Sabrina pulled her horse up at the edge of a small field. “I think the cottage is over there, Andrew,” she said, pointing to a small copse. A large crack of thunder startled the horses, and Andrew quickly dismounted and grabbed Sabrina’s mare’s bridle.
“Get down, Brina, quickly.”
Sabrina slid down.
They were only halfway across the field when the heavens opened. Sabrina threw back her head as if to drink in the rain.
“Keep moving,” shouted Andrew. He had never seen such a storm. There was hardly any time now between the flashes of lightning and deafening cracks of thunder, and they were very exposed in the middle of the field.
They finally reached the copse and found the small path to the cottage.
“There is a shed around the back, Andrew,” Sabrina shouted. “We must get the horses out of this.”
Andrew pushed her in front of him. “Get inside now, and I’ll take care of the horses.”
Sabrina pushed the door to the cottage open. She hadn’t been here for years, but the damp, musty smell carried her back to childhood.
It looked the same inside. There was a rickety old table and two chairs in what was used as the kitchen. There was still the old cot against the other wall.
She stood dripping on the threshold until she heard Andrew running up behind her.
“For God’s sake, get inside, Brina,” he yelled, grabbing her arm and pushing them through the door. He pulled it closed behind them, and they both jumped as an almost simultaneous bolt of lightning and crash of thunder seemed to surround the cottage.
“It can’t get any worse than that,” said Sabrina, laughing shakily as they both stood in the middle of the small dwelling watching the rain come down in sheets past the window. Her hair was plastered to her head, and her light summer riding habit clung to her figure in such a way that Andrew had to turn his back to her. His own breeches were stuck to his skin, and he turned his thoughts to unpleasant thing like how many mice and rats might have taken up residence here to keep his arousal under control.
When he turned back, Sabrina was trying to do something with her hair, which hung heavy and wet on her shoulders.
“Sit down,” said Andrew, pulling a chair out from the table.
She sat down gingerly, wondering whether the chairs were as worm-eaten as the shaking table.
“Now put your head back.”
Sabrina leaned her head back and closed her eyes so that she did not have to gaze directly at Andrew. He lifted her hair up and twisted it together until it felt like a thick rope in his hands and then wrung it out.
“I feel like a washerwoman,” he said with a laugh as rainwater fell on the floor. “But at least your hair won’t be quite as wet and heavy.” He looked around quickly. “There doesn’t seem to be anything around that could serve as a towel, unfortunately.” He let her hair down on her back and then ran his fingers gently through it to separate the strands. A few tendrils sprang back into curls by her ears and without even thinking, he reached out to play with them.
Sabrina sat there in a trancelike state aware of nothing but Andrew’s hands. She would be quite happy if the storm went on forever, she realized. Suddenly, his hands were still, and she said, without thinking, “Don’t stop, Andrew.”
“I must, Sabrina,” he replied in a low voice as he drew his hands through her hair for one last time.
Reaching back, Sabrina caught one of his hands before he could pull away, placed it on her shoulder, and leaned her head against it. Andrew turned his hand so that it cupped her cheek, and she sighed with pleasure.
“We can’t do this, Sabrina.”
“Do what, Andrew?” she whispered.
He pulled away and walked over to the window, peering out as though he could see something beyond the rain.
Sabrina turned in her chair and gazed at this back. His shoulders were squared, and he was gripping the window-sill with both hands, as though to keep himself anchored there.
She got up and walked over to stand next to him, placing her left hand on top of his right.
“For God’s sake, Sabrina ...”
Sabrina loosened his fingers and lifted his hand to her lips.
Andrew, who had felt his control slipping from him, let it go completely and turning, grabbed her up in a fierce embrace. And then, as quickly as he had crushed her against him, he let her go.
“Sabrina, please go and sit down at the table,” he said in a broken whisper.
Sabrina stood there, frozen into immobility by his rejection.
“I will not do this. I will not compromise you, Sabrina. Please.”
“Damn you, Andrew More,” Sabrina muttered as she walked with exaggerated dignity to the kitchen table and sat down.
“Thank you. I am sure the rain will stop soon, and we can be on our way.”
“And pretend this never happened, Andrew? Do you think it is as simple as that? Or do you think I am in the habit of letting men crush the breath out of my body?”
“This never should have happened, Sabrina. And of course I do not think of you as wanton. It ... it was the storm.”
“What it was, Andrew, is the fact that I love you,” said Sabrina whose teeth were chattering from both the terror of admitting her feelings and her cold wet clothing.
Andrew, who had not moved from the window, eagerly started toward Sabrina before catching himself halfway across the room.
“You can’t,” he responded bluntly.
“Well, I do. I have for some time now. And why I am so foolish as to admit it, I am sure I don’t know,” she added, her arms wrapped around herself to keep the deep shudders in.
Andrew finally noticed her shaking and looked around the cottage again for something to put around her shoulders. The only thing he saw was a moth-eaten old blanket on the cot. Praying that there were no live inhabitants of either bed or blanket, he shook it out and gently draped it across Sabrina’s shoulders. She clutched the blanket around her, and Andrew, who only wanted to pull her against him and warm her with his body, drew back.
“It is unfortunate that you do not feel the same way,” she continued. “But don’t worry, I will not embarrass you again.”
Andrew’s control broke at last, and he smashed his fist down on the table, causing it to shake and wobble under him.
“You think I go around embracing any woman in that way? You think I was only consumed by lust? I tell you, Sabrina, if it was desire alone I felt for you, I would never have stopped. Oh, I love you all right. More fool I.”
Sabrina’s face shone with sudden joy. “Do you mean that, Andrew?" she asked, letting the blanket slip off her shoulders and reaching out for his hand.
“I do, God help me, I do. But don’t look at me like that, Brina. It doesn’t change anything.”
“But why not?”
“Because I am a poor barrister whose own family despairs at my activities. Because you are an earl’s daughter and I am a youngest son, very removed from the title. You could have any nobleman in London.”
“I don’t want any nobleman, thank you,” Sabrina replied acerbically. “I want you.”
“You can’t have me, Brina,” replied Andrew with one of his quizzical grins. “I will save you from yourself and me. What kind of friend would I be to Giles were I to take advantage of his sister’s infatuation.”
“Infatuation! I am no poor foolish miss blinded by infatuation, Andrew. I see you very clearly. And what I see is a man whose pride would keep us both from happiness.”
“Pride? I have just told you all the reasons why I am not worthy of you. I would hardly call that pride!”
“But it is, Andrew. A very masculine belief in honor and duly, which places them both above love. But I am not proud, Andrew. And I will not give up.”
“That is your choice, Sabrina. Perhaps when you realize that I am very serious, you will give the fever a chance to bum out.”
Both were very quiet for a few minutes.
“The
rain has stopped,” Andrew said, getting up suddenly. “It is time we returned to Whitton. I will go get our horses, my lady.” His face was shuttered, and Sabrina knew that only something like another violent storm would break through Andrew More's reserve.
* * * *
When they finally arrived back at Whitton, Giles greeted them with great relief.
“Thank you for keeping Sabrina safe,” he said to Andrew later that evening after the women had retired. “I am sure my incorrigible sister would have been ready to ride through the worst of the storm.”
“Even the intrepid Sabrina was willing to seek shelter, Giles. The lightning was truly terrifying. You and Clare were lucky to be ahead of it.”
“Yes, and if Sabrina hadn’t taken so much time in Wells, you would have been, too,” said Giles with a laugh. “But that is what I most love about Sabrina. Her reckless determination. It is, at the same time, her greatest strength and weakness.”
Andrew nodded and changed the subject. After a half hour’s conversation, he took one last sip of brandy and stood up. “I am more than ready for bed, Giles, after such an afternoon. And Giles, I think I will be leaving the day after tomorrow. You can inform Mrs. Stanton of that.”
“I thought you were staying until Monday next?” Giles responded, surprise and disappointment in his voice.
“I remembered that I have some preparation to do with my solicitor on a troublesome case.”
“I see. Well, we will certainly miss your company. Especially Sabrina,” Giles added, just as Andrew closed the library door behind him.
* * * *
Andrew spent the following day avoiding Sabrina as best he could without seeming impolite and left early the next morning before breakfast. His journey back to London was tedious and depressing, for he felt he was leaving behind the one chance for happiness with a woman he might ever have. Yet he had known for years that she was not for him, and had managed to resign himself to that fact. It was only that damned thunderstorm that had broken down his hard-won reserve. That, and Sabrina herself. He would have preferred making a fool of himself by confessing a one-sided passion. At least Sabrina’s indifference would have added another barrier. But to know that his love was returned, no matter that for her it was likely only infatuation; well, that was very hard indeed.
Chapter Twenty-six
Giles watched his sister very closely after Andrew’s departure. He could tell that she was unhappy, but since she feigned indifference and had not confided in him, he hesitated to invade her privacy. And he himself was rather preoccupied with his own dilemma of the heart.
Giles had always dreamed of a marriage like his parents, where a couple so enjoyed each other’s company that they shared one bedroom. While it was true that the door between their rooms was now open, Giles felt more like a visitor to Clare’s bed. A welcome visitor, he hoped. For the most part, he was sure of his welcome. Clare always seemed genuinely glad to see him in the doorway and was an active partner in their lovemaking.
Yet there was something missing. Giles still had the feeling that at times, Clare retreated behind some barrier, even in their most intimate moments. And although his wife gave the appearance of a woman being satisfied, Giles was beginning to wonder if her release was, in fact, genuine. Her responses were, he realized, relatively unvaried and beginning to seem less spontaneous. Of course, he was too much a gentleman to make such an accusation. But it was beginning to bother him. If Clare was only pretending to be satisfied, what did that mean? Was she only admitting him to her bed out of a sense of duty or pity after all?
He did not consider himself as any sort of sexual expert, but he had been able to bring the other women he had been with to a much more abandoned state of pleasure. And those women included two respectable widows, not only those from the ranks of the fashionable impure.
Yet Clare so genuinely enjoyed the preliminaries of their lovemaking and cuddled against him so affectionately afterward that he decided to try to let go of his concern for a while. They were newlyweds after all, and she had been through a terrible ordeal. Time would probably take care of everything.
Clare herself felt torn. On the one hand, as Giles could tell, her welcome was genuine and her enjoyment of his kisses and caresses very real. On the other hand, as soon as she felt her own passion building, something clicked off inside her, leaving her lying there on the bed, watching Giles’s attempts to bring her to her own climax as though they were two other people.
IShe reassured him as best she could, that their coupling was as enjoyable for her as it was for him, and, in fact, made a determined effort to initiate it a few times so that he would be convinced she meant it. But he deserved better. She felt increasingly guilty that she couldn’t give a most loving and gentle husband what she had given a brutal one: the gift of her innermost self.
Clare would not have said that she was miserable in her marriage. But as the summer turned to fall, it became increasingly clear that neither she nor Giles was perfectly happy in it. Perhaps “perfect happiness” was unrealistic to expect twice in one lifetime, she thought with some irony. And look at the price she had paid with Justin for those moments of ecstasy. And how real, after all, had that happiness been? Yes, there had been many times with Justin when their bodies and souls had been in so close a union that she felt as if they were one person. And then that husband, who felt like her soul’s twin, had blacked an eye or broken a rib. She could not get herself beyond that. Her courtroom testimony had been the reality, and she never wanted to remember again.
Although Clare was increasingly aware of what was missing in her marriage, she was not so miserable as to be ignorant of Sabrina’s unhappiness. One morning, shortly after the harvest, she invited Sabrina to come for a ride with her.
“It will be an easy one, Sabrina, and we will return before lunch,” she laughingly warned her sister-in-law, knowing how Sabrina loved long and challenging rides across country.
Sabrina smiled. “That will be fine with me today, Clare. It is too warm to go too fast or far.”
Indeed, the heat had been building again for the past few days, and the harvesters had constantly been looking over their shoulders as they worked, hoping to get the corn in before the weather broke.
They enjoyed a slow canter for part of their ride, but the horses were soaking wet afterward, as were their riders, and after walking their mounts to cool them, Sabrina arid Clare dismounted and led them up Camden Hill.
“It feels just like the day we all rode to Wells,” said Clare, sitting down on the grass. “Look at those clouds gathering in the southwest.”
“Yes, you are right, Clare. We can’t stay here too long. I have learned my lesson,” Sabrina responded ruefully.
“Giles and I were so worried about you and Andrew that day,” Clare said hesitantly, without looking at her friend. “Of course, we should have known you would find shelter. But I have wondered since then whether there was another reason to be worried?”
“Are you asking if Andrew compromised me, Clare?”
“Of course not. Andrew is a gentleman. He would have offered for you had anything happened. No, it was just that he left so suddenly, and you have not seemed yourself since then.”
“I wish he had compromised me,” Sabrina declared fiercely. “As it was, I was the one who practically made him an offer. Which he honorably refused.” Sabrina added with ironic stress on the word honorably.
Clare was silent for a minute, trying to absorb what Sabrina had told her. “Then you do care for him. I have long thought so.”
“I love him very much,” whispered Sabrina. “And much good it does me.”
“And Andrew? Does he return your affection?”
“I believe so. But he is too much a gentleman to want to ruin my life by proposing to me.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“He is convinced that a younger son who has no chance at the title and no great fortune is not an equal match for the daughter of an earl who
has a generous portion. It is that damned sense of honor that men have. Pardon my language, Clare, but I don’t know how they can put honor before everything, even love.”
“Does Giles know about this?”
“I am sure he has guessed that something has happened. I doubt that Andrew would have spoken to him directly. And I haven’t.”
“Perhaps I could speak to Andrew when we return to London, Sabrina,” said Clare thoughtfully. “We are good friends now. Maybe I could bring him to his senses. I think the two of you would be very happy together.”
“As you and Giles are,” Sabrina asked, not very innocently, wondering whether Clare would admit to any of the tension Sabrina could feel between her brother and his wife.
Clare merely nodded and agreed. “Yes, as Giles and I are.” The horses were becoming restless, and the clouds were rolling closer. “Come, we had better go,” said Clare, “or we will be caught this time.”
They reached Whitton in plenty of time before the storm, but Giles was out front, pacing up and down in front of the house as they rode in.
“Sabrina, I cannot believe you would risk the weather again,” he said, not bothering to check his anger.
“Giles, this is nothing like last time,” his sister replied. “It is merely a heavy rainstorm, with only a little thunder. And besides, we outrode it.”
“Barely. And this time, you put Clare at risk.”
Perhaps it was the injustice. Clare had always hated injustice. The ride had been her idea, not Sabrina’s, although, to be fair, Giles was not to know that. But still, to attack his sister without any explanation was just unfair.
Perhaps it was the heat and the tension in the atmosphere that builds before such a storm. Perhaps it was the accumulated tension between her and her husband. Clare didn’t know. But when Giles casually summoned a footman to help his sister dismount and turned toward Clare, grabbing the reins of her horse as though she were incapable of keeping the restless animal under control, she felt a wave of anger wash over her. She was not a neck or nothing rider like Sabrina, it was true, but she could handle a restive horse.
Sweet Awakening Page 27
