Page 4 of For the Love of Clover (Breaking the Rules of the Beau Monde #4)
CHAPTER 4
T he hedge was green and lush at first view, but the inside branches scraped at Hugo’s hands with a vengeance. However, the search paid off, and so did Lady Clover’s clue. He felt a weighted cord and tugged on it. Something inside the shrub clicked , the foliage moving a little, and Hugo gave a shove, his shoulder smarting at the hedge until it opened outward. He raised his eyebrows at Lady Clover. “After you?”
She fit through the opening nicely, but it took him some fancy finagling to draw himself through without the jaws of a monstrous hedge tearing away at his jacket.
“Are you all right?” he asked as they emerged on the other side in what looked like a private garden.
“I hope so. Is my dress damaged anywhere,” she asked, twirling halfway around while looking over her shoulder, the blue flouncy hem drawn up, giving him glimpses of her white stockinged ankles.
He hardly had time after the visual permission to leisurely inspect her from head to toe. “Everything looks to be in order.” Indeed, it did. When she clutched at her dress, pulling it sideways, the outline of her lovely derriere was more than perfection, like a puffy pale-blue cloud that one might lie in the grass and contemplate all day. After closing the gate, he swiped at his thighs, pulling back when he caught sight of a red smear. “Dammit.”
“What is it?” She hurried to his side.
“Nothing. Just a scratch.” Blood, darker than crimson velvet, beaded along a small stinging slice on his palm.
“Let me see it.” She grabbed his hand before he could protest or retrieve the handkerchief from his inside pocket.
The sight of her delicate hand in his made his pulse throb tenfold. He could see glimpses of skin between the cream lace of her fingerless gloves, and his mind couldn’t stop conjuring up the image of her in lace with no underskirt. Why? Why had his mind gone there? Because he was alone with a beautiful woman, and it would be unusual for him not to think such things. It was the only explanation he was willing to consider.
With her head bent over the task, her piled blonde hair tickled his nose with the teasing scent of lavender. He closed his eyes briefly, allowing it to clear his head of the lingering smell of the underside of a hedgerow, the musky scent most likely embedded in his tailored jacket. Her golden tresses looked darker from a distance, but up close, they shined as if they had absorbed the sun.
“It’s nothing. Truly. And now your lace mitts are stained with my blood.” He whipped the white kerchief, embroidered with his initials, from his pocket and tried to dab at the blood seeping through the careful filet lace pattern. “If you’ll leave them with me, I’ll have them cleaned or replaced.”
“There’s no need.”
“Believe me, my valet can get blood out of anything.” He folded up the handkerchief carefully before stuffing it inside his breast pocket. When he looked away, he felt something disturb his hair like a fluttering butterfly. He jerked his head when he realized it was her plucking fingers.
She quickly snatched her hand back. “I’m sorry, but you have leaves in your hair.”
“By all means.” He lowered his head for her to continue and enjoyed a juvenile perusal of her decolletage. When he lifted his eyes level with hers and smiled outrageously, she gave him an exasperated look that said his little game had not gone unnoticed. He licked his lips. “May I?” He gestured at her head, and her hand automatically went to her hair.
“I’m sure I don’t have anything so interesting to look at as perhaps you did.” She bowed her head slightly. He stood tall enough to see the whole of it without trouble.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you mean by that.” Which was, of course, a lie. “This tangle here may take a bit of surgical skill.” He looked about them for a place where she could sit so he could remove the twigs and bramble easier, and for the first time, he took in their surroundings.
The gate had opened into a fully enclosed, overgrown garden as if it were meant to be that way. Pathways with clover sprouting between stepping stones wound in a willy-nilly trail. There were trees, and along the edge, gooseberry bushes picked clean of fruit attested to the practical use of the space or perhaps a bird sanctuary.
“It’s like a fairy garden. Mrs. LaDow said as much, but I didn’t give it much heed. What do you think?”
What Hugo thought was that Lady Clover Dunhurst was a gorgeous nymph, standing there with her profile turned to him with her enchanting bright blue eyes spellbound by the scene. “It’s a secret garden.” He gazed at her while he said it as if he knew the moment was something to put to memory.
“Yes. It is, isn’t it? I’m going to suggest this idea to the gardening staff at Kingsley.”
“Before you do that, let’s untangle the twig buried like treasure in your hair.”
She giggled like a hiccup she couldn’t squelch. “If I sit, will that help?”
He nodded toward a wooden bench under the cover of a small tree he couldn’t name. Gardening was not his strong suit. She sat on the bench, and he stood directly before her, bent to his task and asking her to hold her head still. Several twigs with lacing tendrils, some with leaves still attached, were planted in her coiffure like so many pins.
“If you don’t sit still, this hair sculpture will be ruined.”
She chuckled again, a whimsical sound he was beginning to recognize as Lady Clover’s nervous chirp. “It’s a coiffure.”
“I’m aware of what it is.”
“Speaking of, do you ever plan to explain what happened in the maze?”
With her head in a very provocative position and the mention of the naked statues, his stance stiffened all over.
“If you don’t want me to repeat the words, then at least tell me what they mean.”
“The men were spewing phrases not intended for delicate ears.”
“You mean the ears of a woman who asked you if the naked man in the fountain was pissing to the sky gods?”
He unraveled the last of the stems braided through her hair. Lifting her chin with his thumb and forefinger, he hoped to intimidate her with a glare. But she would have none of it. “What happened to the shy, reserved Lady Clover I met during that Christmas party at Kingsley Manor two years ago?”
“It’s highly unlikely she ever existed.” She swatted his hand away.
With her face turned up to his and her mouth parted, he wanted to kiss her. He truly did. What an idiot. To even imagine it would have the duke blacklisting him in the foreseeable future.
“Why are you staring at my mouth?”
He shook her off, pulled back, and took a few physical and mental steps away. “Perhaps I’m trying to understand why you would keep me on a subject you know isn’t appropriate and one your brother would have my hide for.”
“Tell me something, Mr. Darrington. Why is it that women—especially unmarried women—are kept from every interesting conversation that involves the opposite sex? Which makes little sense when you consider I am fifty percent of that scenario. I would happily read a book if I could find one with the answers to my questions. Like, what does the pearl shower mean?”
“Oh, for the love of the everlasting God, please don’t say that.”
She shrugged. “Two simple words. Pearl. Shower. I’ve used them both in conversation, but apparently, together, they are a scandal. I’ll ask my married friends who happen to be married to your friends, Winn Markham and Dalton Rochester. You do remember them, don’t you?” She dared to threaten him a little. “Well, I promise if I ask my friends, and they don’t know the answer, who do you think they’ll ask next?”
His friends, of course. He felt his teeth digging painfully into the side of his cheek. “You would risk my neck for your curiosity?”
“Come now, it can’t be that serious.”
Come now . Did she have to say that?
“I’ll let you call me Clover without the pomp if you tell me.” Her tone coaxed him. Her eyes dared him like the devil on his shoulder.
“Believe me, if I told you, there would be little else to call you. Besides, I’m afraid it will only lead to more curiosity, which is nowhere near my place to satisfy.” He gave her a meaningful look. “Lady Clover.”
She pulled her lovely mouth to the side and folded her arms, and his gaze fell of its own accord to her straining bosom. Which, of course, she noticed. “And?”
He returned his gaze to hers. “It’s a vulgar name for something that a man does when he’s busy with a woman. Or more to the point, finished with one. Intimately. Biblically.”
And off she went, laughing again. If he hadn’t heard the same giggles earlier, he might have been insulted. But the blush she wore in tandem proved she was more embarrassed by what he said than he was by saying it.
“I can see you understand.”
“I believe so. I promise I won’t say a word to His Grace.”
“You call your brother His Grace?”
“Not at home. Truly, I wish we could go back a few years before our parents died because I miss calling him Stratford. We were much less formal then. He’s so broody now and overprotective of me, which is precisely why I’m here.”
Her admission shocked him. This party was in no way an innocent affair, and Hugo could not imagine Kingsley knew Mrs. LaDow that well if he allowed Clover here without a bevy of nursemaids to travel with her. Case in point, he was alone in a garden with her where the two weren’t likely to be found. And the men in the maze would most likely not have been so crude even among themselves if they had been attending a more appropriate house party.
“As for the imbeciles in the maze,” he said. “Even drunk, a gentleman should know better. One could imagine they’ll forget by the time they’re sober, but I plan to have a conversation with our hostess.”
“No!” She rushed out, nearly leaving her seat. “Mrs. LaDow is fond of Kingsley, and he always speaks kindly of her. Their friendship is the reason he sent me here. He’s often too busy for the Season’s amusements, and I think he feels sorry for me because my friends are married. This was supposed to be a nice diversion. I came because I was afraid he’d find something else for me to do—like join the Ladies Auxiliary for the Abolishment of the Waltz—or something just as ridiculous.”
That statement made Hugo wonder just how fond the duke and Mrs. LaDow really were. If he read between Clover’s words, it appeared the duke knew their hostess quite well. At least, that was the only believable explanation as to why the duke would allow his innocent, unattached sister to a party such as this. He decided it was the better part of wisdom to let it go for now.
He rested his hands on his hips, pushing back his dark-turquoise jacket, and cast a gaze over the lush garden. He couldn’t name the vivid flowering plants or the more exotic trees. The only growth he was certain of was the clover that spread out between the foliage and scattered pleasingly on the dirt trail. He watched her silently, stretching her neck to see the corners of the garden behind her. The creamy curve from her ear to the part of her shoulder buried beneath her pale-blue dress made him want to secure a miniature of her in such a pose.
“You say Mrs. LaDow gave you directions to this place?”
She looked at him and nodded. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason. Just that you mentioned your brother knew her, and perhaps she thought to protect you from the guests by giving you a private place?—”
“To hide?” She interrupted. “I’m not hiding. I’m avoiding. Something else is on your mind. You might as well say it. I’m sure I cannot be more shocked than I already have been today.”
He rested a foot beside her on the bench, crossing his arms negligently over his bent knee. They were close enough for a kiss. “This crowd is not your crowd. This social circle is not yours.”
“It’s yours, but not mine?”
“Precisely.”
She wet her lips and smiled distractingly. “Why, Mr. Darrington, your name does suit you then. Daring Darrington. The man who would dare to do anything like show up at an innocent house party and call it fast just for his presence alone.”
He held her gaze. “You are nothing like I remember.”
Looking up at him, she swallowed hard. “That’s only because you don’t know me.” She blinked and sat back. “What made you think you ever did?”
He watched her closely, his gaze darting between her eyes, falling to her lips and back to her eyes again. “You don’t belong here, Clover.”
She looked around and whispered, “And neither do you, Hugo.” Her gaze fell back to his.
He shook his head slowly, his mouth curving up in a roguish smile. All the while, her directness, her eyes, her mouth, her words, turned his rioting pulse into a hot river of lust. If he didn’t break the spell, he was about to kiss her senseless.