You, and Only You (11 page)

Tiffany glanced up, meeting his gaze, her smile wavering
just a bit as their eyes met.

“Indeed it was,” Nicholas seconded, as he and Ashleigh pulled
up beside him.

“I shall have to award you a ribbon once we return to the
house,” Ashleigh said merrily, drawing Tiffany’s attention.

“What about me?” Brendon chimed in as he dismounted.
 
“Shall I be awarded a ribbon as well?
 
I did come in a close second after all.”
 
Tossing his reins to the waiting groom, he
moved to stand at Tiffany’s other side.

“Sorry Brendon, but there are no prizes awarded for second
place,” Nicholas teased.

Damned right there
aren’t
, Alex thought, eyeing both Brendon and the duke through narrowed
eyes.
 
It was
his
lips that had claimed Tiffany’s the night before,
his
arms that had held her lush,
feminine curves; not theirs he longed to inform the two men flanking her.
 
His reaction and the pure intensity of
emotion he felt at that moment caught him off guard.
 
Was it
jealousy
?
 
Possessiveness?
 
He wasn’t accustomed to feeling either
and it left him feeling slightly off kilter.

He didn’t have time to dwell upon the troubling circumstance
however, as the other riders and the slower-moving carriages had just begun to
arrive.

As they left the horses to the care of the grooms and walked
as a group toward the picnic site, Tiffany could see that several colorful
blankets had been laid atop the grass, each sporting a fully-laden wicker basket
and a vast collection of serving ware, while a handful of servants stood
patiently waiting to attend the party guests.
 
Nearing one of the open baskets, she eyed the tempting fare
appreciatively.
 
Having missed breakfast,
she was feeling rather hungry.

“Would you care to share a blanket, Lady Tiffany?” The Duke
of Ravenfield asked politely.

“That would be lovely, thank you.”
 
She would have preferred to sit with Alex,
but unfortunately he hadn’t offered.

Stopping next to a blue and green patterned blanket, the
duke motioned with his hand.
 
“Will this
do?”

“Of course,” Tiffany replied.
 
Dropping onto her knees, she adjusted her
riding skirt around her legs as the duke sat down across from her.

A young serving girl approached them at once, carrying an
open bottle of wine.
 
She and the duke
immediately reached for their glasses, holding them aloft.

“Have you room for one more?”

Tiffany fought to suppress her amusement as Brendon plopped
down next to her without waiting for a reply, causing the duke to mutter
something she couldn’t quite make out under his breath.
 

“By all means, join us,” he stated audibly, though both his
tone and expression were decidedly unwelcoming.

Grabbing a wine glass, Brendon merely grinned in
response.
 
“Thank you, Suzette,” he said,
winking as the girl bent forward to fill his glass.
 

“You’re welcome, my lord,” she replied, fluttering her
eyelashes prettily.

As she moved on, reluctantly it seemed, to the next blanket
Tiffany regarded Brendon knowingly over the top of her glass.

“What?” he asked innocently, catching her eye.

Tiffany rolled her eyes skyward and stifled a giggle.
 
Brendon Leighton was, and likely always would
be, an incorrigible rogue.
 
However, she
had absolutely no doubt that someone
would
eventually capture his heart, and when she did, she would be one very
fortunate woman indeed.

Noting the envious gazes of two of the young women to whom
she’d been introduced the night before, Tiffany felt a tad guilty as she
watched them walking toward one of the unoccupied blankets.
 
It really wasn’t fair of her to monopolize
two of the
ton’s
most eligible
bachelors, she supposed, when in fact she had eyes for only one man.
 
“Miss Banning, Lady Cranbrooke, would you
care to join us?” she called out.

The pair immediately halted in their tracks, their
expressions noticeably brightening.

Both Brendon and the duke leapt to their feet at once.
 
“Yes, ladies, do join us,” Brendon said with
a charming smile.

“By all means, we’ve more than enough room,” the duke
affirmed gallantly.

Covertly watching as Tiffany had settled herself comfortably
between Brendon and Ravenfield moments earlier, Alex had failed to note the
woman approaching from behind until it was too late.

“Come and sit with me,” Lucinda murmured in a husky voice,
sidling up next to him and grasping his forearm.
 

Alex turned, doing his best to keep his annoyance from
showing on his face.
 
Once again he found
her lack of discretion extremely vexing.
 
“Shouldn’t you be sitting with your husband?” he asked, quirking his
left brow.

Lucinda merely laughed and tucked her arm through his,
pulling him in the direction of the sea of colorful blankets.
 
“Winston is back at the house,” she replied
gaily.
 
“As luck would have it, he wasn’t
in the mood for a picnic.”

Glancing about, Alex noted the baron’s absence as well as
the fact that the majority of the Leighton’s older guests appeared to have
remained behind, including Nick and Brendon’s grandmother, Ashleigh’s
grandfather and Tiffany’s father.
 
Nonetheless, he had no desire to put his relationship with Lucinda on
public display, though clearly
she
didn’t seem to have a problem with it.
 
Moving forward, he caught Nick’s eye just as he and Ashleigh were
situating themselves upon one of the blankets.
 
Fortunately, his friend knew him well and easily read his expression.

“Alex, Baroness Langdon, please join us,” he called out,
extending his hand in a welcoming gesture.

Alex gave Lucinda no time to reply.
 
“We’d love to, thank you.”

As she and the others dined on roasted pheasant, thick
wheels of goat cheese, fragrant loaves of freshly baked bread and a wide
assortment of other scrumptious tidbits, Tiffany couldn’t keep her eyes from
straying time and again to where Alex sat next to Baroness Langdon.
 
Was it true, she wondered yet again?
 
Were
he and the baroness lovers?
 
Though it
was hardly any of her business, she could scarcely contain the flashes of
jealousy that sparked within her each and every time she happened to glance
upon them.
 

“Oh, Your Grace, surely you must be joking,” Lady Cranbrooke
declared.

“I kid you not,” the duke replied earnestly.

“It’s true,” Brendon asserted with a chuckle.
 
“I was there as well.
 
Funniest thing I ever saw.”

Tiffany’s eyes snapped back to the four people sitting
around her.
 
Brendon and the duke were
grinning madly and Miss Banning and Lady Cranbrooke had their hands to their
mouths to stifle their giggles.
 
Oh dear.
 
Apparently she had missed something, something amusing it seemed.
 
She immediately pasted a phony smile upon her
lips and did her best to act as if she knew what it was that they were all
laughing about.
 
Fortunately, no one
seemed to notice that she hadn’t a clue.
 
However, for the remainder of the meal she made a marked attempt to keep
her attention from wavering, succeeding for the most part.

“With all of the wonderful fare that’s been coming from your
kitchens these past two days, I fear that Winston and I will have each gained a
stone by the time we return to Langdon,” Lucinda laughed good-humoredly as she
set aside her now empty plate.

“If only that were true, our chef would be most pleased to
hear it,” Ashleigh replied graciously, eyeing the baroness’ slender frame.

“Indeed,” Nicholas remarked, patting his midsection
contentedly.
 
“I do not think that he
will be satisfied until all of the Leightons are as big around the middle as he
is.”

Ashleigh grinned.
 
“Yes, Monsieur Rousseau is continually coming up with tantalizing new
dishes to tempt us with.”

“You’d best be careful lest someone try and lure your new
culinary genius away from you,” Alex taunted, waggling his eyebrows wickedly as
he set aside his own plate.
 

“Do not even think to try it, old man,” Nick retorted with
mock severity.
 
“Though I have no
intention of allowing Monsieur Rousseau to substantially increase the size of
my waistband, I am nonetheless content to let him try.”

Alex merely grinned as he popped a second sugared apricot
into his mouth.

They continued their conversation for several more minutes,
until Lucinda eventually rose up onto her knees and cast Alex a meaningful
glance.

“After sitting so long, I think I had best stretch my legs
for a bit,” she said.
 
“Will you join me
for a walk, my lord?”

Though he wanted to decline, he could hardly refuse without
seeming an ill-mannered boor.
 
“Of
course,” he said graciously.
 
Standing
up, he offered Lucinda his hand.

Rising to her feet, Tiffany watched from the corner of her
eye as Alex and the baroness left their blanket and meandered down toward the
lake, arm in arm.

“Shall we choose partners?” Miss Banning asked.

Having finished eating, Brendon had suggested that they
compete in a game of pall-mall, noting the iron arches that had been set up
just a short distance away.

Although she enjoyed the game and surmised that vigorously
whacking a ball with a wooden mallet might be just what she needed to help ease
her current frustration, she simply wasn’t in the mood.
 
“You all go ahead,” she said.
 
“I believe I shall sit this one out.”

Brendon tilted his head to the side and regarded her
speculatively.
 
“You aren’t afraid that
I’ll beat you again, are you?” he teased.

Tiffany couldn’t help but grin.
 
“You know very well that Ashleigh and I
trounced you and your brother quite soundly that last time we played,” Tiffany
replied, shaking her head at the blatant falsehood.

“Did you?”
 
His brow
wrinkled in apparent confusion.
 
“Are you
certain it wasn’t the other way around?” he queried, though his eyes held a
teasing glint.

Tiffany nodded.
 
“Quite certain.
 
Now go on without
me,” she said good-naturedly, shooing the foursome away with her hands.
 
“Perhaps I will join you in a while.”

Though both Brendon and the duke looked somewhat
disappointed, Miss Banning and Lady Cranbrooke looked very much the opposite
and were quick to lead the men away.

Tiffany wasn’t alone for long however, for within moments of
the others departure, Ashleigh was at her side.
 
“I see that you’ve made yet another conquest,” she declared with a smug
smile, nodding toward the Duke of Ravenfield.
 
“I told you that the men would be falling all over themselves for you,
once you entered Society.”

“I would hardly describe His Grace as falling all over
himself,” Tiffany replied, shaking her head at such an absurdity.

“Yes, well perhaps the duke
is
a bit too sophisticated as to fall all over himself,” Ashleigh
conceded with a grin.
 
“But I do believe
that he is most definitely smitten.”
 
She
glanced to where Ravenfield stood, hefting a wooden mallet in his hand as he
prepared to take his first shot.
 
“And
just think, if you married
him
, then
you and I could be
Your Graced
to
death together.”

Tiffany couldn’t help smiling.
 
She knew that Ashleigh was still adjusting to
being a duchess and often struggled with the deference people gave to her
simply because of her elevated title.
 
“Well, he
is
very handsome and ever so charming, but-”

“But he’s not the Earl of Chesterfield,” Ashleigh finished
the statement for her.

“Oh Ashleigh, I simply cannot help it.”
 
Stealing a glance in the earl’s direction,
Tiffany dropped her voice to a whisper.
 
“I’m not sure what it is, but there’s just something about him.
 
It’s as if…,” she trailed off, sighing softly.
 
“Honestly, I don’t think I can explain it,
not even to myself.”

Casting a glance toward her husband, Ashleigh smiled.
 
It was a soft, loving smile that lit up her
entire face.
 
“You don’t have to
explain,” she said understandingly.
 
“I
know exactly how you feel.”
 
After a
moment, she returned her gaze back to Tiffany and her features became more
solemn.
 
“But as much as I adore Alex, I
just… I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I know.”
 
Tiffany
couldn’t have asked for a better friend than Ashleigh Leighton.
 
Casting her eyes downward, she asked the
question that had been plaguing her since she’d overheard the Addler sisters
talking.
 
“Do you think he and the
baroness are lovers?”