He’d pulled on his breeches and sat on the edge of the cavern’s floor, with his legs dangling in the water. He was looking out at the fall, and the light on the other side.
“Are you alright?” He asked, quietly, when she settled.
She nodded. “Are you?”
He nodded too.
They were silent for a little while, waiting for what had just happened to fully dawn on them. Loraine tried to make it sink in… what she’d just done… but it felt stuck in the space around her. And at the same time, she felt altogether different.
She was different.
“Was that…” he whispered, but stopped before he could find the words to say. “I hope you don’t…”
“I don’t regret it,” she murmured.
She saw Philip’s neck bob as he swallowed. It was so strange to see him like this. He looked star struck. Out of his depth for once, and she liked that. Loraine put her cheek against his shoulder and expelled a soft breath.
“Did you mean what you said?” He asked.
“Would I have said it if I didn’t?”
He looked down at her, and she looked up at him without taking her cheek from his shoulder. “I didn’t say it back,” he said, as if he’d only just realized this.
She smiled a little. “I don’t think you need to.”
Philip smiled and huffed out a breath. He sounded incredulous and happy all at once. “You’re unlike any woman I’ve ever known,” he admitted. “Do you realize that?”
Loraine didn’t answer. She just smiled and unwound her arms from her legs. She dipped her feet back into the water and slid into it, because it felt warmer than the air. She moved to face him so that she was floating between his legs, and put her hands on his knees.
Loraine gazed up at him.
“I don’t want stolen moments with you anymore, Loraine,” he said, as he pushed a lock of hair back behind her ear. “I want all of you.”
Loraine rested her lips against his knee and peered up at him from beneath the thick curtain of her eyelashes. “Then take me,” she whispered.
With a growing smile, Philip slipped back into the water with her. They sank beneath the surface, and twined like river reeds.
They dried off in the sun for a while before going home. They rode in silence, but it was a comfortable one. From time to time, Loraine would just smile and look over at him. She felt like what they’d done together had become a part of her skin, a part of her bones. And she never wanted to be without it.
When they got back to the estate, they dismounted in the courtyard and he came towards her the moment his boots hit the ground. Both of them seemed to forget where they were, and who might be watching.
His hands curved around the nape of her neck and he lowered his face to kiss her. Though his kiss was firm, his lips were soft like satin. She felt the brush of his thumb behind her ear, just beneath her hairline.
And she was reminded of the way he’d touched her in that cavern. How tender he’d been. How she’d felt his honesty and authenticity without him even having to speak. Loraine realized that she’d learnt more of him, naked in the dark, than she had in all the time they’d spent together.
And the things she’d learnt surpassed words. They were ethereal things that lived in his soul, not in the material world.
She loved him.
Philip stopped kissing her and looked back over his shoulder, towards the house. “Do you think she’s watching?” He asked.
This thought should have bothered her, but it didn’t. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his jaw. “Almost definitely,” she murmured against his skin.
“Don’t you care?”
“Not anymore.”
Philip smiled down at her and cupped the back of her head. He kissed her once more. “I’ll see you soon?”
Loraine nodded and released him. Letting him go was strangely difficult, but she wasn’t ashamed of that anymore. Perhaps she would be when she went inside, and she didn’t have his presence to distract her.
Perhaps she’d look back on what they’d done in the cavern and be horrified with herself. But right now, she didn’t give a damn.
Philip mounted his horse and a stable boy came to take hers to the stable. He bid her a good day, with a broad, unhampered smile. The way he looked at her now, with such intimate knowledge of her, made her skin tingle.
Loraine watched him ride through the gates, then turned towards the house and walked inside.
Just as she’d expected, her aunt came out of the drawing room the moment Loraine stepped into the foyer. She knew that she’d been watching her from the window. “You’ve been spying again,” Loraine said, as she walked past her, back into the drawing room.
Her aunt followed behind her. So close that Loraine felt crowded.
“Observing,” her aunt said.
Spying.
“And what have you observed?” Loraine asked, to humor her. She took a seat and crossed her legs. She quirked a brow patiently.
“I saw you kissing.”
“That’s right.” She wouldn’t be backed into a corner, or reprimanded. Not for that.
“I think you know,” Aunt Esther replied.
Loraine felt her muscles tighten. She knew what was coming. Her aunt had found her out. Aunt Esther wouldn’t be fooled. She’d seen them kissing and she knew it wasn’t a rouse anymore.
She knew Loraine was in love.
Loraine lifted her chin and waited, with pursed lips, for the accusation.
“He’s in love,” Aunt Esther said.
Loraine blinked. “He…”
Her aunt came closer, clutching her hands together eagerly. “Are you so blind to it?” She sounded excited. “I could see it plainly, even at a distance.”
Loraine didn’t answer. She was still trying to process what her aunt had said. “It’s time,” Aunt Esther said. “When next he comes, you are to tell him the truth.”
Loraine had been part of this plan. She’d agreed to it, and had thought she’d known what that meant… but she was horrified. Her lips parted and her eyes suddenly looked very frightened. Her aunt didn’t seem to notice. She was pacing, with a conspiratorial countenance. Plotting.
“I want to be there to see it. Perhaps I’ll stand behind you. Yes, I’ll be the one to shut the door in his face.”
“Auntie-”
“Oh, I do hope he begs,” she interjected.
“Auntie, I-”
“I won’t steal your thunder, my dear. Don’t worry about that. I’d just like to play a small part in it. You’ll allow me that, won’t you?”
“I can’t-”
“Of course you will, my darling. We are in this together after all. And-”
“I won’t do it,” Loraine shouted. As she said this, she stood abruptly.
The room fell silent. Her aunt looked at her as if she’d just pulled a shotgun on her. “Pardon?”
“You heard what I said. I won’t do it.”
Her aunt’s incredulity mounted into frustration. “Why the devil not?”
“Because I’ve come to know him,” Loraine said. “And he doesn’t deserve this. No one does.”
Her aunt’s jaw was slack, but she was trying to speak. She fell over her words, and Loraine could hear her anger rising. “Doesn’t deserve it? You naïve, stupid little girl. How can you say such a thing? To me of all people?”
Loraine didn’t speak, because she knew her aunt wasn’t finished. All she could do was try to ready herself to withstand the force of her aunt’s rage. “After all I’ve done for you? After what his father did to me? And here you stand, more willing to protect the villain you hardly know than the victim who raised you.”
“His father may be a villain, but he is not.”
“You’ve seen the letters. You know the truth of him. How can you-”
It seemed to hit her then. Aunt Esther stopped speaking suddenly, and realization crashed into like a wave on the rocks. “You’ve been fooled�
��” she said, quietly, as it dawned on her. “You’ve fallen for his spell.”
“There is no spell.”
“Oh, but there is. And I thought that you of all women would be wise enough to guard yourself against it. But I was wrong to think so well of you,” she bit out.
It stung, but Loraine wouldn’t rise to it.
“We’ll speak when you’ve calmed down,” she said, and moved towards the door.
“Calmed down?” Her aunt shouted. When Loraine tried to pass her, she snatched hold of her wrist and yanked. But she wasn’t strong, and they both knew it. Loraine stopped, but only to look down at her aunt’s hold on her.
“Release me,” she said, calmly, but firmly.
Her aunt hesitated, but did so. Her face was twisted into a grimace of rage, but she knew better than to try to restrain Loraine.
Loraine turned and left the room. Though she carried an air of calm with her, it abandoned her when she was alone in her room. She barely kept herself from slamming the door behind her.
Once enclosed in the privacy of her bedroom, she started tearing her clothes off. She felt suffocated by them suddenly. And she was reliving what had happened in the cavern in flashes. The way they’d moved together. The things they’d said.
She wanted to be back there. It had felt like home.
The slip she was wearing felt stiff after having been left to dry in the sun. She could feel the grit from the river, which she turned her anger on. She stripped herself down until she was naked and put on a loose, clean slip.
Then she sat down on the edge of her bed and put her face in her hands. Her aunt’s words were echoing around in her head. She was livid and hurt, but she told herself that she shouldn’t care.
Her aunt could be eccentric and unreasonable. She’d always known that. Why should Loraine let Aunt Esther’s issues keep her from living her life, and from being with the man she’d fallen desperately in love with?
But Loraine knew it wasn’t that simple. She couldn’t just forget everything that her aunt had done for her. What would have become of Loraine when her parents had died if Aunt Esther hadn’t agreed to take her?
And though Aunt Esther hadn’t been the easiest of guardians, she’d been loving. Loraine had always known that her aunt loved her, that she cherished her. Even though sometimes it felt like Loraine was taking care of her, she didn’t mind. It had made her strong, after all.
How could she live with herself if Aunt Esther’s disappointment was hanging over her? How could Loraine stand to treat a woman, who was entirely alone in this world without her, so disdainfully?
Loraine lays back in her bed and stares at the ceiling. Her mind is in chaos, and she doesn’t know who to turn to with her indecision.
She loved Philip. She believed he was a good man and she’d given herself to him. There was no going back from that.
But she loved her aunt too. Her aunt, who’d always been constant and true.
She resolved that she wouldn’t see Philip for a few days. She needed some time to figure out what she was going to do, or to convince her Aunt Esther that Philip wasn’t the cad she thought him to be.
Yes, time was all she needed.
Chapter 28
Miss Loraine Beauchamp
Loraine had every intention of spending the following day in her bedroom. She wanted to create a quiet space for herself, where she could think without her aunt looming over her. So she asked that Mrs. Barrow warn her if her aunt made any move to come see her, so that she could go somewhere else to preserve her privacy.
Mrs. Barrow had agreed, though there was concern in her eyes. When she tried to ask Loraine if everything was alright, Loraine cut her off and insisted that she just needed some space.
But her bedroom was not the haven she’d expected it to be, because she had a visitor. At first, she wondered if it was Philip, but she’d sent word to him that she was going to spend the day with her aunt.
It was a lie, but it was better than giving him the truth or disappearing again like she had when she’d gone to Paris. At least this time she’d sent word.
It wasn’t Philip.
It was Tristan. When Mrs. Barrow came to tell her that he was downstairs, Loraine had felt a sudden wave of remorse strike her. She’d spent so little time with Tristan since coming to England, despite him being one of her only friends.
She’d cherished him over the past few years, because he’d been her sole confidant. Because he seemed to truly like her, and not mind that she wasn’t much like other women.
“Tristan,” she said, when she met him in the library. She took his hands and kissed his cheek. “I’ve been terrible, haven’t I? At staying in contact?”
Tristan smiled and shook his head. “I understand that you’ve been busy,” he assured her.
“I hope you don’t feel neglected,” she said, as she took a seat and patted the space beside her.
“I’ve been rather busy too,” he admitted. “I was going to apologize myself actually.” He was blushing as he said this, which caused her to tilt her head curiously.
“What have you been up to?” She wondered.
He blushed harder.
“Well, I’ve been spending a fair bit of time with Theodore.”
“Theodore?” Loraine echoed, blinking. “Oh… you mean Lord Brand.” She started to smile. “You must be rather close, to be calling him by his Christian name,” she observed.
Tristan looked away and rubbed his knees with his hands. He looked terribly awkward, which made her feel even more fond of him. “Since we met for drinks – you know, when I asked him about Lord Blackhill – we’ve become… friends.”
“Rather close friends?”
“On my end,” he blurted, with an uncomfortable, lopsided smile.
“I am sure it is not only on your end, Tristan. He wouldn’t be spending time with you if he didn’t like you. He isn’t that sort of man.”
“How do you mean?” He wondered, and his entire countenance seemed to brighten at the mere prospect of talking about Lord Brand. He inched forwards in his seat, intently.
“Well, from my meeting with him I gathered that he’s a rather forthright man. I don’t imagine he’d quibble with politeness if he did not like someone.”
This clearly pleased Tristan, whose smile was ecstatic. “I do hope so,” he breathed, speaking quickly. “I wouldn’t want to be a pest.”
“You aren’t, my darling,” she assured him. She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Have you come to give me a lesson?” She wondered if they’d arranged to have a lesson today and she’d forgotten.
“No,” he said, more slowly. “I’ve actually come… well… to speak to you about something.”
“Something important?” She asked, frowning.
“Rather.” He nodded jerkily as he said this.
Her frown deepened. “Whatever about? Is everything alright at home?”
When last Loraine had seen Tristan, just before she’d gone to Paris, she’d had dinner with him and his parents. This had satisfied them enormously, which had brought Tristan such a vast amount of joy. Loraine had been happy to do it, though rumors that she and Tristan were an item had already started circulating. Not that she minded enormously. She’d very much enjoyed Philip’s display of jealousy the day before.
“I learnt something else from Theodore.”
Loraine felt dread settle in her gut.
“He and Lord Blackhill have fallen out,” Tristan said, slowly.
“Over what?” Loraine wondered. When last she’d seen Philip and Lord Brand together, their friendship had seemed perfectly intact.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But it was clear that they’re not on good terms at this time.”
“How did you find this out?”
“When I went to visit Theodore he had some other gentlemen over for a game of cards. He invited me to play and he got rather drunk.”
Nothing new there.
“Once the other gentlemen
left he asked me to stay a little longer, and we had a whiskey by the fire.” He pulled at his collar, as if the reminder made him feel hot. “I didn’t ask him about Lord Blackhill. In truth, I’d entirely forgotten to. But he raised the subject. He told me that he was losing his patience with him.”
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