Chapter Nineteen
“Emma! I mean…er, Miss Hibbert. Forgive me. I was quite taken by surprise.”
Surprise didn’t even begin to cover it. James felt as if he’d fallen down some dark chasm, only to be jerked to a halt at the very last minute before hitting the ground.
His senses reeled, and he would have stumbled if he hadn’t taken tight hold of Lawrie’s reins. Damn that dismal, mold-covered inn he’d rested at last night—they must have given him some spoiled meat.
“Forgive me,” he said again. “I’m not quite myself. But is it truly you? Not some bizarre waking dream?”
The vision of female loveliness stiffened her spine and said briskly, “Of course it is I. Good afternoon, my lord.”
“James,” he corrected, smoothing his hair back from his damp forehead before replacing his hat. It was awfully humid this afternoon—small wonder he felt unsteady. “For a moment I thought I’d come upon a nixie emerging from the water.”
He smiled weakly. Where had that utterance come from?
“A nixie?”
“No need to look offended, Miss Hibbert. A nixie is a water sprite, like the naiads of classical literature. Although, you probably won’t have read— Again, my apologies. My tongue runs away with me. May I inquire how I come to find you in such a place and in such…er, disarray?”
Disarray that made her beauty shine out like a beacon. Like some nymph from a carved Roman relief, her hair rippled to her waist in waves of chestnut, edged with a halo of gold where a finger of sunlight penetrated the willow fronds. Her figure was as slender as the trees themselves, cinched in at the waist by a long apron. Her delicate forearms were bare to the elbow, and her small, elegant feet peeped out from beneath the dusty hem of her gown.
As he struggled to find something sensible to say, a vision of Belinda flashed before his eyes. Belinda, with her guinea-gold curls, stylishly arranged, and her clothing primped and pressed to perfection—the complete opposite to Miss Emma Hibbert, who looked as if she’d sprung from the earth like an ancient goddess, shameless and untamed.
His body responded viscerally, arousing something deeper, more primitive, than anything he’d ever felt for Belinda.
Suddenly, he understood Charles’s designs on the young woman before him. But unlike Charles, he preferred love to be a matter of the heart, of the soul—not something born of lust.
He’d almost forgotten he’d asked a question, when she tilted her chin at him and said, “I live here.”
“Here?” He gestured at the pond.
“No,” she said, her stiffness melting just a little. “Nearby, at Tresham Hall.”
“Tresham Hall?” he repeated, removing his hat to wipe his forehead again. “Surely not? I understood the place was completely dilapidated, which is why it’s being sold.” By the owner, a Mr. d’Ibert, not a family called Hibbert.
He’d said the wrong thing again, if her scowl was anything to go by.
“Not at all dilapidated,” she refuted. “The house has been cleaned and tidied a great deal since I arrived. It’s being sold from financial necessity, not because it’s falling down.”
Ah yes, she’d once told him her family had fallen on hard times.
Then it struck him. What a complete numbskull! Hibbert—d’Ibert… Why had he failed to see the obvious similarity? Hibbert wasn’t her real name. She was a member of the d’Ibert family, and Tresham Hall was her home.
In which case, she ought to be delighted he was interested in buying the place.
“I’m pleased to hear it’s not in disrepair. I wish to look the place over with a view to purchasing it.”
She stared at him as if he’d grown an extra head. “You’re interested in buying Tresham?”
“Obviously, I’ll need to see it first. I need somewhere suitable for conversion into a veterans’ home.”
“A veterans’ home?”
“Indeed,” he said, warming to the subject. “Remember, I was raising funds for it at the masquerade ball? I think the soldiers and their families would be more at home in an older building. I’d probably have to remove some of the internal walls to create large spaces, and widen some of the corridors, but there’s now plenty of money in the pot for building works.”
She lowered her head, and her expression was hidden by the fall of her hair. Had he said the wrong thing?
Again?
“I suppose I’d better show you the way, then,” she murmured. “Although I still have plenty to do here.”
“And what exactly have you been doing?”
“Clearing the hedgerows.”
“Then you must allow me to assist,” he said decisively, shouldering out of his jacket. “It’s no job for a lady.”
A peculiar growl erupted from her throat.
He gazed at her in astonishment, and the sound, accompanied by a flash of her hazel eyes, reminded him she was no milk-and-water miss. She was a young lady of very decided character, with a temper not to be trifled with.
“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t capable.” He wondered how many more apologies he’d have to make before the day was out. It might be safer if he didn’t speak, at all.
She seemed to remember her manners then, for she said very politely, “I will accompany you to Tresham and present you to my father. But first, could you give me some privacy to put my shoes and stockings back on? I’d prefer not to walk along the lane in bare feet.”
As he turned his back, he thought of offering to put her up on Lawrie. His mind taunted him with the image of a barefoot, bare-headed maiden sitting on his horse, her hair draping her body like the legendary Lady Godiva.
“I’m ready now, my lord.”
He gave up on correcting her formal address and turned around. “Do you wish to ride?” The prospect of placing his hands around that slender waist to lift her up was exceedingly tempting.
“Thank you, no. I’m quite happy to walk.”
To his disappointment, her luxuriant locks had all disappeared inside a bonnet, and she looked quite respectable. Even so, the image of her as a water nymph refused to go away.
Taking hold of Lawrie’s reins, he fell into step beside her, matching her pace easily with his long stride, his mind hunting frantically for a topic of conversation that wouldn’t require him to apologize.
“This road seems well cared for, the fields and boundaries well tended. And I’ve never before seen such superlative hedgerows, so remarkably free of brambles and weeds.”
She laughed at this, as he’d hoped she would.
But the smile didn’t last. She gave him a long, assessing look and asked, “How is Philippa Keane?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I wondered if you’d heard anything of Miss Philippa. If she’d written to you from Brighton?”
“I should say not. I’m not much of a correspondent. I so rarely have the time.”
Her expression became one of suspicion. “So, you’re not corresponding with Miss Philippa?”
“Exactly so.”
“Are you, perhaps, devoting your time to the entertainment of your cousin, Miss Jemima Pitt?”
He stepped around a pothole, brushing accidentally against Emma. She seemed not to notice, intent as she was on her inexplicable line of questioning. He, however, felt the thrill of that brief touch stampede through his body like a herd of buffalo.
He coughed to distract himself. “I don’t devote myself to Jemima, no. Mama sees more of her than I do.” He glanced over at Emma curiously. “Am I somehow falling short of your expectations in not corresponding with, or finding ways of amusing these young females?”
The sway of her next step brought her toward him again, and their elbows touched once more. He groaned softly to himself and hoped that it was not too long a walk to Tresham.
She was clearly in the midst of some internal conflict, for her eyes darted toward him and quickly away again, and her breast rose and fell with her rapid breathing.
He waited patiently, keeping pace with her while his horse walked obediently alongside.
Suddenly, she stopped and turned to face him. “I’m sorry. I just have to say this. You should not lead one lady on while at the same time courting another.”
He came to an abrupt halt, gaped at her, then grasped Lawrie by the bit and stroked the animal’s silky nose, giving himself time to think. Whatever was she talking about?
Thinking didn’t help.
“At risk of seeming rude, I’ve not the slightest idea what you mean.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You had a tryst with Philippa in your room that night you stayed at Figheldene. Does she mean nothing to you, now that you’re courting your cousin? And what of Miss Carslake? Have you entirely given up hope there?”
His jaw dropped even farther, and he was unable to utter a word in response.
“I didn’t have you down for a rake, but it seems I was mistaken,” Emma said tartly.
He struggled for breath, deeply offended by her accusation. Apparently, they were not to be friends, after all.
“You should be ashamed, Emma, believing in tittle-tattle like that,” he exclaimed angrily. “My cousin’s a delightful young lady, but we have no designs upon each other. You must think me shallow, indeed. What kind of a man nurses a broken heart for a mere month or two before offering up the damaged article to some other female? I am not that kind of man. Nor did I encourage Miss Keane. But how do you know about that unfortunate misunderstanding? Were you eavesdropping?”
She had the grace to look embarrassed, but it failed to diffuse his annoyance.
“My room was above yours,” she said. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”
“You mean you had an ear to the floor! You take my breath away with your hypocrisy. How can you fire such accusations at me when you, yourself, have behaved like a common housemaid, listening at doors and…and floors, and reveling in gossip and the perceived faults of others? You’re a poor a judge of character if you think I’d lure my host’s impressionable daughter into my chamber in the depths of the night. I thought we’d reached some kind of truce, you and I. I can see I was wrong. “
If he hadn’t had hold of Lawrie’s bit, he might have been tempted to take Emma by the shoulders and shake some sense into her—gently, of course. It was hurtful to hear such words from her mouth, more hurtful than he could ever have imagined.
A look of fright crossed her face, so he relaxed his harsh expression and said softly, “Don’t worry. I shan’t let your opinion of me affect my decision with regard to purchasing Tresham Hall. However, I think maybe we should stop conversing, lest we end up at loggerheads again.”
It was a coward’s way out, refusing to talk, but he really wasn’t feeling quite the thing, and their verbal sparring was wearisome. As for her view of him, it was a cruel blow. By the time they came within sight of the high chimneys of Tresham, his head was brimming with unspoken rebuffs, any one of which would have ignited their argument again.
Thus it was a relief to be delivered into the polite, smiling care of Mr. and Mrs. d’Ibert, and to see the back of their beautiful, infuriating, unsettling daughter.