Madeline held his gaze, and slowly, pointedly, raised her brows.
Under her steady regard, Courtland shifted, then an unbecoming shade of florid pink rose from beneath his neck-cloth and spread upward.
Releasing him, she turned to see how Gervase was faring.
He was, she discovered, giving an excellent imitation of a stone wall. Certainly Lady Hardesty’s entreaties and enticements had made no impression whatever; he looked arrogantly, superiorly, unmoved.
Good manners forbade him from cutting her ladyship, but now that Madeline had ended her conversation, he glanced her way, then turned back to Lady Hardesty and with cool civility informed her, “I fear we must get on. We have quite a ride before us.” He reached for Madeline.
As his fingers closed about her elbow, Madeline saw the flash of annoyance that passed through Lady Hardesty’s dark eyes. She wasn’t used to being denied.
But she was too wise to press.
With an inclination of her head that she endeavored to make gracious, her ladyship sat back. Her gaze shifted to Madeline; somewhat to her surprise Madeline detected nothing more than residual annoyance in that look.
It was transparently clear her ladyship saw her as no threat, no rival; she’d dismissed her as a woman—or rather as too inconsequential a female to have any chance of attaching Gervase.
That look was so unmaliciously dismissive, so purely a statement of her ladyship’s experienced evaluation and nothing more, Madeline was taken aback. But habit stood her in good stead; she parroted the right phrases as she and Gervase took their leave of the party, then he drew her back from the pavement’s edge.
Lady Hardesty leaned forward to speak to her coachman, then looked back at Gervase. “Until later, my lord.”
Her dark eyes holding his, she sat back, then the carriage jerked forward; raising and unfurling her parasol, she looked ahead.
They stood and watched the carriage clatter away.
Madeline glanced at Gervase and found his eyes narrowed on the retreating parasol. She hesitated, then unable to help herself asked, “What’s your verdict?”
He glanced briefly at her, then back at the carriage disappearing up the street. “My sisters,” he said, urging her on, “were right. Robert Hardesty has made a very big mistake.”
Gervase insisted on escorting her all the way back to Treleaver Park. The afternoon was waning by the time they clattered into the stable yard. Grooms came running. Madeline dismounted, gracefully sliding to the ground; she turned—only to discover Gervase beside her.
“Come.” He waved ahead. “I’ll walk you to the
house before I ride home.”
She acquiesced with a nod. Side by side, they strode out of the yard, then by mutual accord slowed to a stroll. The path to the house cut through the gardens, a pleasant, wending walk in the golden light of the fading day.
From the cliffs, out of sight to their right, the surf boomed like distant cannon fire dulled by the thick canopies of the intervening trees. The tang of the sea didn’t reach this far; as they followed the path, the scents of lavender, roses and freshly clipped grass mingled and swirled around them.
They walked in silence; they’d exchanged few words, all purely commonplace, since parting from Lady Hardesty. But there was little to discuss; while trawling through the taverns searching for their quarry, they’d grasped the opportunity to spread their view of the current prospects for the local tin mines. Beyond that, until they located the elusive agent or he presented himself to Gervase, there was nothing more they could do.
As for Lady Hardesty…
Madeline halted beneath the arbor giving on to the formal rose garden. Beyond the roses lay the house, its red brick walls washed by the westering sun, the leaded windows glinting.
The gardeners had finished for the day, their tools tidied away; there was no one about, not a soul in sight. She stood silent beneath the arbor, supremely conscious of the large male who’d prowled the long path in her wake to come to a halt behind her.
Was Lady Hardesty right, or wrong?
Until recently the question wouldn’t have bothered her, would have occurred to her only to be derisively dismissed.
Until recently she’d had no interest in attracting any man—and, if truth be known, no real belief in her ability to do so, not once they got to know her.
She was who she was—nearly six feet of twenty-nine-year-old spinster with an uncompromising attitude and a purpose in life that to her mind precluded any dalliance.
She hadn’t, until today, felt any less of a woman for that.
Her senses flickered as Gervase stepped closer, and she felt the heat of him against her back. Her lungs tightened; her breathing grew shallow as he shifted, raising one hand to gently, evocatively caress the side of her throat.