A Fine Passion (Bastion Club 4)

“Precisely.” Her eyes flashed; her tone was clipped.

He smiled easily, his expression one she could read as mild amusement if she wished; beneath, he was congratulating himself on having teased from her the answer to his most important question. “You’ll have to excuse them—they’re only men.”

Her soft snort was eloquent. His smile deepened.

So she had no current suitor, nor any wish to have one, and if he was any judge, she wasn’t enamored of gentlemen in general, at least not those who vied for her hand. Given her history, he wasn’t surprised. No lady of her ilk, well connected, wealthy, and attractive to boot, reached the age of twenty-nine unwed, not just on the shelf but dusty, without having made some definite decisions regarding matrimony. But he’d wanted to be sure, and now he was.

However, while she might have turned her back on matrimony, that didn’t mean she didn’t have some lover in the area, some gentleman who saw her as he did, and came riding over every few days to meet with her.

He slanted her a glance, recalled how she’d kissed him. Hungrily, if not ravenously. Even if she’d had a local lover, given her response to him, did he need to know?

“As we’re speaking of society and its marital preoccupation, what happened to drive you from town?”

The question, uttered in her usual even tones, jerked Jack from his preoccupation. He blinked at her and found himself staring into a pair of dark eyes that held a great deal of shrewdness and an ability to see through social masks that was, quite possibly, the equal of his.

“You’ve clearly had some run-in with the matrons and their charges.” Clarice raised her brows, challenge and faint amusement in her eyes. “I admit I find it difficult to imagine they routed you so comprehensively.”

Despite his outward ease, the mind behind his hazel eyes remained sharply focused as he waved her assertion away. “I was ready to decamp.” He looked ahead, then continued, “What was being offered was not to my taste. As for how it was being offered”—his jaw set—“that was the last straw.”

“I see.” She said that conversationally, but she could indeed see it. After three Seasons let alone the social world she’d been immersed in from birth, she knew just how the ton behaved, knew what he would have encountered, could see that perhaps, with him, the matrons might have misjudged and so mismanaged their approach. He’d clearly taken against, as he’d phrased it, the marriageable portion of the female nation; he appeared to view that stance as ineradicable. Not only was he in the country while the Season was in full swing, but he’d sent for Percy and was grooming him as his heir.

She found his decision not just interesting and enlightening, but something of a relief. She had no wish to become involved with a gentleman of his type, his status, who was searching for a bride. Not again. Never again.

However, all thoughts of matrimony aside—and how encouraging that they’d both had done with that complication—there was the intriguing question of her reaction to him. She wasn’t sure what such a reaction presaged, and whether pursuing it was wisdom or folly, yet said reaction was sufficiently compelling to have her wondering where it might lead, what might be possible.

Between them. Between her and the lord of Avening Manor.

She slanted him a glance. He walked with easy grace beside her, his gaze following the stream. She seized the moment to let her gaze roam, swiftly confirming her earlier view. His was a strength that was so pervasive it needed no action, no specific movement, to draw attention to it; it simply was.

Just being this close to him, only a foot or so apart, she was acutely conscious of his physical presence, a distinctly male presence ruffling her female senses like a hand lightly rippling the very ends of a cat’s fur. Not quite a touch, more the suggestion of a caress.

Under its influence, her senses purred and wanted more.

Much more.

And that was the point where she stepped into uncharted territory. She had more than her fair share of experience of what gentlemen regarded as “more.” What she didn’t know was what she truly wished, for she’d never wanted more before. Not from any man, gentleman or otherwise; never before had her senses been so tweaked, even less had her desire, in any form, been so irresistibly piqued.

He had succeeded where all others had failed. Until now, she hadn’t even known that was still possible; along with most of the ton, she’d wondered if, after three less-than-satisfying “engagements,” she’d become one of those females who would never again be interested in a physical liaison.

But she was interested now, thanks to him. And in the back of her mind was the unsettling notion that the attraction she felt wasn’t solely due to appreciation of his physical form.

She’d enjoyed today, enjoyed joining with him to best Jones and deliver the most for the local growers who relied on them, who trusted them to guide them. A job well-done, unquestionably, but it wasn’t just the victory that had buoyed her; she’d enjoyed both the planning and the execution far more than she would have if she’d dealt with Jones alone. She’d never worked with anyone in such a way before, let alone known the joy of sharing an endeavor with someone who thought as she did, who understood her ideas and followed her reasoning so effortlessly.

Their mutual triumph was one she savored on more than one plane.

A pity Connimore had sent for them when she had.

The thought brought to mind Jack’s injury, the injury he seemed inclined to dismiss or at least play down. She slanted another glance his way. If she hadn’t overheard him admit to being injured, she’d have sworn he was hale, whole, and in the best of health. Even now, the notion that he was suffer

ing from some mortal affliction that would kill him before he could marry and sire an heir—hence Percy—occurred only to be dismissed.

Which left her wondering if his injury was anatomically restricted—he’d implied as much to Connimore—and if the existence of said injury wasn’t linked to his determination to groom Percy as his heir…and, possibly, to his dismissal of matrimony.

He halted. Jerked from her thoughts, she stopped walking and looked at him. He’d turned to view the stream; she followed his gaze and realized they were standing beside the deep pool within the wood that divided the last of the manor’s fields from the road and the bridge. The trees had just come into leaf, screening the area in spring green, dappling the sunlight that shone through to illuminate the darker green of lush grass, the rich brown of the path.

The birdsong was louder, more concentrated; the flutter of wings drifted through the trees. The burbling of the stream changed into a sigh as it slid into the deep pool, then quietly flowed on.

“This was my favorite spot when I was a boy. I used to come here to fish whenever I could.”