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‘I hadn’t thought it would be so hard to just stand upright,’ she said. ‘How do you manage to make it look so effortless?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve skated a few times before. But I had my share of falls the first time I tried it, I can tell you. If you have any sense of balance, you’ll get the hang of it in no time.’
Mary made a tentative effort to let go of his arm. Each of her legs promptly attempted to go in opposite directions. How vexing. It was only by clinging to Lord Havelock that she could even manage to stay upright.
‘Perhaps you will fare better once we get going,’ he suggested. And then, without waiting for her agreement, made a move that somehow set them both gliding away from the shore.
‘See? That’s better, is it not?’
‘Not,’ she gasped, clinging to his arm for dear life. She had no control over the situation at all. Whenever she attempted to wrest it back, her feet went skittering off all over the place, resulting in her having to clutch at him with increasing desperation.
Though neither Lotty nor Dotty looked any more accomplished. They were both clinging to Mr Morgan with what looked like the same desperation she felt, though being far more vocal about their slips, shrieking and laughing with an abandon that she almost envied.
‘Oh! Oh, dear,’ she gasped as, once again, her outside leg shot off on a course she hadn’t expected.
‘This will never do,’ said Lord Havelock. ‘You’ll fare a lot better if you let me put my arm round your waist, see, like this.’
He did so, tucking her into his side, and then pushing off with the leg that was nearest her own. She felt the power of it propelling them forward as he reached across her front and took hold of her other hand.
‘My lord, I’m not at all sure this is quite proper,’ she squeaked in something very close to panic.
‘It’s only like a sort of dance hold.’
That was true. But in a dance they’d only be as close as this for a moment or two, whilst turning into a new figure. Not plastered to each other from hip to shoulder for as long as he chose to keep them like that.
‘Please,’ she begged him. ‘This is making me feel...’ warm. Yearning. Excited ‘...most uncomfortable.’
He glanced down at her. She was sure her cheeks must be bright red.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, with a sigh of what sounded like regret. ‘I did not mean... That is, I do not want you to feel I’m taking advantage. Let me just steer us both across to the side, there, and you can catch hold of that tree and see if you can manage to stand up on your own, now you’ve had a bit of a go.’
‘Thank you,’ she managed to say, since it was the polite response to the gentlemanly way he’d reacted to her protest. But it wasn’t easy to thank him for finding it so easy to let go of her. It meant he wasn’t all that keen on having her hang on to his arm. Though why she should find that so disappointing she couldn’t think. What on earth was the matter with her?
‘Thank you,’ she gasped, again, when he’d delivered her to the promised tree, untangled their arms and helped her to get a good hold on a low branch. ‘Oh, dear, this is most awkward.’ Her legs were shaking so much, she felt sure he must be able to see it. She glanced his way, expecting to encounter a look of masculine scorn, only to find that he’d taken up the kind of stance she’d seen fielders take on a cricket pitch. As though he was braced to catch...her. Should she fall.
He had very strong, very capable hands. She’d thought so the day before, when he’d had hold of the little boy.
‘How did he go on? The little boy you took home with you yesterday?’
He blinked.
‘It was very good of you to offer him work, instead of letting Mr—’ She broke off as the branch she’d been holding showed signs of giving way. With a wobble, and a lunge, she got hold of another one.
‘I couldn’t bear to think of him being thrown in prison. It’s been on my mind all night. I’m glad,’ she said, lifting her chin, ‘that we are a little apart from the others so I can ask you about it.’
He didn’t reply straight away. In fact, he looked a touch...uncomfortable.
‘You don’t mind me asking you about him, do you?’ Oh, dear. Perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything. But it felt so very strange being alone with him like this, under the shelter of the tree. Not that they were alone, exactly. There were dozens of other people whizzing about on the ice. Yet there was a certain intimacy about the way there was nobody else within hearing distance. An intimacy that she’d instinctively tried to dispel.
‘First of all,’ he said, squaring his shoulders, ‘I have to confess that I didn’t exactly take him home. I live in a cosy little set of rooms, y’see, which are too small to take in stray boys. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to do with a lad like that. And nor would my valet.’
‘Oh, never say you abandoned him?’
‘Absolutely not!’
He looked so affronted she immediately wanted to beg his pardon. But before she could do so, he went on, ‘I have another property in town. Durant House. Huge great barn of a place. I took him there.’
‘Then why...?’
‘If you must know, I feel a bit of a fraud accepting any praise for my actions when the task of reforming the wretch will fall to the staff of Durant House. I really did very little.’
‘Oh.’
‘Please don’t be too disappointed in me.’
Her gaze flew to his face. The words were apologetic, but his tone was confrontational.
‘I could have made up some tale that would have made you look at me the way you did yesterday,’ he pointed out a touch belligerently. ‘As though I were some kind of hero. Instead I’ve chosen to tell you the truth. Because I never want there to be any misunderstanding between us.’
Well, how was she supposed to respond to that? Given the choice, she would have mumbled something vapid and moved away. But she couldn’t go anywhere. All she could do was cling to the tree, study his boots and tell herself he couldn’t possibly be implying he was planning to prolong their acquaintance.
And yet, the way he kept looking at her...
‘And while we’re about it, I have something else to confess, too. I deliberately got you alone, so that I could talk to you freely. For I have something I particularly wanted to ask you.’
‘Oh?’ She winced. How many times had she said that this afternoon? He must be starting to think she was a complete ninny.
‘Yes. You said something about not being in London long and having plans. I know you do not want your cousins to know about these plans. But perhaps you might feel you could confide in me?’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘I may be able to help you.’
‘I doubt that very much.’
‘You won’t know unless you tell me.’
‘Why would you even want to help me? I am a complete stranger to you.’
‘And yet something about you calls to me,’ he said, giving her a look that was unlike anything she’d ever seen in a man’s eyes before.
‘You do not appear to have anyone to help you. You need...a friend.’
Suddenly everything fell into place with sickening disappointment. She couldn’t bear to think Lord Havelock was the kind of man who preyed on defenceless females. When he’d taken that robber boy under his wing, she even started to think that...to think that...
Oh, how could she have been so naïve?
‘I do not want the kind of friendship you are offering me,’ she snapped. ‘Poor I may be, but I would never, ever...’
His brows snapped down. ‘Nor would I, ever, make a gently bred girl the kind of offer you seem to think I’m about to make. What kind of man do you think I am?’
She flushed. Felt her insides skid about as much as when she’d tried to walk a straight path on the ice. ‘I...I don’t know what kind of man you are, that’s just the point. I just cannot see why you should concern yourself over someone like me. I’m nobody. And it’s not as if I’m even pretty. And you’re so handsome and dashing you could have any girl you want at the snap of your fingers.’
In mortification, her hand flew to her mouth, though it was too late to stop the words that had tumbled out.
And letting go of the branch proved to be as reckless as speaking her mind. For her left leg promptly shot off to the right while her right leg went straight forward. She had no choice but to grab hold of the front of Lord Havelock’s coat, which had the effect of spinning them both right round, then landing her flush up against the tree trunk, with her wedged between it and the solid bulk of his body.
‘So. You think I’m so handsome I could have any girl I wanted, do you?’
‘I didn’t mean it!’ She uncurled her fingers and gave his coat a firm shove. It only had the effect of propelling her harder against the tree. ‘At least,’ her honesty compelled her to admit, ‘I didn’t mean to say it out loud.’
‘But you did say it,’ he replied with a grin, closing the small gap she’d opened up between them. ‘Which gives me hope. I was beginning to think I’d never break through your defences.’
‘B-break through my defences? Why would you want to do that? And as for saying never...why, we only met a handful of days ago.’
‘And yet the attraction was instant. And powerful. You feel it, too. Though you are trying to resist it.’
She hadn’t thought it possible to feel more embarrassed, but hearing him lay her innermost soul bare in that way, when she hadn’t even worked it all out for herself, was utterly mortifying.
‘You don’t need to resist it, Miss Carpenter. For I want you, too. Very much. And just so there is no misunderstanding about it, I mean, as my wife.’
It was just as well she was wedged between the tree, and his body, because the shock of hearing him propose took all the strength from her legs.
‘Your wife? But you cannot!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we know nothing about each other.’
‘We know enough,’ he said, giving her another one of those melting looks. She was suddenly very aware of how close they were. And how their breath, rising on the air in two plumes of white vapour, mingled and merged not very far up into one cloud.
‘Let me prove it to you.’
He began to lower his head. Her breath hitched in her throat. He was going to attempt to kiss her. And there was no way to escape. If he let go of her, she would fall over.
That was the moment she realised he wasn’t actually holding her. No, she was the one who was clinging to him, or at least, to his coat. But it was only so that she wouldn’t fall over. Not because...
Not because...
And anyway, if she really, really didn’t want him to kiss her, all she would have to do was turn her head away and his lips would land relatively harmlessly on her cheek.
But she couldn’t move her head. She stayed frozen in place while his mouth came closer and closer to hers. Until his lips touched hers. Pressed, and caressed, and coaxed her own apart. And then their breath was mingling not five feet up in the air, but in her very mouth. And the swirling sensation went right down through her stomach, getting hotter, and hotter, until she wondered that the ice beneath their feet did not melt and suck them down into a vortex that would drown them both.
She’d never felt anything like it in her life. So powerfully all-consuming. So compelling that she didn’t care if carrying on experiencing it did melt the ice and she drowned.
With a whimper, she pressed up against him and slid her arms round his waist. His own went round hers, so that she was no longer the one clinging to him, but they were clinging to each other.
‘So,’ he breathed, ending the most wonderful encounter she’d ever had in her life, ‘you will marry me, then?’
‘What?’ Hearing him persist in talking of marriage felt like plunging right through the ice into the black void beneath. ‘No!’
She tried to pull out of his arms, skidded and had no choice but to grab hold of him again.
‘What do you mean no?’ He frowned down at her. ‘You enjoyed that kiss as much as I did.’
‘That is not the point.’
‘Then what is the point? What can you possibly want from life, if you can turn up your nose at a proposal from a dashing, handsome, and I’ll have you know, solvent peer of the realm? Who could have any other woman for the snapping of my fingers?’
She sucked in a short, shocked breath. How cruel of him to fling her very own words back in her face.
And his face was hard now, harder than she’d ever seen it. Gone was the mask of affability he’d worn when he’d been trying to win her round. Gone the charming smile and the warmth in his eyes. It had been replaced by something with which she was far more familiar.
Cold, hard anger.
Oh, but it was just as well she’d seen this side of him, before it was too late. Before she’d forgotten just how miserable her father had made her mother, within the cage that their marriage had become. She would never, ever, let a man bully her and break her down. Nor coerce her with...with deceitfully delightful kisses!
This time when she tried to break from his hold, he let her go. As though he’d recognised the determination in her eyes and realised it was over.
‘The only sort of man I would even consider marrying,’ she retorted, ‘not that I have any intention of doing anything so stupid, would be...would be...a sailor!’
‘A what?’
‘You heard me. A sailor.’
‘Why the deuce would you prefer a sailor to me?’
‘Because a sailor,’ she snapped, almost beside herself with fury at the way she was having to hang on to a tree merely to maintain her upright position, while he was standing there, hands on his hips, looking down his nose at her with the kind of disdain only an aristocrat could ever muster, ‘would hand over his money, and go off to sea for months, perhaps even years, and leave me in peace to live exactly as I wished!’
There. That had done it. He’d stalk away now—or rather skate away—without a backward glance. And never deign to so much as recognise her if he saw her in the street.
But to her astonishment, he did no such thing. On the contrary, the anger that had seemed to consume him vanished as he flung back his head and burst out laughing.
‘You are perfect,’ he cried, taking hold of her by the elbows and restoring her to a more upright stance. ‘Absolutely perfect. You no more want to get married than I do!’
‘But...if you don’t want to get married, then why...?’
‘Look, there are reasons why I need to have a wife. Which I won’t go into just yet. But I am definitely willing to hand over a deal of my money, and leave you alone, if that’s what you want. We can live virtually separate lives, if, after an initial period, you find you really can’t stand the sight of me. I shan’t cut up rough. You’ll still have a generous allowance.’
‘An allowance?’ She couldn’t quite get her breath. She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand....’
‘Come, Miss Carpenter, I can see you are tempted, if not by my kisses, then at least by my money.’
‘That sounds... You’re making me sound horrible. Mercenary....’
‘Then what can I offer you, that would make you agree to take my hand? Name it. Whatever it is you’ve always craved, and feared you could never have, I will give it to you.’
‘You can’t want to marry me that much....’
