PortraitofPassion by Lynne Barron Page B

invited Henry to join us for a picnic, and gave him
leave to invite Easton and Lady Palmerton.”
    He patted her hand where it lay in her lap. “Bea, you must
not expect Lady Palmerton to desire further acquaintance. She is the very
proper wife of an earl. She cannot be seen in the company of a woman of
questionable reputation and unknown origins. I was dismayed that she agreed to
join our table at Gunter’s.”
    “That is ridiculous,” Bea said with some heat. “I am as good
as she is.”
    “You, my Bumble Bea,” Bertie said, squeezing her hand, “are
better than she, worlds better. But that is neither here nor there. It is
simply the way of the world.”
    “And yet one more reason I am happy that I am only visiting
this world. To have to live in it would be dreadful. I should shrivel up and
die.”
    “I have no doubt you are correct. Which brings me to a
question I have been meaning to ask you.”
    “Yes?” she asked.
    “What was that business with Easton in the park?” he asked.
There was no censure in his words, of course there wasn’t. Bertie was the last
man to pass judgment.
    “How much did you see?” she asked.
    “How much was there to see?” he countered.
    How much to tell him? She wondered. But this was Bertie, and
she knew she could tell him anything. “I want to come into you and hear you
cry out my name.” Well almost anything.
    “He kissed me,” she said. “Or perhaps I kissed him,” she
amended. “But really it was the smallest of kisses, our lips barely touched
before—oh you! You saw it.”
    “Hard to miss.” He winked at her. “I don’t think Hastings
saw, but he seems to be an oblivious chap most of the time. He did however
comment that there seemed to be a spark between you and Easton.”
    “Not so oblivious then,” she said.
    “In the middle of Hyde Park, Bea! No telling what would have
happened had I not interrupted it. I thought to admonish you for your
carelessness, but since then I have seen the way Easton watches you.”
    “Does he?” Bea asked innocently. She had felt his eyes upon
her whenever they were together, had met those eyes boldly as if daring him to
look away. Each time she found herself trapped by his gaze as she remembered
the feel of his hand upon her, the feel of his lips soft upon hers.
    “I see the way you watch him as well, Bea,” he pointed out
with a chuckle. “It seems to me that this attraction between you and Easton may
work to our advantage.”
    “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” she agreed, “although
perhaps for altogether different reasons.”
    “And what are your reasons?” Bertie asked.
    “You first,” she countered.
    “It seems to me you might secure Easton’s affections along
with Hastings’,” he said, “in a much different fashion of course.”
    “Of course,” Bea agreed. She certainly did not intend to
entice Henry. She was beginning to think that she very much wanted to seduce
Simon. Or allow him to seduce her.
    “If Hastings is at all inclined to deny your request when it
is put to him, perhaps you could enlist Easton’s assistance.”
    “To sway Henry, you mean?”
    “Should it prove necessary,” he said. “Hastings has shown no
preference for the property, indeed to my knowledge he has never stepped foot
on it.”
    “Has he so many properties then?” she asked. She could not
fathom that he would not want to visit Idyllwild. She missed it with an
intensity that bordered on pain. “That he would not at least visit? Out of
curiosity if for no other reason?”
    “Be glad that he has not,” Bertie advised. “Else you might
fail in this endeavor.”
    “So you think I should attract Lord Easton to help me if
Henry is unconvinced.”
    “That is certainly one reason. There are others.”
    “Such as?”
    “I don’t think it necessary any longer, but in case I have
misjudged, it would be a good idea for Henry to see that your romantic
interests are aimed elsewhere.”
    “I had thought of that