Page 37 of The Bridal Quest

"What do you mean?" Irene cast a suspicious glance at her companion.

"Why, what would I mean?" Francesca asked, turning to look at Irene with an innocent expression.

"I did not do it because of any sort of feeling for the man," Irene pointed out.

"Oh, no. Of course not," Francesca said agreeably.

Irene drew breath to comment on Francesca's answer, which she felt was meant to imply the exact opposite of what she said, but at that point it struck her that to protest the other woman's words would only serve to make her look foolish. So, not without some degree of frustration, she swallowed her response.

But she could not so easily cut off her own speculations about her actions. Why had she been so quick to defend Lord Radbourne? One would think that she would have sided with a woman who disliked the man, for she herself had decided that he was a thorough boor. Certainly his childhood must have been tilled with a great deal of pain and sorrow, and the man doubtless carried scars from those years. It made her shudder to think of any child being subjected to the sort of life he had led. But those facts did not change his personality. They did not make him better or kinder or less obnoxious.

True, Teresa had been rude and insensitive in her remarks, but Francesca had responded to the woman as most ladies would, with a chilly disdain. Why had Irene felt compelled to charge into battle with her?

It was her nature, she told herself. She simply could not sit idly by while Lady Teresa made such hurtful, arrogant remarks. She would have done the same if the remarks had been directed at anyone else. She was, she hoped, not so unfair as to allow comments that hurt someone to pass just because she disliked the man.

And yet ... somehow she could not dismiss what had happened and what she had said quite that easily. Her thoughts kept circling back to the matter all through the next tedious hour in the music room, as Lady Odelia told the vicar's wife a seemingly interminable story about a woman whom she and her sister had known forty years earlier. Odelia paused now and then to urge Francesca to play a tune upon the piano, but then she returned to her tale, raising her voice to be heard above Francesca's soft playing.

Francesca obediently remained seated at the piano, running quietly through her repertoire of music, though she rolled her eyes comically at Irene from time to time. Teresa sat in a chair at some remove from Irene and occupied herself by staring daggers at Irene, and Lady Claire took up her place beside Irene on the narrow sofa, fretting quietly about Irene's having methodically sliced Lady Teresa's pretensions into ribbons at the supper table.

The men did not join them after the postprandial cigars and port. Irene could scarcely blame them. Doubtless they had experienced such excruciating evenings before.

When enough time had passed to satisfy the requirements of civility, Irene spoke up, pleading tiredness from the journey as an excuse to retire early. Francesca, she noticed, was quick to agree that she was ready for bed. Lady Odelia waved them off with a few caustic comments about the lack of hardiness in young women today, and Irene and Francesca wasted no time in escaping the room.

They spent a much more enjoyable hour in Francesca's room, talking, but when they heard sounds of the group breaking up downstairs, Irene slipped down the hall to her own room. She went to stand by the window again and looked out into the dark garden below. It was difficult to see anything, for there was only a quarter moon, barely illuminating the shapes of trees and shrubs. But Irene gazed out anyway, thinking about the evening more than looking at the view.

Then, at the edge of her vision, a light appeared, catching her attention, and she leaned closer to the glass, intrigued. The light was from a lantern, she realized, bobbing with the steps of a man. She cupped her hands around her eyes to cut out the glare of the light inside her room and narrowed her eyes. Who was walking about the garden at this time of night?

The man bent to open the latch of a gate, raising the lantern to see, and the light fell on his face. It was Gideon.

Irene straightened, her curiosity engaged. She watched as Lord Radbourne walked through the garden until he disappeared from her sight in the trees at the far end. Then, beyond the stand of trees, she caught sight of the bobbing light again. A moment later it was gone.

What, she wondered, was Lord Radbourne doing tramping about the grounds so late? It certainly did not seem as if he were out on a casual stroll or smoking a late-night cigar before he turned in. His stride had been purposeful, and he had taken a lantern to light the way. Nor had he stayed in the garden. The last time she had seen the light, it had surely been some distance away.

She supposed he could have been headed toward the tavern in the village; it seemed a likely enough place for a man to go, especially after a difficult evening with his relatives. And while it might be too common a place for many gentlemen to relax, it could very well suit someone who felt uncomfortable in his gentleman's role.

However, the village and the tavern were in the opposite direction from that which Gideon had taken, and, moreover, it seemed a rather long way to walk. Surely he would have taken a horse. But he had not been headed toward the stables, either.

What was he about, and where was he going? What lay in that direction besides fields and woods and the occasional cottage? Was he meeting someone? She could think of little reason to meet someone at this time of night. It seemed rather late for any sort of activity ... unless, of course, he was meeting a woman. Could it be that he was heading for a romantic rendezvous?

Nonsense, she chided herself. No doubt there were a number of other logical reasons why a man might be setting out into the countryside—alone—at nearly midnight. The fact that she could not think of any of them did not mean they did not exist.

Besides, even if he was sneaking off for a tryst, it was no concern of hers. Irene could not imagine why she was even wasting her time thinking about it. And there was certainly no reason for that suspicion to cause such a painful little twist in her heart.

Chapter Nine

The next day Francesca and Irene began their campaign to improve Gideon's marriage prospects. There was, Lady Odelia had assured them, no time to waste. The prospective brides had been invited and were expected to arrive in a little over a week.

Irene and Francesca met in the dining room after breakfast was over. Gideon, however, was late by almost thirty minutes. Perhaps, Irene thought with some annoyance, the man had overslept this morning after his midnight tryst. The more she had thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Lord Radbourne had been sneaking away to meet a woman. He was clearly a sensual man; she had felt the power of his kiss, after all. And there would be a number of willing women around, she felt sure, given his looks, wealth and position.

It was only to be expected, she decided, and though of course it did not matter in any way to her, she could not help but feel irritated at this further example of typical male behavior. Gideon was about to court a wife, yet at the same time he was carrying on an affair with a mistress. Or perhaps not an affair with a mistress, just indulging in an even more meaningless encounter with some woman. Irene knew, of course, that she was jumping to conclusions, but that fact did not prevent her from feeling annoyed.

She wondered who the woman was—the wife or daughter of one of the tenants? It would have to be someone who lived close by. Perhaps there was a willing widow in the vicinity, happy to ease her loneliness with the handsome lord ... or could it be one of the housemaids? Irene cast her mind over the ones she had met, wondering which of them might be pretty enough to catch Gideon's eye.

She considered how she might find out where Gideon had gone and whether he had met someone, and then in the next moment realized how foolish her thoughts were. What did it matter if he was meeting a woman? It was no concern of hers. She would do much better to control her imagination and her curiosity, and concentrate on the task at hand: getting Gideon married. Let his future wife worry about the rest of it.

Gideon arrived finally, looking rushed and irritated. Irene made a point of glancing at the clock on the mantel. He followed her gaze, and his lips twitched with obvious annoyance.

"Yes, I am late, Lady Irene," he said grouchily. "I am afraid I allowed some trifling little business matters to interfere with my main duty in life—learning to pretend to be a gentleman."