However, she was not one for giving way to her feelings, and within a few minutes common sense reasserted itself. Her reaction was merely the shock of her first kiss, no more than that. When females were brought up in almost complete isolation from males, and even when grown mingled with them only under the most circumscribed situations, the intimacy ofkissing was bound to give rise to tremendous agitation. Now it was over, and she had the point of comparison she had desired.
Within a few minutes, she began to plan — how might she contrive to get Lord Thomas Medhurst and Lord Brockscombe alone, and how should she convince them it was necessary? She was all for openly asking each one to kiss her, but what reason could she give? She could hardly tell either of them that she wanted to choose which one to marry. It was decidedly awkward.
For the rest of the afternoon, she pondered the question. All through dinner she was preoccupied, so that Mr Fielding, who sat beside her, asked increasingly pointed questions about her health. But after dinner, she was granted the opportunity she sought. The drizzle prevailing all day had given way to a fine evening, and since they dined early, there was a general wish to take the air before it grew dark. Bea found Viscount Brockscombe looming over her as she arrived in the entrance hall, clad for the outdoors.
“May I offer you my arm, Miss Franklyn?”
She looked round at her stepmother, who raised an eyebrow but nodded encouragingly, so she smiled at the viscount, and placed her hand on his sleeve.
More than a dozen walkers set off into the gardens, but within five minutes the overgrown shrubs hid them all from sight. At first, voices could be heard and boots crunching on the gravel, but before long even those sounds died away, and they might have been the only two people in the garden.
Rather nervous now, Bea had found her voice again, and chattered on unstoppably, while the viscount said very little. Occasionally, he laughed at one of her little jokes, and sometimes he would say,‘Yes, it is so at Brockscombe Hall, too,’or perhaps,‘My aunt has experienced the same thing,’but otherwise he seemed content to listen.
Eventually, by some means, she could not say how, they came to the marble bench facing the nymph statue. “Shall we sit for a while?” Lord Brockscombe said.
So they did, and it turned out that she did not have to contrive at all, for it seemed that the gentleman was of very much the same mind as she was. As soon as she settled on the bench, he sat beside her, rather closer than was seemly, and slid an arm around her waist.
“Ah, Miss Franklyn, how delightful you are. So delightful, in fact, that I am very tempted to kiss you.”
“Oh!” How easy it was! All she had to do was to lean a little towards him and—
His lips touched hers. No, that was not right. Surely there was something amiss? Where was the warmth, thegloryof it? His lips were—
She pulled back sharply.
At once he released her, his expression horrified. “I have mistaken you. Pray forgive me, I did not mean— I cannot apologise enough— Miss Franklyn, I am the world’s greatest fool. You would be quite within your rights to banish me from your sight henceforth.”
“No, no! It is quite all right. I was surprised, that is all.”
“Then you can find it in your heart to forgive me?”
“Most readily, sir. In fact, if you would care to begin again, I should not be surprised a second time, and we might get on a little better.”
He laughed out loud. “Miss Franklyn, you are the sweetest creature alive, I swear it.”
Leaning nearer to her, again his arm crept around her waist, and again his lips found hers. She was not surprised this time, but she was…disappointed.That was the only word for it. There was no fire, no sensation of falling, falling into… she could noteven describe it. There were no words in her vocabulary for the way Bertram’s kiss had made her feel.
No… she had a word. Alive. Vibrant. Desired. That was three words. Passionate. Protected. Cherished. Six words. What else? She had felt like a woman. Full of life and hope and energy and joy and some kind of fizzing, bubbling, light-filled sensation that had no name at all.
She felt none of that with the viscount. It was pleasant enough, she supposed, but nothing more. Eventually, he had had enough and drew back, to her relief. He was laughing, light-hearted, exhilarated. She had to force the smile to her face.
As she rose, a lock of hair abruptly came free and dangled annoyingly on one shoulder. She raised a hand to it, puzzled. “Oh! I must have lost a hairpin.”
His guilty expression told its own story.
“Lord Brockscombe? Did you…tamperwith my hair?”
Sheepishly, he held up a single hairpin. “I collect them, you see. Souvenirs of a pleasant interlude.”
A pleasant interlude?Was that all she was to him, a few moments of pleasure and a stolen hairpin? That was humiliating.
“How many such souvenirs do you possess?” she said coldly.
“A few… a dozen, perhaps… no more than two dozen perhaps. Notmanymore. Yours will have a treasured place in my collection, you may be sure, Miss Franklyn.”
They walked slowly back to the house, and this time, he was the one who talked and talked, while she was almost silent in seething resentment. In the entrance hall, she made some excuse to retreat to her room, where she sat, staring unseeingly out of the window, her anger at Lord Brockscombe draining away as she remembered another, very different, kiss. Even the memory warmed her inside and made her smile. But what on earth did it mean?
***
