Lizzie's sweet face showed her concern. "Oh! Do you not feel the thing? Perhaps I can get
Mrs. Alford's smelling salts for you?"
Martin quelled the instinctive response to react to her suggestion in too forceful a manner. Instead, he waved aside her words with one limp hand. "No! No! Don't worry about me. I'll come about shortly."
He smiled forlornly at her, allowing his blue gaze to rest, with calculated effect, on her grey-brown eyes. "But maybe you'd like to get one of your other beaux to dance with you? I'm sure Mr. Mallard would be only too thrilled." He made a move as if to summon this gentleman, the most assiduous of her suitors.
"Heavens, no!" exclaimed Lizzie, catching his hand in hers to prevent the action. "I'll do no such thing.
If you're feeling poorly then of course I'll stay with you." She continued to hold his hand and, for his
part, Martin made no effort to remove it from her warm clasp.
Martin closed his eyes momentarily, as if fighting off a sudden faintness. Opening them again, he said, "Actually, I do believe it's all the heat and noise in here that's doing it. Perhaps if I went out on to me terrace for a while, it might clear my head."
"The very thing!" said Lizzie, jumping up.
Martin, rising more slowly, smiled down at her in a brotherly fashion. "Actually, I'd better go alone. Someone might get the wrong idea if we both left."
"Nonsense!" said Lizzie, slightly annoyed by his implication that such a conclusion could, of course,
have no basis in fact. "Why should anyone worry? We'll only be a few minutes and anyway, I'm your brother's ward, after all."
Martin made some small show of dissuading her, which, as he intended, only increased her resolution
to accompany him. Finally, he allowed himself to be bullied on to the terrace, Lizzie's small hand on
his arm, guiding him.
As supper time was not far distant, there were only two other couples on the shallow terrace, and within minutes both had returned to the ballroom. Martin, food very far from his mind, strolled down the terrace, apparently content to go where Lizzie led. But his sharp soldier's eyes had very quickly adjusted to the moonlight. After a cursory inspection of the surroundings, he allowed himself to pause dramatically as they neared the end of the terrace. "I really think…" He waited a moment, as if gathering strength, then continued, "I really think I should sit down."
Lizzie looked around in consternation. There were no benches on the terrace, not even a balustrade.
"There's a seat under that willow, I think," said Martin, gesturing across the lawn.
A quick glance from Lizzie confirmed this observation. "Here, lean on me," she said. Martin obligingly draped one arm lightly about her shoulders. As he felt her small hands gripping him about his waist, a pang of guilt shook him. She really was so trusting. A pity to destroy it.
They reached the willow and brushed through the long strands which conveniently fell back to form a curtain around the white wooden seat. Inside the chamber so formed, the moonbeams danced, sprinkling sufficient light to lift the gloom and allow them to see. Martin sank on to the seat with a convincing show of weakness. Lizzie subsided in a susurration of silks beside him, retaining her clasp on his hand and half turning the better to look into his face.
The moon was behind the willow and one bright beam shone through over Martin's shoulder to fall
gently on Lizzie's face. Martin's face was in shadow, so Lizzie, smiling confidingly up at him, could
only see that he was smiling in return. She could not see the expression which lit his blue eyes as they devoured her delicate face, then dropped boldly to caress the round swell of her breasts where they
rose and fell invitingly below the demurely scooped neckline of her gown. Carefully, Martin turned his hand so that now he was holding her hand, not she his. Then he was still.
After some moments, Lizzie put her head on one side and softly asked, "Are you all right?"
It was on the tip of Martin's tongue to answer truthfully. No, he was not all right. He had brought her
out here to commence her seduction and now some magical power was holding him back. What was
the matter with him? He cleared his throat and answered huskily, "Give me a minute."
A light breeze wafted the willow leaves and the light shifted. Lizzie saw the distracted frown which
had settled over his eyes. Drawing her hand from his, she reached up and gently ran her fingers over
his brow, as if to smooth the frown away. Then, to Martin's intense surprise, she leaned forward and, very gently, touched her lips to his.
As she drew away, Lizzie saw to her dismay that, if Martin had been frowning before, he was positively scowling now. "Why did you do that?" he asked, his tone sharp.
Even in the dim light he could see her confusion. "Oh, dear! I'm s…so sorry. Please excuse me!
I shouldn't have done that."
"Damn right, you shouldn't have," Martin growled. His hand, which had fallen to the bench, was
clenched hard with the effort to remain still and not pull the damn woman into his arms and devour her. He realized she had not answered his question. "But why did you?"
Lizzie hung her head in contrition. "It's just that you looked…well, so troubled. I just wanted to help." Her voice was a small whisper in the night
Martin sighed in frustration. That sort of help he could do without
"I suppose you'll think me very forward, but…" This time, her voice died away altogether.
What Martin did think was that she was adorable and he hurt with the effort to keep his hands off her. Now he came to mink of it, while he had not had a headache when they came out to the garden, he certainly had one now. Repressing the desire to groan aloud, he straightened. "We'd better get back to
the ballroom. We'll just forget the incident." As he drew her to her feet and placed her hand on his arm, an unwelcome thought struck him. "You don't go around kissing other men who look troubled, do you?"
The surprise in her face was quite genuine. "No! Of course not!"
"Well," said Martin, wondering why the information so thrilled him, "just subdue any of these sudden impulses of yours. Except around me, of course. I dare say it's perfectly all right with me, in the circumstances. You are my brother's ward, after all."
Lizzie, still stunned by her forward behaviour, and the sudden impulse that had driven her to it, smiled trustingly up at him.
Caroline smiled her practised smile and wished, for at least the hundredth time, that Max Rotherbridge were not their guardian. At least, she amended, not her guardian. He was proving a tower of strength
in all other respects and she could only be grateful, both for his continuing support and protection, as
well as his experienced counsel over the affair of Sarah and Lord Darcy. But there was no doubt in her mind that her own confusion would be immeasurably eased by dissolution of the guardianship clause which tied her so irrevocably to His Grace of Twyford.
While she circled the floor in the respectful arms of Mr. Willoughby who, she knew, was daily moving closer to a declaration despite her attempts to dampen his confidence, she was conscious of a wish that
it was her guardian's far less gentle clasp she was in. Mr. Willoughby, she had discovered, was worthy. Which was almost as bad as righteous. She sighed and covered the lapse with a brilliant smile into his
mild eyes, slightly below her own. It was not that she despised short men, just that they lacked the
ability to make her feel delicate and vulnerable, womanly, as Max Rotherbridge certainly could. In
fact, the feeling of utter helplessness that seemed to overcome her every time she found herself in his powerful arms was an increasing concern.
As she and her partner turned with the music, she sighted Sarah, dancing with one of her numerous
court, trying, not entirely successfully, to look as if she was enjoying it. Her heart went out to her sister. They had stayed at home the previous night and, in unusual privacy, thrashed out the happenings of the night before. While Sarah skated somewhat thinly over certain aspects, it had been clear that she, at least, knew her heart But Max had taken the opportunity of a few minutes' wait in the hall at Twyford House