Page 70 of Appointment in Bath

Chapter Twenty

Ivo returned to Beasley Park the same way he’d come, over pasture fences and across the snowy fields. He scarcely registered the cold and the damp. He was walking on air.

Meg’s naked hand had felt delicious in his. Small and silken, though not lacking in strength. She’d pressed his fingers so sweetly. It had set his blood simmering to a dangerous degree.

It was still simmering.

Indeed, from the minute their hands had first brushed as she’d passed him his cake plate, his brain had ceased to function at full capacity. Her skin had been as soft as he’d imagined. And the turn of her countenance. So lovely. So dear.

He’d been so distracted by the look and the feel of her, by her rose-scented perfume and the gentle cadence of her voice, he’d shoveled his cake into his mouth like a fieldworker, without a thought for his fork or his linen napkin. Then, after being so presumptuous as to hold her bare hand, he’d had the temerity to invite her to Beasley Park tomorrow evening.

And why shouldn’t he have?

Ivo walked on, jaw set with resolve. To be sure, perhaps this was the exact way to go about things. To force Meg on his family so they’d have no choice but to see how wonderful she was. No choice but to admit that she was nothing at all like her hated father. Only then would his parents be convinced to give up this ancient grudge. With luck, his brother would be persuaded, too.

Ivo marched through the snow, warming to the idea. That warmth didn’t last long. As he approached the ice-covered stile, he spied an all-too-familiar figure waiting for him.

James leaned against the wooden rungs, clad in a heavy overcoat, hat, and gloves. His face might have been chiseled from a block of marble.

Ivo’s stomach didn’t sink this time. It clenched with fraternal wrath. “Speak of the devil,” he said. “Been following me again?” He climbed over the stile. “Don’t answer that. It’s obvious you have.”

“Someone must stop you from exacerbating your crime.” James regarded him with lethal intent. “Please tell me that you didn’t just call at Letchford Hall.”

Ivo walked past him, hands thrust into his pockets, doing his best imitation of a man without a care in the world. “I did.”

James kept pace with him. Controlled fury vibrated in his deep voice. “You bloody idiot.”

Ivo chuckled. “Is that the best you can come up with?”

“You shortsighted fool.”

That one hurt. Ivo was obliged to conceal a wince. “Nonsense. I’m the least short-sighted among us.”

James shot a sardonic glance at Ivo’s spectacles.

Ivo whipped them off and thrust them in his pocket. “I’m not talking about my vision, you literal-minded arse.”

“Short-sighted in vision, and in every respect, it seems,” James said coldly. “If you’ve paid a formal call on Miss Burton-Smythe—”

“Now that I haven’t done,” Ivo said. Wind bit at his face as he walked.

“Then what—”

“I was paying a call on her father.”

James’s jaw dropped.

Ivo felt a distinct flare of satisfaction. It was worth the tedium of his brother’s lecture to see him temporarily put out of countenance. It so rarely happened.

“We talked for some time,” Ivo said, pressing his advantage as he continued through the snow. “Sir Frederick’s a most reasonable gentleman, I found, when it comes to matters of—”

James grabbed Ivo by the arm, bringing him to an unwilling halt. His grip was as strong as iron. “By God, Ivo, if you’ve made the man an offer for his daughter—”

Ivo easily wrenched free from his brother’s grasp. “Don’t be absurd.”

“What else am I to make of this slinking around? To go to Letchford Hall, to call on Sir Frederick, and then to walk—to walk!—back to Beasley in these conditions? These aren’t the actions of a man in his right mind.”

Ivo gave his greatcoat a sharp tug to straighten it. “You’re perfectly right,” he said. “This slinking around, as you call it, has become tedious.”