Lady Bridget's Diary (Keeping Up with the Cavendishes #1)(38)

“Yes.”

She just gave him a wicked smile that suggested she knew he was lying.

“Well, my instinct is not to be chivalrous or ladylike or well behaved at all,” she said. He thought that she shouldn’t say such things. Especially not when they were alone like this. “You may have noticed, but I regularly find myself doing the wrong thing. Why, I forget the correct forms of address, or when it’s my turn to go in to supper, or all the steps to the quadrille, and I don’t always walk with a certain air.”

“I imagine the duchess is trying to remedy all that.”

And it was a pity. Because a perfect lady would be simpering instead of treating him to wicked grins. A perfect lady would have spoken only of the weather. And a perfect lady would never tease him and call him Looord Darcy.

“She is. But that’s not why I’m trying.” He didn’t say anything, afraid of what was coming next. “It was what you said at my first ball.”

His throat tightened. He’d said something awful. But he could not explain to her that she had surprised him, aroused him, sent his world spinning off its axis. That he could not let anyone, least of all, Lady Francesca, suspect as much.

But now he bore some responsibility for a lively, engaging, and interesting young woman trying to shrink herself to fit into a little perfect box. So stuck--up gents like him and the rest of the haute ton would approve or, at the very least, have less to gossip about.

“Lady Bridget, I do apologize . . .”

“You already apologized.”

“But then it was merely to mollify you. Now I know you better and I am sorry if you are trying to change yourself because of some stupid, idle chatter.”

Spoken by a man who lusts after you and is afraid to acknowledge it. Because what will people say?

“Now that, Lord Darcy, is an apology.”

They exchanged smiles. Nervous but kind smiles.

“Now I suppose I owe you an apology,” she confessed. “I am sorry that I have called you Dreadful Darcy in my diary.”

“You have wounded me terribly, but I’m certain I shall survive,” he deadpanned. She laughed. He delighted in the sound.

And storm clouds loomed ahead.



It was about to rain. The air was thick with the possibility of it, the promise of it. Low rumbles of thunder foreshadowed the looming storm.

For the first time since Amelia left, Bridget started to fear for her sister. There had been no sign of her on the streets of Mayfair or in the park. No one they had spoken to provided even a hint of clue. And now their search would be hindered by the weather.

They had traveled far from the populated areas of the park into some remote corner. If Bridget hadn’t been with Lord Darcy, Earl of Chivalry and Protector of Virtue, she might have been nervous to be here alone with a man.

But she was safe with him. Of course she was. She glanced over at the man beside her. He was tall, dark, strong, and inscrutable. Until a few hours earlier, he’d been a stranger at best. More often she considered him her nemesis, for he embodied everything about England and the haute ton that made her feel worthless. But the man she’d been with today was harder to hate. He was almost becoming . . . human.

“This will probably be a quick storm. We’ll seek shelter in the gazebo,” he said, gesturing toward the structure looming ahead. It was built in a classical style and impossible to discern if it was new or a hundred years old. “You go ahead while I cover the carriage,” he said. Then he jumped down and went around to help her alight.

She placed her hand in his.

Her gaze locked with his.

There was a rumble of thunder.

Neither of them hurried.

“And Lady Bridget—-take my jacket. I insist.”

He shrugged out of the gray wool coat and draped it around her shoulders. As he did, his fingers brushed against her skin. He might not feel shivers of desire and pleasure but she certainly did in that moment.

She dashed for the cover of the gazebo and glanced over her shoulder at him; he stood there, just in his white shirt and waistcoat, watching her with his dark eyes.

There was a strange fluttering in her stomach. She clung to his coat with one hand, wrapping it around her, and inhaled deeply. It carried his scent—-like expensive wool, expensive soap, and something indescribably masculine. It affected her strangely, making her want to envelop herself in the jacket . . . or his arms.

There was another rumble of thunder, then an unholy crack of lightning, and the heavens exploded with a deluge of plump raindrops just as she reached shelter. She turned to watch Darcy as he rushed to cover the carriage, becoming soaked in the process.

When he was finished he walked toward her at a slow, steady pace; he didn’t rush, not even in the downpour, as if he were impervious to the rain. So she had ample time to notice his long strides, and the way the wet breeches clung to his very muscular legs. Ladies weren’t supposed to notice such things, probably, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away—-except to take note of the broad expanse of his chest, plain as day underneath his wet shirt. White linen was plastered against his arms, revealing the significant curve of his biceps and the broad outline of his shoulders.

His hair, usually brushed back, fell into his eyes, rakishly.

She had seen this before . . . that day at the garden party, more particularly during that unforgettable moment when she clung to him in the lake. But this was different because they were alone.