Hell and damnation. What was he doing? Wasting good daylight, Edward grumbled. He gripped the handle of the box he carried, kept his spine rigid and his pace leisurely as he strolled toward the Serpentine in Hyde Park.
Nothing at all had changed, even after all this time. People still stared. He still felt like a beast on display at the local fair. Everyone wanted a look, but no one wished to get too close.
He sighed. He had nothing to prove. Not to these people, not to himself. Certainly not to Miss Elisabeth Moreton. She wasn’t the first to run an eye over him and find him wanting. God knows she wouldn’t be the last.
Yet here he was, striding through the park instead of accomplishing something in his lab.
He moved aside, stepping off the path to make room for a small, open carriage moving toward him. The stunning beauty inside inclined her head at him and he bowed in return. Not until he straightened did he realize who she was. Hestia Wright, the famed beauty, the former demi-rep who now spent her days and her reportedly vast funds helping women.
His fists clenched. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of downtrodden women and girls cast alone and helpless in the city—and Aurelia might have been one of them. Vickers had turned her away, fully expecting someone else to deal with his unwanted responsibilities. Just like the old days. But what if Edmund had been away? What if Freddy’s solicitor had been a less honest man? He might have abandoned Aurelia to her fate. He might have sold her into a brothel or kept her for his own nefarious purposes.
He turned abruptly around and hailed the carriage. With a word from its occupant, the coachman slowed.
“Forgive the intrusion, Mrs. Wright,” he began.
She smiled and it was dazzling. “Not Mrs. Wright. Just Hestia, if you please.” She tilted her head. “Lord . . . Cotwell, is it not?”
“At your service,” Edmund bowed again. “I had a sudden thought to thank you for your service to the fairer sex. I’d like to make a pledge to help you in your work.”
Her smile widened. “Your praise and your donation are both much appreciated, my lord.”
“Shall I send a draft to Half Moon House?” The name of her home, where she admitted any female in need, was infamous.
“No, send it along to Hoare’s Bank, if you please. The good gentlemen there appreciate the irony and the business.” She waved a hand and the carriage started forward again. “Good day to you, sir. And thank you.”
Grimly satisfied, he turned and went on his way. He hadn’t gone far before he spotted the Serpentine ahead. As he surged forward, he had to admit that his step felt lighter.
* * *
Lisbeth noticed him first. Laughing, she looked up from the edge of the water where Aurelia and her friends had fashioned tiny boats of acorns, twigs and leaves. Amusement died quickly beneath a wave of pure, unbridled want.
Everything faded. The lovely, green expanse of the park, the riders in the distance, the few bright accents of ladies’ gowns—it all receded, existing only as a backdrop to the high-relief, eloquently male, advancing figure of Lord Cotwell.
Oh, good heavens. She was in such terrible trouble.
“Good afternoon to you, ladies.” He nodded to her and then to the little girls as he arrived. A couple of the girls shrank back a little, unused to being so addressed by such an imposing figure. Lisbeth held the greatest sympathy for them. She felt unable to catch enough breath to reply, but Aurelia climbed to her feet to greet him.
“What is that you have, sir?” All serious innocence she peered at his burden.
“A gift for you, of course.”
His coat was creased, his neck cloth off center. Matching dark spots marred the knees of his trousers, but the smallest smile hovered at the corner of his mouth and his eyes had gone . . . tender . . . at Aurelia’s approach. He glanced up at Lisbeth and the smile grew just a little, as if they shared a secret.
Some floodgate inside her gave way. Such terrible trouble indeed.
“What is it?” Aurelia asked with equal parts pleasure and confusion. The mention of a present was enough to reconcile the other girls and they gathered around as he hefted the wooden, wire mesh covered box.
“It’s a specimen box. You complained that it was too difficult to sketch the insects you captured while they were in the net. I remembered my father using this and had it dug out of the attic.”
He glanced at Lisbeth and the muscles in her chest tightened almost painfully.
“Sometimes you must keep a creature close for a while, in order to study and learn to know it.”
The little girls all buzzed around her as Aurelia quietly held the gift. Her charge had slipped back, grown a little somber again for the last couple of days. Lisbeth gave herself a mental shake and knelt next to her. “Why don’t you thank his lordship, Aurelia?”
“Thank you, sir,” she whispered. Swallowing, she looked to Lisbeth. “May we look for something to keep inside it?”
“Of course. Your net is over on the bench, but you must remember to give everyone a chance with it.”
“We’ll have better luck if we move to that clump of trees just there,” the baron indicated.
As a group, the girls swarmed in that direction. Lisbeth wondered at the look he cast after them.
“Interesting, how they interact, isn’t it?” he mused.
“Is it?”
“Similar to the dynamics of a large family, I would think.”
She gazed after them. “A little different, perhaps. They use better manners with friends.” She smiled. “Are you interested in large families, my lord?”
“I’d say most only children are. I find them fascinating myself. Almost like clockwork, how each member interacts with everyone else to make an interesting whole.” He made to follow the girls. “I’ll help,” he called and waggled his brows as he went. “If we turn over enough leaves we might even find a newt.”
A chorus of shrieks, echoes of terror, anticipation and joy, rang out at this pronouncement. Lisbeth followed along, but hung back, wanting the baron to have this moment with Aurelia.
She couldn’t take her eyes off of him as he grubbed about with the girls, admiring their finds, identifying insects and plants and fungi. Even the shyest of the girls dropped their reserve and unabashedly brought their treasures for his inspection.
If she didn’t think he would crawl back in his shell, she’d be tempted to tease him about causing a spectacle. The group of nurses and servants who had hung back from the water’s edge to gossip now drifted over. Lisbeth watched them watch the baron, and her annoyance grew as they exchanged whispers and glances.
At last a shout of triumph rang out as Lord Cotwell stood, a tiny newt scrambling inside his cupped hands. The little creature was proclaimed a darling by all and Aurelia was given the honor of transferring him to his temporary home.
They were all startled at the sudden, close clearing of a masculine throat. Lisbeth started, and as one they all turned to find a very finely dressed gentleman looking on with amusement. The young lady on his arm, however, wore an expression of horror.
“Margaret!” she scolded. “Whatever have you done to yourself? Your dress is smeared with grass and your hands are dirty!”
One of the girls peeled away from the group. “Oh, Carina, do stop,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “It’s just a bit of dirt. We’ve had the most fun.”
The girl’s nurse rushed forward to brush her off. Lisbeth offered her a handkerchief.
“Well, come along, in any case. Mother is in the carriage. You know how she hates to wait.”
“I’m coming.” Young Margaret thanked Aurelia prettily for sharing her fun and prepared to set off with her family.
“I’m sure I don’t know what she’s going to say about your disgraceful appearance.” The young lady swept a censorious glance across the lot of them. She allowed it to linger a little longer on the baron.
Interest or blame? Lisbeth knew she should hope for the first.
Suddenly the other servants were collecting their charges and moving away. Girlish goodbyes and promises rang out. The imperious young lady turned away, beckoning her sister, but the gentleman stopped suddenly.
“I say . . . Sparsebrow? Is that you?”
Lord Cotwell straightened, his expression darkening.
“It is you! God’s teeth, man, it’s been an age!” The gentleman leaned in. “Do you not know me? I’m Ashburn.”
The baron did not appear half so delighted to renew the acquaintance.
Oblivious, the other man continued. “Great Gods, never tell me that you’ve been married long enough for one of these to be yours?” He gestured to the departing tide of girls. “How could I have missed that tidy bit of news?”
Lisbeth sagged a little in relief when the baron unthawed enough to answer. “No.” He gestured toward Aurelia, still absorbed in her newt and bidding her friends a good day. “My ward. Freddy’s daughter.”
Ashburn’s face fell. “Ah. I did hear about that. I’m sorry indeed for your loss. I know you were close.” He brightened and reached back for the frowning young lady leaving his side. “Well, since you are still single, allow me to introduce my sister. She’s out for her first Season this year. Carina, make your nod to Lord Cotwell. He and I were at school together.”
The girl dipped a shallow curtsy and her gaze slid away. Lisbeth’s fists tightened at her rudeness.
“You should have had a look at him his first Season,” Ashburn laughed. “He’d had some sort of fire in his rooms—”
“An explosion,” the baron interrupted.
“Yes, and it singed near half his eyebrows off! An odd-looking thing it was too. We called him Sparsebrow that year. Did we have a few laughs over it, I’ll tell you!”
“More than a few,” Lord Cotwell murmured.
Miss Ashburn’s eyes flew to the baron’s perfectly lovely brows, then visibly traveled over every crease and stain on his person. “Yes, well. So nice to meet you, my lord.”
An artist might have captured her attitude and titled it Polite Dismissal. It set Lisbeth’s teeth to grinding but Lord Cotwell appeared impervious. He wasn’t even looking at the young lady. Instead his gaze had settled on her.
Miss Ashburn turned her head. “Mother awaits, Ashburn.”
The gentleman sighed. “True enough. Come along, Margaret,” he called. He stopped though, before they left. “I say, Cotwell, we’re having a party Friday—out in the gardens along the river. You’ll remember how ridiculous my mother is about her gardens? In any case, you must come! We’ll go over old times and you’ll give me a reason to avoid the match-making mamas.” He laughed. “Perhaps I’ll set them after you, and give myself a respite.” He nodded toward the younger girls. “Mother even has a fancy tea al fresco arranged for the young ones.”
“Yes,” his sister sighed. “The event grows less like a party and more like a village fair every year.”
“Come along, do,” Ashburn urged, “and bring Freddy’s girl.” He beamed down as Aurelia approached. “You’ll like that, won’t you?”
Aurelia bit her lip. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“There! And Margaret will be in alt. It’s settled.”
“I’ve business to see to,” Lord Cotwell interjected. He gave Lisbeth a look. “But Aurelia may go if she wishes. Thank you for the invitation.” He bowed. “Miss Ashburn.”
She nodded. Lisbeth narrowed her eyes after her as they departed.
“You look quite ferocious, Miss Moreton.” Lord Cotwell merely looked . . . inscrutable.
“I feel quite ferocious, my lord.”
“What will he eat?” Aurelia held her specimen box aloft, her focus on the scrabbling reptile now that her friends had all drifted away.
“Insects.” The baron’s gaze never left Lisbeth’s. “Why do you not fill his belly now, and then perhaps he’ll be quiet enough for you to sketch at home.”
Aurelia agreed and skipped off. And suddenly it was Lord Cotwell who looked ferocious. His stare held Lisbeth’s. Something gathered in the air and silence between them.
“Come now, Miss Moreton. What’s stirred you up?”
His voice sounded different. Something lurked beneath the usual rough texture. He took a step nearer and she was unable to keep from taking one back—she needed to maintain her distance if she was going to say all that needed said.
She raised her chin. “I’m thinking of contrasts, my lord. And lost opportunities.”
His brow arched. “How interesting. I was contemplating those very things myself.”
“The difference between your manner with the children and with that young woman was astounding. With the girls you were natural and warm. Yet when you spoke with Miss Ashburn you were stiff and foreboding.”
He gave a derisive snort. “She looked at me like I was a pugilist looking to challenge someone to a prize fight. I swear, she examined my hands, searching for bloodied knuckles.” He lifted a shoulder, a move eloquent in its dismissal. “Sparsebrow,” he murmured. “I’d forgotten that.” He flicked his fingers. “But that’s the ton for you. They have no more use for me than I have for them.”
“But you might have made a joke of it. You could have set her at ease. She might have warmed to you.” She blew out a breath. “Your cook is a bigger tyrant than Napoleon, yet I’ve seen you charm her. You might have used some of that on the young lady.”
“Why?” His brows lowered, as if he genuinely could not see her point.
“So that she might look favorably on you? At that garden party you could engage her again, take her for a walk or for a row on the river.”
“To what end?”
Giving up on distance, she stepped closer. Perhaps that would do the trick, allow her to drive her point home. “To give someone the chance to get to know you!” She softened her tone. “You’ve so much to give. You need only to let someone close enough to see it.”
His smile shone gently down over her. “You are very kind to be concerned.” A breeze swept by, unsettling the leaves in the little grove and brushing the dark lock of hair that had once again fallen over his brow. At her side, her fingers twitched. “But I forget that you are so young.”
She raised her chin. “Age is irrelevant to the conversation.”
“Not really. All of this,” he waved toward the departing Ashburns, “feels vitally important when you are young, I know.”
“I don’t think it’s important because I’m young, sir. I think it’s important because it is. It isn’t a good thing to withdraw from the world. Not for Aurelia, and not for you.”
“Something else you’ll learn with age, Miss Moreton, is that it does no good to rail against what cannot be changed. I’ve been out in Society, it did not go well.”
“Perhaps you need to try again.”
“Do you find me so pudding-hearted? I never did give up easily and didn’t on this. When things did not go my way in Town, I retired to our estate. I thought I might do better with country society. At one of the local assemblies, I overheard two young ladies discussing me. One wished to pursue me so she could marry without having to endure a London Season. The other scoffed and stated she would categorically avoid me—His Dullness, I believe she called me—because she was afraid her father would stumble upon the same idea and she would miss her Season.”
He hardened his gaze. “You’ll have to trust my greater experience in this matter, Miss Moreton, and believe me when I tell you that there is no point in trying to make up to Miss Ashburn, or any other girl like her. My eyebrows have grown back, but nothing else has changed. My clothes are still in constant disarray. My hands are still stained and scorched. My head is filled with equations of force and mass instead of the latest on dit. My interests revolve around mechanics, lifts and clockwork rather than racing, wenching and gaming.” He shook his head. “The ton and I have already been acquainted. We parted ways to our mutual satisfaction.”
He’d drawn nearer. She shifted nervously. Perhaps he had a point to drive home too. She felt suddenly, vibrantly aware of the dappled shade cooling the hot flush of her skin and the sun burnishing his broad form with light. It made him appear even larger and more intimidating. But she was listening again, hearing all the things he didn’t say. She summoned strength and spoke the truth. “You use all of that to push them away.”
“It’s easier that way.”
Her heart skipped.
“And while we’re discussing contrasts, let me share with you the very large one that I noted during that exchange.”
She had the sudden, certain feeling that this was not a topic to which she’d wish to listen.
Edmund stared.
Her dress was fawn colored today, high-necked, long-sleeved and form fitting. In it, she nearly disappeared into the shaded grove. Only her eyes shone, whites wide and vivid next to sky-blue pupils lined in midnight. He stepped into the shade with her and it was like they’d disappeared into a different world. Beyond the line of trees lay light and reality. Somewhere nearby he could hear Aurelia crooning to her new pet. But here . . . there existed only sizzle in the soft air, tension stretching between them—and her.
“Miss Ashburn has all the advantages of birth and wealth. She’s well-spoken and well-educated.” He cocked his head. “Yet so are you.”
She shook her head but he continued, relentless. “She is likely to be a darling of the beau monde. She possesses the right family, the right clothes, the right air of sophisticated ennui. Yet that girl and her ilk, none of them hold a candle to you, Miss Moreton. I cannot imagine her acting as champion for an orphaned girl she’s just met. She could never work alongside my high-in-the-instep servants and win their hearts at the same time. She would never walk into my filthy laboratory and see a birthplace instead of a mess.”
“Please,” she whispered.
He held his place, not wanting to frighten her, yet holding her captive with the force of his gaze. “Those girls do not have your grace or generosity. They don’t come within a mile of having your spirit. You, a girl acting as a servant in my home, are the lady that she is not. Your good birth has been apparent since we met and has shone through more every day since. I want to know. It’s time you explained. Who are you? What were you doing alone in the British Museum with your portmanteau?”
She held utterly still, tense and on the verge of bolting. He cursed himself for pushing too hard—but then she relaxed. Looking away, she answered.
“Running,” she said.
“From what?”
“Marriage.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yet you just felt comfortable enough pushing me in that direction.” Was every female born with that compulsion?
“It’s not the same!” she protested. “You can choose anyone you like. Miss Ashburn might be unpleasant, but surely there are worthy women in Society.”
“There are no women like you.” Words unbidden, yet no less true.
But she didn’t take it as the compliment he intended. Bitterness tinged her short laugh. “Yes, so I have repeatedly heard.” She whirled away. “And it’s not true! I might have been out last year or this. I might have been in Society. You might have been introduced to me here, during the fashionable hour, or perhaps even at tomorrow’s garden party.”
The thought arrested him. He imagined her smiling, dancing, chatting. He pictured her in a soft, filmy gown, her hair elaborate and soft arms and rich décolletage exposed to his eye—and that of every other useless ton dandy’s too. His blood, already simmering, surged to a sudden, insistent flood, even as his mind protested.
“Tell me,” he insisted.
She let her head rest against the rough bark of a tree.
“Cattle,” she said.
She’d managed to surprise him. “What?”
“Cattle. Do you remember when you wondered why I did not take Aurelia to Green Park? It’s because the guidebooks say they keep milk cows there. And right now, I find them to be a distasteful reminder.”
“Of what?” he asked, mystified.
“Of my misery.” She sighed. “Let me tell it properly, if you please.”
“I do.” He waved. “Please.”
“Two years ago, I was nearly eighteen and looking forward to my first Season, when my father died.”
“I’m sorry.” He waited a moment before prompting, “His heir?”
“My brother, William. Willie. He was five at the time.”
“Ah.” All of their conversations rolled through his head. “So you took on . . . what? Everything?”
“I already ran the household in my mother’s stead. I took over the home farm and the stables. We hired a land agent to help with the tenants and the rest of the acreage.”
“That explains much. Except perhaps why you did not come out last spring?”
“My father was a gentleman, a landowner, but my mother is the fourth daughter of Viscount Brandt. Some called it a misalliance, said she married down. But he was rich and she was pretty. It was a love match. My mother is silly and vain, but she loved my father and he her. She adored the way he pampered and cosseted her.” She swallowed. “When he died, she was just . . . lost. As if she didn’t know who she was without his arm to decorate, his parties to plan, his compliments to accept as her due.”
Edmund began to understand. “Until someone else began to compliment her?”
She threw her head back. It did lovely things to her profile, etched as it was against the brighter backdrop of the open park ground. She was all dark, delicious curves against the light.
“A local gentleman. Plans for my come-out were changed to wedding plans. They were married just a few weeks after her official mourning ended.” She sighed. “The land agent was let go—and my help was no longer needed.”
He could imagine that it did not go over easily. “He didn’t know what he was up against.”
Her mouth twitched. “We did butt heads a few times.” She glanced over. “But he was so often wrong!”
He laughed. “I’m sure he was.” Sobering, he asked the pertinent question. “And this year? What happened?” It must have been something momentous for her to have left home alone.
“My stepfather decided that there was no reason to spend money on a Season for me—a girl so unnaturally tall, with strange looks and an odd kick to her gallop. I’d had hold of the reins too long, no ton beau was going to want a headstrong girl like me. He thought it far better to wait and spend the blunt on my younger sister. Celia, in his opinion, is prettier and more biddable. A better investment.”
He’d like to meet the man. Perhaps sometime when he had a whip to hand. The thought triggered another. “But the cows? Where do they come in?”
“He didn’t want to go to the expense of bringing me out, but neither did he want to keep me around. He’d turned out the sheep in favor of a fine herd of longhorn cattle—and he figured he would trade my hand for the local squire’s prized heifer.”
A whipping was too good for the man.
“My mother argued. A little. But she allowed herself to be convinced.” She sent a pleading look his way. “I had to go.” Her head ducked away again. “I had a friend, a gentleman in the ton. He’d been sent down to rusticate at the estate next door for some months. We grew close.” She hastened to explain. “He was a friend, not a suitor. Not really.”
Edmund reached out to touch her hand. “Then he was a fool.”
She drew in a quavering breath. “I wrote him and asked for help.”
“He was to meet you at the museum.” He said it flatly, but a riot of emotion whirled in his gut. Anger at her family, at her faithless friend. Wonder that she’d endured all of that and still managed to come into his home and give of herself to Aurelia, and all the rest of them too. And a deep, irresistible urge to comfort her, to show her all the shining qualities that he found in her.
She nodded miserably. “He said he would take me to his mother’s house. That they would support me in my refusal to go along with the betrothal. But it would seem that my stepfather was right all along—no gentleman is interested in a headstrong, willful girl.”
They ought to be shot, the pair of them. Criminal, what two men had so casually done to a sensitive, determined, giving girl. Useful, not ornamental, she’d said. She’d given her all and had it devalued. She’d asked for help and been abandoned. Now she believed herself to be less than the beautiful, generous, amazing creature she truly was.
“Your stepfather was not right.” He slid his touch around to find the delicate skin at her wrist. “Both of those men are proud, blind fools.” His finger traveled, trailing up soft fabric of her sleeve until he reached the fair, silky skin of her nape. He allowed it to rest there, feeling the swift patter of her pulse, watching the breath move quickly through her parted lips. “And you—you are a treasure.”
Again, she held so still that he feared she was about to pull away. She kept her eyes downcast. The shadows were thickening now, beneath the trees.
He’d kept himself quiet and dark, like this spot, for so long. Channeled all of his energy and passion into the one bright spot of his mechanical work. No longer. Miss Moreteon—Lisbeth—was working on him, like the sun and the inevitable turn of the earth worked on frozen winter ground. Blood surged in him with the force of a river in flood. His temperature hiked high enough to heat the vicinity, to curl the leaves on the trees. God knows he’d fought, but she was dragging him forcibly, violently back to life.
He broke, sliding his hand around to cup her nape. Easing down, he erased the distance between them and captured her mouth with his.
She made a noise. Neither protest nor surrender. Perhaps just at last. That’s what he felt as his lips moved over the wonder of her mouth.
She gave way beneath him, pulling him in, calling him closer. He followed and one of her hands crept upward, taking its time, drifting higher until it reached his shoulder and spread wide. Her other hand tucked into his waist. Ah, but her mouth? Her mouth opened wide, tempting, beckoning him with velvet softness.
He answered, sliding deep to taste her, claim her. Damn the other men in her life for fools, but Edmund was neither blind nor stupid. He tugged her against him, branding her with his body and his deepening kiss. She sighed, melted against him with a breathless sigh—but she gave him more than surrender. She kissed him back with growing confidence—and the world shifted. This. This was what he’d been waiting for. His question, her answer, the perfect fit of her against him—it was a gift. With a pounding heart, he accepted it.
“Miss Moreton?” Aurelia’s call came from beyond the trees. “Sir?”
He pulled away, stared down into Lisbeth’s bemused face. His hands, his body, they had not yet caught on to the interruption. He held her tight still, pressed all along her curve and sway, reluctant to let go.
She made a soft sound, of pleasure and regret. Began to move away. He fought not to snatch her back. So long. So long since he had allowed himself to want. Now, like a river trapped behind a dam, want and need grew deeper, climbed higher, threatened to spill over.
“Miss Moreton?” The first, shrill note of panic sounded in Aurelia’s voice.
Lisbeth reached out. She let her hand rest for a moment on his chest, over his heart. Surely she felt the wild beating of it against her fingers. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Moving away, she called for Aurelia and stepped back into the light.