“Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.”
Jane Austen, Emma
“It was kind of your cousin to set up targets for us in his garden,” Briar said with a glance over her shoulder to the doors leading to the house.
The archway was still empty, just as it had been the last dozen times she’d looked. As of yet, she had not met Lord Edgemont and impatience was starting to rattle her nerves. After the conversation with her sisters this morning, she didn’t want to wait a moment longer to prove herself their equal.
“Nicholas would deny it with his dying breath, but he is soft at heart and tends to dote on me exceedingly. I’ve become quite spoiled, so you’d best find a husband for me who tends toward generosity.”
Briar laughed, the insight into his character like music to her ears. The bowstring twanged and she could feel the vibration against her cheek as she sent an arrow slicing through the stagnant air. As expected, it hit the blackened center of the coiled straw target.
Temperance fired her shot, too, but frightened a gray squirrel up in the tree where the arrow landed. She called out a quick “sorry” to the creature. “Though, after you told me of your morning, I imagine it feels good to expend some violent aggression.”
“Indeed, it does.”
“If you were my sister, I should treat you just as you are—remarkably fascinating and worldly.”
“Worldly?” Briar laughed again, but this time with incredulity. “Most farthings have seen more of the world than I.”
“Yes, well I know that, but even so, you possess a certain air that hints at another life altogether. I can’t quite explain it. But it’s as if, at any moment, you might tell me that you plan to run away with a gentleman who’ll sweep you off to the Mediterranean and bathe you in diamonds.”
Briar batted her lashes playfully. “How scandalous! Oh, but they would be sapphires, of course, for he wants to find a jewel to match my eyes.”
“And that is precisely the reason we became friends from the very start. Until I met you, I never would have conjured such an outlandish scenario. Though now I can picture it so clearly that I can taste olive-scented air on my tongue. You have a gift for inflicting everyone you meet with wild, romantic notions.”
“I wish you would tell that to the cartoonist who drew that unflattering caricature in the Post this morning. Now all of London knows of my error.” She took out her displeasure on the next arrow, and summarily struck the target squarely in the center. Yet she felt little satisfaction. “If only our most embarrassing mistakes were private events.”
Temperance agreed with a commiserating sigh as her next shot pierced the ground three paces away. “It will all be forgotten soon. After all, this was your only misstep since the agency opened.”
That wasn’t entirely true. But Briar had never confessed her other near-disaster—the day she’d tried to meet Lord Hulworth but ended up sharing a carriage with a rogue instead.
And she never would tell a single soul, not even her dearest friend.
Thankfully, the rogue had been the only witness to her folly and she would never see him again. After all, a man like that would hardly grace the doorstep of the agency looking to marry. Or attend the very respectable dinners at the Duchess of Holliford’s.
A peculiar shiver swept over her again, starting at the soles of her feet and ending at the tips of her fingers as she pulled back the bowstring. For an instant, the memory of those dark sinful eyes swept to the forefront of her mind.
Though truth be told, he was never too far from her thoughts. In fact, whenever she glanced out the windows of the agency toward Sterling’s, she looked for a glossy black carriage with red spoke wheels and wondered if, perhaps, he’d ever thought of her.
It was silly, she supposed. He was certainly not a romantic figure, by any means. And yet, on that one morning, she’d had more of an adventure than she’d ever experienced in her life.
A frustrated growl from Temperance brought Briar back to the walled garden, the scented air thick as nectar.
“I think there is something wrong with my arrows. They look fine on the outside, but inside their cores must be all twisted.”
“I’m sure that’s it,” Briar agreed for her friend’s sake and offered a handful of her own. “Try some of these instead.”
Temperance studied the new arrows carefully as she returned to the matter at hand. “I do wish Daniel would have come out of his rooms when you arrived. Since Mother can pester anyone into submission, there’s still hope, I suppose. Though, now that I think on it, perhaps we shouldn’t remind him about your family business for now. I don’t want him to think that we’re plotting to marry him off.”
“Even if that’s exactly why you asked me here?”
“Well, you are the only matchmaker I would trust with my own brother’s happiness. And do you know what else, I think you should make a match for my cousin as well.”
Briar inhaled sharply, then coughed.
Temperance whacked her between the shoulder blades. “Are you quite well? I hope you didn’t swallow an insect, for it would ruin your appetite for tea.”
Briar shook her head, knowing it wasn’t an insect. The sour flavor on her tongue tasted far too similar to guilt. She hadn’t yet told Temperance about the challenge she’d accepted from Genevieve Price.
“You want me to make a match for your cousin?” Briar croaked.
“I think Nicholas is lonely. There’s been something off about him since last year. Of course, I could be wrong and he’s merely worried about Daniel. But all the same, I should like to see him happy. Would you consider it?”
“Well, yes, certainly. But there’s something I need to tell you.”
Temperance held up a finger. “Hold that thought, for I am eager for the two of you to meet. I’d better go and see what’s keeping him. Surely, meeting with his steward couldn’t take this long. Though if I had to guess, I’d say he was rooting around in the kitchens for more of Mrs. Darden’s scones. He was quite mad for them when he tasted them earlier.”
“Then I’m glad that I brought more with me—not lemon, but orange and ginger with a jar of fig preserves.”
Temperance set down her bow and put a hand over her midriff. “Tell me not to look in the kitchens for my cousin, for I fear I will eat the scones myself.”
“Just think of them as a necessary indulgence. Don’t they say that idle hands are the devil’s workshop? Well, if we keep a scone in each hand, then we are working toward our own salvation.”
“I absolutely adore the way you think.” Temperance walked up the terrace steps and called over her shoulder before she disappeared into the house, “Shoot some of my arrows, will you? If Daniel does come out into the garden, I want to have something to boast about, and hope that he doesn’t see the havoc I’ve wreaked on the shrubs in the distance.”
Left alone, Briar resumed her task, methodically shooting the arrows in her own quiver, each of them striking in the center circle of Temperance’s target. She mulled over how she would tell her friend about the challenge she’d accepted.
Distracted by her thoughts, she felt an odd prickling down the back of her neck, as if someone were watching her. Likely it was Temperance, returning to tell Briar that she’d succumbed to the temptation of the scones. Yet with a glance over her shoulder, she saw that she was wrong. It wasn’t her friend at all.
She gasped, her eyes going as round as saucers. A man stood there, tall and dark, and . . . oh-so-familiar. “You.”
It was the stranger from that day!
Forgetting that she had a loaded bow, she let the shot escape. The arrow sailed aloft, landing in the rhododendrons near the edge of the terrace.
Leaning casually against the archway, his long legs crossed at the ankle, the rogue merely raised a black eyebrow at the rustling leaves but did not stir from his spot. Clearly, he was used to sudden attacks—random arrows, women’s kisses in public, debutantes bent on appropriating his carriage . . .
“I seem to recall once believing that you would have been a fair shot with a pistol, when some lout accused you of wearing rouge on your lips. Now I realize I’d been wrong. I was at greater risk of death by arrow.”
“Depending on your proximity, of course.” She was breathless with disbelief, and perhaps from the deep timbre of his voice as well. The lush, wicked sound burrowed into the pit of her stomach the same way it had before, like a cat clawing a cozy spot on a coverlet for a long nap. “But what are you doing here?”
Strangely, it seemed that no time had passed since their last meeting. Though, clearly it had, for his appearance was somewhat altered, his skin a little brown, his face thinner, and there was an overall sense of exhaustion that she had not noticed before. Still there was no mistaking the unforgiving angles of his cheeks and jaw, the wealth of his nose, those erudite ebony eyes, and her unaccountable fascination with his countenance.
“I’m merely enjoying the beauty of the garden, and a serendipitous reunion with an old acquaintance.” He pushed away from the door and ambled across the terrace toward her.
She felt a blush creep to her cheeks in a wave of tingling heat. It had been foolish to share a carriage with a man who’d showed no qualms over engaging in salacious activity on the pavement outside of Sterling’s. There was no telling what other thrilling activities such an irredeemable rake was capable of . . .
Her thoughts trailed off as the most disturbing realization occurred to her. “Surely you’re not—you couldn’t be—Cousin Nicholas?”
He sketched a bow. “The very one.”
No. When she’d accepted the challenge, Briar had been sure Temperance’s cousin would possess some redeeming qualities. But this man?
Bother. How could she ever convince such a man to marry? And more importantly, how could she find a sane woman willing to marry such a man?
It seemed that her slippers had lost every drop of luck, after all.
“Come here, Briar,” he said with unabashed, toe-curling naughtiness, a sinful gleam in his dark eyes. Then he opened his arms. “Give your long-lost cousin a kiss.”