Lady Lissa's Liaison (To Woo an Heiress, Book 1) Read online

“Just be calm, Tilly,” Lissa instructed, feeling her own heart beginning to pound. She heard no more sounds of anyone coming toward the river. Perhaps what they had heard had been some woodland animal, or maybe a shift in the wind. Or perhaps the reclusive Lord Wylde had become aware of their presence and decided to leave.

  Lissa hoped the latter wasn’t the case. She tried to relax; but her own nerves were suddenly frayed, and she questioned her foolish choice of toying with and making use of a man so dangerous as Gabriel Gordon, the sixth Earl of Wylde.

  Positioning her sketchbook firmly upon her lap, she turned her face toward the moving waters of the Dove with its limestone bed and then took up a piece of charcoal. She tried to sketch what she saw, tried in vain to capture the precise lines of the early morn, with the fog hovering above the water, the dawn’s clear light slipping and slanting through the foliage, but her thoughts were far too scattered for her to concentrate. Instead, she managed only to scribble a to-do list, which wasn’t a “list” at all, but only included the initials G.G. and the words must meet.

  A ways down the river’s edge there came a rustling of movement. Both Tilly and Lissa looked up as a man walked into view.

  Tilly immediately gulped in a frightened gasp of air.

  Lissa, however, let out a satisfied sigh. He is perfect for my plan, she thought, instantly pleased by the deliciously dominating figure of the man.

  Tall, unutterably and darkly handsome, with a body that seemed hewn from sturdy oak, he moved forward with a grace known only to the woodland animals Lissa so loved to sketch. He walked very quietly, with reverence to the fish in the water no doubt, and carried with him an angling rod and a long-handled net. Strapped about his muscled chest was a wicker basket. His hair was jet black, longish, marvelously shagged. His shoulders were very broad, and his eyes, when the morning light reflected in them off the water, Lissa noted, were as black as a funeral shroud.

  Tilly jumped up. “Eeek!” she gasped. “He be death come to life! He be—”

  “Enough,” Lissa said in a fast whisper. But Tilly was already running for the safety of the trees, leaving her lady behind. Lissa ground her back teeth together. So much for having her maid as chaperone.

  Determined to go through with her plan in spite of her abigail’s weak constitution, Lissa steeled her resolve. She needed a way of thwarting her suitors as a whole, and linking her good name with that of the maligned Lord Wylde would certainly do the trick. None of those popinjays would dare venture where they believed the dangerous Lord Wylde trod. They would all tuck their tails and run back to the Metropolis once Lissa made everyone in Derbyshire believe she had promised herself to his lordship. All she need do was create the illusion of a liaison between the two of them, and her problem would be solved.

  Doing so, of course, would take time—not to mention a bold bit of deceit. She glanced once again toward the man so many had labeled “heartless.” He stood with his feet apart, his black gaze on the river, one strong and very capable hand wrapped about his fishing rod, his other fist clutching his long-handled net. He appeared as though he were deeply studying some challenge he would like to turn inside out and upside down. He looked downright fierce, in fact.

  Lissa felt a gnawing of hesitancy beginning deep inside her as she noted that his mouth was hardened and that it only served to accent the stubborn jut of his chin.

  Before she fled from the scene as Tilly had already done, she forced herself to calm down. Affixing a bright smile to her face, Lissa called a cheery “Hullo!” then waved to the man as she rose to her feet and stepped out from behind the foliage she’d chosen to position herself alongside.

  His gaze ripped toward her as though she had fired a gun. He did not smile, did not wave.

  No matter. Lissa kept moving, her prettiest smile plastered on her face.

  “Good morning,” she called, drawing near and noticing that his lordship’s eyes were a great deal blacker than she’d first thought. They were also cold and chilling, devoid of any warmth. And he was taller, too—if that were possible—than he’d seemed from afar. She felt immediately daunted by his presence, and by the fact he clearly did not appreciate her presence in what he obviously deemed as his domain.

  “I see you have come afishing, sir. And what a fine morning to do so.” Lissa kept her voice light and breezy, hoping to set the tone for their conversation.

  “Fine?” he muttered darkly. “Hardly that. The fog is lifting early. The trout will become skittish with the morning’s light. They do not like to be disturbed.”

  Like the trout he’d come to find, Lissa guessed that the Heartless Lord Wylde did not like to be disturbed either. Still, she kept up her cheery facade, refusing to back down or to be intimidated in any way. “So you are an angler, are you, sir?”

  His right hand tightened about his angling rod with a death grip. “An obvious fact,” he said.

  Lissa felt foolish and suddenly dry-mouthed, but rushed on. “I believe your estate marches with mine on this side of the Dove, sir.”

  “Does it?”

  She nodded.

  “And you are?”

  “Lady Lissa Lovington of Clivedon Manor. I am—”

  “Up early,” he cut in. “Does every lady in Derbyshire rise with the sun and walk along the river?”

  Lissa blinked. “No… at least, I do not believe so.”

  “Good,” he muttered.

  Lissa quelled a frown. He was not the easiest of persons with whom to speak. Forcing her smile not to waver, she said, “I believe you are Lord Wylde, are you not?”

  “Aye,” came his growl of an answer.

  So much for a warm greeting, she thought. Lissa nodded toward her blanket that lay beyond the clump of foliage. “I often come to the river’s edge at this time to sketch, my lord. The light is best at dawn. Crisp and clear.”

  He said nothing.

  Lissa knew then that was his cue for her to leave him to his angling, but she wasn’t about to leave. Not now. Not when she’d ventured this far.

  “You would not mind if I linger here to sketch while you fish, would you?” she asked.

  He arched one dark brow, looking past her to her blanket scattered with her sketchbook, charcoals, paints and journal, then glanced back at her. “You may do whatever you wish, my lady.”

  Lissa instantly brightened. Perhaps this chance meeting would not turn out so horribly after all, she thought. With an engaging smile sent his way, she turned and headed back toward her blanket. Once there, she glanced his way again, and then set herself to the task of sketching the view of the river in earnest. Talking to him at length could come later, she told herself. For now, she decided, she must form some unspoken bond between them, and what better way to do so than for the two of them to go about their endeavors within short reach of each other?

  Lissa had no sooner scratched out the words G.G.—must meet and outlined her sketch than his lordship headed upriver, his angling pole positioned over one broad shoulder.

  “Oh, “she murmured, in spite of herself, “you—you are leaving already, sir?” she called. “Why, you haven’t even touched the tip of your pole to the water.”

  “And do not intend to,” he said, not looking back.

  “But I thought—er, rather, it seemed—you would fish here,” Lissa said, hoping she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.

  He reluctantly paused to glance over one shoulder, studying her for a fraction of a moment. “You thought wrong, my lady,” he said, and then, with nary a by-your-leave, he headed away from her.

  Lissa, mouth agape, watched him go.

  “Lud, m’lady,” whispered a voice from the thicket behind her, “did I not tell you he be an ogre?”

  Lissa jerked her head toward the sound of Tilly’s voice. “A lot of help you’ve been,” Lissa said, thoroughly disgusted with the turn of events. “I thought you’d gone back to the house.”

  “Oh, I wanted t’ do just that, m’lady, but I be thinking you may be needi
ng me so I stayed.” There came a rustle of leaves as Tilly speared several vines apart with her fingers and peeked through them. Her green eyes were large in the wreath of foliage. “You still be fixing t’ spend time with his lordship, m’lady?”

  Lissa glanced in the direction Lord Wylde had taken. “Most definitely. His presence, and his alone, will assure me of ending all the unwanted advances that have come my way.”

  “But he be nowheres near present,” the maid pointed out.

  Lissa frowned. “A mere inconvenience at the moment, Tilly.” Her gaze darkened as she added, “I never truly believed his lordship and I would have anything in common. From what I’ve gleaned of his character, the two of us are as different as night and day. No, Tilly, what I envisioned is merely the illusion of a liaison with the dangerous Lord Wylde.”

  “A what?”

  “A liaison. I want only for all the eligible gentlemen in Derbyshire to think that his lordship and I are… involved. The man can stare daggers at me and it will make no difference. I really do not give a whit for what he thinks of me. I wish only that others believe his interest of me is keen. Now, are you going to come out of the bushes and join me, or must I go this alone?”

  “Ooh, m’lady, but I be afeared! I—”

  “Never mind,” said Lissa abruptly, releasing her abigail of any intuitive urge to protect her. “You may stay where you are. I shall return for you.”

  Lissa quickly snatched up her satchel, shoved her charcoals, paints, sketchbook and journal into it, and leaving her blanket behind, hastened after Lord Wylde.

  Tilly, bounding out of the thicket a few moments later, wrung her hands together.

  “Oh, me,” she fretted, debating whether or not to follow her lady’s footsteps. Going back to the house, though, seemed a saner and far safer decision.

  Besides, if her lady wished to have her good name maligned with Lord Wylde’s, what better way to do so than by the many servants of Clivedon Manor to hear the tale firsthand from Tilly’s own lips? By sundown, everyone in Derbyshire, via the gossip vine of the servants, would know of her lady’s “liaison” with the wicked Lord Wylde. It seemed a clever plan, and one that would assure that her lady would not need to step one foot near the nasty Lord Wylde ever again after today.

  Having a strong purpose at last, Tilly raced back for the house.

  Chapter 2

  Gabriel Gordon, the sixth Earl of Wylde, felt for the first time in a good many years as though the breath had been knocked out of him.

  He didn’t like the feeling. Not at all.

  He’d come to the river’s edge as he’d always done these past few weeks in search of solitude, and certainly not to be bothered by a female with eyes the color of wild English bluebells, a smile so dazzling it outlit the sun, and blond ringlets so pure in color that they seemed a nimbus about her heart-shaped and very lovely face.

  That she reminded him sharply of another woman—one from long ago in his past—did not seem to matter as much to him at the moment as did the fact of what the mere sight of her made him feel: edgy, interested, and very much aware that she was a female and he was a male.

  Amazing! In just the flash of a few moments the woman had made him experience emotions he’d kept buried for years.

  Not about to fish the waters where she lingered, Gabriel made haste to move upriver, to a favored trout hole where one especially elusive trout had outfoxed him for many days. He’d made a promise to himself that he would hook the fish by summer’s end… and for Wylde, a promise made was a promise kept.

  He dropped his wicker basket onto the ground, flipped open the lid, and studied the assortment of handmade flies impaled on the inside cushion of sheepskin affixed to the upper lid.

  He glanced once at the river, his black eyes narrowing somewhat as he attempted to decide which fly would be best. Trout were very persnickety, and a wrong fly chosen could end in disappointment for an angler. But though he tried to make a study of the various live flies hovering above the water and lingering near the banks and sides of the river, he saw only in his mind’s eye a very beauteous face, pearl white teeth, a piquant rosebud of a mouth, and a halo of golden hair.

  “Faith,” Gabriel muttered to himself. He ripped off the hand-tied fly nearest to him. That done, he removed a silk worm gut leader from his soak box, glad to see that the silk was soft and pliable. He affixed the hook of the fly to this leader, then moved with hard purpose toward the water, angry with himself for being so haunted by a mere slip of a woman he’d happened to meet this day.

  She was of no consequence, he told himself sternly. He would not see her again, of that he would make certain. His self-imposed exile amid the wilds of Derbyshire was intended to be just that; an exile, a place of perfect solitude, no interference and no chance meetings, no friends, no visitors, no nothing. That was how he wanted it. That, in fact, was how it had to be.

  With the flick of one strong wrist, Gabriel cast the silk line, hearing the swish of it smooth out over the water. Beneath the surface of the water could be seen a good many trout bellying up near the silt-covered limestone bottom of the Dove. Gabriel gently hand-retrieved the line, pulling the silk back with his fingers and drawing the man-made fly through the water, hoping to illicit a bite from the hungry trout below. For all of his expert casting, though, he got nary a nibble.

  Frowning, he flicked the pole, lifted the line, drew it in, then cast again on another spot upstream. Again, there came no bite.

  It was then Gabriel noticed he was not alone.

  He felt the presence of another. Felt it as surely as he did the pull of the current on his line, the feel of the moist and lifting fog on his skin, and the shimmer of a growing sun on his face. He turned his head ever so slightly.

  There. Hidden behind the trees, among the foliage, a bright, effervescent light seemed to glow… it was her.

  Damnation! Now why, he wondered, would a lady be up and about with the dawn, trailing after him alongside the foggy river? No doubt her purpose was a nefarious one. Such was the way of women; he alone knew that to be the truest of truths.

  Gabriel finished his cast, drew his angling rod back, and cast again, no longer paying attention to the trout in the water. Suddenly, he had other things on his mind, not the least of which was a lady with a too-bright smile who had the power to cast him back into a past better left forgotten….

  *

  Lissa finally caught up to Lord Wylde’s long strides, finding that he’d chosen a narrow bend in the river where a huge, thick and rotting log had fallen across the water. She held back as he casted—of all choices—an artificial nymph, and wondered whether or not he knew of her presence. She decided that he must. Her father, an accomplished angler, had taught her that every man who ventures to the brook is aware of any and all things surrounding him. Surely the Heartless Lord Wylde knew of her presence. How rude of him not to acknowledge it.

  Then again, she thought, it was highly rude of her to be following him so closely. But a decision made was a decision made, and Lissa had made a decision on which her precious freedom hinged.

  She sturdied herself, took a deep breath, then stepped to the water’s edge.

  “Lord Wylde?” she called.

  “Hellfire.”

  “Excuse me?” Lissa instantly stilled, pausing where she stood near the water.

  “Your dress,” said Gabriel Gordon, scowling, “is far too bright, Lady Lovington. You have frightened the trout.”

  “I hardly think that the color of my gown—” she began, but he wasn’t listening.

  With quick jerks of his powerful hands he reeled his line in, yanked his pole back over one shoulder, picked up his wicker basket and net, and then nimbly jumped atop the rotten log spanning the narrow length of water, easily picking his way to the opposite bank.

  Lissa, feeling assaulted and wondering how she had piqued the man’s ire by something so simple as the color of her gown, lifted her skirts with one hand and boldly proceeded after him.<
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  “My lord?” she called, her feet, in her half boots, dangerously slipping once, twice and a third time atop the mossy log as she hastened after him.

  He paused, now standing on the opposite riverbank, his gaze narrowing as he watched her weave her way precariously over the log. “Is there a reason you are following me?”

  Lissa, her arms spread like the wings of a falcon in flight, tilted dangerously to the right, the weight of her satchel tugging her to one side. “Yes… I—I mean no… er, well… possibly,” she answered, trying desperately to stay upright.

  Gabriel folded his arms about his chest, his angling rod resting easily in the crook of one arm, his fishing net now dangling from a loop at his side. “Which is it, Lady Lovington?” he asked, impatience evident in his tone.

  Oh dear, Lissa thought. She was making a muddle of things. Problem was, she hadn’t intended to actually chase after him; but when he’d headed across the river, she’d thought she’d lose sight of him, and so like a perfect ninny she’d jumped atop the log and thought to follow suit.

  Now, however, she was feeling an age-old sensation of nauseating vertigo. She’d first felt this sense of imbalance when she’d climbed atop a pony for the first—and last—time of her life many years ago. Since then, she’d learned to stay away from horses, not to mention high places.

  She suddenly felt a roaring in her ears, as though a huge gust of wind had appeared, surrounding her. Felt, in fact, as though she might faint.

  “Oh my,” Lissa gasped. Very carefully, she moved her gaze to the Heartless Lord Wylde, who seemed utterly impervious to her plight. She debated whether or not to ask for his assistance as this wasn’t at all turning out to be the encounter she’d planned with him. What must he think of her? What must he….

  Lissa felt a wave of nausea overcome her. “Lord Wylde,” she gulped, “if you would be so kind, I, uh—”

  “Bother it all,” she heard him mutter.

  Lissa cringed and closed her eyes, thinking she’d thoroughly undone their “chance” meeting, and just as quickly worried about whether or not she would fall into the water or just become violently ill.