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"Hadn't we better invite the others?" she asked, as he helped her to her feet and drew her arm though his.
"Whatever for?"
She cast a furtive glance towards Basil, whose head was now bent very close to Hetty's simpering face. Any excuse Alexandra might have made died on her lips. Gripping the marquess's arm more firmly, she manufactured a shy smile.
That was answer enough for Will. He smiled down at her in a protective, proprietary sort of way, patted the slim fingers that lay on his sleeve, and bore her off towards the path.
No one appeared to take any alarm at their departure. Not Sir Charles, certainly, to whom it was comforting proof of the marquess's interest in his daughter. As Alexandra's own Papa did not object to the business, no one else felt required to do so, either.
No one, that is, but Basil, who took great exception to this impropriety. He wondered, as his hooded gaze followed the departing pair, what the devil Ashmore was thinking of to countenance it. It would have been easy enough to persuade Hetty to stroll in the same direction, but that was risky. Her Mama was bound to expect certain news at the conclusion of the exercise. Nor could Basil look with equanimity upon the prospect of stumbling, with witnesses, upon what was bound to be a compromising situation.
As the minutes ticked away, the danger of there being a compromising situation to witness increased. Still, if no one else cared, why should he? Consequently, between tormenting himself with imagining what was happening between the pair, and assuring himself of his perfect indifference to the lurid scenes presenting themselves to his imagination, he did not at first notice the parasol that tapped his arm. It tapped again, and a weary sigh floated down from somewhere above his head. He looked up to see Lady Deverell gazing down at him in a very bored sort of way.
"Dear me, how tiresome I am, to be sure. You did not look to be asleep, Basil, and yet Harry is—" She pointed with her parasol to her husband, who appeared to be dozing, propped up against a tree. "And I had hoped to have your arm for a bit."
Basil, who'd been reclining upon a cushion Hetty had thoughtfully provided for him, scrambled to his feet, all gallantry. If he thought it odd that Maria, who considered sitting down upon her chaise lounge a calisthenic exercise, wanted to take a walk, he was too polite to mention it.
"It would be an honour, my lady. I'm yours to be led wheresoever you wish."
Having been deserted by one swain, Hetty very sensibly turned her attention elsewhere. She had a riddle, she told Lady Tuttlehope, that she was sure even the clever Mr. Burnham couldn't solve. Lady Tuttlehope protested that this was impossible. Mr. Burnham made modest noises that it was not, and Lord Tuttlehope, greatly baffled, blinked in wonder as he watched his friend stroll away with Harry Deverell's wife.
"I felt so dull," was the viscountess's soft complaint. "And that little path by the stream seems pleasant, does it not?"
Agreeing that it seemed most pleasant, Basil bore her away in pursuit of the missing couple.
“It has rather more twists and turns than one would expect," she noted languidly, when they'd walked some moments in silence. "Why, here it branches off. Now I wonder—" She paused at a place where the trail divided into three narrow paths.
Although it was not one of the sites he'd shown Miss Ashmore, Basil knew the place well, having, in the past, coaxed more than one willing village maiden along the more private of these ways. Yet, strangely enough, it was in this very direction that he proposed they proceed.
"Oh, well, I suppose you know best, my dear. And yet how easy for one to become lost—it does grow rather a wilderness, does it not? I do hope that Will has not lost his way."
"Highly unlikely," was the stiff reply. "He knows the place as well as I do."
"Does he? Then I daresay he will not cause Miss Ashmore to overexert herself."
"I daresay."
It appeared that Lord Arden must have expected exertion of some sort, for as the path turned and branched off once again they came upon a pretty, sheltered spot, and upon the marquess with his arms wrapped around Miss Ashmore, treating her to a very interesting sort of exercise, indeed.
Being fully occupied, the pair were unaware they were observed, though Basil was instantly prepared to bring that matter forcibly to their attention. He was, in fact, about to rush forward and knock his lordship to the ground when he felt a surprisingly firm grip on his arm, and found himself being rugged backwards, out of sight.
"Scenes," her ladyship whispered, as he opened his mouth to object, "are so very fatiguing." She went on, in more carrying tones than normal, to rhapsodise in her usual weary way about the attractiveness of the spot. "Yes, a charming place, my love. I daresay Mr. Wordsworth would be moved to compose any number of odes upon it—with a perfectly exhausting number of stanzas." As she spoke, she led Basil forward again. "But you know, these noisy brooks do grow rather wearisome to the head after a time."
He hardly knew what he answered—some incoherent inanity. For all his outward composure, Basil was in a murderous rage, a condition not conducive to clever repartee. He thought of another stream and another private spot, and of how careful he'd been not to offend Miss Ashmore by making improper advances. Now that designing female was locked in an embrace with a man she'd admitted she didn't love. With a man, for heaven's sake, who had a set of twins in his keeping in London. It would serve her right to be shackled all her days to that monster of depravity.
If he did not stop to recall that Will had done little worse in his lifetime than he had himself, it was perhaps because Basil was not quite himself at the moment. How else explain that he, who'd always thought it great sport to steal kisses as often as he could, should now be filled with moral outrage that another gentleman did so? But it was Miss Ashmore from whom the kiss was stolen, and that, somehow, turned everything upside down.
Not that he could tell, really, what was upside down or right side up, for he was nearly choked with fury. He was, in fact, vowing to himself that as soon as the ladies could be removed from the vicinity, he would tear the marquess limb from limb. And as to her… There was a warning pressure on his arm, and he tried to collect himself. They were once again in view of the couple, now walking innocently towards them.
Miss Ashmore, who'd apparently found it unnecessary to lean upon her escort's arm, hurried towards Lady Deverell, and greeted her with a rather set smile.
"It seems," she said, in a voice as tight as her smile, "that Lord Arden has lost his way—"
"Has he, my love? Well, that is what we thought, is it not, Basil?" Without waiting for his reply, the viscountess remarked what a confusing sort of maze it was, and how it was no wonder Will went astray. "Yes, very likely, my dear," she told Will as she absently let go of Basil's arm to take that of the marquess. "You confused the spot with that lovely little wood you told me of, at the edges of your place in Scotland."
The way his lordship leered at Miss Ashmore as he accepted this excuse could not be agreeable to certain of the company. Miss Ashmore, however, resolutely turned her head...only to confront a face that appeared to be carved in stone. Lady Deverell having laid claim to the marquess, Alexandra had no choice but to take the arm Basil stiffly proffered her.
She no sooner touched his sleeve than she was acutely aware of the taut strength beneath her fingers. A tear pricked her eye, and she struggled to fight it back. It was unfair. Will's kiss had left her profoundly unmoved, and now...oh, Lord, she had only to touch Basil's coatsleeve and she was all atremble inside. It was unfair and cruel.
And he was cruel as well, hurrying her along ahead of the other two and acting so cold and silent just when she most needed him to tease her out of her misery. If only he'd say something provoking to make her forget Will's embrace and the self-loathing she'd felt in permitting it. She'd felt like a Cyprian, selling herself to
a man she didn't, couldn't love. When it had come to the point, when she'd heard the voices and known that she had only to stay in his arms a moment longer, and all her problems would be solved… she couldn't do it. It had only wanted a moment. They'd have been caught, and Papa would have made her marry the man who'd compromised her. But what had she done? Jerked herself away—because all she could think of was Basil seeing her in another man's arms.
As if he cared. He was only in a hurry to get back to Hetty and her sisters. Well, who told him to leave them in the first place?
"My apologies," Basil said in a harsh undertone, "for interrupting your tête-à-tête."
He'd broken in upon what was rapidly becoming a most satisfying wallow in self-pity. She managed to invent a cold retort, but his accusing tone had made her throat ache and her eyes fill with tears, to her horror, she heard her voice quavering as she answered, "Pray don't tax yourself with it, sir. I daresay his lordship makes his own opportunities for private conversation."
The tremulous sound made Basil look at her sharply, just as one treacherous tear stole down her cheek. He'd been about to say something brutal, but now found that he couldn't. A tear. He'd tasted a tear once before, eons ago, it seemed. It hadn't then, as it did now—so hurriedly brushed away—aroused in him this frenzy of emotions: pain, rage, sorrow, shame, and he didn't know what else.
He wanted to pull her into his arms, pull her close to him, as though that would end the turmoil within him—or at least punish her for causing it. She'd driven him to this: made him mad with jealousy and then in the next instant broke his heart in a thousand pieces when she shed a tear.
Mad with jealousy? Heart in a thousand pieces? Good heavens! That was what one said to women. It wasn't what one felt.
Mr. Trevelyan was not a stupid man. He knew himself very well. He knew, therefore, that whatever his previous opinions regarding what one said and what one felt, Reality was presenting him with a very different state of affairs. He had better take his hint from Reality for now and work out his opinions on the matter later.
