Jeremy was assiduous in his daily lessons and by the end of the week Antonia was confidently taking gateways at the trot and even able to back the gig for a short distance. Their drives had to be taken earlier and earlier during the day as June moved into July and the heat became oppressive by noon.
Antonia slept fitfully, her dreams full of Marcus, but by day she managed to push him to the back of her mind, enjoying Jeremy’s undemanding company. She was certain now that he had no romantic intentions, although it was obvious that he admired her still and enjoyed her company in tum.
It was true that he was remarkably attentive and that Donna had an irritating habit of smiling indulgently every time he was mentioned. Antonia had a sneaking suspicion that his aunt and Donna were potting a romance between them, but really, she assured herself, it was sheer fantasy.
She repeated the assurance to herself the next morning after they had spent the morning bowling along the dusty country roads in perfect harmony, happy in each other’s company.
Antonia, too honest to mistake liking for love, or to snatch at romance on the rebound, was content to enjoy Jeremy’s companionship. The attraction to her that she had sensed in him on their first meeting had tempered to liking and mutual respect and if she could not – would not – have Marcus, then she would settle her mind to being an old maid... but one with many good friends.
By one o’clock the next morning, with the moonlight flooding across the bedchamber floor as bright as day, Antonia’s resolution to be a happy old maid had quite deserted her.
Marcus had filled her dreams and now, fully awake, she could not shake his image from her mind. She was also very hot, the low-ceilinged room felt oppressive and suddenly she had to be out in the fresh air.
She pulled on a light muslin gown and kid slippers and slipped quietly out of the house, across the lane and into the pleasure grounds of Rye End Hall. But even here the air felt sultry and still.
Only down by the river did there seem to be a faint breeze stirring the willows. Antonia walked slowly along the river path, yawning and wishing she could sleep.
The moonlight silvered the willow fronds as they flickered in the moving air and she was suddenly transfixed by the bubbling beauty of the nightingale’s song. It was an exquisitely lovely noise, yet melancholy, and did nothing to soothe her heartache. What was she about, wandering around at this time of night?
Ahead, beyond the curve of the river, she heard a splash. It was probably fish leaping for the flies that danced over the surface of the water, she reassured herself.
All she was achieving was to deepen her gloom, she thought. But just around the bend there was a shelving beach of gravel and a wide pool of water. She could take off her slippers and paddle a little. It would be so cooling.
Silent as a moth, so as not to frighten the nightingale, she went down to the water’s edge, took off her shoes and stepped into the rippling water. Oh, it was so good! Even the soft mud oozing between her toes was cooling. The moon went behind a cloud momentarily, and as it did so she heard another splash, then another.
Intrigued, Antonia peered across the pool as a dark, sleek, object appeared around the bend. An otter? How wonderful to see one, she thought, standing very still. Then the moon was unveiled again, the pool suddenly flooded with light, and she saw it was no wild creature, but a human swimmer, lazily drifting on his back with the current.
There she was, at this hour, bare-footed – bare-legged – and about to come face to face with one of her tenants, no doubt as overheated as she was and taking an illicit dip in the private stretch of river. And then she realised that at any moment she might be confronted by a scantily-clad, even naked, man.
She turned to run, but at the same moment the swimmer twisted in the water and stood up. Antonia gasped in recognition, the sound loud in the still, sultry air. This was no tenant, this was Marcus, water cascading from his sleek dark hair and off the naked planes of his body.
After one startled, horrified – fascinated – glance Antonia looked away but moving, saying anything, even running away, were quite beyond her.
She was aware of him wading ashore and moving about on the bank, but then to her dismay she heard him splashing through the shallows behind her.
‘Antonia?’ He was close enough to send ripples lapping against her calves, drenching the hem of her muslin skirts. His breath was warm on her neck and even though he said no more, that one word was full of amusement and an emotion she could not identify. Mockery probably, she thought bitterly.
She spun round, stumbling in the mud, uncaring about Marcus’s state of undress, and found herself confronting him. He had pulled on his breeches and shirt, but the fine white lawn was unfastened and clung to his damp body and his wet hair was slicked back from his forehead.
‘Go away,’ she said, furious. ‘This is not… not seemly.’
‘Indeed it is not.’ Oh yes, he was amused. ‘Really, Antonia, you shock me. Do you make a habit of haunting the local bathing pools at night? I was most embarrassed.’
‘You? Embarrassed? How dare you imply that I was spying on you.’ He was so close that she could see the glitter in his dark eyes, part mockery, part something far more disturbing. His mouth was curved with amusement and a deep sensuality.
‘Were you not? I’m crushed. Then what were you about out here at this time of night?’ He was closer now, his voice husky.
‘I was too hot, I went for a walk.’
He was overwhelmingly close, his half-clad body somehow disturbingly different, his eyes now openly travelling from her face to where her feet glinted white through the water. Antonia raised both hands in a futile gesture of denial and found her wrists caught in his grip.
Marcus pulled her gently towards him and she went, oblivious to the water splashing to her knees, oblivious to everything in her desperate craving for the touch of his lips. His mouth was burning on hers, his hands cold on her shoulders and the bare skin of his chest wet against the sensitive curves of her breast through the thin muslin bodice.
His mouth opened on hers, his tongue invading, inciting, tormenting her until she responded, tentatively at first, then with growing abandon, the shock of the intimate intrusion rousing feelings of desire she was not aware she was capable of.
Marcus’s strong arms enfolded her, then he picked her up effortlessly without breaking the kiss. Antonia clung to him, unconcerned that he would drop her, only anxious that he never stop kissing her, possessing her like this…
Marcus strode up the beach and laid her gently down on the grass slope of the bank. ‘Antonia, darling,’ he murmured huskily, his hands brushing the soft skin at the edge of the bodice, before reaching up to shrug off the clinging fabric of his shirt. ‘We have been making such a mull of this.’
Antonia, looked up into his intent face as he bent over her, lifted one hand and traced her fingers over the cool skin of his chest, gasped as his nipple hardened under her fingertip.
Marcus moaned, deep in his throat and stooped to press his mouth to hers again, the weight of him thrilling over her.
The nightingale whistled a few bars, almost beside them, then Antonia realised it was not the bird, but a human, imitating the song. She gasped and pushed against Marcus’s chest, but he responded only by tangling his fingers in her tousled hair.
Then the silence was broken by the sharp crack of a twig on the path and Marcus sat up, his eyes narrowed as he searched the shadows. He stood, pulling her to her feet with him then pushed her behind him as he called sharply, ‘Who is there?’
Antonia cast around wildly for a bush to hide behind, found none and prayed that the newcomer would take alarm at the challenge and turn tail. She pulled the edges of her bodice up, pushed the hair from her face and tried to steady her breathing.
‘l am Jeremy Blake of Rye End Hall. And who the devil might you be, sir, on my uncle’s lands?’ Jeremy stepped out of the shadows cast by a willow onto the cropped grass of the little bay. ‘Allington? Damn it, you gave me a start. I thought you were a poacher after my uncle’s trout.’
‘Blake. Sorry to alarm you. I came down for a swim, it is so infernally hot. I had not looked to see anyone else about at this hour. Are you also intending to swim? It is a good safe bottom here, if you are.’
Antonia, her heart in her mouth, admired his sang-froid and the way in which he resisted any temptation to glance behind him to where she stood.
‘No, I woke and heard the nightingale, so I decided to stroll along the river bank to find out if any more were about. I’ve had a keen interest in matters ornithological, truth be told.’ He shifted, apparently rather embarrassed by his confession. ‘I realise many people think that rather odd and that I should be more concerned with shooting wildlife than watching it, but – ’
His movement must have changed his view because Antonia saw him stiffen. He had seen her. ‘You should have said I was intruding.’ Now he sounded both embarrassed and judgmental. ‘I will bid you good night.’
Antonia saw him turn to go and stepped forward to Marcus’s side. She needed something, someone, to hold on to because her knees had positively turned to jelly. Just as she stepped into the moonlight Jeremy turned again. ‘You may rely on my discretion, Your Grace – Good God. Antonia?’ Jeremy said it again on a note of rising disbelief and Antonia saw herself through his eyes; hair tousled, gown damp about her ankles, her bodice awry. She felt ready to sink through the ground with sheer mortification.
‘Jeremy,’ she began, desperate to explain to her friend how she came to be there, that it was not what he thought.
He immediately bristled and she saw his fists clench at his sides. Oh, Lord. I sounded desperate, he must think I need rescuing. He will be calling Marcus out in a moment…
Instead he took a step forward, held out a hand to her and growled, ‘Sir, I demand to know what you are doing here with my .’
‘Your fiancée?’ Marcus swung round towards Antonia. ‘So that was what you were doing here and why Blake was so reticent in his explanations. A tryst in the moonlight, of all the ridiculously romantic nonsense. And it appears there are no lengths you would not go to in order hide the fact from me, Antonia. You were most convincing just now in my arms, but no doubt in a few moments you would have discovered a headache and run away home. A pity your lover is less inventive.’
‘Marcus, he is not my lover. Jeremy, for goodness sake, tell him the truth.’ They both stood there, glaring at each other, two enraged males an inch from outright violence. ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake! I could push you both in the river to cool off.’
‘I bid you both good night.’ Marcus gave no sign of having heard a word she said. ‘I wish you well of your union. It will, I am certain, bring joy to your friends.’
He snatched up the rest of his clothing from the river bank and strode off out of sight, managing to look magnificently ducal despite his bare feet, soaked shirt and tousled hair.
There was a moment of stunned silence. Antonia stared blankly at Jeremy who wore an expression compounded of sheepishness and defiance.
‘How dare you?’ she stormed, consumed by so many roiling emotions she hit out regardless of who suffered. ‘How could you say such a thing, to imply that you and I are to be married? Where does that leave me now?’
‘In better case than you were in five minutes ago,’ he retorted hotly. ‘You should look to your reputation, Antonia, and consider yourself fortunate it was I who discovered you just now. I may not be a duke, but your name will be better protected as my wife than as that man’s mistress.’
They glared at each other in the moonlight, as she felt her underlip quivering. She was not going to cry. She was not.
Jeremy took one step forward, then another. ‘Really, Antonia, what would you have had me do? I had to think quickly, and it was that or hit him on the jaw. If I could have managed it,’ he added with rueful honesty.
‘I wish you had,’ Antonia responded mutinously. Suddenly she felt very, very tired. She sat down with an unladylike thump on the river bank.
‘No, you do not,’ Jeremy said firmly. He sat down beside her and put one arm round her shoulders in a comradely manner. ‘Fist fights are bloody, unpleasant and rarely achieve anything. Now, tell me what this is all about so we can find a solution to this coil.’
‘This is not a legal problem you can resolve by consulting a few dusty tomes,’ Antonia snapped, then relented immediately. ‘Oh, Jeremy, I am sorry, you are a good friend to tolerate my temper.’ She twisted round to meet his eyes. ‘I did wonder if you had a partiality for me, at first. But you have not, have you? I am right?’ she persisted.
Jeremy smiled. ‘There was a time when I felt fairly sure I was going to fall in love with you. But there is nothing quite as dampening as the discovery that the object of one’s interest has her affections fixed firmly elsewhere. That said,’ he added firmly, ‘it is no reason why we should not deal very well together, you and I.’
Antonia kissed his cheek with real affection. ‘You are a dear, Jeremy. But I cannot, I love him, you see.’
‘Then why do you not marry the man, then?’ he asked with a touch of impatience. ‘Has he not asked you? He is obviously deeply attracted to you.’
Antonia smiled wryly. ‘Oh, he has asked me to be his wife. But then I discovered that Marcus Renshaw is a man who is attracted to many women. In my case, the attraction is embellished by the thought of getting his hands on Rye End Hall and its lands.’
‘The lands are neither here nor there, I would guess. I assume you are referring to one woman in particular? One with expensive gowns, a curvaceous figure and a fine pair of eyes? I can quite see her attraction,’ he added mischievously.
‘Mutton dressed as lamb,’ Antonia responded indignantly. ‘And married mutton at that. You are as bad as he is. I wonder what she looks like first thing in the morning.’ Without the paint and the curling irons and the expensive corsetry…
‘Mmm…’ Jeremy said speculatively.
‘…before her maid and her hairdresser and goodness knows what cosmetics have come to her aid.’ She looked at Jeremy sharply. ‘You are teasing me.’
‘Of course I am teasing you. Women like that are commonplace in London. She is doubtless an entertaining and compliant mistress – and one with an elderly complaisant husband, there usually is. A gentleman like Allington is going to expect his entertainment – he is, after all, not a monk.’ He paused and cast her a doubtful glance. ‘You must forgive me being so free-spoken, Antonia, I will say no more if I am offending you.’
‘No, Jeremy, you are telling me nothing that I had not already fathomed for myself, I have had London Seasons, after all. But how could he continue the liaison while he paid court to me?’
‘Er…’ Jeremy was clearly searching for a tactful way of expressing himself.
‘Oh, I know that in arranged marriages these things happen. But I truly believed he had at least respect and affection for me. But to flaunt his mistress so openly… I could not marry a man who was so careless of my feelings.’
‘Then marry me. I can assure you I would never be careless of how you felt. I can offer you the respect, affection and the companionship you deserve in a marriage which would maintain you in a fitting manner.’
‘But not love, Jeremy,’ she said wistfully. ‘You can’t offer me that.’
‘It will grow. I have the greatest admiration for love matches – after all, look at the example of my aunt and uncle. But very few people begin their married life with such strong feelings.’
‘And what would happen if you found the woman for whom you could feel such emotions after we were married?’
‘I would not look,’ he teased, squeezing her shoulder.
‘All men look, it is your nature,’ Antonia retorted, laughing, feeling surprisingly cheered. ‘No, Jeremy, I like you too much to marry you. Now come, admit it, I am not breaking your heart, am I?’
‘Madam, it is in pieces at your feet.’ He assumed an expression of anguish. ‘It will be noon tomorrow, at the very earliest before I have recovered.’
‘Mountebank. Help me to my feet, we cannot sit out here all night and I am ready to sleep on my feet. Goodness knows what hour it is.’
As they strolled through the silent night, Jeremy asked sombrely, ‘This is all very well, but what will you do now? You are sure to encounter the Duke again.’
‘I shall pretend none of this happened. After all, he can say nothing without casting himself in a most unfavourable light. If an engagement between you and I is not announced, he will just see it for what it was, a device to get over the awkwardness of the moment.’
When they arrived at the back door of the Dower House Antonia retrieved the big key from under a flower pot and unlocked the door. She turned back to Jeremy. ‘Good night, dear friend. I am sorry I have embroiled you in such a coil.’
Jeremy smiled, then bent to drop a brotherly kiss on her cheek. ‘Do not give it another thought, my dear…’
‘Antonia,’ Donna’s cry of outrage sounded like a shout on the still air. Both Antonia and Jeremy started, presenting a picture of perfect guilt, she realised as she tried to suppress an hysterical laugh.
Donna, hair in curl papers, her thin body encased in a flannel wrapper of hideous design, stood brandishing the poker she had apparently snatched from the kitchen range on her way to investigate the stealthy footsteps she had heard approaching the house.
‘Libertine! Blackguard! Rest assured your uncle shall hear of this you... you... whitened sepulchre, you!’ she stormed.
‘Donna, please put that poker down and stop abusing poor Mr Blake. He has done nothing to warrant your wrath – he was merely seeing me safely home after my walk.’
‘Your walk? At three in the morning? A tryst, more like.’
Jeremy passed his hand wearily over his brow. Miss Donaldson, madam, I can assure you...’
But Donna was well into her stride and was not to be deflected. ‘And I can assure you, sir, that you will marry this poor child at the earliest moment it may be accomplished without scandal.’
‘Jeremy, go.’ Antonia pushed her much put-upon friend in the direction of the back gate. ‘Donna, we will go inside and I will explain it all before we waken Jane. Then there would be a scandal.’ She wrested the poker from Donna’s grasp and pushed her down on a chair before the flickering light of the kitchen range.
‘That it should come to this. I only thank Heaven your poor mother is not alive to see this day,’ Donna moaned.
‘Oh, do be quiet, Donna,’ Antonia snapped. ‘Poor Mr Blake met me quite by chance by the riverbank. I went for a walk because I could not sleep and he was listening to the nightingales. I had a fright because of... something I thought I saw in the undergrowth and Mr Blake came to my rescue.’
‘That’s as may be,’ Donna was still not mollified. ‘He took advantage of you – I saw him kiss you.’
‘If I had a brother living, he could not have kissed me more chastely, Donna. Jeremy Blake is my good friend, and only a friend.’
To her alarm and utter astonishment, Donna responded by bursting into tears.
‘What is it?’ Antonia fell on her knees beside the chair. ‘Were you very frightened because you thought we were burglars?’ She took Donna’s hands in hers and chafed them gently. ‘You were very brave.’
‘But we thought, we hoped, you were going to marry him,’ Donna lamented.
‘Who? Who is we? You wanted me to marry Mr Blake? Then why make such a hue and cry? Oh, I am so tired I cannot think straight.’
‘Lady Finch and I had such hopes of you and Mr Blake, such a suitable match. And then to think that he was just another heartless philanderer and then to discover you do not wish to marry him, after all...’
‘Go to bed, Donna,’ Antonia said wearily. ‘We have both had an over-exciting night.’