was a small scrap of blonde lace lying by his boot. Hal bent and picked it up, smoothing it between his fingers for a long time—until he thought he could master his expression—then he slid it into the breast of his jacket and walked out of the clearing.
‘Have you ever been kissed, Felicity?’ Julia asked without preamble as they sat side by side on a rug, under their parasols, waiting for Mr Smyth and Mr Fordyce to fetch them ices. Half an hour in the ladies’ retiring tent, and she was tidy and composed enough to make the grass stains on her skirts plausibly the result of a trip.
‘Kissed?’ Felicity simpered, blushed, then asked, ‘Properly kissed?’
Julia nodded.
‘Yes, once.’
‘What was it like?’
‘Oh, wonderful…’ She smirked, glanced sideways at Julia, then admitted, ‘No, actually it was horrid.’
‘Horrid?’ No, Hal’s kiss had not been that. It had been wonderful, terrifying, puzzling.
‘It was wet. He wanted me to open my mouth and—’ Felicity lowered her voice even further ‘—he tried to put his tongue into it.’
‘What did you do?’ Julia fought the blush rising to her cheeks at the memory of that shocking intimacy.
‘I kicked him,’ Felicity said, smug. ‘And told him he was a beast. And so he slunk off.’
‘Well done,’ Julia said weakly. Her nerves were tingling, her pulse still erratic; a strange, unfamiliar restlessness was making it very difficult to sit demurely on the rug as a lady should; and her conscience was struggling to make itself heard against those novel physical messages.
‘Why do you ask? Has someone tried to kiss you?’
‘Well, er, yes,’ Julia confessed. Was that all it had been: a kiss? It had seemed more somehow.
‘Mr Fordyce?’ Felicity hazarded. ‘I think he is very nice. So is Mr Smyth, but he’s a clergyman, so I don’t expect it was him.’
‘No, neither of them. Ssh, here they come.’
Julia ate her ice and talked and strolled around and was introduced to people, drank lemonade and joined in the applause at an impromptu cricket match. The sun began to dip in the sky, and the restless, nameless yearning became stronger, harder to ignore, no easier to control and her eyes searched fruitlessly amongst the crowd, seeking Hal’s face.
Whatever these feelings were, they had everything to do with a lean, hard body against hers making her feel, at one and the same time, both recklessly abandoned and utterly insecure. I must not see him again. I must not.
When stumps were pulled and the company began to wander towards the tents for tea, Lady Geraldine said, ‘There is talk of a torch-lit carriage drive through the forest after dark. Do you think your mamas would object if we kept you out so late?’
‘Why no, I do not think Mama would mind; she said that as I was with you, Lady Geraldine, she was not at all concerned what time I was home.’ Felicity nodded energetic agreement.
‘Well then, we will all take part. And, Julia, if one of your beaux should ask, you may ride with him in his carriage—provided that it stays close to ours at all times.’
Both Mr Smyth and Mr Fordyce had their sporting carriages with them, it was just a question which of them asked her first. A drive through the forest would be exciting and romantic in the most innocent and respectable of ways, she was sure. Only it was not one of her respectable potential suitors she wanted to be with. In the darkness the only man she yearned to be beside was Hal Carlow, her pulse beating wildly, her breath catching in her throat, as they galloped through the night, his hands strong on the reins.
A Gothic romance in fact, she scolded herself. She was obviously reading too many of them, if she found the idea of being alone with him, racketing through the darkness at a potentially lethal pace, romantic. In reality, it would be thoroughly alarming, just as that kiss had been.
That bracing thought supported her through tea and the flattering experience of having not just Mr Fordyce but Mr Smyth and Colonel Williams solicit her company for the torchlight drive. Mr Fordyce was first, so good manners dictated that she accept his offer, although if she had a free choice she could not have said which gentleman she preferred. They all seemed pleasant, intelligent, worthy—and rather dull. Just what she should be hoping for in a potential husband in fact. Excitement in a husband would be very wearing.
As the sun dropped below the trees a cool breeze set in. Julia wrapped her cloak snugly around herself while the men set about organising the carriages into a line. Someone had anticipated the drive and had brought a wagon filled with torches to light at the brazier, and the horsemen were drafted into acting as outriders to carry the burning brands.
At last, all was ready and the cavalcade set off at a decorous trot. Julia wondered if someone staid had been put at the front, then decided not as the trot became a canter. From in front and behind there were whoops of delight, but Mr Fordyce kept his pair well in hand.
On either side, riders holding up the torches were cantering on the wide grassy verges. ‘It is like a scene from fairyland,’ Julia gasped, entranced by the wild shadows thrown on the trees, the thunder of hooves, the echoes of laughter.
‘That’s a fine animal,’ Charles Fordyce observed, glancing to his right.
Julia leaned back so she could look around him and gasped. It was, indeed, magnificent. A huge grey, so pale as to be almost white in the torchlight, its mane and tail dark charcoal. Its rider, quite still in the saddle, was watching her, his face garishly highlighted by the flaming brand he held. Hal. Everything that she had been trying to forget about the day came flooding back, and she gave thanks for the darkness hiding her face.
‘A Light Dragoon.’ Fordyce gave his own team more rein. The grey lengthened its stride to stay alongside.
‘It is Major Carlow,’ Julia said without thinking, and the pair pecked as though the reins had been jerked, just as her heartbeat seemed to jolt in her chest.
‘Carlow? You know him?’ Fordyce’s normally pleasant voice was cool.
Hal’s wretched reputation, he did warn me about that too…‘He rescued me from a man who accosted me in the Parc,’ she said. ‘And he introduced me to Lady Geraldine at once; that is how I met her.’ She managed what she hoped was a light laugh. ‘I understand he is the most terrible rake, but on that occasion, I would have welcomed the assistance of Bonaparte himself.’
‘Who would have been rather less detrimental to your reputation, I imagine,’ Charles said, sounding intolerably stuffy.
‘I am sure that would be the case, if I had continued round the Parc in Major Carlow’s company,’ she said stiffly. ‘As it was, he took pains to limit any damage that might arise from sanctimonious persons getting the wrong idea.’ Oh dear, now that sounds as though I have accused him of being a prig. And if only he knew it, he is right: Hal is dangerous.
Mr Fordyce obviously thought so too. ‘An unmarried lady cannot be too careful,’ he snapped. ‘One can only speculate upon why he has chosen to ride beside this carriage.’ He turned more obviously and stared at Hal. ‘I’ve a mind to call the fellow out—’
‘No! My goodness, please do not do any such thing!’ Julia grasped his forearm. ‘He is said to be lethal.’
‘—but I will not, lest your name were to be linked to the affair,’ Charles said, as if she had not spoken. ‘You will not, naturally, have anything more to do with him.’
‘What?’ Julia gasped. ‘I have no intention of doing so, but you have no business telling me with whom I may, or may not, associate, Mr Fordyce!’
‘I most certainly have, unless you have been playing fast and loose with me, Miss Tresilian.’ It was not easy, quarrelling in a moving carriage