Nicola Cornick - The Notorious Lord

Cory grinned. ‘Someone just took a pot shot at me,’ he said baldly.

Richard was too cool a hand to show a great deal of surprise at this intelligence.

‘Are you injured?’ he enquired.

‘Of course not,’ Cory said.

‘Did you injure your assailant?’

‘Of course.’ Cory’s tone turned grim. ‘Though not as much as I would have wished. The bullet winged him-or her-in the arm, I think.’

‘Her?’ Richard questioned.

Cory shrugged. ‘It could have been. I only caught a glimpse, and it was impossible to tell. It could not be Miss Odell, though,’ he added on an afterthought.

Richard looked quizzical. ‘Why not?’

Cory laughed. ‘Because she would not have missed me,’ he said. ‘I taught her to shoot myself.’

Richard sat back on the seat and stretched his long legs out in front of him. In the light of the carriage lamps his expression had turned calculating. ‘I will get Justin to ask around,’ he said. ‘He has the right contacts. Someone may know something. They always do if the price is right.’

‘It could have been a poacher or a footpad,’ Cory conceded, ‘but I do not think it likely.’

‘Neither do I,’ Richard said. ‘But how convenient that you injured your quarry, Cory.’ His tone hardened. ‘The reading group meets tomorrow afternoon. Lady Sally told me so herself at the dinner this evening. I think we might pay an impromptu call at Saltires.’

‘It would be courteous,’ Cory said, his lips twitching.

‘And we shall see,’ Richard added, ‘which of the ladies is indisposed-or nursing some sort of injury. It should be most enlightening.’

The mood of the reading group had felt somewhat prickly that afternoon. Rachel’s sleep had been broken by disturbing dreams after her meeting with Cory in the stables, and she was nursing a headache that not even Mrs Goodfellow’s tincture of valerian had been able to banish. The other ladies all seemed a little out of temper and it was difficult to concentrate on The Enchantress under the circumstances. Helena Lang was absent with an indisposition that Lady Benedict unkindly referred to as over-indulgence at dinner the night before, Lady Benedict herself had her arm in a sling from a tumble down the stairs and Lady Sally Saltire had her hand bandaged and could barely turn the pages of the book. She explained that she had been tending her precious roses that morning when a thorn had driven into the palm of her hand. All in all, the ladies were subdued and a little sharp.

When Bentley, the butler, announced the arrival of visitors, they greeted the news with some relief. Lady Sally put her book aside and raised her brows enquiringly.

‘Is it anyone to whom we wish to be at home, Bentley?’

‘It is Lord Richard Kestrel and Lord Newlyn, ma’am,’ Bentley said woodenly. ‘Lord Richard said that he was certain that you would be at home, ma’am.’

A small smile twitched Lady Sally lips. ‘Very well, then,’ she said, rising from the sofa in an elegant flurry of silk. ‘If Lord Richard is so certain that we are receiving guests, then who are we to disappoint him? Tea on the terrace, please, Bentley. I am sure that Lord Richard and Lord Newlyn are both most partial to a cup of tea.’

Rachel had dropped her book when Cory’s name was mentioned and had to grope around on the floor to retrieve it. She felt her colour rise as everyone turned to look at her. Lady Benedict was staring at her in a speculative fashion, a malicious smile on her lips. Rachel, all fingers and thumbs, put the book on a side table and tried to breathe calmly.

By the time Cory was announced she was flushed and flustered and annoyed to find that her heart was beating a tattoo as she watched the door like a cat at a mouse hole. It was inexplicable; she had seen Cory many times before and his entry into a room had never caused this constriction in her throat before. She felt as though she wanted to turn and run, and it was all to do with the previous night…

As soon as Cory came in, he looked directly at her. Rachel’s heart jumped. In that moment she knew that Cory wanted to come across to her straight away. He hesitated visibly, but after a moment walked over to Lily Benedict instead. Rachel saw him gesture to the sling, a look of concern on his face, and saw Lady Benedict tilt her face towards him, smiling like a flower reaching to the sun. Rachel felt cross and disappointed and obscurely angry with Cory. She was forced to remind herself rather strongly that she might be Cory’s friend but it was of no consequence to her whom he chose to flirt with. Even so, she felt annoyed that last night his choice had fallen on her, but now he was happy to trifle with another lady’s feelings. It branded him insincere and proved that he had only been entertaining himself at her expense in the stables. A tiny part of her, the part that had wanted it not to be a game, felt shrivelled at the thought.

Lord Richard Kestrel was chatting to Lady Sally, and Olivia and Deborah had wandered out on to the terrace to take tea, so Rachel took the opportunity to slip outside. She could feel her headache worsening and hoped that the fresher air might make it better.

The gardens at Saltires were small but beautifully tended, for Lady Sally, in company with her friend Olivia Marney, was a keen amateur gardener. Rachel wandered towards the small ornamental lake, but swiftly retraced her steps when she realised that Mr Caspar Lang was sitting by the gazebo, having his portrait painted for the watercolour book. Rachel had no wish to be caught watching. Mr Lang had quite a good enough opinion of himself as it was, without her adding to it.

It was as she was coming back through the rose arch that Cory stepped directly on to the path in front of her. Rachel had thought herself quite composed by now and was intending to take her place at the tea table in a cool and rational manner, but now such thoughts flew from her head. Perhaps it was the suddenness of Cory’s appearance, or perhaps the fact that she had been thinking about him on and off-with rather more on than off-for the past fourteen hours. Whatever the reason, she gasped and coloured up like the most impressionable of débutantes. Cory eyed her blush with interest, which just seemed to make it worse.

‘Whatever is the matter with you, Rae?’ he remarked softly. ‘You look rather guilty. What were you doing-running away?’

Rachel, unforgivably, vented her irritation by snapping one of Lady Sally’s prize roses off the arch.

‘Of course I was not running away! Why should I wish to do that?’

‘I have no notion,’ Cory said, driving his hands into his pockets. ‘I merely thought that you had been acting strangely, dashing off before I could speak to you.’

‘I was not aware that you had noticed,’ Rachel said, before she could stop herself. ‘You were far too occupied.’

She saw the humour deepen in Cory’s eyes and was vexed with herself.

‘I see,’ he said.

‘I doubt that you do,’ Rachel said. ‘If you choose to flirt with Lady Benedict, then it is no concern of mine.’

‘Of course not,’ Cory said soothingly.

‘I don’t care!’ Rachel said childishly.

‘I know that you don’t,’ Cory agreed.

Rachel stared at him, frowning. She was not quite sure why this unsatisfactory exchange made her feel worse, but it did. It reminded her strongly of childhood squabbles, but with an added element of adult friction that she could not quite explain.

‘Why are you agreeing with me?’ she demanded.

‘Because I thought it would put you in a better temper,’ Cory responded.

Rachel repressed the urge to stamp her foot. ‘Well, don’t!’

‘You are very cross today,’ Cory observed.

‘Congratulations on your perspicacity. Of course I am cross.’ Rachel pulled the head off the rosebud and tossed it aside, wincing as the thorn caught her thumb. ‘I have the headache and you are deliberately setting out to provoke me, just as you did last night.’

There was a pause that suddenly seemed heavy with unspoken meaning. The whole tone of the encounter changed in an instant.

‘I do not suppose,’ Cory said, moving closer, ‘that you slept very well last night, Rae.’

Rachel looked up and met the question in his eyes. Her heart skipped a beat. Last night they had been playing games, but she had no intention of doing so again. It had been far too disturbing. What had set out as a plan to teach Cory a lesson had almost ended in her own downfall. She had nearly succumbed to his skilful seduction.

She deliberately moved away. ‘Why should you think that?’ she asked coolly.

Cory followed her. ‘Because I did not,’ he said.

‘So?’ Rachel raised her brows. ‘I cannot see the connection.’

Cory gave her a keen glance. ‘Then let me construe for you. I did not sleep well because I was thinking of you. And you, I suspect, did not sleep well because you were thinking of me.’

Rachel turned her shoulder. Her heart was beating with quick, light strokes. ‘You are quite mistaken. And odiously arrogant! My inability to sleep last night had nothing to do with you. I was scarcely lying awake troubled by dreams of you!’

‘Really?’ Cory drawled. ‘Then why mention it?’

‘Mention what?’

Cory smiled infuriatingly. ‘Those troublesome dreams, Rae.’

Rachel thinned her lips. ‘Take a grip on yourself, Cory! We are not all of us fainting at your feet. As for your own insomnia, I cannot be held responsible for that either.’

‘I hold you directly responsible,’ Cory said, still smiling.

There was another loaded silence.

‘You should take a cold dip in the river,’ Rachel said. ‘That would cure your difficulties-and your pretensions.’

‘Thank you for the suggestion,’ Cory said calmly. ‘I cannot but remember what happened the last time that I went for a swim.’