Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(14)

They drank weak, tepid lemonade from a table run by a Sunday school class. It must be many years since he had drunk any sort of lemonade. It would be many more before he would indulge again.

She became more lighthearted as the afternoon wore on. But she did not flirt with him. And that surely had been part of the attraction when they were younger. Although he had wondered too about the possibility of hidden passions; maybe he had seen in her a potentially steadying influence as his life had careened more and more out of control—and even as he had flirted outrageously with her. And even as he had known she was married and therefore out of bounds for anything more than dalliance. It had not occurred to him at the time that just maybe he could have made a friend of her.

But he did not make friends with women. Or even with men for that matter. Friendship involved a certain degree of intimacy, an opening of self to another, and he chose not to share himself with anyone.

She was not married now. Ironically, she never had been.

And he wanted her. Still. And he wondered still.

They watched a dancing contest about the maypole that had been erected in the center of the green. Two teams had come from other villages to challenge the dancers from this village, and crowds gathered around to cheer on their favorites and to applaud appreciatively every intricate move in which the colorful ribbons twined themselves about the tall pole in seemingly hopeless entanglement while the dancers who held them were forced closer and closer to it and to one another—and then smoothly extricated themselves, weaving in and out as they circled to the spirited scraping of the fiddles until each dancer held an unencumbered ribbon and the maypole was bare.

“The maypole is like a symbol of life, is it not?” the former countess said at the end of one such dance, and he turned an inquiring gaze upon her. She was flushed and bright-eyed—not just from the wind, he guessed—almost as though she had been out there dancing herself.

“It is?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Around and around,” she said, “seemingly getting nowhere but becoming more and more entangled in troubles and cares, not all of them of one’s own making.”

“That is a gloomy assessment of life with which to entertain yourself on a festive afternoon, Lady Riverdale,” he said.

“But the maypole dances do not end in chaos,” she said. “And I am not the countess. The Countess of Riverdale is married to the present earl and is a friend of mine.”

“I will not be distracted with trivialities,” he said. “Complete your analogy.”

“Everything works out,” she said. “If one faithfully follows the pattern of the dance, it all works out.” She was frowning.

“But what would happen,” he asked her, “if just one of the dancers bobbed when all the others weaved? The whole pattern would be ruined, all the ribbons would be hopelessly tangled with one another, and all the dancers would be doomed to weave and wander in eternal befuddlement. I am afraid your analogy is a naively romantic one, Miss Kingsley. It is simplistic. It suggests that there is such a thing as happily-ever-after if one but lives a virtuous and dutiful life.”

“Very well,” she said. “It was a foolish and impulsive idea, and it has annoyed you. I am sorry.”

Had she annoyed him with her oh-so-simplistic suggestion that unwavering virtue was always rewarded? By God, she had. But how could anyone in her right mind believe even for an impulsive moment that life turned out right if one but followed the rules? Especially when such a belief depended upon the companion theory that everyone else in one’s orbit could be relied upon to do likewise. How could she of all people believe it?

“Annoyed?” he said. “Rather say charmed, Miss Kingsley. I am charmed by your na?ve optimism.” He possessed himself of her hand and raised it to his lips. She was not wearing gloves, as she had not all afternoon. She was, however, wearing a ridiculously large diamond ring, which sparkled in the sunlight. “And dazzled,” he added.

She . . . smiled. And he really was. Dazzled, that was. Years fell away from her face even as lines appeared at the outer corners of her eyes.

“It is rather splendid, is it not?” she said, extending her hand and spreading her fingers. “The poor emerald on my other hand is dwarfed.” She raised that hand too and shook it to make the ruby bracelet jangle on her wrist. “Optimism? Do I believe in it?”

It was a rhetorical question, it seemed. She turned away rather abruptly before he could answer in order to listen to the lengthy adjudication of the maypole dancing. She kept her face turned away from him. He had offended her, perhaps, by calling her na?ve.

What would he do tomorrow? Hire a horse? Buy a horse? André had had the presence of mind to have the largest of his bags taken into the inn, but that in itself posed a problem. Hire a gig, then? A curricle? A carriage? Were any such conveyances available in such a place? He doubted it. Would he find himself walking home, or at least to the nearest sizable town? But he would think of that tomorrow.

“Shall we make our way to the church hall and the feast?” he suggested. That was where everyone else seemed to be headed.

“I suppose there is little choice if we wish to eat,” she said.

“I most certainly do not choose to go hungry.” He offered his arm. “Do you?”

She gave him that look again, the one that suggested he had just said something risqué, though he had not done so intentionally.