A Love That Never Tires (Linley & Patrick Book 1)

by Jeleyne, Allyson

  Sir Bedford Talbot-Martin uncrossed his arms and raked his hands through his white hair. “I’ve been putting this conversation off for some time, but I am afraid I cannot delay it any longer.” He motioned for her to follow him down the stairs.

  Outside on the stone courtyard, Linley walked with her father to a bench that overlooked the expanse of valley below.

  “For years, I have played the roll of both father and mother to you,” he said, sinking down onto the bench. “You remember when you got your first monthlies…”

  Linley sat down beside him. “Yes, Papa. I do.”

  “And do you think that was pleasant for me to explain to you?”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  Her father fidgeted in his seat. “Well, neither is this, so I hope you will have patience with an old man.” He paused for a long time, seeming to gather his thoughts and choose his words carefully. “Button, men are very different from women. And not just in the physical sense…”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “…Men want different things than women want.”

  Linley nodded. “Yes, Papa, I know. I’ve already had this conversation.”

  Sir Bedford scratched his head, partly relieved, and partly frightened that someone else had talked to his daughter about such things. “With whom?”

  “With Patrick.”

  Her father nearly fell off the bench. “You’ve been talking about this with Lord Kyre?”

  “He talks to me about all sorts of things,” Linley explained. “He told me that a woman expects different things from a man when she goes to bed with him. That sleeping with someone will not make them love you.”

  “Kyre told you all that, did he?”

  “Yes, Papa,” she said. “Patrick is my friend.”

  “That may be so, but it isn’t proper for him to be telling you about relations between men and women.”

  “But who better to do so? You?” Linley asked. “You haven’t been married for twenty years. Things concerning men and women and…relations…have changed since your day.”

  Sir Bedford sighed. Perhaps Linley was right. He was a tired old man. In his day, the notion of falling in love was as preposterous as jumping off a cliff and flapping paper wings, expecting to fly like the birds.

  “Forgive me if I’m old fashioned, Button, but I cannot let you turn yourself inside out over someone who will forget about you as soon as he gets back home.”

  “Papa!”

  “You cater to him like he is a god. For Christ’s sake, you got down on your hands and knees and washed the man’s dirty underclothes.”

  Linley turned scarlet.

  “Do you think he would do the same for you?” her father asked. “Do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sir Bedford put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “Some people are meant for homes and families, but not us. Our dreams are not their dreams. I understand it can be a lonely life we lead, but who else can say they have seen the things we’ve seen? Done the things we’ve done? In our own way, we live twice the lives they live.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, as if sharing some secret meant only for them. “Lord Kyre has had his grand adventure. Now he will go home, marry some Earl’s dull daughter, and spend the rest of his days growing fat and gouty while you are off discovering lost civilizations.”

  In spite of it all, Linley choked out a laugh. No way in the world would she trade this life for one spent bandaging Patrick’s feet!

  But it had never been her intention to marry him in the first place.

  Despite her father’s protests, Linley intended to enjoy Patrick while she had him. This was her one—and perhaps, only—chance at a fling. The fling of a lifetime. A real romance. She would savor every moment of it, and when he left, she could carry the memory of him for the rest of her life. This would be better than a photograph. This would be an experience.

  She could excavate statues and search for relics until she was seventy, but unless she went out and experienced the world as it really was, Linley felt certain she was not living at all. Merely pretending. She wanted to see everything, and feel everything, and know everything. Even if it broke her heart to do it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Patrick took a seat at the long, low table for breakfast. He helped himself to the simple meal offered to the English visitors. The entire Talbot-Martin team stared at him. He actually seemed pleased to sit on a hard bench and eat with his hands out of a little bowl.

  The monks ate in silence, using their one meal of the day to feed both their bodies and their spirits. Out of respect for their beliefs, the English visitors ate silently as well. It would be very difficult to adjust his eating and sleeping habits to coexist with the teachings of Buddha and the practices of the monks, but Patrick did not want to seem ungrateful for being taken in and fed by those who had so little to give.

  After breakfast, the monks spent a few hours in prayer and then a few more hours reading from scared texts. These texts did not appear to be the ones the Talbot-Martin team searched for, but Sir Bedford seemed no less discouraged. By mid-day, the monks sat in quiet meditation. The English visitors grew bored and restless. Most of them, for lack of anything else to do, retired to their rooms to nap.

  Patrick, on the other hand, wandered around the monastery, marveling at the artwork and prayer wheels made by the Buddhist monks over the centuries. He walked quietly down the narrow, sunlit corridors, through the dim rooms, and in the courtyard between the buildings.

  At the end of a long corridor, he found Linley’s father sneaking between walls of carefully preserved ancient scrolls.

  “I do not think you should be touching their texts,” Patrick said.

  Sir Bedford raised a hand to silence him. “These scrolls are thousands of years old,” he said. “If someone like me does not show them to the world, they will disappear without anyone ever knowing about them. Is that what I should do, Lord Kyre? Let them continue to be hidden from the world? People should know what we’ve seen here.”

  “No, they should not.”

  Linley’s father stepped onto a footstool and reached for the scrolls on the highest shelf. He sifted through blocks and blocks of carefully wrapped ancient texts, handling them with the utmost caution. It would take days—weeks, even—to sort through them all, but Sir Bedford was certain the first century scrolls were hidden somewhere in the monastery.

  Disgusted, Patrick turned from the room. As he did so, he nearly crashed into the old lama as he padded down the corridor.

  “I beg your pardon,” Patrick said, bowing.

  The lama nodded his head in recognition of the young man. “You are restless.”

  Patrick shrugged. Was he restless? He was not sure, but he was…something.

  “You are not like the others,” the lama said. “What you here for?”

  “Here for?”

  “Yes, everyone here for something. What you here for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The lama motioned for him to follow. They slipped into the room behind the great tapestry, and took seats across from each other on the floor.

  “You want know the purpose of life?”

  Patrick blinked at the man.

  “You do,” the lama insisted. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  “Alright. Tell me.” Patrick figured it was worth trying. For years, he’d been looking for something, but still hadn’t found it. He wasn’t about to assume he ended up in a Himalayan monastery for nothing.

  The lama shook his head. “I cannot. You must discover.”

  “How?”

  “So many things cloud the mind.” The lama waved his hands in the air around his head. “Push away, and listen only to inside self. No money. No possessions. No pride. They not important. Happiness important. Compassion important.”

  Patrick nodded. “What else?”

  “What else?” the lama asked, shocked. “No what else! That it!”

  “You
are telling me that the purpose of my life is to be happy?”

  “Not just your life. All life.”

  “But how do I know what will make me happy?” Patrick asked. “I’ve been searching for almost twenty-eight years, and I still haven’t found it.”

  The lama laughed. “What is twenty-eight year? Some search entire lifetime and never find happiness.” He pointed a long, skinny brown finger at Patrick. “You meditate every day, and maybe your own heart and own mind show you what you search for.”

  ***

  Patrick walked out onto the courtyard, contemplating everything the lama told him. Meditation. Happiness. The purpose of his life. It all sounded too incredible to be true. How could this one little man, locked away for his lifetime in a monastery on the side of a mountain hidden from the entire world, know the key to finding the purpose of Patrick Wolford, Marquess of Kyre’s life?

  But who was Patrick to even question him? After looking for almost twenty-eight years, he was still no closer to finding the purpose of his life than when he first started. Sure, on paper the purpose of his life was to create heirs and manage his estates, but that did not bring him happiness. He was pleased to care for his tenants, and, despite his numerous claims otherwise, did not actually intend to let the family titles go extinct. He was content to live out the rest of his days in Kyre.

  But happy?

  Not bloody likely.

  Patrick found a quiet spot in the courtyard overlooking the valley and the waterfall that tumbled down the mountainside. He sat down, crossed his legs, and folded his hands in his lap. The lama told him to close his eyes, clear away all the things that clouded his mind, and then listen. Listen. Listen…

  “What are you doing?”

  He jerked open his eyes to find Linley standing over him.

  “I’m meditating.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Meditating? Why?”

  Patrick sighed. “To discover the purpose of my life.”

  “Oh…” She cocked her head in the other direction. “Is it working?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let me try,” Linley said, flopping down beside him.

  “Alright,” he said. “Close your eyes and try to clear your mind.”

  She did as he told her, and for a long time she was silent. “Now what?”

  “The lama says if you do it every day, eventually you will learn to block out all the unimportant things in your life—like money, and pride, and worldly goods—and then you can see what will bring you happiness.”

  Linley tried. God bless her, she really did. It just would not work. “I can’t clear my head. All these things keep flying around in there.”

  “Well, I suppose no one gets it on the first try.”

  “But I cannot ever seem to clear my head,” she confessed. “Especially when you are around.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s just it,” she said. “I don’t know what I mean. My thoughts are so muddled. It’s as if my mind and my body are going in two completely different directions all at once. And no matter what I try to tell myself…no matter how hard I reason with common sense…well, the thing is…” She paused and took a breath to steady herself. “I feel I would like to be more than friends with you.”

  “Haven’t we gone through this before?” Patrick asked. “I seem to remember the conversation did not go so well.”

  She shook her head. “This time I’m not talking about kisses in an upstairs corridor.”

  He blinked down at her, speechless.

  “I know we can never have a future together,” Linley continued. “But I thought since you like me, and I like you, and we are both here together without much else to do, we could take our friendship a step further.”

  “Are you saying you want to sleep with me?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Linley, I am flattered, but you don’t really want to sleep with me. What you are experiencing is natural,” he told her. “I’m the first man you have been around that you don’t consider family. Of course you would feel drawn to me. But that doesn’t mean we should act upon those feelings.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “Isn’t that what people do when they are attracted to one another?”

  “Yes, sometimes. But for us it would be very foolish,” Patrick explained. “For one, it would ruin any chance of you getting married—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want to marry before you will believe me?”

  “Then don’t get married,” he said. “But I will not be the one to ruin you.”

  “Ruin me?”

  “Yes, ruin you. Because that is what will happen. You cannot take a lover, Linley. It is a game that you do not want to get caught playing at.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Is this because of Lady Wolstanton?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. This has nothing to do with her. Can’t you see I’m only trying to save you years of heartache?” he asked. “What do you expect from this? One night of pleasure? A week? Perhaps the rest of the trip spent sneaking around and hopping beds?” He shook his head. “If your feelings for me are even a fraction of what I feel for you, then you know we’d never be able to end it rationally. It would consume us, and we’d never be able to carry on with our lives.”

  “Isn’t it worth the risk, though?” she begged. “If we care for each other?”

  “We shouldn’t risk it because we care for each other.” He took her face in his hands. “Oh, Linley, you have so much to learn about love.”

  “Then why won’t you teach me? Don’t I deserve to know what everyone else knows?”

  Patrick sighed. “Someday your time will come. And when it does, you will look back and thank me for stopping you from making a terrible mistake.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Meditation did not come as easily as Patrick thought it would. Every morning after breakfast, he made his way to his corner of the monastery courtyard to spend the next few hours in thoughtful silence. After a few days, he still had not found the purpose of his life, but Patrick discovered he was able to sort through the least important things in his mind. It was a start, at least.

  He easily pushed away concerns about money. His immediate needs were met, so he was not worried about anything material. Patrick felt blessed to have clean, dry clothes and one meal every day. He was in better shape than he’d ever been, so health was not an issue. Those things came and went quickly from his mind, but a few things seemed to stick no matter how hard he tried to clear them away.

  Naturally, he thought of Georgiana, Hereford, and the baby. He hoped they were well and not too worried about him. He wanted to write them, but obviously posting a letter was impossible. The lama told him not to concern himself with impossibilities, so he learned to push that out of his head as well.

  Then there was the question of Linley.

  Dear, sweet Linley, who knew not what she did. Tortured him. Teased him. He begged her to leave him alone, but when she did, Patrick thought his heart would break. How could she understand? He wanted her desperately, but this was neither the time nor place.

  It would be a horrible idea to make love to her. To kiss her and feel her body beneath his hands…

  No matter how hard he tried, Patrick’s thoughts always wandered to Linley. Even when he cleared everything else away, she was still there. His meditation sessions became exercises in fantasy. He dreamed up all the things he wanted to do to her, all the things he wanted her to do to him.

  God, how he desired her! He ached with it. He ground his teeth at night and fought with himself to keep from going to her, knowing she lay only a few doors down. Wanting him.

  It was hell on his resolve. But Patrick was determined to do the right thing—for her sake, if not for his own. He couldn’t go around deflowering virgins. What would that say about him? Had he no self-respect? No decency? Fantasizing about her was bad enough.

  What would the lama say
if he knew Patrick spent the majority of his meditation time thinking about sex? It could not be healthy.

  Well, it was healthy—he was a man, after all. But it certainly wasn’t good.

  ***

  Linley watched him from her bedroom window. How could he be so calm, sitting there with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap? He didn’t even look like he was breathing.

  She ground her nails into the windowsill. He wasn’t even thinking about her! She sulked and slunk, snapping at anyone who spoke to her, yet he was as calm and cool as one of those clouds out there.

  What was wrong with him?

  What was wrong with her?

  Wasn’t she pretty enough? Smart enough? She was no Gaynor Robeson, but, by God, she had enough to offer a man! Patrick just needed to open his eyes and see it. And if he wasn’t willing to do so on his own, Linley would just have to make him realize how much he wanted her.

  She pushed off from the windowsill and stalked around her bedroom. After a few turns, Linley sunk down to the floor and dug through her leather pack. She pulled out her traveling papers—the ones that held her secret photograph of Patrick. She pulled out her hairbrush and comb. Her toothbrush and toothpowder. The bar of strong soap wrapped in wax paper. Linley laid it all out on the floor.

  Stripping out of her clothes, she sat in the middle of her room in her white cotton camisole and drawers. Her long, brown hair, lightened by weeks in the sun, hung down her shoulders. Using the pitcher and basin in her room, Linley gave it a good washing. Clean hair trumped greasy any day. She didn’t have to be Gaynor Robeson to know that. Pulling her camisole over her head, she scrubbed her top half until her skin grew red. Then she moved to her lower sections, doing the same.

  It was not often that Linley sat around stark naked. She took a moment to get a good look at herself. She wasn’t exactly the most beautiful creature walking the earth, but at least everything seemed to be in the right places. But she was awfully thin. And awfully flat-chested. It appeared the good Lord chose not to bless her with a bosom—the great disappointment of her life. At least they would never hang down to her navel the way so many tribal women’s breasts did.