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‘How could you have offended me?’ she asked without looking at him. ‘We have only just met. And why should you wish me as a friend?’
‘Alice likes you. More feminine influence in her life is desirable, I think.’
She caught her breath and something in the whisper of sound seemed to touch him at the base of the spine. So that’s what this is… I desire this prickly, difficult, wan-faced widow. Avery stopped and, as though he had put out a hand to restrain her, she did, too. ‘Look at me.’
Caroline half-turned to face him and studied his face, her own expression grave. As she had in the park, she seemed to look with an intensity that probed not just his appearance, but his thoughts and his character. Every muscle under the fine skin of her face seemed taut, there was wariness, almost fear in the dark eyes, and now something else. Something he would wager she did not want to feel at all.
‘Whatever else there is between us,’ Avery murmured, thinking out loud, ‘there is physical attraction.’
‘You flatter yourself!’ She looked as outraged as he might have expected and also utterly taken aback.
‘No, there is nothing to be vain about in an instinctive reaction. But I am right, am I not?’ He had dragged off his right glove as they spoke and now he touched his fingers to her cheek. Warm, soft skin. The muscles flinched a little beneath his touch, but she did not step back, or brush his hand away or slap him. ‘Has someone hurt you, Caroline?’
He read the answer in her eyes, an almost bottomless lack of trust, but her reply showed no weakness. ‘Again, you flatter yourself to believe that my unwillingness to flirt with you is due to some flaw in my own experience.’
‘I do not seek to flirt.’ And he did not, he realised. Such superficiality would only make the itch to touch her far, far worse. ‘I only want your company for my daughter and to understand what it is that sparks between us and yet seems to cause you so much pain.’
Her lids fell, covering the darkness of her eyes. When she opened them she seemed to have come to a decision. ‘I have no reason to trust men, least of all strong, authoritative men who seek to order the lives of others. But it is a long time since… I cannot help it if there is some awareness in me of a virile man. I do not wish to discuss this.’
Or act upon it, that was very clear. What manner of man had her husband been? A tyrant? A domineering bully? And yet a man who had awakened her sensually. The two things were not mutually exclusive, he told himself.
‘I do not seek to take advantage of you, merely, as I said, to understand.’
‘And understanding people is your stock in trade, is it not?’ Caroline Jordan began to walk slowly towards their destination. His uncharacteristically impulsive words had not, it seemed, deepened her distrust of him.
‘It is. I study their motives, their strengths and weaknesses. The points on which they will yield and the points upon which they will stand fast until death.’
‘I will visit Alice, if you wish,’ she said, almost as though her words followed on from what he had just said. The charged intimacy still surrounded them like a mist and yet she seemed capable of ignoring it. ‘Does she have a governess?’
‘No, but I intend to employ one for her very soon. She is naturally very bright, I think. However, I do not want to stifle her enthusiasm and energy through rigorous teaching.’
‘You must choose carefully.’ She seemed calmer now, more at ease with him. Avery pulled on his glove and fell into step beside her. ‘A young woman, one with a natural manne
r and energy herself would be best. Alice is just like I—’
‘Yes?’
‘Like I recall my best friend Imogen was at about that age. An older, more formal woman would stifle her character.’
It was not what she had meant to say, he suspected. ‘Caroline,’ Avery said and she did not react. ‘Caroline?’
‘Oh! I beg your pardon, I was woolgathering. You should not call me by my given name, you know.’
Woolgathering? In the middle of a conversation that started with a discussion of sexual attraction and moved on to a subject she professes an interest in? It was almost as though she did not recognise her own name…
‘I was considering the question of governesses,’ Caroline said. ‘I know women are supposed to be able to think of seven different things at once, but I fear I cannot.’
It was the closest she had come to making a joke in his presence. Avery reproved himself for his suspicions. That was what came of spending too much time in the company of professional dissemblers, outright spies and manipulative women.
He heard Caroline take a deep breath as though either shedding a burden or taking one up. ‘That must be Laurel Lodge, Avery. Do you think it would be discreet to arrive separately?’ Then she answered her own question even as he was masking his surprise at her use of his name. ‘Foolish to pretend, for they will all get together and gossip about us anyway.’ As he opened the gate for her she slanted a look at him. ‘And foolish to allow them to think there is anything to hide.’
‘You are quite correct.’ Avery knocked, wondering at the composure Caroline layered over the vulnerability that lay like a brittle layer of ice beneath the poise. Yes, there is nothing to hide except an awareness of each other at a very basic level that is, perhaps, nothing to be surprised about.
*
Laura caught Avery’s eye across the tea table and suppressed a smile. Their arrival together could not have provided Mrs Philpott, her daughters, two female callers and a youth making a cake of himself over Miss Maria Philpott, with more delicious grounds for speculation if they had planned it. The village was small, the pool of genteel company a mere puddle, a mysterious widow and an internationally well-known diplomat and earl would create a gossip broth that might last for months.
Avery. It had been a struggle to smile and to make herself relax and allow the familiarity he asked for, but it was necessary if she was to spend time with Alice. Letting go had been like falling from the certainty of one position—dislike and distrust—to the uneasy foothold of distrust and…what exactly? Physical attraction, he had said. And he was right, she could not delude herself. He was a very attractive man to look at, he had intelligence, power, an unabashed masculinity. And he reminded her of Piers in some ways, but a Piers matured, and this man had never been the impetuous romantic his cousin had been.
