by Mary Balogh
“Beatrice tells me you were devoted to him,” he said.
“How could I not be?” She looked back at him. “He was my husband, and I cared about him. I ought not to have said anything negative about him. He is not here to contradict me or to retaliate with a listing of all my shortcomings.”
“Sometimes, as I told you a couple of days ago,” he said, “one needs to speak from the heart to people who understand and can be relied upon to keep a confidence.”
“And I can rely upon you?” she asked. “Even though you are little more than a stranger to me?”
“You may rely upon my discretion.”
She believed him. She remembered what he had said about his friends at Penderris Hall.
“He did not deserve such a very harsh and prolonged ending to his life,” she said. “I never ever wished that for him.”
“And you do not deserve to be left feeling guilty that you are still alive,” he said. “I told you about Hugo, Lord Trentham, who went out of his mind after successfully leading a Forlorn Hope in Spain. His chief torment—it plagued him for years after and still does to a certain degree—was that he survived intact while all his men either died or were horribly injured. Yet he led that attack of volunteers from the front with extraordinary courage. You must forgive yourself for being alive, Mrs. McKay, and for wishing to go on living.”
“And for wanting to dance?” She half smiled at him.
“And even for wanting to ride.”
“Enough of me and my petty miseries,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “What of you? Why exactly are you staying in such a remote corner of England with your sister? It seems a very retired sort of life for a gentleman of your age.”
“My age?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Your face has known suffering,” she said, feeling the heat of a flush in her cheeks. “You could be any age between twenty-five and thirty-five. Or even—”
“I am twenty-nine,” he said. “Beatrice needed a few more weeks at home to recover from her indisposition over the winter, but it was necessary for Gramley to go up to London to take his seat in the House of Lords. Their boys are away at school. I had nothing better to do with my time, so I came here to keep her company.”
“Lady Gramley is fortunate to have such an attentive brother,” she said.
“You are not so fortunate in your brother?” he asked. “Your half brother?”
“John is a clergyman and has the charge of a busy parish and of a wife and three children,” she told him. “And he was opposed to our father marrying my mother.”
“Why?” he asked. “Just because she was not his mother?”
“At least partly for that reason, I am sure,” she said. “His mother had been much respected and beloved by all her neighbors.”
He was looking closely at her. “And your mother was not?”
She ought to just say yes or no and leave it at that.
“My mother was an actress when my father met her in London,” she said. “She was also the daughter of a Welshman and a Gypsy. It was not a combination designed to endear her to her stepson. Or to the more genteel of my father’s neighbors, especially when she was so much younger than he and so beautiful and vibrant.”
“Ah,” he said and regarded her in silence for a few moments while she waited for him to continue. This was the moment, perhaps, when he would recover his manners and take a hasty leave—or as hasty as he was able without making his distaste too obvious. “That would explain your vividly dark coloring. I have wondered where the foreign blood came from. It comes from your Gypsy grandmother.”
“It is not really foreign blood, though, is it?” she said. “There have been Gypsies in Britain for generations. But there has not been much intermarriage and they have kept their distinctive looks.”
He regarded her quietly again, but there was a slight smile on his face. She could not decipher its meaning.
“Is she still living?” he asked. “Your grandmother, I mean? Or your grandfather?”
“My grandmother left to return to her own people when my mother was an infant,” she said. “I know nothing of my grandfather except his nationality. My mother left Wales at the age of seventeen and never went back. She almost never talked about her past. Perhaps she would have done if she had lived longer.”
Silence stretched between them again.
“Perhaps,” she said, “you feel the need to leave now, Sir Benedict?”
“Because I am compromising your virtue?” he asked. “Or because you are half Gypsy and may compromise mine?”
“One quarter,” she said testily. “I am one quarter Gypsy.”
“Ah, well, I am reassured, then,” he said. “One half might have been difficult to overlook.”
She looked sharply at him. His face was sober, but there was laughter in his eyes.
“Has it dogged you through your life?” he asked. “The fact that you have Gypsy blood, that is? And it is impossible for you to hide it. It may be only one quarter of your heritage, but it accounts for almost the whole of your looks.”
She lifted her chin and said nothing.
“All your very beautiful looks,” he added. “I am sorry. I have embarrassed you on an issue about which you seem sensitive. Yes, Mrs. McKay, I do feel the need to take my leave. But for propriety’s sake. Your propriety.”
She had been feeling uncomfortable with him and irritated that he had somehow persuaded her to reveal such private aspects of her life. How did he do that? Was it just that she was unaccustomed to having social dealings with anyone? But she was not ready yet to be alone.
“Why did you want to see me?” she asked him. “It is what you admitted a few minutes ago—that you came to see me.”
“I did not expect to find you here alone,” he protested.
“But you did. And you stayed.”
“I did,” he agreed. He lifted a hand to rub a finger along the side of his nose. “I certainly did not want to see you last week. I had wronged you horribly and I hated having to come to make my apology. I did not much want to see you two days ago, but since I was the one to suggest that you call on Beatrice, it would have seemed mean to sneak away on my horse and have you find no one home at all.”
“You saw me coming, then?” she asked him. “You were returning from your ride?”
“I was just setting out, actually,” he said. “And, yes, I saw you. And I enjoyed our conversation in the garden. I suppose I have been starved for female company, entirely by my own fault, and you seemed a safe companion.”
“Safe?”
“You are a widow and only partway through your mourning period.” He grimaced. “I apologize. I am making a mess of this. I am not interested in any flirtation. I am not in search of a wife. I—”
“And if you were,” she said, “you would be searching in the wrong place. I am not in the market for a husband.”
“No,” he said. “Of course not. I enjoyed your companionship a few days ago, Mrs. McKay. It is not often one can relax with a member of the opposite sex who is not a relative.”
“And so I am safe because I am a recent widow,” she said. “But what if I were not still in mourning?”
He stared at her for a few moments.
“Then you would not seem safe at all,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I would be tempted to … engage your interest,” he said.
“My affections, do you mean?”
“Affection is not always necessary.”
She settled her back against the cushions behind her. “You mean you would be tempted to seduce me?”
“Absolutely not.” He frowned. “Seduction is onesided. It suggests a certain degree of coercion or at least of deception.”
Samantha could actually feel her heart thumping in her chest. She could hear it pulsing in her ears. “Sir Benedict,” she said, “how has our conversation come to take this turn?”
He smiled at her suddenly, and there was a strange
fluttering low in her abdomen, for it was a smile of considerable charm. It was almost boyish—except that it was not really boyish at all.
Oh, this was absolutely not safe! How dared he? She really ought not to have let him stay.
“I believe it must have a great deal to do with the absence of Lady Matilda,” he said. “I doubt we would have spoken of much other than the weather and the state of one another’s health if she had been here.”
“No, indeed,” she agreed fervently. “But we need not worry anyway, need we? I am a recent widow and so I am safe company.”
“How old are you?” he asked.
“What a very unmannerly question,” she said. “A woman never tells, sir. Younger than you, though. I believe my first impression of you was an accurate one after all. All that language and bad temper! You are no gentleman.”
But she spoiled the effect of her words by laughing. He smiled back at her.
“I am going to ring for the tea tray,” she said, getting to her feet. “Would you like something other than tea?”
“Sherry, if there is any.”
She pulled the bell rope. Tramp raised his chin for a moment, sensed that her rising did not offer any treat for himself, and lowered it again onto Sir Benedict’s right boot. Silly dog. Did he not realize that the man did not like him?
She gave the order to Rose but did not immediately sit down again. She felt uncomfortable and moved to the window, where she stood looking out. The rain had not eased.
He would be tempted to engage her interest if she were not a recent widow, he had openly admitted. She ought to have crossed the distance between them there and then and slapped his face. Or she ought to have demanded that he leave.
But it was by far the nicest thing anyone had said to her for a long, long time.
Oh, dear, she feared she would hug to herself the memory of his impudent words for days to come. How pathetic she was!
8
Ben had been aware almost as soon as he entered the room that Mrs. McKay had been crying. There had been no trace of tears left, it was true, but a slight redness and puffiness about her eyes had betrayed her. He had set out to distract her with conversation and had ended up coming very near to flirting with her.
That had not been his intention when he had decided to come. Well, of course it had not. He had expected a very dull, very formal visit with two ladies, not one. He really ought to have left immediately after he knew she was unchaperoned.
But she had been crying. And it had been apparent that she did not want to be alone. So he had stayed—very unwisely. Being alone with her here felt very different from the way being alone with her two days ago in Bea’s flower garden had felt.
Dash it all.
He had not wanted a woman in six years—not women in general, and not any woman in particular. He had even been a little uneasy about it. Had his injuries included the death of his sexual appetites? But he had been only a little uneasy since he knew he could never offer himself in marriage to any woman—not his broken self, anyway, and he was never going to be fully healed. He really could not bear the thought of offering himself outside of marriage either, since no amount of money would completely compensate for the physical revulsion any woman must surely feel if she was forced to be intimate with him.
He watched her in silence as she stood at the window. Her very dark, almost black hair was dressed in a simple knot at her neck. A few tendrils had pulled loose at the sides. They were uncrimped and hung long and straight to her shoulders. Her face was beautiful anyway. It needed no adornment. Her hideous black crepe dress could not hide the lush curves of her figure or the elegant perfection of her posture.
She had Gypsy blood, and she was sensitive about it. She had half expected he would want to leave once he knew.
She was, he thought, a woman desperately in need of a friend. And friendship was something he was quite happy to offer—for a short while, at least, until he went away.
The maid returned with a tray and set it down on a table before withdrawing. Mrs. McKay turned her head to acknowledge its arrival though she did not immediately move from the window.
“It is a dreary world out there,” she said. “It makes one thankful after all to be indoors with a fire burning in the hearth.”
“It is not dreary.” He drew his canes toward him and pulled himself to his feet as she watched. The dog scrambled up and looked at him, tail waving expectantly. Ben crossed the room to Mrs. McKay’s side. “Above the clouds, you know, there is nothing but blue sky and sunshine.”
“A fine consolation, indeed,” she said, turning her face back to the window and looking up, “when it is impossible to get up there to see.”
“A hot air balloon?” he suggested.
“Ugh!” She shuddered. “There would be rain on the way up to the clouds, and then the mist and dampness of the clouds themselves.”
“And the glory of the sunshine when we burst through to the other side,” he said.
“We? Would we go together, then?”
“Oh, I think so,” he said. “I was a military officer, of course, but I do not believe I could bellow I told you so quite loudly enough for you to hear me from down here.”
“It would be horribly cold despite the sunshine,” she said. “Have you never seen snow on mountaintops when it is warm on the plain?”
“You are determined to be pessimistic,” he told her. “We would take fur robes with us and huddle together inside them.”
“Together?”
She turned her head again. Her face was very close to his.
“One of the best sources of heat,” he explained, “is body heat. I daresay it would be very chilly indeed up there.”
“But we would be warm and snug together inside our furs.”
“Yes. We would enjoy double our individual body heat.”
He could almost feel her breath on his face. And her body heat. And here he was flirting again, but far more blatantly this time. Though he had not meant to. He had meant to cheer her up, to coax a smile or a laugh out of her.
“Where would we go?” she asked.
“Far, far away.” His eyes dipped to her lips when she moistened them with her tongue.
“Ah.” Her voice was a breathless whisper. “The very best place to go.”
“Yes.”
“Together.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes roamed over his face. They were large and dark and long-lashed and fathomless.
“It is longer than six years since I was kissed properly,” she said.
“Properly.” He swallowed. “And for me too—the same length of time. Perhaps we were both kissing for the last time on the same day at the same hour, more than six years ago, but we were kissing other people, not each other.”
“Your colonel’s niece?”
“Your husband?”
They both smiled.
“It is far too long a time,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps,” she said, “we ought to do something about it.”
He tried to think of all the reasons they should not—or at least all the reasons he should not.
“I am sorry.” Her cheeks flushed and she turned her head rather jerkily to gaze through the window again.
He tipped his head slightly to one side and kissed her. And one thing was immediately certain. His sexual appetite had not been killed or even suffered damage. Her lips were soft and warm and moist. They were parted and slightly trembling. She turned fully toward him, and her hands came to rest on his shoulders.
He opened her mouth with his own and slid his tongue inside. She sucked it inward and pressed it to the roof of her mouth with her own tongue. He felt a pleasure so exquisite that he almost forgot about his cursed canes.
And then her face was a few inches away and her hands were on either side of his face, her fingers pushing into his hair. Her eyes were luminous and steady on his, her lips full and rosy and still moist and still inviting
.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I am handicapped. I cannot hold you.”
“Perhaps that is a good thing at this precise moment.” She smiled suddenly and looked young and very pretty. “Or perhaps it is just that we are both starved and any kiss would feel good.”
“A lowering thought.”
She dropped her hands to her sides, still smiling. But reality was intruding.
“I really ought not to have stayed when I discovered that Lady Matilda had gone,” he said. “You will be horrified when you relive this afternoon after I have left.”
“You presume to know my thoughts, do you?” she asked him. “My future thoughts? This was a horrid day before you came, Sir Benedict. I do not at all regret that Matilda has gone, but I do resent the fact that she left me feeling as if I were somehow in the wrong. And then it rained and I knew we could not ride. And the rain was dreary and I felt restless and lonely and utterly self-pitying. Self-pitying people are not pleasant company, even to themselves. And then, when I was at my lowest ebb, you came. And you somehow coaxed me into talking to you as though you were a trusted confidant. And then you flirted with me. For a few moments you bore me off with you to the sunshine above the clouds in a hot air balloon, wrapped together in warm furs and bound for a place far, far away. And then you kissed me. I am no longer at a low ebb. You can have no idea what I will feel after you have left. But I do assure you it will not be horror.”
Good Lord! He thought she might find later today that she had deceived herself. He felt distinctly uncomfortable himself. This was not the way a gentleman behaved. “Your sherry will not be getting cold,” she said, moving past him, “but my tea certainly will. Shall I put some biscuits on a plate for you?”
“Just one,” he said as he followed her more slowly across the room. “Thank you.”
