A Tall Dark Stranger Page 9

  “It’s all right, Mr. Renshaw,” I said. “It was obvious from the beginning that you cared nothing for hops. I couldn’t quite believe the ten thousand a year, either. You should have made it a more reasonable five. I expect Beau put you up to it. I can almost hear him,”

  Renshaw sat with his head bent and his ears pink, looking well and thoroughly ashamed of himself. I decided the kindest thing was to make a joke of it.

  “My neighbor has fifteen thousand,” I said, trying to imitate Beau’s deep voice. “Not a beauty, but she ain’t an antidote, either, and getting on. She’s two and twenty—at her last prayers for a husband. She can sit a mount well enough. Draws weeds for a pastime. Deuced odd gel.”

  Renshaw finally lifted his head. “And has blue eyes,” he added. His own eyes were alight with laughter, and some lingering embarrassment. “You’re too clever for me. I’m sorry, Miss Talbot, but I don’t want to leave you with the notion that I’m only a fortune hunter. I was left the hop farm. It used to bring in ten thousand a year, once upon a time, and could again with good management.”

  “Then why don’t you go home and manage it?”

  “You’re eager to be rid of me! I’m not finished my explanation, ma’am. It wasn’t quite the way you say. I merely inquired of Beau if there were any pretty ladies in the neighborhood. He mentioned one or two. ‘My neighbor, Amy Talbot, is a pretty chick,’ he said. ‘I’ll introduce you.’ ‘What does she look like?’ I asked. ‘She’s pretty,’ he said again. I would have said beautiful. ‘Blonde, brunette, or redhead?’ I asked. ‘Sort of brownish,’ he said, ‘with blue eyes.’ Your bonnet shaded your eyes that morning. I could see they were large and lustrous, but not their color.”

  He inclined his head closer to mine, gazing deeply into my eyes. “I’ve never seen eyes just that shade— lighter than emeralds, darker than peridots. Ripening emeralds, perhaps, before they achieve their full hue.”

  There was some hypnotic force in his gaze or in the soft murmur of his voice. As he spoke, his head kept coming closer to mine until our lips were only inches apart. And still he kept up that soft murmur.

  “I love the way your hair wantons in the breeze, like a Botticelli grace. Don’t look at me like that, Miss Talbot. Is it my fault you’re so irresistible?”

  When our lips finally met, his were still murmuring against mine, which had the peculiar effect of making me feel as if he were nibbling my lips. His speech died on a whisper as he drew me into his arms and his moving lips finally firmed in a real kiss. I had often imagined being kissed ... by Morris Maitland.

  As the embrace deepened, I forgot all about Maitland and gave myself up to this new sensation. In my imagination the kisses had not been like this. They were a localized affair, affecting only the lips. Now I felt a glowing heat gathering inside me and an expanding of the lungs that left me both limp and yet energized. I felt a pulse pounding in my throat. The rustling of the trees seemed to be coming from far away.

  I knew I should stop Renshaw, yet I felt powerless to do it. While he kissed me, I just sat like a perfect statue, drinking in all these strange, but pleasant, sensations. My arms made a jerking motion, wanting to hold him, but I managed to control them.

  When Renshaw finally lifted his head, I noticed my hands had attached themselves to his shoulders. I gazed at him, wild-eyed with astonishment. My breaths came in shallow pants. Not Renshaw’s.

  “Control yourself, Miss Talbot,” he said. The sparkle of laughter lurked in his eyes as he drew back a curl that had worked loose and tucked it back into my bonnet. His fingers brushed lower to cup my jaw in his warm fingers. “I shall have to insist that you wear green glasses the next time we drive out or the neighbors will think me no better than I should be, letting myself be mauled so intimately on a public road.”

  He seemed to expect some bantering reply to this. I could think of nothing to say except “I believe we should go home now, Mr. Renshaw,” and even that came out in a breathless rush.

  “You’re not angry with me?” he asked, drawing his gloves back on.

  “No,” I said witlessly. Then finally normal thought returned to my numbed senses and I added with a wretched attempt at playfulness, “As you said, it’s not your fault that I’m so irresistible.”

  But I knew better, of course. It wasn’t Amy Talbot who was irresistible. It was Renshaw, with his nibbling kisses and laughing dark eyes. I looked up and down the road to make sure no one had seen us.

  “We’re quite alone,” he said. “The tree protects us from that house on the hill.”

  “You certainly keep your wits about you when you’re seducing a lady!”

  “Seducing!” he exclaimed in what looked like genuine shock. “I must take issue with your language, Miss Talbot. Oh, damme, let me call you Amy. How can I give you a proper Bear Garden jaw when I must call you Miss?”

  “You certainly may not call me Amy!”

  “When we’re alone, at least, and don’t try to change the subject. I’m not trying to seduce you. Seduction implies some wrongdoing, leading a lady astray from the path of virtue. My intentions are honorable. I’m courting you, not trying to seduce you.”

  “Why would you bother with me if you’re who you say you are?”

  He just frowned, as if brooding over the question, while he studied me closely. “I had nothing to say about it. I met you and you were the one. C’est tout. I felt as if I had been looking for you forever. It was like meeting the other half of myself.” He sounded as if he himself was surprised at his explanation.

  I sniffed. He picked up the whip and peered down at me. “Could I seduce you, Amy?” he asked. “I’m not saying may I—naturally you must feign horror at the notion—but could I? You could have me for the taking. Have you felt nothing of what I feel? Would it be physically possible to seduce you?”

  “Not without that whip,” I replied sternly, but, in fact, I felt weak in every joint at what he had said. The whole discussion was delightfully improper. He implied that I had some extraordinary power over him. The power of love. It was an awesome feeling.

  Before it went quite to my head, I said, “I suggest you put the whip to better use and get these horses moving. In fact, turn around and take me home.”

  His features adopted a more normal expression. “You plan to join Lollie in the meadow, looking for clues?”

  “I have some work to do on my sketching,” I lied. I would go straight up to my bedroom and lie down on my bed and think about that kiss and Renshaw’s announcement that he was courting me. And about whether he meant it or was only joking. He sounded as if he meant it. This being the case, I had to decide whether I wanted him to do so. My body knew the answer, but I must let my mind have something to say about it.

  He turned the rig around and cracked the whip over the grays’ heads. The curricle moved off at a spanking pace toward home.

  “You’re not involved with Maitland, are you?” he asked. It wasn’t a casual question. A frown appeared between his eyes.

  “I’ve never driven out with him. We’re casual friends, no more.”

  “You say that in a rueful way. And you have a certain ... tremor in your speech when you speak of him. Makes me jealous as a green cow,” he added, grinning.

  “He’s very handsome,” I allowed.

  “I’m said to have a good profile.” He lifted his chin, showing me his silhouette in profile.

  It was indeed a beguiling one: a prominent nose, a strong chin, nice lips ...

  Oh, dear, how complicated life was. Surely a lady couldn’t be in love with two gentlemen at the same time. This must be thrashed out in the privacy of my room. I turned my mind to less evanescent matters. I wondered who the lady could be who had been with Maitland in the hut. Really, there wasn’t a single soul in the parish I could think of who would do anything so dashing. Except Mrs. Murray! I thought about this, among other things, while we drove home.

  When we reached the house, I said two words, “Mrs. Murray,” and watch
ed him closely.

  His shocked expression told me I was right. “How did you ... I’m not confirming it!”

  “There’s nobody else it could be. When were they together?”

  He just shook his head. “Does it matter? You see why I asked you if you were involved with Maitland.”

  I now knew Lollie was right about having seen her and Maitland in the hut. It certainly dimmed Maitland’s glow. I had always known he was rakish; it had added a certain je ne sais quoi to his allure. But to be involved with a married neighbor was different. And a foolish, vain lady besides.

  Mrs. Murray was not the sort of woman to cause a man to lose his head or his heart. A great, tragic love affair might have lessened the degradation of it all, but she was merely pretty and available. It would be a convenient dalliance while the Murrays were at home, and when they returned to London, she would be forgotten. I despised Maitland for it, and Mrs. Murray, too.

  “She has club thumbs,” I said foolishly. What caused it was an image of her hands on Maitland’s shoulders, drawing him into an embrace.

  Renshaw smiled. “I noticed.”

  I felt my body stiffen. “When did you meet her?”

  If Renshaw hadn’t turned pink, I might have thought little of it. He had been in the neighborhood for a few days now. He might have met her anywhere. I might even have believed his answer. But that telltale flush revealed too much.

  “Beau introduced me the day I arrived, after we left your place. We met the Murrays in town, just outside the Boar’s Head.”

  “Odd she wasn’t wearing gloves on the street,” I said, giving him a knowing look. She always wears gloves whenever possible, to hide those ugly thumbs.

  “Yes, it’s odd,” he replied woodenly.

  “Thank you for the drive, Mr. Renshaw.”

  “You’re welcome, Amy. Will you be here tomorrow when I call on Lollie?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. And I would prefer it if you would call me Miss Talbot.”

  He just shook his head. “You surely don’t think I am carrying on with Mrs. Murray?” he asked.

  “What is it to me if you are, Mr. Renshaw?”

  “Amy!” he said in such a familiar, chiding tone. “Don’t be like that.”

  “I’m a little particular about my friends. Folks gossip so in the country. Good day, Mr. Renshaw.”

  I leaped down without his help and darted to the door. My ankle gave a sharp wince as I ran along, for the curricle seat was high off the ground and I hadn’t bothered with the step. I wanted only to dart up to my room, but my aunt came into the hallway when she heard the door open.

  “Oh, it’s you, Amy. You’re back early. I thought you were Lollie. He hasn’t come back yet.”

  “Is George with him?”

  “Yes, he should be safe enough. Don’t forget we’re dining with the Murrays tonight,” she said, and turned to walk away.

  “You didn’t tell me that!”

  “She invited us the day I read her palm. In the commotion of the murder and all, I must have forgotten.”

  The Murrays do a deal of socializing when they’re in the riding, to keep the voters in curl. Mrs. Murray was the last person I wanted to see that night, but the appointment had been made and it was one my aunt would have been looking forward to with much pleasure.

  It made a diversion and it kept me from harping too much on Renshaw’s pretending to be in love with me and his familiarity with Mrs. Murray’s club thumbs.

  Lollie returned unharmed but in a disgruntled mood. There was no sign of His Majesty’s agent but plenty of the fretful boy.

  “I couldn’t discover a thing,” he said. “Beau had three or four of his friends flying all over the meadow, coursing hares. They were at it for hours. I’ll go out again tonight after the party at the Murrays’.”

  “Wait until the morning and I’ll go with you,” I said.

  “You forget Renshaw is letting me try his grays in the morning,” he said, brightening.

  I had nothing so pleasurable to look forward to. Maitland and Renshaw were both carrying on with Mrs. Murray. I must sit at her table and smile for two hours, listening to Murray pontificate on political matters.

  If I had had the slightest inkling how events would turn out, I would have claimed a sick headache and gone to bed. But I didn’t know, so I put on my best mint green peau de soie gown with the lace insets at the bodice and went forth, all unknowing, to a perfectly hideous party.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was a ghastly party. The Murrays, with more money than taste, decided to show the provincials the proper way to entertain. The table looked like a silver-shop display, with a half-dozen epergnes parading down the center and silver candlesticks crowding the dishes off the board. The food served looked like works of art and tasted rather like paint and canvas as well. The meat was as dry as leather and the rancid butter sauce tasted quite like linseed oil.

  I could see Auntie frowning in confusion at a dish of shrimp arranged in the shape of a whole shrimp, with ruffles of parsley sticking out on the tail end like lace on a gown. Olives provided buttons along the front of the gown.

  “It looks so pretty I hate to disarrange it,” my aunt said when it was passed to her.

  The fowl wore not only lacy anklets of shaved paper but waistcoats of ham and buttons of capers. Another fowl dish had the creature’s feathers reassembled and stuck into its tail piece. I personally would have enjoyed the ham more without the boiled pig’s head sitting on the same plate. As to arranging little cauliflower teeth around the beef tongue! But enough.

  I would probably have found it amusing were it not for the fact that both Maitland and Renshaw sat at the table, one on either side of the hostess, vying for her fickle attention. It was no surprise that Maitland was there; he was a neighbor after all. But how the deuce had Renshaw got himself invited? He hadn’t glided in on Beau’s coattails, either. Beau wasn’t there.

  I was seated halfway down the board. Mrs. Murray, with no real social graces, gave me my own brother for a partner on my right side and Mr. Lazenby, a retired solicitor, on my left. The only other young lady there was my friend, Addie Lemon. Her partners were Mr. Davis, the vicar, and her uncle. She and Lollie were usually placed side by side.

  When Mrs. Murray rose at the dinner’s end to lead the ladies to the saloon while the gentlemen enjoyed their port, she said playfully to her husband, “Don’t keep the gentlemen too long, Archie.”

  Then she waved a kiss in the general direction of her two partners and we followed her out. I had refrained from looking at Renshaw during dinner—one of the epergnes had impeded my vision in any case—but I couldn’t control my eyes as we left. He was looking at me in a most guilty fashion. His ears were bright pink.

  “Some hostess!” Addie scolded as we left. “Keeping both the young gentlemen for herself, I wonder she didn’t have Lollie sitting on her lap.” Did I mention Addie has a tendre for my brother? I am all in favor of the match, in a few years, when Lollie has matured. “But the dinner was fine, was it not?” she added.

  Mrs. Murray received numerous compliments on her cook’s ingenuity.

  “I brought my French chef, Pierre, down from London with me,” she said. “A man handles dinners so much better, don’t you think?”

  The ladies, every one of whom had a female cook, seconded this idea eagerly. For fifteen minutes Mrs. Murray was kept in good humor by compliments on her dinner and gown.

  The gown was a splendid affair of sequined gauze over a silk petticoat, very décolleté. Pale blue, to match her eyes and the ribbons in her hair. (Not the same shade as the one found in the hut, however.) I wager her gown would have been the fanciest one at any London ball and was much too ornate for the present society.

  When the ladies had run out of compliments, Mrs. Murray moved over to Addie and myself. “Mr. Maitland was singing your praises all through dinner, Miss Talbot,” she said. “There is an excellent parti waiting to be snapped up. He tells me he plan
s to buy Chalmers’s farm, next door to his own place, you know. He’ll be the largest landowner around, next to Lord Hadley.”

  I immediately began to wonder how Maitland could afford to buy Chalmers’s place. It was said to be going for fifty thousand pounds. Surely he wasn’t so naive as to be broadcasting at this particular time that he had fifty thousand pounds to spend if he had come by it dishonestly.

  Addie asked about Fifi, Mrs. Murray’s missing dog.

  “That rascal of an Isaiah found her for me. Well, ‘found’ is one word for it. It wouldn’t surprise me much if he lured Fifi away and hid her for a day to increase the reward. I know she smelled of the pigsty when she was brought back, and the Smoggs keep a few pigs out back. He’s sharp as a tack, that Isaiah. He’ll amount to something one of these days if he isn’t thrown into Newgate first.” She smiled in approval of his criminal cunning. I bit my tongue on the suggestion that he ought to take up politics.

  Mrs. Murray could no longer tolerate the company of ladies. She rang for her butler and said, “Just remind Mr. Murray that the ladies are waiting, Logan.”

  The ladies were accustomed to waiting not less than an hour for the appearance of their menfolk, often longer. Indeed, this period without the gentlemen talking loudly about horses and politics was most of the ladies’ favorite part of the evening. Looks of astonishment were exchanged at having it curtailed so arbitrarily.

  The dame certainly had her husband firmly under her club thumb. Within two minutes the tread of footsteps heralded the gentlemen’s arrival.

  “They wouldn’t have had time to finish their cigars,” Aunt Talbot said quietly aside to me.

  I noticed that neither Maitland nor Renshaw headed straight toward the hostess. Maitland stopped for a word with Lady Anne Travers, Lord Hadley’s sister, and Renshaw looked all around then headed toward me.