delighted to see you and any other of Lord Hardford’s guests who care to come visit me.”

“We are a gregarious lot,” Percy warned her after they had left the house together, without a lantern. “You cannot expect us to remain within the hall to mind our own business when there is another house close by and someone else’s business to mind instead.”

“You have an amiable family,” she said.

“I do,” he agreed. “Will you take my arm so that I may feel more protective and therefore more manly? I am fortunate to be a part of such a family—on both my father’s and my mother’s side. But sometimes they can be a little . . . intrusive.”

“Because they care,” she said.

“Yes.”

The night was reasonably bright. There seemed to be no clouds overhead. It was also crisply cold. She set her hand within his arm. Neither of them took up the conversational slack.

He could see the outline of the dower house ahead. It was, of course, in total darkness. He did not like the fact that there were no servants there waiting for her. But he could say nothing. She had made it clear that she would not tolerate his interference.

“Thank you,” she said, sliding her hand free of his arm when they reached the gate. “I appreciate your accompanying me even though it was unnecessary. I have done the walk many times alone.”

“I shall see you into the house,” he said.

“I have set a lamp just inside the door, as I always do,” she told him. “I shall light it as soon as I set foot inside to dispel the darkness and, with it, all the ghosts and monsters lurking there. You need come no farther.”

“You do not want me to come farther?” he asked her.

Her face, turned up to his, was lit faintly by moonlight. It was impossible to see her expression, but her eyes were great pools of . . . something.

“No.” She shook her head and spoke softly. “Not tonight.”

Or any night?He did not ask the question out loud.

“Very well,” he said. “You see how you have quelled the naturally domineering male in me? Not entirely, however. I shall stand here until you are inside and I see the light from your lamp.”

He opened the gate as he spoke and closed it after she had stepped through.

“Very well,” she said, turning to look at him. “You may come and break the door down if the light does not appear and you should hear a bloodcurdling scream.”

And damn it, but she smiled again with what looked in the near darkness to be genuine amusement.

“Is it not customary,” he asked her, “to offer a kiss to the man who has escorted you home?”

“Oh, goodness me,” she said. “Is it? Times must have changed since I was a girl.”

He grinned at her, and she reached up both gloved hands to cup his face before leaning across the gate and kissing him. It was not just a brief, amused token of a kiss either. Her lips lingered on his, soft and slightly parted and very warm in contrast to the chill of the night air.

He leaned into her, his arms going about her to draw her against him, and her arms slid about his neck. It was not a lascivious kiss. It was something far more delicious than that. It was very deliberate on both their parts. Their mouths opened and he explored the moist interior of hers with his tongue. This time when she sucked on it, he enjoyed the sensation. It was a kiss curiously devoid of full sexual intent, though. It was instead . . . sheer enjoyment.

It was a totally new experience for him. It was a bit alarming, actually.

She ended the embrace, though her arms stayed loosely about his neck.

“There, Lord Hardford,” she said. “You have had your thank-you for tonight.”

“May I escort you home every night?” he asked.

And she laughed.

He could have wept with happiness—to borrow a phrase from Lady Lavinia.

And then she was gone. He stood where he was, his hands on the gate, until she had opened the door with her key and stepped inside—without looking back—and closed it behind her. He waited until he saw faint light about the doorframe and then light moving into her sitting room. He turned then to leave.

And it was only as he did so that he realized Hector was at his heels. What was it about Hector and heels? Was he Achilles? And was Lady Hayes—Imogen—his Achilles’ heel?

Or his salvation?

Curious thought.

“Damned foolish animal,” he grumbled. “And how do you manage to get through closed doors? And why? It is cold out here and there was no need for you to come too.”

The stunted tail waved as Hector fell into step slightly behind him.