The team came to a plunging halt, dust and gravel spurting around their hooves. Will brought them under control one-handed. ‘You have no idea of my feelings,’ he said, his gaze still fixed over the heads of the leaders. ‘None at all.’
‘I see what you allow me to see.’ She was not going to let him put her in the wrong over this. ‘What you allow the world to see. Even when you were speaking of marrying me it was clear you would reveal nothing of yourself, that you want your wife to see no more than the mask you wear for the world.’
They were still in the shadow of the grove, the only signs of life nearby the diminishing figures of Will’s companions cantering away and the trudging figure of Lord Sedgley making for the Uxbridge Road gate. Will jumped down from the high perch, led the horses into the trees and tethered the leaders to a low oak bough.
‘Come down.’ He held up his hands to her.
‘Why?’ If Will was going to shout at her, or lecture her, he could do it while he was driving and could not focus all his attention on her.
‘Because I wish to discuss feelings.’ His voice dropped to a growl. ‘Demonstrate feelings.’
She leaned down, put her hands on his shoulders and closed her eyes as he took her by the waist. He felt so strong, so steady and, despite her skittering pulse, she felt so very safe. He would not drop her.
That safety proved to be a delusion, because Will lifted her from the seat, but not to the ground. Instead he swung her into his arms and strode into the cover of the trees where one, falling, had opened up a tiny clearing and the park keepers had set a rustic bench.
He sat, with her on his knee. Verity wriggled, pushed at his chest.
‘Are you afraid of me?’ He was no longer holding her, she realised.
‘No.’ She heard the hesitation in her own voice. ‘No, of course not.’
‘But you want to be free?’
‘Here, now?’ A moment ago the answer would have been yes. She had wanted a safe distance of six feet or so. ‘No.’
‘Good.’ Will’s arms came around her again.
‘But I should. There is no butler to bring us to our senses here.’
‘True. But I am not an exhibitionist by design, Verity. I have no desire to be caught in a passionate embrace by a barouche full of dowagers, believe me.’ He put his hat on the bench and began to nuzzle her neck above the high collar of her pelisse.
‘What do you call that?’ she demanded, twisting a little to give him better access.
‘If I hear carriage wheels or hoofbeats,’ Will said, his voice somewhat muffled, ‘you will be sitting demurely next to me in seconds.’
‘Will!’ It was difficult, but a firm hand on his chest made him stop. ‘That is not proper behaviour for a perfect duke and you know it.’
‘No,’ he agreed and set her on the seat although there was no sign of anyone approaching their copse. ‘I desire you and that is something I find hard to resist. I like you. I would like to be your friend. I want to protect you. That is why I came to London. Those are feelings—desire and liking and protectiveness.’
Verity swallowed. ‘Unmarried ladies are not supposed to be friends with gentlemen.’
‘And there I was thinking that the unconventional Miss Wingate does not care about society’s strictures on what she should, or should not, be doing.’
‘And I thought you cared too much about how the perfect Duke should or should not behave,’ she shot back.
‘Perhaps we were both wrong,’ he said lightly, lifting her hand and beginning to play with the tassels on the cuffs of her gloves. ‘Perhaps you are more conventional and I am more of a rebel than we believed.’
‘Friends, then,’ she said. ‘But friends do not kiss like we have been kissing.’
Chapter Eighteen
‘No,’ Will agreed, his face still hidden as he untangled the dangling leather glove-trim that had been knotted by her fall. ‘Friends do not kiss like that.’
‘Perhaps that is why unmarried men and women are rarely friends,’ Verity pointed out. ‘Married couples often are, I have observed. Those in happy marriages.’
Will made a sound suspiciously like a grunt. ‘I have good friends already, male friends. I know what we talk about—and it is not feelings. I know what we rely upon each other for: loyalty, support, to have each other’s backs in a fight. What does a woman look for in her friends?’
‘Loyalty, listening, sharing, talking about feelings.’ Will looked up and grimaced and she laughed at him, just a little. ‘I rely on my friends to tell me if a bonnet I passionately desire makes me look a fright and to lend me their last pair of silk stockings because I have been invited to a very special ball. I rely on them to listen and sympathise when I am breaking my heart over some ridiculous man, or I have just been snubbed by an antiquarian who thinks that ladies are only fit to write out labels for his collection of stone arrowheads, not venture an opinion about their origins. I rely on them for comfortable gossip, for bracing lectures when I am feeling sorry for myself, for laughter and shared happiness.’