“I know I suggested it, but I’m coming up blank on the friend thing. Experience with, that is.” He blinked sleepily, his lids fluttering. “Forgive me, the brandy has befuddled.”
“What a shock,” she whispered, recalling the women she’d seen hanging on his arm, the rumors printed in every gossip rag, the stories tripping off the tongues of those who wanted the piece of him they were jealous they weren’t getting. “Who needs friends when lovers are so abundant?”
“True,” he concurred and lay back, his arms going beneath his head to cushion. She couldn’t help but record every inch of him as his eyes drifted shut, his cheeks smoothing out, the stubble lining his jaw sparking gold in the moonlight. Broad chest, flat tummy, lean hips, long legs. Boots polished to a high sheen. Perfection.
He yawned, his throat pulling taut. “Friendship, and this engagement mess of yours, mean I have to ignore my attraction. That’s what I’m hearing. Which is, of course, the prudent plan. New beginnings, stepping back from Town mischief, etcetera, etcetera.”
She wrenched her gaze from him, seeking the glimmer of the lake’s surface in the distance. “Attraction is habitual, it means nothing. You go there without trying to encourage a cerebral connection. I’m no better. I’ve thrown out kisses like rose petals to men who don’t deserve tribute of any kind. Better I should give them the thorns. Maybe it’s time for me to find another way to manage life, too.”
“No mind reading, which is a relief.” His lids lifted slightly, his gaze catching on her mouth and holding, an intense look as sure of feeling as if he’d brushed his finger down her cheek. It was a clear break in his promise to keep his charm contained. “No flirting, which is not. Cerebral, is it? This friend thing sounds monotonous as shite.”
She pressed her lips together to will away the imagined sting of his touch, longing pulsing through her body in a sturdy, betraying rhythm. “The League, Finn? Can you tell me more about it? And the chronology? And why I’d ever be in danger because of the parlor trick?”
“Tomorrow, I shall tell all,” he murmured, lashes settling against his sun-dusted skin. “Now, Tori, darling, I’m going to dream. Maybe of you.” He sighed softly. “Maybe of you.”
Then he drifted to sleep, the frustrating man, right there in front of her, a Greek god laid out on marble. As the promise of her dancing through his dreams surrounded them.
Chapter 6
She liked watching him.
A suitable pastoral diversion, Victoria concluded, leaning over the balustrade and bringing the eyecups close to her face. Finn Alexander was her bird, an enchanting cerulean one presently racing his mare across the woodlands like disaster nipped at his heels. Agnes had taken her dogged inspection of Harbingdon’s lawns and gardens as a burgeoning interest in nature and the like—a relatively innocuous activity when exposed to such harmful ones in London—and requested assistance as her charge’s eyesight was weak. A maid by the name of Long Sally arrived in her bedchamber after breakfast—opening and closing the door without touching it—and presented a set of mother of pearl opera glasses in a citron velvet purse, wholly over and above what she needed to spy on her friend.
Nevertheless, Victoria decided with a twist of the glasses’ center wheel, they did bring the man into sharp, glorious focus.
A daring rider, this she knew from the first sight. As she’d once been a daring rider herself.
Heels down, thighs clenching the horse’s flanks with just the right amount of pressure, which was to say, not too much. Refined poise, all told, precisely as she’d have expected of him. However, the old fear gripped her as Finn jumped a hedge as if attacking it, without a care to the muddy depression on the blind side. She tipped her gaze to his hands as he cleared the obstacle with room to spare, a soft hold sending the reins sliding through his cupped fists like water, allowing the horse to control his balance, not the rider. Richmond, her family’s groom, would have been pleased.
Victoria had often taken too firm a hand herself.
Her riding style said a lot about her.
Finn back-armed sweat from his brow and settled his mount with a reassuring glide of his palm across the horse’s neck, his untucked shirt riding high with the movement and exposing a minute strip of tawny skin above his waistband before linen resettled over his lean hips. A tantalizing encounter she would have missed without the aid of Lady Beauchamp’s marvelous—and apparently little-used—opera glasses. Missed if he wore a waistcoat or topcoat, which he did not.
Curiously, it wasn’t Finn’s undeniable beauty or lack of clothing that held her captivated. Instead, it was his continued effort to hide behind an aimless veneer, his countenance melancholy, his ready smile locked away when she caught him unaware, like the night on the veranda. A man grossly different than the one who’d wooed society with such wicked carelessness. There was nothing careless about his soulful glances, the impenetrable, shimmering intelligence held deep within.
She wanted access to that man more than she should.
Only she didn’t know how to ask for access. Not when he seemed to be struggling to settle back into family life and had avoided her for two days, despite his promise to tell all.
Through the open window, the sound of a pan striking the kitchen floor had her turning, the glasses dropping from her hands to dangle from the wrist chain. Her heartbeat stuttered, her mind blanking for a brief moment. Turning back, she found Finn’s riderless horse standing beside the hedge, her head twisting as if on too short a lead.
Victoria’s terror was immediate and impregnable.
Her shawl flew from her shoulders as she raced down the marble steps and across the lawn, her hair plunging from its delicate coiffure to streak her cheeks and tangle in her mouth. Her slippers were dew-soaked when she reached him, the hem of her dress soiled beyond repair, but she cared little, dropping to her knees and grasping the arm he’d flung out when he’d tumbled from his mount. His hand still clutched the reins, which she released, allowing the mare to settle. Finn’s chest rose and fell in a slightly staggered rhythm, but unlike her brother’s after his fall, it rose and fell.
He was covered in grass and earth, staining his clothing and his face. The side of his lip was cut. She dabbed at the blood with a wild glance thrown over her shoulder, a fruitless search for a footman, groom, maid. She’d finally come to understand Finn’s comment to her on the ride to Harbingdon about magical attendance by the staff. The estate operated on the unpredictable sovereignty of those gifted with a supernatural ability, upper house to lower, garden to stable, sitting room to parlor. Doors opened before she reached them, gas lamps flared without her touch. Formidable, yet no one seemed trained for even the most straightforward household position.
“Finn,” she whispered and gave his hand a squeeze, her brother’s still form lying beside his horse, the awkward twist of his neck, roaring through her mind. She closed her eyes and concentrated, finding the racing pulse at Finn’s wrist and smoothing it with her thumb. Like she would if she sought to steal time. Perhaps she could shock him back to consciousness.
“Stop. It’s beginning…to hurt to hold you off.” Finn’s lids fluttered, his hand shifting in hers. His hair was a dark spill across his cheeks, the strands much longer than current style endorsed, giving him the look of a ruffian, and effectively hiding his expression. “I landed hard…on my back. My breath…” He inhaled shakily. Twice more before trying to speak again. “The reins, thank you for taking them…as I’m guessing no groom is around. Someone who sees the future could have helped in this situation. We have one of those, you know. Edward, the footman, but I guess this tumble escaped his purview. Or maybe it’s Old Neddie. No, no, he sees the past. Edward, definitely Edward.” He dragged his tongue along his teeth. “Blast, I think I cracked one.”