“She never said anything to me about it. And I fear I was too obtuse and self-occupied to guess it of her. I had it repaired only when I began giving weekend parties here.”
“It is very pretty,” she said, gazing out the window at the exuberant apricot-gold roses blooming along the balustrade. There were roses on her wide-brimmed hat, roses confected from ribbons of pale blue grosgrain. “She would have liked it.”
“Would you prefer to take tea on the terrace instead?” he asked impulsively. “It is a beautiful day without.”
“Yes, I would, thank you,” she said, smiling a little.
He ordered a tea table set up outside under an extended awning, with a white tablecloth and a few cuttings of the roses she was just admiring set in a crystal vase.
“I think it's high time I apologized,” she said, as they settled into their seats, side by side on a wide angle so that they each enjoyed an uninterrupted view of his gardens.
“That is hardly necessary. I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the dinner and found both the food and the company fascinating.”
“I don't doubt that.” She laughed, rather self-consciously. “For theater you couldn't do much better. But I wish to apologize for my entire scheme, from the very beginning, when I sent away all my servants and stranded my kitten in a tree so that I could demand your assistance.”
He smiled. “I assure you I did not participate in your scheme as an unwitting dupe. I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to be your temporary and rather churlish Sir Galahad.”
She colored. “That much I've surmised, believe me, from later events. But it still behooves me to apologize for my original deceit.”
Tea arrived amid much pomp and ceremony. Mrs. Rowland took both sugar and cream, the little finger of her right hand held just slightly extended, a delicate curl like a petal of oriental chrysanthemum.
“As much as I approve of your acknowledgment concerning this ‘original deceit,' it's your subsequent tale that concerns me more,” he said, ignoring his tea and watching her stir hers with a languid, creamy daintiness. “Would you apologize for that too?”
“Only if it were a blatant fabrication.”
In his distraction he took a sip of tea. He still disliked it. “Do you mean to tell me it wasn't a blatant fabrication?”
She went on stirring her tea. “After much thoughtful reflection, I've decided that I don't know anymore.”
He cursed his curiosity. And his lack of tact. A more circumspect man would not have asked the question and would not have to deal with the wide-open vista of her answer.
“Perhaps you could help me decide,” she said. “I'd like to know you better.”
I'm not a young woman anymore. So I've decided against a young woman's wiles in favor of a more direct approach. That, at least, was no fabrication. “What would you like to know?”
“Many things. But, most pressingly, how and why did you come to be the person you are today? I find it an intriguing mystery.”
His heart thudded. “No mystery there. I almost died.”
But she wasn't so easily satisfied. “My daughter almost died at age sixteen. That experience only made her more of what she already was, not a different person altogether—which you, by all accounts, have become.”
She raised her teacup and let it hover just below her lips, her wrist as steady as the pound sterling. “My instincts tell me that I cannot understand you until I know the story behind your transformation. And that your story is more than a man's brush with death. Am I wrong?”
He considered a variety of answers and rejected them all. Having enjoyed the privilege of bluntness his entire life, he was ill-suited to suddenly take up prevarication.
“No,” he said.
The teacup continued to linger in the vicinity of her chin, a shield almost, a disguise too, to hide her dangerous perspicacity behind a bit of glazed fine bone china painted with ivy and roses. “If I may be so forward, was there a woman?”
He didn't need to answer her question. But then, he didn't need to invite her to tea either. He didn't know his plans any more than she did hers, possibly a lot less.
“Yes, there was a woman,” he answered. “And a man.”
Her features froze in momentary shock. Carefully, she set down her teacup. Presumably the stability of her wrist was no match for the excitement of her rather salacious imagination.
“Goodness gracious,” she mumbled.
He laughed a little, with rue. “Would that it were that kind of uncomplicated sordidness.”
“Oh,” she said.