Nights in White Satin: A Loveswept Classic Romance Read online

  The jumble sale was on the side lawn of the church, and as they walked around the fourteenth-century building, Jill glanced up. The stone gargoyles perched on the ramparts glared down accusingly.

  Rick looked up, too, and grinned. “Eerie, aren’t they?”

  “They aren’t the Fab Four.”

  He laughed. Jill cursed herself. Sharing a joke was unnecessary contact too.

  Reverent silence rather than the reverend greeted them inside the church. The high-vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows created an air of pomp and majesty. Jill stepped forward, awed that her loafers touched the same granite floor as had felt slippers seven hundred years ago. It was the ancient unbroken continuity of life in England that fascinated her. The new directorship at the Zoo didn’t even come close.

  If she lived there, she would have this every day. Every day the past would come alive in a church, or at a turn of the road. And every day there would be no ocean to separate her from Rick.

  She sighed at the thought, then realized that no reverend in the church also meant no Lettice. No nobody. Just she and Rick.

  “Well, it looks like nobody’s here,” she said brightly. “Might as well go back to the sale—”

  “But I thought you wanted to see the church,” Rick said, looking at her in bewilderment.

  She glanced around. “It’s lovely.”

  “But you’ve barely looked at the nave. The ceiling is very interesting. And it’s a village rumor that the lost daughter of Catherine Parr was christened here and not at the chapel at Sudeley Castle before she disappeared.”

  “Really?” she said, spinning back around to gaze at the front of the church.

  “You look around while I put something in the building fund. It’s the custom for visitors here to give something to the church for a peek inside.”

  “Yes. I know of it.” She dug into her purse and pulled out a five-pound note. “Here. For the fund from an admirer.”

  Rick smiled and reached for the note. His fingers touched hers, and Jill froze at the contact. She waited for him to take the money from her, freeing her from his captivity. But he didn’t. She stared as he slowly caressed her hand, his fingers curving around hers, the note trapped between them.

  She fought the urge to look up at him … and lost. Her gaze met his, even as a thousand protests rocked her brain, every damnable one of them logical. None of them helped.

  Rick muttered something under his breath, then pulled her into his embrace. Her mouth found his eagerly, melding with it, then opening to deepen the kiss. His tongue moved against hers, circling with leisurely movements. His hands spanned her back, his fingers dipping low on her spine.

  A wave of passion surged through her, settling as a throbbing ache deep in her pelvis. She pressed her hips against his in an unconscious effort to ease the ache. His hand slipped lower, kneading the soft flesh of her derriere, pulling her against him.

  Jill shuddered at the sensations overwhelming her. Rick’s kissing turned wild, driving her slowly insane, driving her to match his demands with her own.

  Slowly her reason returned, and with it the knowledge of how much she was deceiving him. She pulled away from him, ashamed to have been so foolish … and so passionate. What was it about this man that elicited such a response from her?

  She decided she might not like the answer. Then she realized exactly where she was. “Omi-god! This is a church!”

  Rick blinked. “I thought you knew that.”

  “No, I mean we were kissing in a church.” She put her hands to her cheeks in an attempt to cool the heat gathering on her face. “People aren’t supposed to do that in a church except at a wedding.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t realize Americans were such prudes. We’re much more matter-of-fact here about our churches. After all the inhumanity this church has seen over the centuries, it probably enjoys a bit of humanness. We were pretty human too.”

  “Rick!”

  “Jill, kissing isn’t a sin. Lord help the world if it is, especially when you’re the one doing the kissing—”

  “I was not doing the kissing!” she exclaimed, lowering her hands.

  “Then I dreamed up an incredible kiss. Next time, could you do that thing with your hips again? I really—”

  “Rick!” She glared at him. “There will be no next time. There wasn’t supposed to be a this time.”

  He frowned. “Look, I know I said I would be a good host and I meant it. I’m just as surprised as you are about what happened. By the way, this time who’s the one making a mountain out of a molehill?”

  She gritted her teeth together. He was right, absolutely right. She’d love to kill him for it, but he was right. She had been acting like an adolescent caught in a forbidden kiss, instead of a mature adult whose libido had gone nuts for a few seconds. Okay, three forbidden kisses and long, long minutes, but she wasn’t counting.

  “No mountain,” she said, mustering as casual a smile as possible. Immediately, she felt more in control of the situation. “Just a little American puritanism on my part. See? I’m not fussing.”

  He smiled knowingly and held up her five pounds. “Go look at the church, Jill, while I pay the piper.”

  She walked down the center aisle, wondering just who was going to pay the piper in the end.

  She had a feeling it wouldn’t be Rick.

  As he strode across the church, Rick knew he wasn’t foolish enough to make a second vow. No man would after experiencing one of Jill’s kisses. He’d wondered if his intense attraction to her was because he had been too long without a woman, but no other woman held any appeal. Jill Daneforth, with her quick change of emotions, her slim body, and her passion was driving him insane. He couldn’t stay away from her.

  He remembered when they’d gone down to the pub a few nights earlier. He’d had to take a good bit of teasing from the locals, who liked to call him “His Lordship,” a title not so affectionately given to him when he’d first come to Devil’s Hall. There had been a wave of resentment because of his new methods, until the money had started to come in. But Jill had been accepted right away. In fact, she’d made herself perfectly at home chatting with his neighbors. It had been a torture to watch her sip her ginger beer, then lick a bit of foam clinging to her lip.

  He was definitely acquiring a taste for something American.

  Rick dropped his coins into the slot embedded in the church wall, then folded up Jill’s generous offering and shoved it through.

  Leave it to a visit to a church to bring out a little honesty in a man, he thought. He could find a hundred reasons not to get involved with Jill, but he was becoming more and more helpless to stop himself.

  It was time to acknowledge a second bit of honesty.

  He didn’t want to.

  The ponies were off and running.

  Jill watched the eight-year-old boys cling to the backs of their small sleek mounts in a miniature version of a Dick Francis race. The ponies were spaced far enough away from each other on the wide meadow to keep mishaps to a minimum. She wished she were as far away from Rick. Instead, she was pressed against his side by the crowd watching the race. His hand rested lightly at the small of her back. She tried to ignore it and concentrate on rooting for the little boy in the black and yellow colors, currently out in front. He was Thorn, the son of one of Rick’s tenant farmers. But Rick’s hand was burning through her linen shirtwaist.

  Two other ponies passed Thorn, and he came in third.

  “The lad’ll be ticked,” Rick said. “He knows he pushed Magnus too much at the start, and the pony runs out of energy before the finish every time. Ah well, I suppose I better go cheer him up. You’ll be okay?”

  She nodded, then nearly gasped out loud when his hand ran up and down the length of her spine in clear possession, before he ducked under the sideline rope.

  She watched him walk over to the dejected boy and bend low to say something. Although the boy’s parents hovered, too, it was clear young Thom
was brightening at Rick’s words. Thom had a case of hero worship.

  Jill knew how the boy felt. This was a scene she could have done without seeing. She was having enough trouble controlling her lust without additional evidence Rick was a kind man too. Dammit, she thought. She already knew it. It would be so easy to fall for him. And so wrong.

  The Jill Daneforth version of Murphy’s Law was working overtime. Leave it to her to be extremely attracted to the man who would stop her on her quest. Indiana Jones didn’t have this many obstacles when he went after the Ark.

  With the race over, the older girls were readying their mounts for the dressage event. Several surrounding villages had turned out for the Children’s Pony Gymkhana. The local children were putting their pets through their paces in the varying events and displaying their own riding prowess. It was being held at Devil’s Hall, Rick evidently this year’s sponsor. Another “nice-guy-ism” if she ever saw one.

  “He’s a nice man, is Mr. Kitteridge,” one of the elderly men next to her said.

  Just what she needed: confirmation. She forced herself to smile. “Yes, I’m sure he is.”

  “You’re the lady who’s visitin’ him.”

  “With his grandmother,” she added firmly.

  “Oh, aye.” The man nodded. “Very kindly, she is too.”

  Jill hid a smile of amusement. Clearly the man didn’t know Lettice. She had to admit she was enjoying the gymkhana. Who wouldn’t be? She had a weakness for children and pets. Still, she ought to be watching for her adversary. She hadn’t seen a sign of Colonel Fitchworth-Leeds yet, but she had to admit she wasn’t always paying much attention. Her mind and body kept focusing on Rick. Still, it was becoming frustrating not to see the Colonel at any of the local events or places.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the older man. “Do you know a Colonel Fitchworth-Leeds?”

  The man shook his head. “No, can’t say as I do. Never heard of any Fitchworth or any Leeds around these parts, and I’ve lived here all my life.”

  “Well, thanks anyway.”

  Don’t be too disappointed, she told herself. But it was hard. She had weathered several setbacks, come up with a plan, compromised her principles, and got Rick moving on taking them around. So why couldn’t she get out of the starting gate? Time was running out; soon she had to go home to her new job. Anxiety gnawed at her stomach. She couldn’t go home without making a genuine attempt to get the necklace back. But she wasn’t having any luck locating the Colonel. At least she couldn’t find him between visits to pubs and churches and pony gymkhanas.…

  “You look subdued,” Lettice said suddenly in her ear. The woman had come up beside her while she’d been thinking. “What happened? Did you bet on a losing pony?”

  “The odds would probably have been three hundred to one on the winner,” Jill replied, chuckling.

  Lettice smiled. “It’s nothing like the Devon Horse Show back home, is it?”

  “It’s better. There’s an innocence here that we’ve lost somehow.”

  “Sometimes I feel like I’m back in the early sixties,” Lettice said. “The milkman still comes every morning and no one is quite sure yet what to do with credit cards. Their tabloids are more horrible than ours for vicious gossip, though. Amazing to see it tolerated in a country where everyone is extremely polite.”

  Jill nodded. “And very few sue because it’s ‘bad form.’ ”

  “Have you been having a good time at these strange things Rick’s been taking us to?” Lettice asked, smiling slyly.

  Jill laughed again. “Yes. It’s been wonderful, actually. Village life is very friendly and very close-knit. I don’t think it’s changed much in hundreds of years.”

  “Good.” Lettice patted her on the back. “I’m glad to see you’re falling for the place.”

  Jill peered at her. Something seemed to be underlying Lettice’s words. When she couldn’t discern anything in the older woman’s smile, she shrugged it away.

  “Rick’s been making quite a sacrifice to take us around,” Lettice went on. “I had no idea just how much he’s been tied to the farm until now. I think he wants to be. I had always wished he’d followed his father into a diplomatic career. I suppose now he wouldn’t have been happy with it.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Jill said, looking out over the field and watching Rick talking to the next group of competitors. “He definitely likes what he’s doing.”

  And she liked looking at him. She liked watching him move with that commanding masculine grace he had. She liked watching his hands and remembering how they felt on her body. He was a trap she couldn’t get out of, no matter how she tried.

  “Yes, you’re right,” Lettice said. “This is his life and his friends. And I approve. I suppose I have to be wrong about one thing now and again.”

  Lettice’s words hit home like a guided missile exploding on its target. She had maneuvered Rick into taking them out into society. And he had come through beautifully, taking them to meet all of his friends at all of the big social events. She couldn’t have asked for more.

  Why, she wondered frantically, hadn’t it occurred to her that Rick’s version of a social life and what she’d been thinking it would be, were two different things? Because she was too damned enamored of her host.

  There were no prospective victims here for the Colonel. Only good people in a friendly community, prosperous but not with money to burn. She should have realized that at the pub a week ago. Probably she’d been misled by the local castle and its titled occupant. If there was one, there ought to be others, right?

  Wrong, she admitted. The Colonel seemed to like his victims to be from out of the country, not from a Cotswold village. He’d met the Harpers at Ascot, an event which drew American horse owners and players. Or more important, an event for people with money to burn. That was where she’d find the Colonel. Not at the church fetes and the pony gymkhanas for the local gentry. She might have recognized that from the beginning, had her mind and body not been concentrating on one outstanding local man.

  “You look like you could match one of the church gargoyles with that expression,” Rick said, having discharged his duties as host and rejoined her and Lettice.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Lettice said, staring at her in puzzlement.

  Jill forced down a yowl of frustration at her stupidity. “Gee, thanks, folks. It’s nice to get a compliment once in a while. But that wasn’t one.”

  Rick chuckled. “Sorry.”

  Not as sorry as she was, Jill thought in disgust. She mustered another smile.

  Later, she sat in front of the TV in the small back sitting room, staring mindlessly at the news channel while she berated herself for her lack of brains. Okay, so she’d been headed in the wrong direction. At least she knew the Colonel wasn’t there in Winchcombe. But where in the length and breadth of England was the man?

  The answer came on the BBC in a news story about the upcoming Henley Regatta. Jill stared at the screen and blessed the miracle. Of course, she thought. She should have remembered the regatta at Oxford University, the biggest event on the summer schedule. Her father had sculled for the University of Pennsylvania. She’d grown up at the boathouses in Philadelphia. American Ivy League schools contributed nearly as many sculling teams to the Henley Regatta as the English ones did. Americans would be there in force. Americans with money to burn. And so would the Colonel, she bet. Now all she had to do was get Rick there too.

  That was the real trick.

  Six

  “Henley! What would Grandmother want with the Henley Regatta?”

  Rick stared at Jill as if she’d lost her mind. How could she think he could just up and leave the manor for a week, let alone arrange accommodations for them to see the Oxford University rowing races on a moment’s notice? He glanced behind him at the first edges of the darkening sky. He and his two workers were frantically cutting the early cabbages to keep them from being destroyed by the sudden storm blowing up from Wa
les with near gale-force winds. He looked back at Jill. As much as he enjoyed her company, there was no time for a discussion when he had to get a crop in.

  “Never mind about Grandmother,” he said. “And you’re not dressed for the fields! Your shoes are going to be ruined.”

  He pointed to the very expensive leather flats she was wearing. Her feet were slowly sinking into the soft tilled earth.

  Jill glanced down, shrugged, and flipped off her shoes. “No problem. And we have to talk about the regatta now, because if we decide to go then we’ll have to start making arrangements today.”

  It was a royal “we” if he ever heard one. “Dammit, Jill. I have less than an hour to get in these cabbages before the storm hits. This is an experimental strain for the government. Everything will be ruined if they’re destroyed!”

  “No problem.” She sank to her knees and began tugging at a cabbage in front of her. It didn’t budge. “Geez! What are these? Food for the Incredible Hulk?”

  “No. Whoever he is. You have to cut the stem with a knife.” He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated at the amount of time he was wasting with her. “And you’re ruining your skirt now.”

  “Then give me a knife and stop fussing about my clothes. I have no intention of doing this naked.” She held out a hand.

  “Jill—”

  “Just give me the damned knife. You’re wasting time.”

  Her makeup was perfect, her hair was perfect. Her skirt had to be of fine linen. And she was kneeling in the dirt, ready to cut cabbages. It was ludicrous, yet an odd streak of possessiveness and pride welled up in him. He couldn’t think of any other woman who would pitch in the way she was. She was also right. He was wasting time.

  “You American women are very bossy,” he said, handing over his knife. She couldn’t do much harm, he told himself, and she’d probably give up in a few minutes.

  “Thank you,” she said primly, taking the knife from him. She hacked at the stem of the cabbage. “Now cut. We’ve got a field to get in.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He knelt down in the next row and got his penknife out of his pocket. He began cutting cabbages with one expert swipe at the stem, then tossed them in the bushel basket. Bent over, he moved slowly up the straight row. To his surprise, Jill wasn’t too far behind him. She had tucked her dark hair behind her ears to keep it out of the way. He grinned at her expression of concentration. She looked up and caught him staring.