BaronAndEnchantress_PGolden-eBooks

by Golden, Paullett

  She stirred, her eyelids fluttering.

  As her eyes focused on him, her mouth formed an O of surprise, and then, as though remembering the evening, she blushed and looked altogether beautifully bashful. The candle had not yet burned out, though it had begun to gutter, casting long shadows about the room.

  Where their bodies were not touching, the chill of the room crept and tingled, raising gooseflesh over the backs of legs and hips. Everywhere they linked, sweat pooled. He thought briefly of pulling up the covers and drawing the curtains around the bed. But he dared not move. The moment was perfect.

  With his free hand, he swept unruly black strands from her face, tucking them behind her ear. She stretched and nuzzled closer, draping an arm over his waist.

  “I love you,” he said, his tone smiling.

  She inched closer, as though trying to crawl inside of him.

  Nudging her head into the crook of his neck, she whispered, “And I love you.”

  Smiling, he drifted to sleep.

  After sleeping for an hour, perhaps longer, Walter woke before Lilith. It was strange sleeping next to someone. There was an awareness of not being alone, a vulnerability Walter would not have expected. The sensation was not unpleasant, simply unusual. Never had he slept next to someone.

  Their bodies had cooled, and he had pulled the sheets over them. She was curled on her side, her knees drawn to her bosom, her back pressed to his chest. His arm wrapped around her, their fingers laced.

  He would need to wake her soon. Well before dawn, the maid would enter to stoke the fire. Though his valet would not enter the bedchamber, Kory would attend to business in the adjacent dressing room to prepare for Walter’s morning ritual. Servants would begin milling about the halls. His time with Lilith was limited. She needed to be in her room well before anyone stirred. Not that he worried about their being compromised so much as he respected her privacy and reputation. There had been enough nose-thumbing at propriety in Allshire. He did not want to validate gossip or have the servants in her childhood home think poorly of her.

  It was the change in her breathing that clued him to her wakefulness. She did not move, but her breathing shallowed, and her body tensed. Though he knew she was awake, she gave no indication to him she had awakened, almost as though she were trying to discern if he was asleep. Smiling at the back of her head, he tightened his hold on her, pulling her to him.

  Walter nuzzled his nose into her hair until he found her neck. He kissed it. Inhaling the scent of her, he enjoyed the mingling of soap, herbs, and sex.

  “Oh, you’re awake?” she asked, turning over to lie on her back, angling her head to face him.

  “I am,” he said, smiling contentedly. Running the backs of his fingers down her cheek, he said, in case she had forgotten since the first time, “I love you.” To seal the matter, he kissed her tenderly.

  Though she returned his kiss, she did not return his smile, rather took her bottom lip between her teeth once he had leaned back.

  After a lengthy silence, she cupped his cheek and said, “I do love you.”

  His heart thumping, joy soaring his spirit, he hugged her to him and kissed along her shoulder and up her neck.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to your family if we wed at Trelowen,” he said. “I think we had better wed at Dunstanburgh before departing to Devon. I can send the announcement immediately for the banns to be read. Three weeks, my darling, and we’ll be joined.” He kissed along her jaw, up her cheek, and then planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Although, there is a lovely, albeit unused, chapel here. It wouldn’t be too far for the family to come if you’d prefer marrying at the hall. With a bit of polish, it would be perfect.”

  He propped up his head to better admire her.

  She frowned, her eyes widening.

  “How ill-mannered of me,” he added with a chuckle. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Shall I go down on one knee, or would a horizontal proposal do? This is my first. Forgive my manners.”

  He sat up, wrapping the covers about him, and positioned himself into a seated kneel.

  Pushing herself upright, she drew her knees to her chest, her eyelashes darkening.

  He took one of her hands and sandwiched it between his before raising it to his lips. All his practice and preparation of the perfect proposal, and now that the moment had arrived, he could think of only one thing to say.

  “Lilith, my love, would you do me the honor of being my wife?”

  The elation he felt in this moment was beyond words.

  It was as though everything in his life had culminated to this point. Everything made perfect sense. He knew the meaning of life and was eager to share it with the world.

  In the seconds that ticked by, he imagined the pride and excitement of introducing her to his friends, escorting her to entertainments, hosting parties of their own. His friends would become her friends, and she would find new meaning to life as his baroness.

  “No,” she said.

  Chapter 24

  Time stopped.

  His smile froze.

  The world froze.

  He could not move.

  “I love you, Walter. I do. But I can’t marry you.”

  Her words came to him through a long tunnel, filtered through ice. He heard but did not comprehend.

  “Trelowen, then,” he said, finding his voice, resetting the spin of the earth on its axis. “We’ll go first to Trelowen.”

  She shook her head, the black strands, medusa-like, spilling over her shoulders. “You’ve not heard me. Walter, I cannot marry you. I will not marry you. At least not now. I need time. I want to go home.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, impatient. “Home. Yes, we’ll return home first. You’ll want to see your new home at Trelowen.”

  Lilith moved closer to the edge of the bed, her eyes glistening. “You’re not listening. I want to go home to Allshire. I need to go home.”

  Walter could scarce hear himself think much less hear her words for the pounding of his heart. His head syncopated with its own pounding.

  Of all the moments for it to happen, the candle snuffed out. Their world plunged into darkness, the acrid smell of smoke wafting over the bed. Neither moved. Neither spoke. Walter felt his world snuffed with the candle.

  Without a word, he climbed off the bed and stalked to the dressing room. Letting the door hit the wall behind it, he rummaged blindly for a pair of breeches, any breeches. He did not care. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the miniscule amount of moonlight sneaking through a crack in the curtains. At least the storm had ended.

  Pulling on a pair of riding breeches and struggling briefly to tie and button the odious garment without assistance, he turned back into the room. He was not angry. Not really. He was in a state of shock shaken with denial and topped with humiliation.

  And then his shin collided with the edge of an end table that had the audacity to get in his way. He swore he would turn it into firewood.

  “Deucing devil from the pits of hell!” he cursed, limping to the chair next to the offending table.

  He was not prone to cursing. But then, he was not prone to deflowering maidens, stomping about in the dark, or proposing to the sound of no. With a tender touch, he checked if his shin was wet or sticky with blood. Nothing. But it hurt like the devil. Resting his head in his hands, he stared at the floor. She wanted to return home, she had said.

  Strangling his hair in his fists, he rose, snatched her nightdress from the floor to set on the edge of the bed, and made for the nightstand to light another candle.

  The room blazed with brightness. He blinked before looking over at Lilith. She had not moved. Her knees were hugged to her chest, the sheet covering her for decency. He could not help but notice her cheeks were streaked with tears. The temptation to lean over and kiss them away compelled him to return to the chair by the h
earth, putting distance between them.

  “Get dressed,” he murmured, staring with unseeing eyes at his breeches.

  He heard and saw her out of his periphery, though he did not look up. A flash of white, a rustle of sheets, and a shadow later, she moved to the chair in front of the escritoire.

  “My God, Lilith,” he said at length. “I never would have lain with you if I had anticipated any other answer than a resounding yes. You’re well within your right to reject my proposal, but we have lain together. You came to me. And yet you knew. You knew the whole time.”

  He choked back a sob, pressing a tightened fist to his mouth. He would not be unmanned. Not now of all times. Their blissful union, the honeymoon before the wedding bells, turned sordid.

  “I know,” she said. “It was wrong of me. It was selfish.” She licked her lips and had the courtesy to look ashamed. “I want you, Walter. I do. It’s not you I’m saying no to; it’s the life you live.”

  Her voice was unnervingly controlled. Had she practiced her rejection just as he had practiced his proposal? The thought nauseated him.

  She was not finished. “Could we forget you’ve proposed? Could we simply cherish this moment? I want to remember it as a beautiful moment. I want to remember what we’ve shared without the tarnish of a quarrel.”

  Ignoring her, he said, “I offer you more than marriage. You’ll have a title, an estate, a house in London, modest wealth, security, a place in society, friends. The contract has already been drawn up with all I offer. The dowry your brother offers is to be put into a settlement that is yours and yours alone. And you’ll have a jointure should anything happen to me. Will you look at the contract? I offer you everything.”

  Lilith sat primly, her feet together, her hands folded, her spine straight. Aside from the nightdress and loose hair, she looked remarkably like when he first met her.

  She narrowed her eyes. “If you think I want any of those things, you don’t know me at all.”

  “I don’t care if you want them or not. They’re yours. They’re what I bring to a marriage. If I’m not enough for you, maybe these things will be. What else do you want from me? Why am I not good enough?”

  “Oh, Walter. You are. I do want you. If you were but a farmer or at most a landowner, I would have a different answer, but you come with too many strings attached. I don’t want to be part of your society. I don’t want the title or the grand house or London. Don’t you understand? I want a simple life, a quiet life wherein I can continue helping mothers.”

  He bit his knuckle, driving his teeth deep into the flesh. “London would only be during the Parliamentary Season. The rest of the year we would be home with ourselves and our friends. Can’t you withstand a few months of the year for us to be together?”

  “I can’t possibly deal with people like the Carmichaels or the Grahams with any frequency. I can’t. I won’t. I would be sacrificing everything I’ve built to put myself in a position of censure. I’m not some young girl with nothing, desperate to marry so I’m not dependent on my relations. I have a trade. I love what I do. To marry a man of your station means giving up everything to be someone I’m not with people who will never respect me.”

  He swept his hands through his hair. Why the devil had she bedded him if she knew all along she would reject him? Why would she allow other people to come between them? Damned if he knew. Had he not wooed her well enough?

  “I dream of belonging,” she said. “I want to be in a place where people know me, where I can be myself, somewhere I never have to worry about being abandoned. Allshire is that place. I know where I stand there.”

  “How could you possibly want to return when they treated you so shabbily? They don’t see you for who you are. They don’t even know how to see you.”

  “No, it was your people who treated me shabbily, just as they always have. I don’t want the villagers to see me any differently than they always have. No expectations of grandeur. In Allshire, I can settle back into the role I know best.”

  “Oh, Lilith. You can’t believe that. Pandora’s box has been opened. You can’t restore your old life. They all know your brother is an earl. Some believe you’re a lady, others question it, the rest don’t know what to think. You can’t go back in time and restore that life. You can only move forward. With me. You can have your dream. Think of the orphanage I’m setting up. You wouldn’t be sacrificing everything. You can train the midwives, hire teachers, and be part of the administration.”

  Was he begging? He believed he was.

  She stared down at her hands, wringing them, wiping them against her nightdress, folding them, then repeating the process.

  “You aren’t serious about the orphanage. We both know it.”

  “By Jupiter!” He slapped his thigh, making her flinch in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Have you bought the property? Have you hired staff? Have you done anything to make this happen?” she asked.

  “Well, these things take time. I’m in the process of purchasing. My solicitor thinks he’s found the right place. The deal is being negotiated. But it all takes time.”

  “Your solicitor has found the place. Your solicitor is negotiating. And you’ve done what exactly?”

  He stared at her in open confusion. “Everything I can do. I’ve told him what needs to be done, and he’s following through. I will see this through to the end.”

  “Yes, you’ve snapped your fingers, and your employee is doing all the work. You’re in no way involved. This is your solicitor’s project. All you’re doing is funding it. You’re even talking of purchasing a property without seeing it. How do you know it fits your vision? Will you ever visit it, or will you hire a manager to oversee it? You can boast of your philanthropy without lifting a finger.”

  “Lilith!” he exclaimed in exasperation.

  As if the rejection were not enough, she was slicing at him with words, ripping the fabric of his being. Why? What had he ever done to her except love her?

  “You have a barony you’ve ignored, Walter. Here you are adding another responsibility and trying to bribe me with it, when you’ve not even taken care of the responsibility you have. You’ve run from it. It was your father’s wish for you to know and love the barony, and you’ve done nothing but run from it. You should be there now, getting to know your tenants and employees, getting to know the accounts. You harp on me about seeing my dreams to fruition, and yet, you’ve done nothing about your own dreams. How can you bring a wife to a life you’ve not built for yourself?”

  His voice, constricted, was little more than a whisper. “We could do these things together. You could help me.”

  “No, you need to do these things yourself. And then you can find a young bride, someone capable of birthing heirs, not some woman in her dotage.”

  “For the love of God. You are not in your dotage. Lizbeth is nearly thirty, and she’s only just had her first child. And this is a perfectly ridiculous conversation because I’m not looking for someone to birth heirs. I’m not even looking for a bride. I want you.”

  “You say that now, but you’ll tire of me. Once you realize I’m a dull person who doesn’t want to attend soirées, routs, and whatever else your people do, you’ll tire of me. And then you’ll resent me. Loving you and living your life are opposing forces for me. I’m not ready to give up the life I live. You want to play the aristocrat. I don’t. I find no enjoyment sitting in drawing rooms and talking with sheep. As dazzling as the assembly was, it was not fun. You were a shining star who everyone loved. I was the shadow in the corner no one liked.”

  He realized what she was doing. It hit him full force.

  She was making excuses to convince herself. This was not about convincing him she was unsuitable. It was her attempt to convince herself they would never suit. How he was to combat that, though, he had no idea. All he could do in return
was convince her they would.

  “Once I introduce you to my friends and their wives and sisters, you won’t be in the shadows.”

  She shook her head and rubbed her temples. “And what of my illegitimacy? Have you forgotten about that? You have friends now, but you won’t after they learn you’ve married a coachman’s granddaughter. Once the scandal spreads, you’ll regret marrying me. We can’t pretend I’m not illegitimate. Someone is bound to find out. Because my brother announces to the world he has a sister does not mean my aunt won’t staunch that. She knows the truth and won’t acknowledge me. You saw that for yourself. She wouldn’t even come to see Freya because I was in residence. Once my illegitimacy is known, we’ll both be ostracized. Any children between us would be tormented as the offspring of a bastard.”

  “You’re wrong. You’re dead wrong. Our children would be legitimate, loved, and protected.”

  “But not from society’s cruelty. You’ve never received the cut direct. I have. By marrying me, you and our children would no longer be recognized. We would be pariahs. I don’t want to be openly despised or gossiped about or belittled, and I can’t stand to see it happen to you or to any children we might have. Love is about putting someone else’s happiness before your own. I’m doing that now. I’m putting your happiness first. I’m saving you from scandal and regret. One day, you’ll look across the ballroom at a younger and prettier girl and be happy you did not marry an aging, rustic by-blow.”

  Ignoring the hogwash, he said, “I don’t see how being apart is putting my happiness first. That isn’t happiness. If you love me as you claim, you’ll know my happiness is being with you.”

  She scoffed. “You’re such a starry-eyed dreamer, Walter. Do you think by marrying, all our problems would be resolved, and we would live happily ever after? You’re naïve if you believe that. Marriage to me would ruin your family.”

  “Listen to what you’re saying, Lilith. Do you believe this rubbish? I don’t. Not a word of it. Marriage doesn’t solve problems, but neither does living apart when we ought to be together. I don’t believe there’ll be a scandal, not with Roddam on our side, not with Annick. A duke’s word is a powerful thing, Lilith. If he claims you as his cousin, no one will question it. Your aunt is practically a hermit these days and wouldn’t go against the word of her son. And besides, all the beau monde, at least those from your mother’s time, know you already. Did you know? Your mother brought you and Roddam to London year after year. All saw you. All adored you. And they all wondered what happened to the countess’ little girl. No one would question your legitimacy. And if they did, they’d have me to answer to.”