The Perfect Lover (Cynster 10)

She really didn’t want to know. Portia had too much on her own plate; she felt no need to burden herself with knowledge of Kitty’s shortcomings. Each to their own—live and let live.

For herself, she was fired with a zeal to live—to the fullest. To a degree, a level, she hadn’t before realized was possible. The events of the previous evening should have left her scandalized. They hadn’t. Not in the least. She felt exhilarated, eager, very ready to learn more, to sip from the cup of passion once more, to taste desire again, and this time drain the chalice.

The questions consuming her were when and where?

With whom didn’t rate a thought.

She tacked through the crowds thronging the lawns; Kitty’s luncheon party was in full swing. From the alacrity with which the surrounding families had attended, she deduced the Glossups had not entertained much in recent times.

Purposely eschewing the other houseguests, she wandered, stopping to chat with those to whom she’d been introduced at the ball, meeting others. Accustomed to the role of young lady of a great country house—her brother Luc’s principal seat in Rutlandshire—she was entirely at ease chatting with those who would, were they in London, be her social inferiors. She’d always been interested in hearing of others’ lives; only via that avenue had she come to appreciate the comfort of her own, something that, like most ladies of her station, she would otherwise have taken for granted.

To give her her due, Kitty, too, did not hold aloof; she was very much in evidence, weaving among her guests. While searching for possibilities—for some inkling of an opportunity through which to pursue her fell aim—Portia noted that, along with Kitty’s mood du jour, a joie de vivre that was, she would have sworn, quite genuine. Smiling, laughing gaily, flown on excitement, Kitty might have been, perhaps not a new bride, but one of short standing thrilling to her first social success.

Watching her greet a buxom matron with transparent good humor, and exchange comments with the woman’s daughter and gangling son, Portia inwardly shook her head.

“Amazing, ain’t it?”

She whirled and met Charlie’s cynical gaze.

He nodded toward Kitty. “If you can explain that, I’ll be in your debt.”

Portia glanced again at Kitty. “It’s too hard for me.” Looping an arm through Charlie’s, she turned him about; with a quirk of his lips, he accepted her decree and fell in by her side. “Perhaps it’s like charades—she behaves as she thinks she should—no! don’t state the obvious!—I mean that she has a mental image of how she should be, and acts like that. That image may not, in every situation, be what we, or others like us, would think right. We don’t know what Kitty’s view of things might be.”

Steering Charlie on, she frowned. “Simon wondered if she was naive—I’m starting to think he may be right.”

“Surely her mother would set her straight? Isn’t that what mothers are for?”

Portia thought of her own

mother, then thought of Mrs. Archer. “Yes, but . . . do you think Mrs. Archer . . . ?” She left the question hanging, not quite sure how to phrase her reading of Kitty’s mother.

Charlie humphed. “Perhaps you’re right. We’re used to our own ways—to people like us and how they behave. We expect them to know what’s acceptable. Perhaps it really is something along those lines.”

He glanced around. “Now, minx, where are you taking me?”

Portia looked ahead, then stood on her toes to see past various people. “Somewhere over there is a lady who knows your mother—she was eager to speak with you.”

“What?” Charlie stared at her. “Thunder and turf, woman! I don’t want to spend my time doing the pretty with some old harridan—”

“You do, you know.” Having sighted their goal, Portia towed him on. “Just think—if you speak with her now, in the midst of all this crowd, it’ll be easy to exchange a few words, then move on. That’ll be quite enough to satisfy her. But if you leave it until later and she catches you, with the crowd more dispersed, you might find yourself trapped for half an hour.” She glanced at him, raised her brows. “Which would you prefer?”

Charlie narrowed his eyes at her. “Simon was right—you’re dangerous.”

She smiled, patted his arm, then delivered him up to his doom.

That good deed done, she returned to her consuming passion—identifying somewhere and somehow to legitimately, or at least without drawing any untoward attention, get Simon to herself for an hour or two. Or perhaps three? She had no real idea how long the next stage along her path to understanding would take.

Skirting a group of officers resplendent in their scarlet with an easy but distant smile, she considered the point. At her age, the accepted strictures deemed twenty minutes in private to be no great scandal, but more than half an hour to be beyond redemption; presumably half an hour was sufficient. However, from what she’d heard, Simon was an accredited expert, and experts never liked to be hurried.

Three hours would probably be wise.

She surveyed the crowd. Until she came up with a plan there was no sense seeking Simon out, no sense spending too much time in public by his side. It wasn’t as if they were courting.

She chatted to a major, then to a couple who had driven over from Blandford Forum. Leaving them, she circled the gathering, strolling along a high hedge. She was about to plunge into the throng again when, to her left, she saw Desmond with Winifred on his arm.

They were standing where an alcove in the hedge hosted a statue on a pedestal. Neither was looking at the statue, nor at the guests. Desmond held Winifred’s hand; he was looking down at her face, speaking quietly, earnestly.

Winifred’s eyes were cast down, but a slight, very gentle smile was just curving her lips.