“Enough about me.” The village was blessedly close, and Minerva was done with dredging up her depressing past. “Tell me something about you a devoted fiancée should know.”
“My favorite color is red. It’s daring and bold and just the tiniest bit naughty. Like me.”
“That’s hardly the enlightening revelation I was hoping for.” She’d repeatedly tried to tease something personal out of him for days with little success. Every question was answered with something flippant or amusing, to such an extent she was starting to think he was purposefully being flippant. Which suggested, as she suspected, there was more to him than he wanted the world to see. Something she was also well aware she might be conjuring to justify her peculiar reactions to him, and yet there were distinct flashes of something else. She couldn’t deny that.
Like the odd look in his eyes that first morning when he had held her hand after she had confessed her life wasn’t as carefree as his was. There had been empathy there. As if he immediately understood her situation somehow and felt responsible for it. He kept that Hugh firmly under wraps most of the time, but it was that man she was curious about. So curious, she’d had to resort to pumping Payne for information.
“I suspect you’ve already worked me out and know all you need to. I am exactly as I seem. A gentleman of leisure. Charming … quite spoiled and selfish and incapable of any meaningful purpose above what dreaded duty and my birthright force me to do.”
She risked taking her eyes off the road and the reins to glance at him, and something about his expression bothered her, confirming all her suspicions. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. In view of everything you’ve just told me, I am ashamed to say, I’m as shallow as a puddle. What you see is what you get.”
“Yet I still suspect you have hidden depths. There is something about the whole carefree bachelor exterior which doesn’t quite ring true.” Because he was kind and thoughtful. She had seen that. He also undoubtedly had the patience of a saint. A man with those qualities couldn’t be entirely selfish, and moreover, Minerva liked him a great deal and she wouldn’t be able to do that if he were as shallow as he claimed.
“I’d like to hear your evidence for that grievous accusation.”
“You are an early bird—like me. And usually people don’t get up in the morning unless they have a good reason to.”
“I like to have first dibs on breakfast.”
“Liar. You work in your study. You start every morning at six. Payne told me.”
“Payne thinks I’m working and I’ve never done anything to dissuade him from thinking it. But the truth is I go to my study at six because I’ve usually just arrived home from a night of debauchery and I grab a quick forty winks in my study to ensure I am in a fit state to be seen at breakfast.”
“I think your wily butler would know if you’d been out all night.”
“He’s not that wily.” Hugh was smiling as he maneuvered his horse around a pothole with a confidence she envied. “For years I’ve been pretending to go to bed, purposefully rumpling the bedcovers so they look slept in, and then I climb out of my bedchamber window to do unspeakable things with highly questionable associates.”
“Unspeakable things? Really?” She couldn’t help but smile at the flagrant lie. “What unspeakable things can you possibly get up to in this sleepy corner of Hampshire?”
“Gambling, mostly. Drinking and carousing.” He ticked them off his fingers. “And philandering, of course. I’m a slave to hedonism in all its many forms.” Then he winked at her flirtatiously, looking every inch the dashing scoundrel, and the feminine part within Minerva inwardly sighed at the sight. “Fortunately, after darkness has fallen, the village transforms into a den of iniquity.”
“Payne says you meet your estate manager every day when you are in Hampshire, and when you are not in Hampshire, insist on weekly letters from him and travel down at least twice a month to oversee things.” The wink had made her pulse quicken exactly as it had when his strong arms had lifted her effortlessly onto Marigold earlier. “He claims, despite appearances, you are fastidiously diligent when it comes to estate matters, therefore I must conclude you are a very responsible gentleman after all—against all your vehement claims to the contrary.”
He didn’t deny it. “You and Payne suddenly seem very cozy.”
“You are not the only curious person with questions. At least Payne answers mine honestly.”
“Honestly. Good grief! I don’t like the sound of that. What else has the tattler said?”
“That you haven’t increased any rents for the last five years because of the difficult economy and that your tenants universally love you.”
“If they love me, it is because of my acute and universal lack of business acumen, of which they can easily take advantage.” He gestured to the church now only a little ahead of them. “That’s Saint Mary’s. William the Conqueror built it. He set up home in Hampshire for a while—back when Winchester was still the capital.”
He really didn’t want to talk about himself, or at least the less frivolous side of himself at all, but she decided she wouldn’t be swayed. The more time she spent with him, the more he intrigued her. Yes, he was handsome and charming, witty and addictively likeable, but those twinkling blue eyes of his saw more than they let on, and she was coming to believe the mischievous rogue he played so well covered up a very different sort of man. The sort who rescued damsels in distress and knew exactly what to say to prevent a situation from being awkward. Shallow men weren’t intuitive. Nor were they so alluring. “Payne says you are an excellent landlord who looks after them and treats them with respect. He says you always take the time to listen and frequently heed their advice.”
“I pretend to listen to them. It’s one of my few talents. I can appear completely engrossed in a conversation whilst avoiding hearing any of it at all. My tenants think I listen to them. Payne thinks I listen to him and you wrongly assume I’m listening to you now, when in reality, all I am thinking about is lunch. You see? As shallow as a puddle. Here you are, trying to have a meaningful conversation, and all I can think about is myself.”
Something told her he thought about everyone, which was an admirable trait. It made no sense he would try to deny it. “Yet your estate is thriving—largely thanks to all the modern farming techniques you have implemented. I’ve seen all the new books on the subject in the library. And they have been read.”
“Not by me.”
“Payne says you are a better landlord than even your father was, and everybody apparently loved him, too. He says despite your best efforts to the contrary, you are actually very much like your father. Peas in a pod, in fact. Is that true? You’ve never really mentioned him.”
Something suspiciously like despair skittered briefly across his features before he masked it with dismissal. “What is there to mention? Like you I was young when he died. Talking about him only makes me feel maudlin, and why would I want to be intentionally maudlin?” He nudged his horse to trot a little beyond hers and then pointed to the bustling market square as he blatantly avoided her question. Too blatantly. “Ah—look. I see Giles’s horse tied up over there. The others shouldn’t be too far away, or they better not be. I’m starving.”
Clearly she had hit a raw nerve, as he didn’t wait for her, leaving Minerva to navigate the cobbles and a few pedestrians all by herself, something that took more concentration than keeping her horse walking in a straight line.
By the time she reached the inn, Hugh had dismounted and handed his horse over to a groom. He shook his head and huffed out a withering sigh as he grabbed her horse’s halter. “That was barely ten yards. What kept you?” Another groom rushed forward with the block, and Hugh waved him away. “Believe me, it will only end in catastrophe. I’ll help the lady down.” He held out his arms. “Give those white knuckles a rest and let go of the reins, Minerva.”
Reluctantly, she did and clumsily gripped his shoulders. They felt reassuringly solid and disconcertingly wonderful … and she really needed to stop thinking nonsense like that about a man who was paying her to do a job.
In case he noticed the odd effect he had on her, and because it seemed like the quickest way off the beast, she lunged toward him, realizing too late that she should have taken her stupid foot out of the stirrup first. As it twisted, Marigold stepped sideways to escape her flailing, and the ground loomed.
“I’ve got you!”
Mortifyingly, he did. His strong arms were wrapped tight around her ribs as she hung suspended above the ground. Her foot still tangled in the stirrup, and her face sprawled against his chest as he engulfed her, her breasts scandalously flattened against his stomach. Minerva could do nothing but cling to him, inhaling his fresh, clean, manly scent as the groom wrestled her foot out of its stirrup prison, then suffer the indignity of having Hugh haul her upright in the intimate cage of his arms the second it was free.
For a long moment they stood pressed together, something that her body seemed to enjoy far more than it should, until he abruptly broke the contact, holding her at an appalled arm’s length as he blinked down at her.
“Good grief, woman! When I held out my arms, I didn’t expect you to launch yourself into them at that second. You might have given me some warning you were about to take flight. You’d have flattened a lesser man.”
“I am so sorry. I did warn you I was clumsy.” The collar and lapels of his coat were awry. They gave her wayward fingers an excuse to touch him as she straightened them, and then their eyes locked.
And held.
As if they had a mind of their own, her palms smoothed his lapels flat, and beneath them she felt his heart beating. Sure and steady but as rapidly as hers. In that second, she realized the heady, magnetic, dangerous pull she felt wasn’t one-sided. He felt it, too.
Why didn’t that worry her? When her attraction to him wasn’t wise?
She watched his eyes drop to her lips before slowly returning to hers in question, felt her body leaning to meet his …
“Hugh?” Beneath her fingers, Minerva felt the muscles in Hugh’s shoulders tense the second he heard the other voice, and he instantly stepped back. “I thought it was you!”
His head whipped around to face a very beautiful blond-haired woman on the arm of a very dashing-looking man, and he smiled. It was an odd smile. A strained one. One that never touched his eyes. “Sarah … Captain Peters … hello … You are back, then?”
“Only temporarily. Teddy has leave and we won’t rejoin his regiment till January.” If the blond woman was aware of Hugh’s discomfort, she didn’t show it. She beamed at him. “But the best news is the regiment is returning to Aldershot in the New Year, so we’ll be permanently stationed in Hampshire and much closer to home. Mother is thrilled.” Hugh looked the exact opposite despite his rigid smile. “She’s missed spoiling her grandchildren.”
“That is excellent news.” He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. To stop fidgeting, he clamped them behind his back. “Excellent.” She had never seen him so awkward. “I trust your mother is well?”
“Indeed she is. We are all in fine fettle.”
“Excellent.” That single word was like a nervous tic. What was it about this woman that made the normally confident Hugh so stilted and uncomfortable? Unless her reckless lapel smoothing had started it? That had been a mistake that she should be grateful had been interrupted—but wasn’t.
“How are you? It’s been … what? Two years since we last collided?” The blonde’s eyes flicked to Minerva with curiosity. “Are you still the merry bachelor about town?”
His eyes finally stopped staring at the blonde to find hers, and that seemed to shake him out of whatever odd place he had gone to. For a moment he seem horrified she was still beside him, then he winced. Minerva had no earthly idea if he was wincing because of her—or the situation.
“Good gracious, where are my manners?” He grabbed her hand and wrapped it around his arm, his hand resting on it possessively— or perhaps he was clinging to it desperately to prove a point? “Allow me to introduce you to my fiancée. Minerva, this is Mrs. Sarah Peters and her husband, Captain Peters. This is Miss Minerva…” He stared at her blankly as if he had forgotten the new alias he had given her.
“Landridge.” She politely inclined her head as Payne had taught her to do with others of a similar rank. Curtsies were for nobles only. The more noble the noble, the deeper the curtsey. Look them in the eye. Smile. Act nonchalant. No mean feat when her mind was whirring. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Captain and Mrs. Peters.”
Now the blond woman who had tied her fake fiancé’s tongue was looking her up and down with interest, and for some reason everything about her, and most importantly the effect she had on Hugh, seemed to grate. Minerva snuggled closer to him as if she were besotted rather than inappropriately flustered by his shoulders and their oddly charged moment before this vixen interrupted it. “We have been engaged these past eighteen months.” And she didn’t care if she sounded proprietary. Fiancées were supposed to be possessive. It was merely part of the act.
“I must have missed the announcement in The Times.”
“There was no announcement.” Finally Hugh seemed to have found his voice. “We’ve managed to keep it quiet. Minerva didn’t want a fuss and she’s not really one for London society. We met out of town when…” He was floundering again. Badly.
“He rescued me from a runaway carriage.” She gazed up at him with what she hoped was adoration rather than what felt alarmingly like the sudden onset of jealousy. “And more recently an uncooperative sidesaddle.” A mishap this graceful and beautiful creature had probably witnessed—alongside the wholly inappropriate and unguarded lapel smoothing. Although now that she thought Minerva was Hugh’s fiancée, that was probably a good thing. Fiancées were allowed to smooth lapels, and she could use it as a believable excuse later if Hugh brought it up, a prospect that already had her toes curling inside her smart new riding boots. Minerva beamed to cover her mortification and tried to remember she was playing a character. “Hugh is my constant knight in shining armor. I would be thoroughly lost without him.”
The awkward silence that followed was dreadful, largely because Minerva got the distinct impression she was the only person out of the four of them who had no idea why it was awkward.
Hugh’s hand was gripping hers like a drowning man on a piece of driftwood in high seas. Captain Peters was yet to say a word, and his too-pretty wife had pasted a smile on her face that was as false as Minerva’s lies.
“How is your mother, Hugh? Is she enjoying life in America?”
“Very much.”
“It’s so brave of her to have moved across the world.”
“You know my mother.” Something Mrs. Peters clearly did. “She is made of stern stuff.” Beneath his sleeve, his forearm had gone quite rigid. Minerva could sense that he wanted to escape. Just as she could sense Hugh and the pretty Mrs. Peters had a past. One she fully intended to get to the bottom of once she got him alone.
“Well, it has been a pleasure meeting you both, but alas we must away.” She squeezed his arm and felt some of the tension ease. “My mother, sisters, and Lord Bellingham are loose in the market and I fear for his sanity if we leave him alone with them for too long.”
“Yes … poor Giles.” Hugh bowed politely. “Do send my regards to your mother.”
“And send mine to yours.” A delicate, gloved hand lightly touched Minerva’s arm. “It was lovely to meet you, too, Miss Landridge. I am so glad Hugh is finally settling down. Seeing as you are not fond of town, perhaps you can convince him to reside more frequently here in Hampshire? Then I could call upon you both…” Lovely blue eyes locked with Hugh’s. Minerva couldn’t read the stark message in them. “I believe I should like that a great deal.”