‘Yes?’ No encouragement there, all her barriers were up again.
Lord, but she was the most provoking female.
‘Nothing.’
Very smooth, Will. Very sophisticated conversation. Well up to standard of a bashful youth confronting the object of his first half-innocent love, in fact. He had lied when Verity had asked him whether he had ever had an attack of adolescent calf-love. There had been the Squire’s daughter in the next parish. She had been eighteen, just out, lovely with all the feminine assurance that left adolescent males floundering like landed fish in her wake. He had been sixteen, uncertain about what he was feeling except that it had been overwhelming. In retrospect she had been much kinder than he had deserved.
Since then Will had become confident he knew what he was about in the bedchamber. But those other emotions, that breathless sense of anticipation, that intensity of focus whenever the beloved object was near—that was something he had never thought to feel again.
Until now.
He stopped breathing. The sounds of the park, the birdsong, the distant voices, the crunch of stone under wheel and hoof all vanished. Then, within a second it came back and he was breathing normally and his hand was steady on the reins and the woman beside him showed no sign that he had said or done anything out of the normal. Certainly not that he had said, I love you.
He was in love with Verity Wingate, the one unmarried woman in England who did not want to catch a duke. Verity, who wanted her freedom of thought and action. Verity, who expected him to conspire with her to give other unmarried women theirs. Miss Wingate, the argumentative antiquarian who handled human skulls without a single maidenly quiver of distaste.
Verity Wingate, who was sympathetic and bracingly kind about his childhood, whose kisses inflamed him, who turned to supple fire in his arms. Who would face ruin rather than marry him.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Are you still convinced you did the right thing in refusing to marry me?’ Will asked. Incredibly, his voice was quite steady. ‘The reception you have received in London has not changed your mind?’
‘It has been far better than I dared hope,’ Verity said. If she was surprised by the change of subject, she did not show it. ‘The Queen’s acceptance has been a great help, of course. There have been some snubs, some cuts, but not too many. There is a Drawing Room at St James’s Palace in a week’s time. My aunt is certain I will receive a card for it and then even the stuffiest matron should decide that it is all a storm in a teacup.’
So, she had not heard about the whispers in the clubs that he had got her with child. Or, alternatively, that she had humiliated him, thrown him in the lake and he was plotting his subtle revenge on her. Some gossip had her as a clever, heartless wanton, others as a frigid prude. He could only pray she did not hear before it died down and a new scandal became the talk of the town. If he could put a name to the whisperers or if he found a wager in the betting books, then he would be issuing challenges.
‘And your decision?’ he pressed, his voice neutral as though this only concerned him as a matter of right or wrong.
‘Of course it was the right thing. How can you doubt it? My goodness, can you imagine the two of us married?’
Yes, I can.
There was a strained edge to her laughter, he had obviously embarrassed her by raising the subject.
‘Friends, then,’ Will said. He turned the horses on the track towards the Stanhope Gate and willed his rebellious body, stirring at the thought of Verity’s embrace, into submission. He had been trained to hide his emotions. Now, for the first time, that restraint was going to be tested to the utmost.
* * *
‘Whatever have you done to your walking dress? Thank goodness it is not one of your new ones.’ Her aunt had followed her into her bedchamber to hear all about the drive.
‘Are these grass stains, Miss Wingate?’ The maid stood ready, clothes brush poised. ‘Only I had best take it now and sponge them before they set, if they are.’
‘Yes, I fell from the phaeton,’ Verity said. ‘The horses pecked, I was off balance. You know what those high-perch phaetons are like. There is absolutely nothing to worry about, Aunt. I landed on the grass, as you can see.’
The maid helped her out of the dress and into a wrapper and hurried off to work whatever magic happened to stains below stairs.
‘You are not hurt?’ Aunt Caroline asked, tugging at the bell-pull. ‘Tea and sal volatile, I think. Now, should we send for Dr Tancroft? What Lord Sedgley was thinking of, I cannot imagine. It is definitely the last time you go driving with him. He might at least have escorted you in to make his apologies for his bad driving.’
‘No need for the doctor. I am just a little bruised and sore.’ Verity sat down with a wince. ‘And Lord Sedgley did not bring me home. The Duke did.’ There would be no hiding it, the footman and the butler had both seen him.
‘Aylsham? But what was he doing there? Oh, there you are, Wethering. Tea, if you please, and ask my woman to bring sal volatile and something for bruises.’
‘The Duke was riding in the park with friends. He saw the accident and, um, was displeased with Lord Sedgley for not driving carefully enough. He suggested that it would be better if he drove me here himself in the Viscount’s carriage.’
‘And Sedgley?’
‘He walked home.’
Her aunt blinked once. ‘Verity, am I to understand that Aylsham struck Sedgley?’