Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Dante paced back and forth on the lawn. Spring showed her every charm, with the scent of blossoms filling the warm air, sun greening the young grass, the chirp of birds drifting over the meadow leading to the river.
Yet every clang of a trowel against brick, every growl of a saw cutting beams, every chisel finishing stone gave a high whine that grated on his nerves.
The wheelbarrows squeaked as the men ferried tools and materials from their assorted heaps to the house rising like a temple of majesty on its small knoll.
Why had he invited her on a day the men were working?
Why had he not thought to tidy up first, or insist on some orderliness in the area?
She would find the whole scene aggravating, with the noise of industry and the shouts and occasional curses of the men.
She would be overcome by the scent of lime mortar, fresh from the kiln and mixed with the additives to make the Roman cement for the stucco.
He pulled at a weed growing through a pile of broken bricks.
Best she see him as he was. Rough. Not refined in the way of the high-born English, not genteel in the manner of those who had owned property for centuries.
He was a man balancing his way through separate worlds, a man who feared he belonged in neither.
He worked with his hands, but also with his mind.
He led and commanded, but he was also subject to the whims of the clients paying his commissions.
He could don a dinner coat and make conversation in a formal parlor, but he was happiest here, in the open air, watching a project take shape.
Testing with his own fingers the quality of the mortar and the layer of stucco as it went over the wood or brick.
Shaping with his own hands the designs he wanted for cornices and decorative details.
Why would she wish an invitation into his life? Would she ever consider saying yes?
Why had he ever chosen an anthemion design for the capitals of the columns on the front porch?
She would think the radiating leaf pattern overdone.
She liked simplicity. Her clothing fell in elegant lines, well-made but not overly adorned.
She didn’t wear her hair in the elaborate twists that required an hour of sitting under the hands of a patient dresser.
She was forthright in her manner and direct in her speech. He liked that about her.
He liked everything about her. He’d realized that when she slid from his embrace the other morning and he feared he’d overwhelmed her with his passion.
His exceeding partiality to her was confirmed every morning when he watched her bolt her breakfast and run to rehearse lines, run through staging, or practice sword fighting with Kiddell.
At nuncheon, he did little but listen with vast enjoyment as Cerys, well-dressed and decorous, gossiped with Lady Diana and Andover and Dutton about the people in town and the various improvement projects being undertaken by the commissioners.
She laughed at Dutton’s jests, humored Lady Diana’s decided opinions, and cooed as Andover read letters from his wife reporting the prodigious growth of the infants and various amusing things the children had done.
As often as possible, he attended the afternoon performances on the wooden stage that Thompson had constructed near his spa as a temporary theater.
Every time, he was captivated by the passion and despair she injected into her Hamlet.
Every afternoon, he beamed as he heard the matrons and widows and spinster cousins exclaiming over the daring of a woman Hamlet, or gritted his teeth and clenched fists when he heard the young men about town commenting on the legs of the women in their breeches.
He kicked at a pile of bricks, trying to disguise the broken pieces among the clump of grass.
She’d not sought him out at dinners again.
She talked with him cordially enough in company, but with a sense of restraint, as if some emotion simmered beneath the surface, showing only in the green glint of her eyes and a tremble to that beautiful, expressive mouth.
Yet she watched him when she thought he was unaware.
She knew he listened with his full attention when she was enjoined to sing or play for the company.
There had been no more kisses in stairwells, no more flirting, no more slipping of her gloved hand into the crook of his arm. But he wanted those things again. He was certain, from the heat in her eyes when he caught her watching him, that she wanted them, too.
Something held her back—her sense of duty to the acting company, a sense of decorum at remembering she was under the roof of an earl, a scolding she’d received from one of the other women, perhaps.
She held herself on a leash, resisting the pull she felt toward him, the same pull that tugged him toward her.
The longer she withheld herself, the more determined he was to win her.
And not for a sole night of passion or fleeting affair.
He wanted more breakfasts and nuncheons and dinners and nights in the parlor.
He wanted to see every play she performed in.
He wanted to hear her thoughts on his latest designs. He wanted her to meet his sisters.
He wanted her to fall in love with him.
He straightened from sweeping a fall of spring buds off the porch when the stomp of horse hooves and the creak of a turning wheel announced a carriage on Cirencester Road.
The avenue saw steady traffic, not just to Cirencester but to the sprawling estate of Charlton Park, which lay not half a mile to the south.
He would plant a shrubbery, like the one at Suffolk House, to keep the curious from peering into the windows as they passed.
But a certain carriage and its occupants, he intended to welcome. Particularly one of them.
“Ahoy!” Andover approached first on a large bay gelding. “Whoa, Titus. Manelli, you make it easy to find you. West on the High Street, just like you said, and don’t take the road to London. Why, you’re nearly done.”
“Ready to move in soon, and relieve you the burden of a houseguest who has lingered too long.”
“For God’s sake, don’t depart until we’re certain Mama is pleased.” Andover dismounted with the easy grace of a man accustomed to horses. The mark of a gentleman. So were the riding coat and breeches, the tall boots with spurs, and the top hat he removed to peer up at the building.
Dante was dressed much the same as the viscount, only with long pantaloons tucked into his tall boots, and no spurs.
His coat cut away at the waist in a style similar to Andover’s, though the viscount’s waistcoat fastened with a double row of buttons and sported a notched lapel, while Dante’s was a plainer design.
Andover’s neckcloth climbed to his jawline, but Dante hated the sense of being strangled and wore a much simpler twist than Andover’s complicated knot.
He wondered if Cerys would mark his lack of fashion, and disdain him for it.
Dutton, riding up on his own mount, endeavored to outshine them both, making a fashion plate with his striped pantaloons, the red waistcoat with a shawl collar that offset the olive green of his riding coat, and a stock that encased his neck, the points rising toward his cheek.
Dutton was no rival, Dante reminded himself.
Cerys was polite to him but showed nothing of invitation or interest in her manner toward the baron’s heir.
Andover handed the reins to his mount to the boy who ran up, tugging the brim of his cap in deference. Dutton gave the lad a shrewd look, then handed over his ribbons, too. He joined Andover in surveying the tall, plain cornice that ran beneath the hipped slate roof.
“I think you’ve outdone Suffolk House,” Dutton remarked. “Miss Evans certainly ought to be impressed.” He cast a sly glance at Dante, who stiffened his back.
“That is not the point. I simply thought the women might enjoy an outing.” The whole point of inviting the group en masse was so that he would not be seen as, and mocked for, deliberately courting Cerys.
He knew how men like Dutton worked; when they saw another man’s interest in a woman, they were compelled to make their own play for her.
Even Andover, for all that he seemed inclined to honor his marriage vows, might likewise be moved by a spirit of competition.
Dante didn’t want to compete with them for Cerys’s attention. Not today.
Not ever.
The Andover town coach rolled into the drive, the coachman in Suffolk livery bringing the four matched blacks to a halt.
Dante made a mental note that, when it came time to furnish his own stable—for a gentleman must have a horse—he would ask Andover for advice.
A footman hopped down from the back, slid the small wooden stepstool in place, and opened the door with a flourish, releasing a tumult of feminine laughter and a riot of floral scents.
And there she was.
She wore an ensemble he hadn’t seen before, a day gown of creamy muslin with a smart jacket of dark blue velvet, cut in a severe style, with vaguely military embroidery marching up to a tall collar, but the tassels dangling from the waist added a flirtatious, feminine touch.
Her bonnet had a high, open brim that framed her face charmingly, the inside lined with silk and the feathers atop dyed to match her jacket.
She smiled at the footman as he offered his hand to steady her descent, then stood chatting with the other actresses as they wriggled out of the coach, where they’d squeezed five women into a space designed to accommodate four.