might not be the wisest thing to wish for but they were both adult enough to stop before it went too far. Hadn’t Jess proved that?
She ignored the truth that it had taken her all of five minutes to walk on steady legs after their encounter. Beatrice tried to bury the longing for more in the back of her mind and hurried to the house.
As she reached the patio Beatrice could see Lord Destry and Cecilia coming across the lawn together, deep in conversation. The marquis walked with his hands behind his back and listened to whatever Cecilia was saying with much waving of her hands. Beatrice wondered what they could be talking about, but was thrilled that they were talking.
The house party had settled into a lovely rhythm of entertainments, meals, and the occasional outing. The countess knew exactly what was needed to keep her guests from boredom. Was that a natural skill or something she had learned? Beatrice decided that experience helped, but that it could be learned through observation.
Was it not interesting that the same did not apply to every skill? She was sure that making love came from experience and that observation had very little to do with it. And she was sure that Lord Jess had a great deal of experience. She did not, she thought with sudden chagrin.
The kiss to end all kisses was back in her head again and her body reacted with the same shivering want that had enveloped her when she was in Jess’s arms. She tried to ignore the restlessness and quickened her pace as if she could outrun the longing.
As she drew close enough to hail her sister and Destry, Beatrice could see it was the marquis’s turn to speak. Whatever he was saying was making Cecilia look at him with surprise.
Beatrice decided to walk in a different direction and allow the two some time to finish their conversation, whether it was a beginning of something or the end.
After a week she had some sense of the house. Examining the art had taken her all the way to the attics, where she had discovered some truly terrible examples of sixteenth-century art and some lovely floral sketches, which she had admired so much that the countess had made her a gift of them.
Now she made her way from the main floor to the second and then up to the third, ignoring the statue of a couple in an intimate embrace and the painting of a man and woman who had eyes only for each other.
Where was a landscape when you needed one? Not a wild chaotic sea scene, but a meadow in the afternoon sun with animals grazing. Even in a painting like that there would probably be some dairymaid and shepherd dallying in the woods.
Beatrice found herself in one of the bedroom wings, one that was facing east. It was a section favored by the gentlemen who rose early to ride, or those who welcomed the sun. As she hurried down the corridor looking for a footman to show her the way out, she heard someone crying.
She froze. It was a woman, surely. But what would a woman, other than one of the serving maids, be doing in this wing? Crenshaw popped into her head and she moved more purposefully toward the sound. She came around a corner and saw a couple standing in a doorway.
“What am I to do?”
For the love of God, it was Darwell. Darwell crying was as hard to accept as her father laughing uncontrollably.
“Crenshaw has not actually set his sights on the Wilson girl. This is a house party, Leonie. He is entertaining himself with what is available.”
Beatrice had no idea who Darwell was talking to but clearly it was someone she knew well, who called her by her Christian name. Beatrice thought a moment. It was Daniel Callan, Lord Jess’s valet, she was almost sure of it. Darwell had mentioned him more than once. They seemed very close, much as she and Cecilia had suspected.
“He may be only flirting now, but he will soon realize that Miss Wilson is the perfect match. Miss Beatrice would have realized how poorly suited they were eventually. Miss Wilson”—Darwell sighed—“she is too eager to please, too easily led.” She lowered her head to Callan’s shoulder and his arm came around her. “I watched him ruin one woman’s life. I cannot let that happen again.”
Beatrice backed up and retraced her steps. She did not need to hear any