My Dearest Grandson Alexander,
I hope you will remember these sobering words from Lord Chesterfield. Take heed, dear one, he is seldom wrong about anything and never wrong about a man. “That great wit, which you so partially allow me, may create many admirers; but, take my word for it, it makes few friends.”
Your loving Grandmother,
Lady Elder
Race was in a quandary and filled with frustration as he entered his house late in the afternoon. He’d had a frustrating and unsuccessful meeting with Gibby at the Harbor Lights Club a couple of days ago, and he’d just come from another long, heated discussion with his cousins. He was beginning to feel as if he was going in two different directions at the same time. Gibby had been absolutely giddy with excitement over his duel—if this travesty could be called that. And Blake and Morgan still thought Race should talk to Prattle and find an amenable way to settle his accusation against Gib, even though the old man was dead set against him doing it.
Race really had no idea how Prattle would take an offer of money, if in the end he decided to approach him. Except for Gibby’s objection, there certainly wasn’t anything out of line about doing it. Through the ages, men, and maybe a few ladies too, had been saved from marriages they didn’t want by the exchange of money, lands, or making other suitable arrangements with the offended parties. But this sort of thing usually happened with young ladies and randy blades, not people the ages of Gibby and Miss Prattle.
Blast Gibby’s rotten soul. What was a man in his sixties doing training for a bare-knuckle fist fight and drinking milk? Gib was too damned old to be a pugilist.
Race strode into his book room and straight over to his sideboard and poured himself a glass of wine. He took a sip of the velvety liquid as he loosened his neckcloth. The stiff collar had been choking him all day. He walked toward his desk and stopped midstride. Was that music he heard? He looked over at the open window. The brown and gold wide-striped draperies were parted, and the alluring melody drifted inside.
The sound was coming from a pianoforte, but was it a composition of Bach, Mozart, or some other composer? He listened to the soft engaging theme for a few seconds.
He half laughed as he took another sip of the wine. Hell, why hadn’t his grandmother insisted they learn more about music and less about Lord Chesterfield and his bloody blubbering about how to be a man?
Race walked over to the window and looked out over his grounds and realized that the music came from Susannah’s house. Was it her, Mrs. Princeton, or someone else playing? He stood there for a few moments, looking at her house and listening to the strains of the score.
Finally, he pulled a chair over to the window, sat down and propped his feet on the windowsill, and let the soothing, lyrical notes float in and relax him as he enjoyed his drink. He felt the tightness leave his eyes, mouth, and shoulders. The stress of the past couple of days, brought on by his conversations with his cousins and Gibby, seemed to ebb out of his body. His neck and shoulders loosened up, and he melted more comfortably into the chair and thought about Susannah. He liked that she was unconventional. She created an excitement inside him whenever she was near.
Race had sent Susannah an informal note four or five days ago, saying that he wanted to see her, but as of yet he hadn’t had the time to call on her. He supposed he should have been more decorous when he wrote to her. After all, she was a dowager duchess and deserved the most circumspect protocol, but to him she was simply a beautiful, desirable woman named Susannah. He wanted to put aside her title, and his, and simply enjoy her. He didn’t really know why yet, but she enchanted him.
He wanted to see her again.
Today.
Right now.
What would she do if he went to her door and asked her to go to the park with him again, or to a party or the opera? Vauxhall Gardens was open. She might enjoy walking around the gardens with him and watching the fireworks. Or they could walk right here in his own gardens.
He really didn’t care what they did. All he knew was that he wanted to look into her sparkling green eyes and kiss her again. But this time he wanted to kiss her properly, in private. He didn’t want a quick peck on the lips while standing on a street. He wanted a long, leisurely kiss so he could drink in her essence. He wanted to pull her close and feel her warmth against him and lose himself in the softness of her tempting, womanly body.
Suddenly, without real thought about exactly what he was going to do, Race set his glass down on his desk and headed for his rear door. The only clear thing he knew he wanted to do was to establish who was playing the pianoforte.
Afternoon mist lay gray and gloomy in the air when he stepped outside. A gentle breeze blew a strand of hair across his face, and he quickly brushed it behind his ear as he hurried down the steps that led to his back grounds.
People often commented that he had one of the largest and loveliest formal gardens in Mayfair, but he had seldom walked through it. He never had the time for such niceties. But today as he stomped on the stone pathway, he noticed that it was indeed beautiful. The foliage in his garden was a lush, deep shade of green. No doubt from the drenching spring rains that had plagued London for months. All of the roses in the beds were different shades of pink, but the various kinds of flowers that dotted the landscape seemed to be of every color imaginable.
The formal knot garden had been laid out to form an intricate pattern, with shrubs trimmed in different sizes and shapes. Obviously his gardener had a sharp eye for detail. And the large waterfall fountain that stood in the middle of the garden was expansive and flowing with water.
When he reached the end of his property, he was perplexed for a few seconds. He stood in front of a seven-foot yew hedge that had made a solid fence, separating his grounds from Susannah’s, and whispered, “Bloody hell.”
His gardener was obviously worth the money Race paid him. The man had made it impossible to pass through or around the thick yew wall that completely surrounded his garden on three sides. What the devil was he going to do now?
But Race was not of a mind to be stopped by a tall green shrub. He strode back to his gardener’s supply room, picked up a hatchet, and returned to the green mountain hedge, knowing what he had planned was not going to be easy with the small hand-held ax. He mathematically studied the corner where two ends met, and then carefully started chopping and hacking a hole at the bottom of the yew big enough for him to squeeze through.
It wasn’t an easy task, and it took him quite a while, but after he finished, he stepped back and looked at his handiwork of the closely cropped hedge. He was satisfied that it would be difficult for him to crawl through but not impossible. He looked around at the clippings that were scattered all around his feet. His gardener was not going to be a happy man when he found the mess the next day.
After forcing himself through the hole, Race stood and brushed small bits of the shrub from his coat as best he could. He straightened his neckcloth as he traipsed through Susannah’s property. He couldn’t help but notice, after passing through his own well-tended gardens, that the grounds surrounding Susannah’s house had been sadly neglected. He supposed that was to be expected when the place hadn’t been lived in for at least a year.
The music grew louder as he approached the rear of the house, and he realized the sounds came from the right. He finger-combed his hair and cautiously walked around the house until he saw a slate pathway that led to a side door. A window was nearby, so he quietly eased up to it and peeked inside.
He saw Susannah sitting at the pianoforte, her back to him. His breath quickened, and his loins thickened at the sight of her. She sat on a cushioned bench. Her spine was straight, the nape of her slender neck accented by a stray curl of hair that had escaped her chignon. He admired the gentle slope of her softly rounded shoulders. It stimulated him to watch the way her nimble fingers danced across the ivories while her hands and shapely arms moved gracefully.
She was in a small room that held only the pianoforte, two upholstered side chairs with matching pillows in them, and a summer-blue settee with a brocade footstool in front of it. There was no one else present in the room that he could see.
