CHAPTER TWO
"I still don't understand your impatience," Dante said. He
flicked some cigar ash out the coach window. "No reason to
drag me back from Scotland. She doesn't come of age for
almost a year."
That was an eternity by the way Dante calculated his
calendar with women. Normally he would court, seduce, bed
and discard two mistresses in that time. Vergil studied
his younger brother's beautiful face and limpid eyes and
dark brown hair. Dante’s history with females had
practically been inevitable with features like that.
Vergil had seen ladies of the highest breeding literally
lose their breath when Dante approached.
"The season starts well before her birthday, and with
Charlotte coming out we can hardly leave Miss Kenwood here
while we all pack off for town. You need to be married
before then, not just engaged."
"Why? Do you really think some fortune hunter will cut me
out?" Dante's tone implied the notion was preposterous.
No, I think that if she is married we can prevent her from
going up to London at all if necessary, Vergil thought.
The very notion of Bianca Kenwood in polite society,
calling dukes and earls "Mister", and announcing that she
intends to study performance opera, was enough to ruin his
spirits on this late August day.
But Dante's question also pricked at the foreboding that
had continued plaguing him since he had left Penelope's
house that night. It might best for Dante to get this over
while the field was clear.
Dante looked him squarely in the eyes. "We are almost
there. Don't you think that you should tell me now?"
"Tell you?"
"You haven't said much about this Miss Kenwood whom I am
expected to marry. I find that suspicious. After all, you
have met her. We both know that I have no choice except to
agree to this, but if warnings are in order you are
running out of time."
"If I have not described her in detail it is because it
would be indelicate to do so. This is not one of your
racehorses."
"You have not described her at all."
"Very well. She is of middling height and slender, with
blue eyes."
"What color hair?"
Damned if he knew. What color hair had been hidden by that
absurd wig?
"Just how bad is she?"
Vergil had fully intended to warn Dante, but had failed to
come up with the right approach. A tinge of guilt colored
his reflections while he debated the appropriate one now.
After all, he had practically forced his brother into
this. Not that Dante had resisted much once he learned
that over five thousand a year came with her.
"It is not her appearance. Her manner, however. . ."
"Is that all? Just like you to get stuffy about a few faux
pas, Verg. What did you expect? She is an American. Pen
will shape her up in no time."
A few faux pas did not do Bianca Kenwood justice, but he
let it pass. "Of course. However, even so, she
is . . .distinctive."
"Distinctive?"
"One might even say unusual."
"Unusual?"
"And perhaps a bit . . . unfinished. Which can be
remedied, of course. Pen has her in hand even as we
speak."
Dante peevishly looked out the coach window at the passing
Sussex countryside. Vergil hesitated continuing, but they
were almost there and he was running out of time. "She may
need a strong hand. She is a bit independent from what I
could tell."
His brother's gaze slid back to him. "Independent, now."
"She has certain notions. It is her youth, I'm sure, and
they will pass.”
"It would help immensely if you would balance some of this
by adding how beautiful she is."
No doubt. The problem was, he didn't know if she was
beautiful. He only remembered big eyes, interesting
because of that intelligent and spirited spark in them.
What else could he offer? All that stage paint had been
obscuring. The possibility of a lovely complexion, but who
could be sure until he saw her washed? A nice form, but
that might have been the costume. The suggestion of an
underlying sensual quality. . . not something one noted
about a brother's future bride.
"Damn it, if she is vulgar I won't go through with it,
Vergil. Nor should you want me to. Aside from the fact
that she would reflect on me and this family, I could
hardly avoid her completely once married, even living in
town and leaving her out here, which is how I plan to
arrange things. And until you marry Fleur, which you are
taking your damn sweet time doing, and set up your
nursery, I am your heir and this American could end up the
Viscountess Laclere."
Vergil did not need his younger brother to list the
pitfalls dotting this path. Pits much deeper and more
numerous than Dante imagined. A honeycomb of them. If he
could think of an alternative, he would use it, but two
weeks of debating options always led him back to the same
conclusion. Bianca Kenwood needed to be bound to this
family with unbreakable chains.
Dante bit his lower lip and again looked out the window
from beneath heavy lashes. "The income from her funds will
be mine, like you promised? As trustee you will not
interfere? And my allowance continues until the wedding,
enhanced as we agreed?"
"Of course. I also promise to continue management of the
financial investments, as you requested. The income from
the funds is secure, but the others require some
occasional oversight, and I know that you hate such
things."
Dante gestured dismissively. "Sordid and nettlesome
things. I doubt they are worth the trouble. Sell them out
or hold them, as you judge best. After how you scraped us
through when Milton died, I would be a fool to question
you."
They rode in silence through the oak and ash forest
filling the back of Laclere Park. Vergil much preferred
this approach to the broad sweep of landscape facing the
front, and always instructed his coachman to take it.
Normally it served as a transition space for him, a few
miles in which to prepare himself for the role of the
Viscount Laclere and the responsibilities that it
entailed.
He had first come this way when returning home for
Milton’s funeral, choosing the longer route in order to
delay that arrival, churning with conflicting emotions and
spiking resentments at the changes in his life suddenly
decreed by his older brother's demise.
It was in this forest that he had finally accepted the new
reality and its attendant restrictions and deceptions.
Little had he guessed how complicated his brother’s death
would make his life. Along with restrictions, mysteries
and deceptions had waited for him at journey’s end.
Dante suddenly leaned toward the window. He
squinted. "What the. . ."
"Is something wrong?" Vergil pushed Dante’s head a bit and
stuck his own to the opening.
"There, over in the lake. Wait, some trees are in the way.
Now. Isn't that Charlotte?"
The trees thinned while they began to pass the lake. Two
woman bathed in the water, laughing and splashing. Naked,
for all intents and purposes, since their chemises had
gone transparent from the water. Hell, yes, it was their
younger sister Charlotte, with that maid Jane Ormond.
The water broke and a third feminine body rose up. A
soaked chemise adhered to her skin and obscured little.
Pretty shoulders . . . tapered back. . . nipped
waist . . . graceful hips. . . finally the tops of
enticing rounded buttocks slid into view. Long blond hair
fanned in the eddies and then sealed to her body in a
thick drop from a well-formed head.
Her slender arms began skimming the water's surface,
creating waves in the direction of her playmates. The
other two squealed and started a massive counteroffensive
of splashes, sending sprays of water all around her until
she appeared like a vision emerging out of a misty dream.
A shriek of joyful protest reached them. Laughing, she
turned to run from the assault.
Vergil could not be sure that those large blue eyes
actually saw the passing coach with its two stunned
occupants. But she paused, and one arm slid across her
breasts and the other hand drifted to the shadowed
triangle just above her thighs. For the briefest instant
before she turned and knelt, she assumed the pose of a
Botticelli Venus, a goddess lovely of face and luscious in
form, dripping wet, still virginal and modest but ripe and
waiting. The combination of protective instincts and
erotic suggestions that he had experienced when he first
saw her surged with force.
He and Dante found their sense at the same instant. They
straightened and sank back into their seats.
His brother eyed him with suspicion. "Who was that?"
"I can not be certain, but I think it was Miss Kenwood."
Dante closed his eyes and rested his head against the
seat's back. "Let me make sure that I understand my
position, Vergil. I am required to marry that? I am to be
sacrificed on the altar of the god of financial stability
and be forced to take as my lifelong partner that female
we just saw? A girl so distinctive, unusual, and
independent that she bathes almost naked in full view of a
road, in broad daylight, and influences our sister to do
the same thing? You intend to coerce me, if necessary, by
threatening my allowance? She is the bride whom you have
chosen for me?"
"Yes." There really was nothing else to say.
Dante held his pensive pose a moment longer. Then his eyes
opened. Their limpid warmth glowed. A very male smile
slowly broke.
"Thank you."