Page 15 of Private Arrangements
And damned if the kitten didn't obey, meowing plaintively but staying put all the same. The woman let out a long sigh and slowly descended the ladder. Langford began moving again, tapping his walking stick purposefully on the packed soil of the lane.
The woman turned at the sound. She was beautiful, with jet-dark hair, alabaster skin, and red lips, like Snow White after a few decades of happily-ever-after—and older than he'd supposed. From her voice and her figure he'd thought her somewhere in her thirties, but she was at least forty, likely more.
At the sight of him, her eyes widened to the size of gold guineas, but she recovered quickly. “I do beg your pardon, sir.” She sounded breathless, nothing like the tyrant she'd been with Hector. “I don't mean to trouble you, but I can't get to my kitty. He is stuck up high.”
He frowned. He had a fearsome frown, the kind that sent people scurrying to the opposite side of a room. “You have no groom or footman to retrieve the beast for you?”
She was clearly offended by his reference to the fur ball but swallowed it. “I have given them the afternoon off, I'm afraid.”
A woman who thought ahead, a rare phenomenon. Although, if he was pressed hard, he'd admit that men who thought ahead were equally rare. His frown deepened, but it seemed to have temporarily lost its menace, for she was not at all deterred by it.
“Won't you be so kind as to retrieve it for me?” she asked, all fluttering handkerchief and feminine helplessness.
A delightful conundrum. Should he rudely refuse and watch her crumple or play along for a bit of diversion?
“Certainly,” he said. Why not? His life had become monotonous of late. And he'd been fond of charades and tableaux in his younger days.
Eagerly, she stood aside and watched his approach with such idolatrous rapture that he felt like the Golden Calf itself. If he hadn't known that she was an ambitious mama who had him marked out for her daughter, he'd have thought she was out to ensnare him herself.
He ascended the ladder, a rickety contraption that did not sound willing to hold his weight. The kitten had stopped its meows and regarded him uncertainly. He grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and brought it down. As soon as it could, the kitten jumped free of him and landed back in its mistress's bosom—an ample bosom that strained the front of her bodice very nicely.
“Hector,” she cooed shamelessly. “You had me worried, you naughty kitten.” Hector, still frightened over a vegetarian future, did not contradict her. “How can I thank you enough, sir?”
“It is gratification enough to be of assistance. Good afternoon, madam.”
“But you must let me know your place of domicile at least, good sir!” she cried. “My cook makes an excellent strawberry cake. I shall have one sent to you.”
“I thank you, madam. But I am not overly fond of strawberries.”
“A cherry pie, then.”
“I have nothing to do with cherries.” Now he'd see how far she'd go to worm her way into his acquaintance.
She was taken aback, but again, her recovery was quick. “I also have a case of Château Lafite claret, from the forty-six vintage.”
This was an offer more difficult to resist. He had acquired a taste for fine wines in his younger years. And '46 was an extraordinary vintage for Château Lafite. He had gone through his last bottle three years ago.
Two things immediately became clear about her. She was much wealthier than he'd guessed from her modest cottage. And this scheme to rope him in for her daughter was no lark. She was prepared to go if not to hell then at least to Jakarta and back.
“Or do you not care for that either, sir?” She played it coy, having already perceived his temptation.
He gave in. “I live at Ludlow Court.”
Her right hand detached itself from the kitten, arced in the air, and returned—smack!—to her bosom, fingers spread in a gesture that traditionally heralded delighted incoherence. “Surely—oh, dear! You do not— but—goodness gracious me!”
As she was made from sterner, cat-exploiting stuff, she sank not into a faint but into a gorgeous curtsy. “Your Grace. I shall have the case delivered to Ludlow Court before dinner.”
As she straightened herself, he suddenly had the feeling that he had seen her before, back when the world was young—or at least when he was. He dismissed the thought and nodded curtly. “Good afternoon.”
“Mrs. Rowland,” she supplied, though he still hadn't asked for her identity, even implicitly. “Good afternoon, Your Grace.”
Mrs. Rowland. The name triggered a new stirring in his mind but nothing strong enough to yield a remembrance. She had the good sense to let him go without further ado—or any mention of her daughter—leaving him mystified and rather too curious for his liking.
Chapter Six
December 1882
Miss Rowland did not skip rocks. She tossed them. Shelves of thin, brownish ice hugged the stream's two banks, but a narrow band of water still flowed free at its center. Into this part of the brook she flung the rocks,plop, plop, plop.There was no particular rhythm to it. Sometimes she threw a dozen pebbles in quick succession, sometimes a minute or more would pass between twoplops.It was as if she underscored her own state of mind, restiveness followed by a stretch of contemplation, only to be overtaken by yet another fit of agitation.
