Someone to Care

Or perhaps it was exactly what she needed given the mood she was in—to do something unexpected and outrageous to fill in the hours and take her mind off herself. The alternative was to hide away in her room and brood. And it was not as though she were going to be deceived or seduced or left brokenhearted tomorrow.

“I will attend the fair with you for an hour or two of the afternoon,” she said.

He released his hold on his quizzing glass. “There is to be a feast of sorts at the church hall later,” he said. “There will be nothing at all served here, alas. Both the taproom and the dining room are to be closed so that mine host and his good wife may mingle and feast with their neighbors. The banquet is to be followed by dancing on the village green this evening. It all sounds quite, quite irresistible, does it not?”

“I will most certainly draw the line at dancing,” she said.

“Ah, but you were always so lovely to dance with,” he told her. And oh, goodness, how had he done that? For with the mere dropping of a tone in his voice and a somewhat more intense focusing of his eyes upon hers, he had made it sound as if he were talking about a different sort of dance altogether from what would be performed on the village green this evening.

And of course—oh, of course—his words had their effect, as they always had. They half robbed her lungs of breath and her mind of good sense. She got firmly to her feet. Enough of this. “I shall go and fetch a bonnet and shawl,” she said, “and see if my baggage has been taken up to my room yet.”

He reached the door ahead of her and held it open. “And I will bespeak a room for myself since it would appear unlikely that my brother will return for me this side of nightfall,” he said. “So much for brotherly devotion. Shall we meet here again in fifteen minutes?”

“Fifteen minutes,” she agreed, and swept by him and on up the stairs. She paused on the first landing and looked back. He was still standing in the dining room doorway, gazing lazily after her.

This, she thought, was not a good idea.

But its companion thought came unprompted: Why not?

* * *

• • •

It was a brisk and breezy September day, halfway between summer and autumn. The sky was predominantly blue, but white clouds scudded across it and made of the land below an ever-moving chessboard of sunshine and shade. Marcel could think of a dozen things—at the very least!—he would rather be doing than standing at the edge of a village green, waiting with a largish crowd of expectant villagers and their darting children and prancing dogs for the grand opening of a harvest fair. The ceremony was apparently to include some sort of recital by the church choir. They were gathering and lining up on the green, all clad in billowing gowns. However, he had chosen quite deliberately to be here and had no cause for complaint. He had even quite rashly deprived himself of the means of leaving here.

But, so far at least, the annoyance of it all was outweighed by the triumph of the fact that he had the former Countess of Riverdale at his side. Let no one ever say that life was without its little coincidences. Actually, a giant coincidence in this case. What were the odds . . . ?

She had put on weight in the past fourteen years. She would doubtless be horrified if she knew he had noticed, but really the extra pounds were evenly distributed over all the right places and made her even more attractive than she had been then. More womanly. Or perhaps it was merely that he was looking at her now through eyes and sensibilities that were fourteen years older than they had been then. What twenty-five-year-old male would look upon a fortyish woman with lust, after all? And it was certainly lust he was feeling for Miss Somebody Kingsley. Strangely—he was just now struck with the thought—he did not know her first name.

She was looking aloof and dignified, the very look that had so intrigued him then. For he had wondered if what he saw told the whole story, or if she was in fact a powder keg of passion that no one, least of all Riverdale, had ever ignited. He wondered the same thing now.

“What would you guess their average age to be?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the choir. “Sixty-five? Seventy?” Had no one here heard of choir boys?

“Their age is surely immaterial,” she said in just the cool, reproving tone he would expect of her.

“The quality of voice will matter, though,” he said. “I would wager upon plenty of warble and vibrato, with some off-key would-be soloist ruining the collective effect. That will be the one who has grown deaf and cannot hear the tuning fork or his fellow choristers.”

“That is very disrespectful of you,” she said with a frown. “People cannot help being elderly.”

“But they can help remaining part of a church choir long after they ought to retire with some grace,” he said.

“Perhaps it is a younger member who will prove to be tone deaf,” she said. “If anyone is. Good heavens, we have not even heard them yet. Perhaps they will be sublime.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed. “I will stand corrected if you prove to be right. I seriously doubt it, however.”

Her lips twitched and she almost smiled. A memory struck him then of trying—and failing—to make her smile all those years ago. He could not remember ever seeing her do so, in fact, and wondered if she ever did.

“Ah,” he said. “The moment is upon us.”

A man of great self-importance who did not introduce himself but doubtless held some position of authority in the church—though he was not the vicar—delivered a long and pompous and repetitive speech while people grabbed their children and tried to grab their dogs and keep them more or less still and quiet. He made a point of welcoming visitors to their humble festivities and professed himself and his fellow churchgoers honored indeed to have them. Every eye in the village, except perhaps those belonging to the babies and dogs, turned upon the only two obvious visitors. The church dignitary was followed by the vicar, fully vested, who offered a mercifully short prayer of thanksgiving for the harvest and the fine weather and the hard work and generosity of his flock. The choir sang about Christian soldiers and archangels on high and other holy things that had nothing whatsoever to do with either harvest or church roofs. But Marcel’s prediction proved undeniably correct. There were both warbles and vibrato, and one dominant male voice was off-key by a crucial half tone.

“You need not say it,” Miss Kingsley said after the vicar’s wife, with gracious smiles and nods for everyone, had declared the fete open. “I heard. And the singing was lovely. They were doing their best.”

“If ever I did something to please you,” he said, “and you told me afterward that I had done my best, I would crawl into the nearest deep hole and sulk for the next fourteen years or so, Miss Kingsley.”

The wind had whipped some color into her cheeks. Even so, he had a strong suspicion that she was blushing. She had thought he was making some risqué remark, then, had she? He had not been, as it happened, but he was perfectly willing to take credit for it. Her eyes were as blue as he remembered them. They had always been one of her finest features—a real blue, not one of the varying shades of gray that often pass for blue.

“I see a booth over there that is positively spilling over with jewels,” he said. “Allow me to escort you.” He offered his arm.

She looked at it before taking it, as though she suspected some sort of trap. He must have touched her before. Of course he had. He had danced with her on more than one occasion. But the touch of her hand on his arm now felt unfamiliar. Light. Neither leaning nor clinging. But it brought her shoulder close to his arm, and her dress brushed against his Hessian boots. It brought the faintly fragrant scent of her to his nostrils. Not too floral, not too spicy. Just right. Perfect for her.