The Notorious Lord
Autor
Nicola Cornick
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The sight of Cory, Lord Newlyn, rising naked from the Midwinter river, is enough to send ripples of shock through Rachel Odell's carefully ordered life. He has always been a friend, although now she's aware of him as a man — an exceedingly handsome man. But she can't possibly entertain romantic ideas about this adventure seeker... and rogue. It does appear that Cory is waging a deliberate campaign to seduce her. What is his true intent? Can he simply wish to claim his best friend as his bride...?
Chapter One
June 1803
She had taken too much cider for breakfast.
Miss Rachel Odell could think of no other explanation for the sudden and wholly unexpected sight of a naked man, who emerged from the thicket of willows some fifty yards down the riverbank and started to stroll towards her with all the aplomb of a gentleman entering a dowager’s drawing room.
Rachel blinked, stared, and looked down at the earthenware flask in her hand. She had known that drinking alcohol was dangerous, particularly at breakfast, but she had not wanted to offend the cook, who had pressed the bottle into her hands with the remark that apple juice was just what was needed on a hot morning. Rachel had no head for drink and Mrs Goodfellow’s cider was outrageously strong, so she had only taken two sips. Was it possible to have delusions on the basis of only a thimbleful of alcohol? She thought not. Therefore, logically, the naked man must be real.
She looked up. He was.
The sun was cutting through the trees now and fell on his body in bars of dazzling, dancing golden light. He seemed oblivious to her presence, for he was standing quite still, his head tilted towards the sky as though he were drinking in the morning air. He was tall and perfectly proportioned and he moved with unhurried precision and grace. The bright white sunlight slid over his body and sparkled on the tiny droplets of water that were cascading from his naked skin. He put his hands up to his head and smoothed the tawny hair back so that it was as sleek and wet as an otter’s pelt. Then he stretched. To Rachel’s eyes he looked like a pagan god who had sprung directly out of the earth.
As the daughter of the most renowned antiquaries in the country, Rachel knew all about the worship of pagan gods. Her parents had dug up relics of many cultures from Egypt to the Rhine, and from Greece to Alexandria. Rachel had learned about Greek mythology and Roman deities in her earliest youth, but she had never seen a man who resembled these creatures of legend. Never before now.
For one long, riveting moment she stared at him—at the powerful set of his shoulders, at his broad chest tapering to a hard, flat stomach, at the sheen of his brown skin and the elemental strength and intensity of him. Suddenly the worship of pagan deities did not seem as far-fetched as Rachel had always imagined it. Her mouth went dry, her heart started to race and she felt a prickly sort of heat break out over her entire body.
She had not seen any man in the nude before. She had seen statues, drawings, frescoes and paintings as a result of the highly unorthodox classical education bestowed on her by her parents, but she had never seen the real thing. Until now, Tuesday the twelfth of June at eight of the clock, when she was in her twenty second year and had not been expecting anything more exciting than a Tufted Duck to emerge from the waters of the Winter Race.
The book Rachel had been reading slid from her hand and fell against the earthenware flask of cider with a tiny clink. In the quiet air the sound was enough to carry. Rachel saw the man go still, like an animal sensing danger. He turned his head and looked directly towards her. Rachel’s heart skipped several beats. The excited feeling in the pit of her stomach faded. Now that she could see his face clearly, she recognised him at once as Cory Newlyn, a childhood friend of hers and colleague of her parents. She was embarrassed that she had not realised his identity sooner, and felt a curious mix of awareness and familiarity. She had not recognised him because she had been concentrating, most improperly, on other parts of his anatomy rather than his face. And she had enjoyed the view. Now, however, she felt differently. He was an old friend, after all, and one did not ogle old friends in such a manner. It was over a year since she had seen Cory, and she had not anticipated coming across him here, but he was not the sort of man that one forgot. And she was never, ever going to forget him in future, not after this experience.
Rachel found her voice. ‘Cory Newlyn! What on earth are you doing?’
Her words came out like the screech of a fishwife on the wharves at Deptford. She saw Cory jump, his eyes widening with surprise. He grabbed at a large lily leaf from a nearby pool and held it strategically in front of him as he came towards her along the bank. As an item of clothing it left a great deal to be desired and Rachel kept her gaze riveted on his face, avoiding a shocking compulsion to focus elsewhere.
‘Rachel! How delightful to find you here.’ Cory’s voice carried easily to her, for by now he was a mere twenty yards away. ‘I had been thinking recently,’ he continued, ‘how nice it would be to see more of you.’
‘I can see almost all of you at present,’ Rachel said, shielding her eyes with her hand, ‘and it is a deal too much! What are you doing? Where are your clothes? Go away and get dressed at once!’
Somewhat belatedly, she grabbed her straw bonnet from the rug beside her, and pulled it down low over her eyes so that the rim obscured her view. Then, realising that she could not see anything at all, she peered underneath it in order to check what was happening. The scene was not reassuring. Far from retreating modestly behind his curtain of willow, Cory appeared to be intending to approach her directly, sauntering up the bank for all the world as though he were entering a London drawing room rather than strolling naked through the Suffolk countryside.
‘Stop!’ Rachel shrieked. ‘I thought I told you to go away?’
Cory stopped. He was now no more than ten feet away from Rachel and, seated as she was on the ground, his knees and thighs were level with her line of sight. His body was firm, muscular and tanned, which she would have expected had she ever considered it. Cory worked outdoors a great deal and much of that labour was physically demanding. It was no wonder that his body was in such fine shape.
Rachel reminded herself that it was not appropriate for her to dwell on the physical attributes of her parents’ colleagues. This had not been a problem for her before. Most of them would look ancient and flabby without their clothes, which was not a description that could be applied to Lord Newlyn…
Rachel tried to wrench her mind on to other topics, but found that she did not seem able to drag her gaze from the dusting of tiny golden hairs across Cory’s thighs. The more she thought about the impropriety of what she was doing, the more flustered she became. She felt hot and feverish. She turned her head and stared fixedly at the trunk of a large poplar tree some twenty feet away, forcing her agitated mind to concentrate on botany rather than anatomy. Was it a white poplar or a grey poplar? She must remember to look it up in her reference books when she returned home. The leaves were very pretty and white underneath…She was starting to get a pain in her neck from the effort of keeping her head turned away from Cory. She could see absolutely nothing at all but her other senses—and her imagination—more than made up for the deficit. She could feel the sun beating down on the top of her head where it penetrated the leaves of the pine canopy above her. She could smell the resinous scent of the pine needles as they warmed up. She could visualise Cory, tall, powerful, virile—and naked, her memory reminded her unnecessarily—standing right next to her.
‘Why are you still standing there?’ she asked. ‘I do not wish to speak with you at present, not whilst you are quite unclothed.’
‘You noticed, then,’ Cory said. He sounded amused.
‘Of course I noticed!’ Rachel retorted. ‘I would have to be quite unobservant not to have noticed! What are you doing here, Cory?’
‘Pray do not persist in addressing me if you wish me to leave, Rachel,’ Cory said reasonably. ‘I cannot preserve both propriety and courtesy at the same time.’
‘I would far rather that you preserve both your modesty and mine for the time being,’ Rachel said. ‘Where are your clothes?’
She heard Cory sigh. ‘I left them further up the bank and swam downriver,’ he said. ‘I felt inclined to take a dip and was not expecting to meet anyone so early in the morning. I was hoping that you might lend me your rug,’ he added, shifting slightly beside her and increasing Rachel’s discomfort by several notches. ‘If you would be kind enough to help me cover my embarrassment…’
Rachel gave a little exasperated squeak and pulled the rug out forcibly from underneath her, thrusting it in his direction. ‘Take it! Quick! Begone!’
‘Thank you,’ Cory said politely. She could hear the amusement in his voice. ‘Please do not wave your hands about like that, Rae, or you may grab hold of more than you bargained for.’
Rachel could take no more. She scrambled to her feet, intent only on putting some distance between them. Inevitably she collided at once with Cory’s lean, hard body. Her flailing hand touched his skin; touched some unidentified part of him that was warm and very slightly damp from the river water. She felt the soft abrasion of fine hair against her skin and almost fainted.
‘It’s all right,’ Cory said reassuringly. ‘That was only my—’
‘Cory! No! I do not want to know!’ Rachel’s voice was in danger of failing her. ‘I realise that we are old friends,’ she added shakily, ‘but there are some things that one simply does not wish to share…’
Cory laughed. Rachel could sense movement as he grasped the rug and started to wrap it about himself. A flash of tartan colour caught the corner of her eye and she forced herself ruthlessly to look the other way.
‘I am almost ready,’ Cory murmured.
Rachel turned towards him in relief. She was too quick. She caught a glimpse of the curve of his buttocks and gave a weak gasp.
‘But not quite,’ Cory finished.
‘Oh, this is dreadful!’ Rachel tried to move away, but found her knees so shaky that all she succeeded in doing was tripping over her picnic basket. Cory caught her arm and steadied her.
‘Careful,’ he said, a laugh breaking through his words, ‘you are like to do one of us an injury if you continue like this.’
‘I would manage so much better if you were just to go away,’ Rachel snapped, thoroughly flustered. ‘Surely you do not need to make such a meal of this!’
‘You would manage better if you took off that ridiculous hat and looked about you,’ Cory said.
‘Thank you, but I have already seen quite enough!’ Rachel took a careful step away from him and pushed the brim of her hat up. When she peeped out she was relieved to see that Cory had tied the blanket about his waist like a kilt. It sat low on his hips and left what seemed like an inordinate amount of him uncovered, but it was a great improvement on before. Even so, there was something disturbing about him. With his clothes on, Cory possessed a masculine vitality and attraction that Rachel, old friend that she was, could recognise without difficulty. Seeing him in a minimum of clothing was a jolt to the senses of the most fundamental sort.
Rachel realised that she was still staring, cleared her throat and looked up at his face, catching a look of vivid amusement there. Cory’s face was barely less disturbing than the rest of him, for he was quite devastatingly attractive, with silver grey eyes and a very wicked smile. There were those who said that Cory Newlyn was not in any way conventionally handsome. His nose and much else had been broken once on an expedition when a fall of rocks had almost killed him and he had a thin scar like a sabre cut down one cheek. His face was too lean to be classically good looking. Yet none of these things mattered. He had character—and it showed. It also made women throw themselves at him with tedious regularity.
Embarrassed to be caught looking at him, Rachel averted her gaze. ‘Thank goodness that it is a large rug,’ she said.
‘I am flattered that you think I require something large to do the job properly,’ Cory said, the smile still in his eyes.
Rachel blushed. She had forgotten Cory’s propensity to shock by word as well as deed. He understood the requirements of polite society perfectly well. It was merely that sometimes he chose not to heed them.
‘Go away, please, Cory,’ she said. ‘You are improper.’
Cory laughed. ‘I am. But you have always known that and you still like me.’
Rachel gave him a severe look. ‘You may be my friend, but I am a young lady of unimpeachable reputation and I do not intend to compromise that through being seen in conversation with a rake wrapped in a blanket!’
Cory’s shoulders shook slightly. ‘A rake wrapped in a blanket! You make me sound like some sort of delicate gardening tool.’
Rachel looked down her nose at him. She felt a deal more confident now that something relatively substantial was between her and Cory’s nakedness.
‘There is very little of delicacy about you, Cory,’ she said.
Cory shrugged. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said. ‘I am sorry if I disturbed you, Rae. I can see that you are still looking very flustered.’
Rachel knew that she was and it did not make her any less self-conscious that he was drawing attention to it.
‘Of course I am flustered,’ she said. ‘I never expected to see you naked, Cory. Such things do not generally occur between childhood friends.’
‘No, indeed,’ Cory said. ‘You must excuse me, Rae. I had no wish to shock you.’
‘To think that I came down here for some peace,’ Rachel said, shaking her head. ‘You know how difficult it can be to find any solitude once an excavation starts. Mama and Papa have been busy digging all hours of the day for the last two weeks.’ She laid a hand lightly on Cory’s arm. It was a part of him that she felt relatively secure in touching. ‘What are you doing in Suffolk?’ she asked. ‘I did not expect you to be joining us because I thought you were still in Cornwall.’
‘I came up to London last month,’ Cory said. ‘Your parents wrote to my club, inviting me to join them on the excavation here.’ He cocked an enquiring eyebrow. ‘They did not tell you?’
Rachel sighed. ‘I dare say they intended to,’ she said. ‘You know how Mama forgets things.’
Cory went down on one knee to rummage in the picnic basket. He looked up, a piece of bread and cheese in his hand. ‘You do not mind?’
‘That you are here or that you are stealing my breakfast?’ Rachel laughed. ‘I do not mind in either case, Cory. Although I would counsel you to wear more clothes in future if you are intent on staying. It is not the done thing to walk around nude in England, at least not in public. I realise that you have been abroad for so long that you may have forgotten our conventions.’
‘I never was governed by them in the first place,’ Cory said. He stretched lazily. The blanket slipped lower. Rachel took a hasty step up the bank.
‘Go,’ she said, ‘before you catch a chill or that rug falls off and takes the last of my composure with it. We may talk when you have your clothes on again.’
Cory smiled. ‘I never thought to hear that phrase from you, Rae.’
‘Well, no doubt I am not the first to say it to you,’ Rachel said, repressing a rueful smile. She knew all about Cory’s reputation.
Cory started to retreat down the bank, one hand raised in conciliation. ‘I am going now. I apologise if I upset you, Rae.’
‘I was not particularly discomfited,’ Rachel said untruthfully, smoothing her skirts, ‘but it was a slight shock.’
Cory bent and retrieved another piece of bread and ham from Rachel’s upturned breakfast basket. He sank his teeth into the thick slice and nodded slowly. ‘Delicious. Just what I need after an early morning swim.’
He gave a negligent wave of his hand and walked away.
‘Mind the rose bushes at the top of the bank,’ Rachel called suddenly. ‘The thorns are sharp—’ She winced as she heard a crashing sound and a muffled expletive. ‘Oh, too late.’
She sank down on to the sandy bank and rested her back against the nearest pine tree, closing her eyes and tilting her head back against the trunk. The sunlight pricked her eyelids. She gave a huge sigh and, once she was convinced that Cory had genuinely gone, she allowed her body to relax.
She had not been expecting to see him on this excavation in Suffolk. Her mother had completely neglected to tell her that he would be coming to visit, but then that was no great surprise since Lady Odell had no memory for anything other than her antiquities. She might be able to list the rulers of Rome in chronological order, she might be the acknowledged expert on dating the Egyptian tombs, but when it came to simple social matters she was completely hopeless.
The last time that Rachel had heard news of Cory was six months previously. He had written from his home in Cornwall to say that he was returned from an expedition in Patagonia and was suffering from malaria. Rachel had sent him a tincture that she had made herself, for she had developed quite an array of medicines to cope with the more arcane of her parents’ ailments. Cory had sent a note of thanks and a big bouquet of roses, and Rachel had smiled to receive them for it had been a thoughtful gesture. She had then become preoccupied with the move to Suffolk, and had forgotten about Cory Newlyn until the moment she had seen him emerge from the river.
For the previous seventeen years Cory had been a feature in her life, but one that came and went like a fitful comet. He was an explorer and collector with a legendary reputation. According to folklore, Cory had wrestled with crocodiles, battled for his life against poisonous snakes, explored the wastes of impassable deserts and discovered fantastical treasures. Rachel knew that a great deal of this was nonsense. As an antiquarian, Cory spent much of his time excavating tombs that were full of nothing but bits of bones. She doubted very much that the ladies of the London ton, whose eyes sparkled with delight whenever Cory’s name was so much as mentioned, would think him quite so dashing if they had seen him up to his knees in mud in a howling gale in the Orkneys. One thing she was obliged to recognise, however, was that Cory was very good at what he did. He was skilful, knowledgeable and a talented antiquarian with an almost uncanny knack for finding interesting artefacts. Plenty of men travelled the world buying up antiquities these days, but Cory was special. He was no armchair antiquary. He wanted to be in on the hunt.
Rachel sighed. No doubt that was why Cory was here in Midwinter Royal. He knew her parents were digging the famous Anglo-Saxon burial ground and he wanted to be part of the excavation. It would have been useful if Lady Odell had remembered to tell her. But then, Rachel thought, she would still have been quite unprepared for the sight that had met her eyes that morning. Nothing could prepare one for the sight of Lord Newlyn in a state of undress. It had been a very disturbing experience. Just thinking about it now caused the little shivers to run all the way along her skin, leaving her breathless and distinctly unsettled.
Without the rug to protect her, the ground felt cold and a little damp. It was early and the dew was still on the grass. Rachel got to her feet, dusted her skirts and packed the remaining food away in the basket. She retrieved her book from where it lay in the grass. She knew that she would not be able to concentrate on it now. Her mind was still showing an obstinate tendency to dwell on Cory’s appearance. She would do better to go back to the house and see how her mother progressed with the last of the unpacking.
She did not walk back through the wood for fear of meeting Cory again just as he was getting back into his clothes rather than out of them. Instead, she walked back along the edge of the Midwinter Royal burial ground, an ancient site that had drawn her parents to Suffolk in the first place. The sun was higher in the sky now and it bathed the excavation in its bright light. It was going to be another scorching hot day.
As Rachel entered the house, she heard her mother’s voice raised in the hall as she gave the footman instructions on the morning’s excavations.
‘And make sure that you sift the soil from yesterday’s trench, Tom, before you start digging the long barrow…’
Rachel smiled a little. Poor Tom Gough had had no idea when he had accepted the post that none of his duties would be of a conventional nature and all of them would relate to the excavation work that was going on in the field next door. For twenty-five years Sir Arthur and Lady Odell’s entire life had revolved around the search for antiquities. This dig in Suffolk was just the latest in a long line of excavations. Sir Arthur fretted that the war against Napoleon kept them at home, and told tales of the time some six years previously when he had had to flee the advancing French army and leave behind all his discoveries in the Valley of the Kings.
By the time that Rachel had divested herself of her spencer and straw hat, and had taken the basket back to the kitchens, Lady Odell was in the library, removing some artefacts from a large packing case. Rachel wandered into the room. The bright morning light illuminated the cracks in the plaster ceiling and the threadbare patches on the carpet. Midwinter Royal was no worse than the other two dozen houses that Rachel had lived in and it was a lot less shabby than some. She had no expectation that she would stay there any longer than she had in the other places. Six months was a long time for Sir Arthur and Lady Odell to remain in one place.
Lavinia Odell was a stocky woman whose face habitually wore an expression of vague sweetness. Her eyes were a warm brown flecked with green and gold and were her finest feature, a feature that her daughter had inherited from her. Her hair was a faded mouse colour, lighter than Rachel’s chestnut brown, and her skin had long since given up the struggle against harsh sun and abrasive sand, and was sunk in lines and wrinkles. One unkind ton dowager had likened Lady Odell’s face to a leathery boot, crumpled and tough. Lady Odell, to whom a parasol was an alien notion, had laughed heartily when she heard this piece of spite.
‘I met Cory down by the river just now, Mama,’ Rachel said. ‘You did not tell me that he was to visit.’
Lady Odell looked confused. ‘Did I not? I had a letter from him only yesterday saying that he would be joining us on our excavation. Is that not simply splendid? And you say that he is here already?’
‘Yes, Mama.’ Rachel smiled. ‘He was taking a morning swim. I believe that he will be joining you once he has got his clothes back on.’
‘Good, good…’ Lady Odell said vaguely. She held out what looked to be a statue of a small cat. The cat was brown and very shiny, its expression malevolent, its legs braced as though it were about to scratch. Rachel grimaced when she saw it.
‘I thought that this could go on the drawing-room mantelpiece. It will bring us luck.’
Rachel shuddered. ‘Mama, pray do not. The only thing that it will attract is the flies. I fear that it smells.’
Lady Odell looked affronted. She clutched the cat protectively to her large bosom. ‘It does not smell! This is an antiquity, Rachel, from the third millennium before Christ—’
‘Which is why it smells, Mama,’ Rachel pointed out. ‘The poor creature has been dead several thousand years and should be permitted to rest in peace now. It is no wonder that it looks so very bad-tempered.’
Lady Odell sighed and placed the cat reverently back in the bottom of a half-empty packing case next to a Greek vase. ‘Well, perhaps you are correct. Embalming methods were not always completely successful.’
‘No, Mama,’ Rachel said. She knew all about the success or otherwise of ancient embalming methods for she had absorbed a great deal of knowledge simply through travelling with her parents. She had not learnt through inclination. Once, as a small child, her maternal aunt had found her sitting on the carpet, chewing a human bone that she held clutched in her small, fat fist. The aunt’s scream had brought Lady Odell hurrying in, to coo with delight over her only child’s precocious interest in antiquity.
It was the only sign of interest that Rachel was ever to show in her parents’ work. At the age of six she had chosen to be addressed as Rachel rather than Cleopatra, her given name, and had refused to answer anyone who tried to call her otherwise. Shuffled from pillar to post as the Odells pursued their eccentric hobby around the world, Rachel had taken an utter dislike to her parents’ passion. She would have given a great deal for a dining room full of Wedgwood, with not a barbaric death mask in sight.
‘I do not believe that the ladies of the Midwinter villages are quite ready for your collection, Mama,’ she said now. ‘I doubt that anyone will call if they find themselves confronted by your set of Anglo-Saxon skulls.’
Lady Odell shrugged her plump shoulders under the cambric shirt that she always wore for working. ‘I shall not have time to do the pretty with the visitors anyway, with all the work that is required on the excavation. I shall leave that to you, Rachel.’
‘Of course, Mama,’ Rachel murmured. She had done the pretty for their visitors in houses all over England. It was her role in life. Organising her parents, exhorting the servants, dealing with all the minutiae of daily life…Rachel had fulfilled such a role since she was about twelve years old.
She followed her mother out on to the front steps of Midwinter Royal. By now it was another hot June day. The grass along the carriage drive was already turning yellow from lack of rain and the sky was a hard steely blue without a cloud in sight. The weathercock on the top of the stables was motionless. In the fields to the south, Rachel could just make out the figures of her father and a couple of the servants measuring the length of one of the haphazard scatter of burial mounds that lay between the house and the river beyond.
Lady Odell sighed happily. ‘What a perfect day for the digging. After all these years I still dislike excavating in the wet.’
‘Pray be careful that the sides of your trenches do not crumble away into dust,’ Rachel said, unable to help herself. ‘It is very dry at present. Remember how you were buried under that landslide at the barrow in Wiltshire and Cory and I had to dig you out? Don’t let that happen again. And Mrs Goodfellow and I shall have prepared a cold luncheon for you all at twelve. Please do not forget, Mama.’
Lady Odell patted her hand absent-mindedly. ‘Of course not, my love. Now I must get back to work. Your father has already been out above an hour and a half.’
‘I saw him down at the excavation,’ Rachel said. ‘Make sure that he is wearing a hat, Mama. The sun can be most fierce at this time of year.’ She squinted along the line of dusty elm trees that shaded the drive, and was not surprised to pick out a figure riding towards them. ‘I do believe Cory is here now.’
‘Oh, how splendid!’ Lady Odell positively ran down the steps, her necklace of Persian beads clicking excitedly.
Rachel followed more slowly. The advancing figure had now resolved itself into a gentleman on a grey horse. The horse was a prime bit of blood and Rachel could see that, whether his clothes were on or off, Cory Newlyn was what many ladies would also consider to be a prime specimen. He was considerably more formally dressed now, but he still looked extremely attractive.
Rachel watched, lips pursed in disapproval, as Cory galloped up to the steps of the house and dismounted in one fluid movement that sent the gravel flying from the horse’s hooves. She instinctively stepped out of the way and grabbed the grey’s bridle. Someone had to take charge and Cory was too busy greeting Lady Odell to notice that his highly bred steed was in danger of trampling them all to death.
Cory was smiling as he bent to embrace Lavinia Odell. His teeth were very white and his grey eyes were full of laughter and looked remarkably bright against his tanned skin. Cory always brought with him an air of warmth and laughing good humour. Rachel watched her mother respond to it as she had seen ladies respond to Cory’s charm time and time again. It mattered not whether they were young or old, he bowled them over just the same. She, of course, was quite indifferent to him. Even so, a little prickle of awareness ran along her skin as she remembered her reaction to seeing him down by the river.
‘How are you, Lavinia?’ Cory asked, holding Lady Odell at arm’s length and looking her over, a twinkle in his eye. ‘You look in fine form!’
‘Cory! Dear boy!’ Lavinia Odell was clinging on to him and squeaking like an excited schoolgirl. ‘We are so very pleased that you could join us!’
‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Lord Newlyn said, releasing her gently and planting a smacking kiss on her cheek. ‘The Midwinter burials are famous, you know. I’ve been wanting to get my trowel into those mounds for years, ever since I heard about the Midwinter Treasure!’
‘If anyone can find the Treasure, it will be us,’ Lavinia Odell said, eyes sparkling. ‘I feel it in my waters!’
‘Where is the stable lad, Mama?’ Rachel interrupted, trying hard to hold the thoroughbred, which was currently exhibiting its quality by dancing skittishly on the gravel sweep. ‘I suppose that he is down in the field with Father?’
‘Of course, my love,’ Lady Odell said, looking vaguely puzzled, as though it were natural for everyone to employ their servants as excavation assistants. ‘I could send for him, I suppose, but your father needs someone to help him measure the barrows—’
‘I’ll put Castor away myself,’ Cory said, the gravel crunching under his boots as he came towards Rachel. He took the bridle from her hand and soothed the grey with a gentle stroke of the nose.
‘Good morning again, Rachel,’ Cory said. He gave her a smile that was slightly more quizzical than the one he had bestowed on Lady Odell. The smile deepened the creases at the corners of his eyes and for a moment it seemed that the morning sunlight was trapped in their silver depths. ‘Are we to pretend that we have not yet met?’
He took her hand in his and Rachel was shocked and more than a little disconcerted to find her pulse racing at his touch. Two images flashed before her eyes: the real one of Cory standing before her now, fully dressed, and the other of him stark naked as he emerged from the river, the water rolling down his skin…She felt all hot and shaky again, as though she had sustained a sudden shock. Her knees actually trembled.
She swallowed hard, closed her eyes and by dint of sheer willpower banished the picture. This had to be an aberration. She was determined that her thoughts would not be haunted by the image of Cory’s virile, unashamed nudity. She did not wish to think of her childhood friend in that manner.
But even so, she suddenly had the lowering feeling that it was going to be a far more complicated summer than she had ever imagined.
