Page 13 of The Etiquette of Love (The Academy of Love #7)

P limpton was disappointed, but not especially surprised, when Winifred did not knock on his door that night. That kiss in the library had been only his opening salvo. Time was running out, so today he would launch a full offensive.

After he had washed, dressed, and answered some of the never-ending correspondence he received each day Plimpton paid a visit to Wareham’s chambers.

Winifred was sitting with her brother, the two of them deep in discussion, but Wareham broke off and called out, “Come in! Come in!” when Plimpton hesitated on the threshold.

“You are late riding this morning,” Wareham said when Winifred began bustling around the room, refusing to make eye contact with Plimpton.

“It was raining quite hard when I woke up, so I was forced to look at some of the mail that was forwarded here.” He glanced out the window, which he was glad to see Winifred had opened, allowing some fresh air into the room. “It looks as though the clouds have parted—at least for a little while—so I thought I would go now. Would you care to join me, my lady?”

“Yes,” Wareham answered for his sister. “She has been in here since the crack of dawn keeping me entertained. She needs exercise and fresh air.”

Winifred glanced out the window and then at Plimpton’s cravat. At anywhere but his face, in fact. “You think this sunshine will last?”

“Goodrich is certain we will have at least three hours before the heavens re-open.”

“Just go , Winny.”

Winifred gave her brother an exasperated look. “Fine. I will join you, then,” she said, still not meeting his gaze. “I will be ready in half-an-hour.”

“I will be in the stables,” he said, opening the door for her. He had scarcely shut it when Wareham began crowing.

“She likes you, Plimpton—I can tell by how jittery she becomes in your presence. You sly charmer you!”

Plimpton pursed his lips and shook his head at the other man’s juvenile behavior. “Careful with that grin, Wareham. If it gets much larger your head might split in half. I’d say all your brains would spill out, but I doubt there is much in there.”

Wareham good naturedly ignored his insult. “I think all this hope I am feeling is what is making me better. Now, tell me how you are getting on with my sister? She said you played piquet last night.”

Not surprisingly, Plimpton had forgotten all about playing cards, the memory wiped away by the pleasant interlude afterward. “I would not call what happened in the library a game. A slaughter is a more apt description.”

“She is damned good.” A sly smile twisted his lips. “Have you played her a game of chess yet?”

“No, but I fear that is coming. I am sure you’ll hear the howls of pain in your chambers when we do.”

Wareham laughed. “You might be a stupid fellow when it comes to cards and games, but you show to advantage on a horse.”

“Thank you,” Plimpton said wryly as he stood. “I am going to head down a little early and take a look at what you have that would suit her.”

“Who did she ride before?”

“Velvet.”

Wareham groaned.

“Any suggestions?” Plimpton asked, pulling on his gloves and picking up his whip.

“Mischief.”

“I beg your pardon?” He was momentarily thrown off guard, wondering if the other man somehow knew about the kiss last night.

“Mischief is the name of the horse,” Wareham explained.

“Ah.”

“You should ask Goodrich to have a picnic lunch prepared for you,” Wareham suggested helpfully as Plimpton opened the door. “Bring Winny down to the lake and make an afternoon of it.”

“I will take your suggestion under consideration,” he said, drawing the door shut.

“If it rains you can always seek shelter in the gazebo on Frog Island,” Wareham shouted.

Plimpton couldn’t help laughing. “Evidently matchmaking runs in your family.”

“Don’t forget you can use the—”

Plimpton shut the door and missed the rest of what his friend said. While Wareham had not come out and begged Plimpton to seduce his sister under his own roof, it was plain that is what he was hoping would happen. The other man firmly clung to the belief that a seduction would lead to marriage.

Plimpton would be extremely satisfied with that outcome, but he did not dismiss Winifred’s resistance to remarrying as her brother did.

She was interested in Plimpton sexually, but she was a long way from trusting him.

Plimpton wanted her. Badly. But he was a patient man. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her off by behaving like a middle-aged Lothario. Although he had not known Sedgewick very well, his dissolute raking, gambling, and evil temper had been legendary. It was understandable that she was wary of men.

He could wait to satisfy his carnal appetite and he would enjoy getting to know her better in the interim. Indeed, he looked forward to savoring a lengthy seduction. Whether it was tonight, or whether it took two months—or even two years—Plimpton was confident that she would come around.

It was not arrogance that made him believe that. It was the fact that he never, ever stopped until he got what he wanted.

And that driven, singlemindedness served you so well with Cecily …

Winifred was not Cecily. Other than their beauty, they had almost nothing in common.

Cecile had looked golden and warm, her hair the color of a freshly minted guinea and her eyes the blue of a robin’s egg. But that warmth had been an illusion. Winifred’s coloring, on the other hand, looked cool and untouchable but belied a warm, loyal, and caring nature.

It bothered him how often he associated Winifred with Cecily just because both women had been beautiful. They were completely different people and he wanted to divorce the two women in his thoughts. Permanently.

Plimpton was not without his fair share of blame when it came to his disaster of a marriage. He had been a selfish fool when they had married, and it was hardly Cecily’s fault that she had never loved him.

Although he did blame her for not loving their daughter and would never forgive her for withholding her affection from Rebecca. Over the years he had watched Cecily rebuff Becca’s love over and over and over again. He grew to hate her for it, and his hatred had frightened him. Because it would have been all too easy to punish Cecily for what she did to their only child—to use his power as her husband to make her suffer for her unkindness.

Whenever he had felt himself in danger of giving in to those urges, he had fled like a coward to London, trusting only distance to keep him from seeking vengeance.

Plimpton shook off the unwanted thoughts of his dead wife. This was the last time he would allow thoughts of her to contaminate what he was trying to build with Winifred.

***

Winifred wore a different habit today, this one an icy blue with black trim and a sweeping ostrich feather gracing a whimsical twist of a hat.

Her eyes immediately went to the basket the stable lad had attached to Plimpton’s saddle. “A picnic?”

“We will miss luncheon so I thought this would stave off our hunger.” At least hunger for food.

She glanced at the sky. “But what if it rains?”

“We will find shelter.”

The groom led her horse out of the stable and Winifred’s eyes glistened with pleasure. “What a lovely creature.” She held out her hand for the animal to inspect.

Plimpton had briefly wondered if the horse was too lively when the groom had brought him back to the stall where the gelding had been happily munching hay. As soon as he’d seen the animal he recalled that Wareham had ridden it the last time Plimpton had visited. His friend had had his hands full when the horse was fresh.

He should have known better than to doubt Winifred’s abilities. She was a far better rider than her brother, her lithe body moving as one with the spirited horse.

Once the initial friskiness of her mount was no longer consuming her attention the silence between them turned uncomfortable. A fetching pink stain colored the cheek that faced his way, telling him that she felt the awkwardness.

“I should apologize for the liberties I took in the library last night,” he said once he had enjoyed her blushes far longer than he should have done.

Her head swiveled toward him, and she fixed him with a narrow-eyed look that was more than a little disgruntled.

Plimpton felt like laughing. Instead, he said, “Although I should apologize, it would be dishonest to say that I am sorry, Winifred. I enjoyed kissing you. And I will do it again if the opportunity presents itself.”

***

Freddie’s heart sped at brief but intense flash of desire that heated his gray gaze.

Calm yourself. You are behaving like a chit with your first infatuation.

The thought was sharp and astringent.

It was also correct.

Had they kissed last night?

Yes.

Had he just threatened to do so again if given the opportunity?

Also, yes.

Was she in danger of giggling like a giddy schoolgirl at such mild flirtation?

Astoundingly, the answer to that was also yes. At least if she did not gain control over her roiling emotions.

Freddie never giggled. Not even when she had been a girl. And yet right now a giggle threatened to bubble out of her even though she was a widow of eight years.

A widow who had been too scared and scarred after her disaster of a marriage to take a lover.

That thought killed the urge to giggle.

Thanks to Sedgewick, her life for years had been a passionless wasteland, an existence devoted to finding marital partners for other women. Husbands, but not necessarily lovers because women of her class did not yearn for such taboo things within marriage.

Except that Freddie did yearn for passion and intimacy and had done for some time. It had taken three- or four-years distance from her traumatic marriage to admit that Sedgewick—who had already destroyed so much in her life—would also rob Freddie of her own sensuality if she allowed it. And so, she had admitted to herself that she had physical needs and there was nothing wrong with her for wanting passion in her life.

She had been strongly tempted on several occasions to indulge those needs, especially when she had first met her friend Miles, the Earl of Avington. Eight years ago Miles had been a younger son with no prospects and every bit as poor and desperate for work as Freddie and all their other friends.

Miles also happened to be the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. Not only was he physically perfect, but he was a lovely person as well.

They had kissed—just once—but rather than stoking her desire, the brief experiment had killed it. Because kissing Miles had felt revoltingly like kissing her brother. She had never told him so, of course, but it had made the decision not to pursue an affair with him very easy.

Now, kissing the duke, on the other hand had set her blood ablaze.

Just imagine what lying with him would do…

Oh, she had. She had. For hours last night she had wondered. Twice, she had risen from her bed, slipped on her dressing gown, and walked toward her bedchamber door.

Twice she had stood staring into the darkness, breathing unevenly, her heart pounding.

And twice she had returned to her bed.

“Shall we take the other path today—the one that leads to the lake?” he asked, his question interrupting her increasingly heated imaginings.

“If you like,” she said, grateful he could not hear her thoughts.

The path narrowed not long after the fork and she was spared having to come up with polite conversation. Instead, she could openly admire his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and excellent seat without anyone being the wiser.

You should have gone to him last night.

Yes, she should have.

You should go to him tonight.

Yes, she should do.

But would she?

Freddie honestly did not know.

They came out of the trees into the clearing, and the lake—it was too large to be called a pond—stretched out before them, sparkling like a sapphire under the summer sky. Its vivid blue color was not just a reflection of the sky, but a result of the Devonshire limestone that comprised the lakebed. The stone was a distinctive taupe color struck through with non-directional veining, and it not only kept the water clear and cool, but it had also contributed to a lovely section of sandy beach, which was where her great-grandfather had built the boathouse.

The word boathouse did not do justice to the airy, elegant structure that perched above the water. It had a small wet dock beneath it that was hewn from the same limestone that had formed the lake, making the house appear as if it had grown up out of the earth.

“Shall we stop here?” The duke glanced at the sky, which still held blue directly overhead, although clouds weren’t far away. “If you are hungry, we could see what Cook packed for us.”

“I am not hungry yet, but I would not mind having a look around.”

The duke gracefully swung from the saddle and came to help Freddie dismount.

She had, shamefully and wantonly, hoped that he would take advantage of an opportunity to hold her a bit closer and longer than was proper, and use his body to ease her way down.

Disappointingly, he behaved like a perfect gentleman.

While the duke loosened the horses’ girths and set them free to graze, Freddie examined the boathouse, pleased to see it was weathering time without any visible decay.

The small cottage—for that is what it was—looked like something fairies might have made. Her grandfather had built it as a wedding gift for his wife. Theirs had been one of the grand love stories of their day. Freddie never met either of them as they’d both died long before she was born, her grandfather first and her grandmother of a broken heart a short time later.

“It has been years since I have been here,” the duke said as he came to stand beside her. “Wareham used to have parties every summer.”

“I recall them quite vividly.” They had been magical. At least the earliest ones.

She remembered Plimpton—of course she did, how could anyone forget him?—who had been serious and reserved even then, a sort of otherness about him. Freddie did not know at what age he had succeeded to the dukedom, but he must have been trained from the cradle for his position.

Like all the other boys who had come during those long-ago summers, he had treated Wareham’s pest of a little sister with casual tolerance. And Freddie had been a pest, following Wareham and his friends whenever she could escape the nursery, wanting to be part of whatever they were up to. She had cried more than once when Wareham had marched her back to the nursery.

Some of the boys had teased her, but never Plimpton. Indeed, she did not recall exchanging so much as a word with him.

He looked down and met her gaze. “Your nurse brought you here once—you were tiny, no more than five or six—because she was terrified that you would sneak away and come down on your own and drown. She refused to leave until Wareham agreed to teach you how to swim.”

Long buried memories came drifting back to her, like travelers returning from a distant, forgotten land.

Freddie nodded. “Yes, I remember now. Nanny said if I learned, I would be allowed to come to the next party. So Wareham taught me to swim. It was after Piers left,” she added, and then shook the sadness away. “You said Wareham used to have parties down here; does he not have them any longer?”

“He stopped not long after you got married.”

Looking back on it, she was amazed that Sophia had tolerated Wareham’s beach parties for as long as she had. Sophia had been an enemy of fun of any sort, and she had especially despised the boathouse and beach, complaining that the bedchambers were too small and damp, and hating that people tracked sand all through the little house. She had never joined in that Freddie recalled and it would have rankled her that Dicky enjoyed an activity that she considered juvenile.

Freddie shrugged away the unwanted specter of her sister-in-law and instead thought back to those long-ago beach parties. A laugh slipped out of her. “Wareham was so competitive about that foolish boat race and used to pout shamefully when he lost.”

“Which he was forced to do every time I competed.”

Freddie scoffed at the duke’s smug words. “You only won because I was not allowed to compete. The Little Bird was the fleetest boat on the water.” Sophia had made Freddie stop participating when she turned thirteen because she disapproved of Freddie’s rowing costume—a prim design of Freddie’s great-grandmother’s creation.

The duke turned to her, one eyebrow cocked, his gaze speculative. “It seems like I remember hearing that you won one year. A year I did not attend,” he pointed out unnecessarily.

The competition had required not just rowing—which Freddie never could have won against the superior strength of the boys—but archery, which she was, or had been, very good at.

“Fancy a race?” the duke asked.

Freddie laughed. “Thank you, no. Not only have I not rowed a dinghy in a decade and a half, but I have not picked up a bow in just as long.”

“If you are too cowardly to accept my challenge then perhaps you will allow me to row you around Frog Island for old time’s sake?”

Freddie had forgotten the silly name. The island he was referring to was dead center in the lake and the descriptor island was far too grandiose for the little dab of land. Wareham had come up with the name because of the large community of frogs that lived in a captured pond that had, over time, formed a marshy area.

“I would like to go out to the island,” she admitted, even though nostalgia threatened to overpower her. Freddie and Wareham had had such happy times here. She even recalled a few sunny afternoons with Piers when she could not have been much more than four.

And one magical morning he brought you here to see swans…

Freddie looked around. “There used to be swans.”

The duke frowned. “I believe so.”

She did not see any today.

“I wonder if there are any boats left if Wareham no longer uses the place,” she said.

“Only one way to find out.”

Freddie followed the duke up the two limestone steps leading to the wet dock. The warped wooden door opened with a screech that said it had not been oiled lately.

“Look! There is the Little Bird !” Freddie cried. “Why, it looks as if it has had a fresh coat of paint.” Freddie ran her hand along the smooth, pale blue prow.

“What is the significance of name Little Bird ?” the duke asked, looking from the prettily scrolled name to Freddie.

“You—did you know my brother Piers?”

“Yes, although not well.”

Freddie could not see from his expression what he thought about the other man. “Piers is the only one who called me that. There used to be finches in a cage in the sunroom. Evidently my mother liked them and always kept a pair, and it bothered me a great deal to see them living inside the house when it was clear to my three-year-old mind that birds belonged out side. In any event, I released the birds one day and was getting a scolding from Nanny when Piers intervened on my behalf.” Freddie smiled at the memory, which doubtless had been enlarged and colored by time, the way she liked to imagine it happening; Piers, her brave protector, coming to her rescue. She reluctantly left the memory behind. “The Little Bird was made for me, so it is much too small for the two of us.”

He gestured to the other two boats. “Take your pick.”

“I think the Island Hopper .”

“Very well. Shall we take the food along, or leave it here in the cool until we come back?”

“Let us leave it here. It will be your reward for hard rowing when we return.”

“Ah, I see. I am to be your galley slave.”

“That will be a novel, educational experience for you, I am sure.”

He merely grunted and left to fetch the basket.

Once he had tucked the basket in a cool spot, the two of them eased the boat off the limestone pier into the water.

The duke handed her in, and Freddie opted for the seat in the bow. She felt a twinge of guilt as he slid the oars into the locks and pushed off from the stone wall. “I do not mind sharing the labor.”

“I never go back on my word. You relax and I will row.”

Freddie observed his smooth, powerful stroking for a few moments and then said, “You are very good.”

“I started rowing at Eton and continued when I was at university. My brother and I have occasionally punted on the Severn, but it has been some years since the last time.” He paused, and then added, “I am just now realizing how much I have missed it.”

Once they were out on the water, she could see the boathouse more clearly, its many east-facing windows glinting in the sun. Although Wareham kept it well-maintained, Freddie thought the building looked lonely.

“It is shame nobody uses the boats or the cottage anymore,” she said.

“I agree. I have always envied your brother his boathouse.”

“You don’t have one on any of your seven properties?” she teased. “You must rectify that oversight.”

Humor gleamed in his eyes. “I shall have to correct Honoria—whom I assume is your informant—that I have eight properties.”

“Eight properties,” she repeated., shaking her head in wonder. “Do you visit them every year?” Freddie was fascinated by the thought of owning eight houses. Sedgewick had lost all but his family’s estate by the time they had married, and Wareham owned three—this one, the London house, and a modest property that had belonged to her mother—but she suspected all eight of Plimpton’s were far grander.

“Most years I do, but I never stay long at three of them as they have only a skeleton staff and my presence puts undue strain on them.”

“That is very considerate of you.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her.

“I am not mocking you. I mean it.” Freddie let one hand hang over the side, dragging a finger in the water. “You must be responsible for a great many people.”

“It sometimes feels that way.”

“Only sometimes?”

He rowed for a moment before answering. “Like anyone else, I have good days and bad days.”

“What is a good day?”

He rowed for a moment, the boat gliding silently, and then said, “A good day is any day when there is no calamity.”

“Calamity?”

“No crop-killing frosts, no tenants falling off ladders and breaking their legs, no new leaks discovered in Whitcombe’s roof.” He shrugged. “Those are good days.”

“And what constitutes a bad day—if you do not mind me asking. Aside from those things you just listed, of course.”

Again, he pondered her question. He was a precise man who thought before he spoke, and his succinct speech reflected that. Like Freddie, flirtation and badinage did not come easily to him.

“Last year a fire started in an outbuilding at one of my tenant farms. Before we could extinguish it, it destroyed not just his barn, threshing house, and all the other buildings, but his home, as well.”

“And his family?”

The duke shook his head. “He, his wife, and their seven children all escaped unscathed—at least in body—but losing one’s home and all one’s possessions is—” he broke off and shook his head. “Even though I could provide them with new housing and other necessities, I could not replace all they had lost. Nobody could.”

She was touched that he would take his tenants’ pain so personally. Not all peers cared about their people. Sedgewick’s tenant farmers had occupied ramshackle houses, paid steep rents, and barely scratched out a subsistence living on overworked land.

The duke paused and shipped the oars before taking out his handkerchief and wiping the sheen of perspiration from his face. It was hot and muggy when the sun burned through the clouds. She was certainly feeling uncomfortably warm in her habit, and she was not the one rowing.

“I will not be offended if you remove your coat, Your Grace.”

He glanced up from re-folding his handkerchief. “Thank you, I think I will; it is rather warm.”

Freddie could not look away as his long, elegant fingers deftly unfastened the buttons on his coat. Had she felt hot before? Now, she was sweltering.

She watched beneath her lashes as he shrugged his powerful shoulders and peeled off the elegantly tailored garment, which he proceeded to bunched up and was about to shove into a gap in the gunwale beside him.

Freddie held out her hand. “Give it to me. I will hold it for you.”

He handed her crumpled coat. “Thank you.”

“Look how you have wrinkled it,” Freddie scolded as she took it by the shoulders to give it a good shake.

“Be careful there is—damnation!” the duke shouted as something gold and shiny flew out of the garment and into the air.

Freddie lurched to grab whatever it was and was flabbergasted when her hand closed around something round and smooth.

Unfortunately, the duke lunged at the same moment.

It seemed like time slowed as the dinghy flipped—more of a gentle roll, really—tipping both her and the duke into the lake.