“So another option is precluded by common sense. Why haven’t I a greater capacity for dishonesty? Why can’t I simper and smile and be as I’m supposed to be?”
The questions were old, and overlaid a fundamental bewilderment: Why couldn’t her life be as it was supposed to be?
“What has provoked this spate of self-castigation? Did you whistle for your horse, or come to breakfast in your dressing gown?”
“I danced with Fenwick, or worse, I waltzed with him, and most heinous of all, I was seen to enjoy my wickedness.”
“So you did and so you were. You made a very fetching couple, too.”
“Fen dances well, particularly for such a large fellow.”
“And you trust him, so you thought you could have a few minutes of what everybody else has at social gatherings.”
Hadrian was not upset with her, which was a comfort—but couldn’t he have been the smallest bit jealous of Fen?
“I had my waltz, but then Lily must pounce, days later, just when I think I’ve escaped notice for my folly.”
She stopped, for they’d reached the quarry pond, and there, beneath the gauzy green of the leafing-out trees, Hadrian had spread three thicknesses of tartan wool blanket and positioned a hamper at two of the blankets’ corners. A bottle of wine chilled in a bucket of ice, and another blanket had been folded on the rocks to afford a comfortable bench for dangling one’s feet in the water.
“My lady, your banquet awaits.”
“I am impressed.” Avis strolled over to the blankets and dropped to her knees. She was moved nearly to tears, and by a simple picnic. “Won’t you join me?”
For the next half hour, they merely chatted. Avis had confessed, and Hadrian had neither taken Lily’s part nor condemned her, as Fen might have. The cold chicken, buttered bread, strawberries, and tea cakes were wonderful, and Hadrian distracted Avis by feeding her a nibble of this, or a nibble of that, then insisting she do likewise.
Avis passed Hadrian a perfectly ripe strawberry. “Lily would not approve of this.”
He munched his fruit, then leaned back against a sturdy rowan trunk and patted the blanket beside him.
“Lily is not here, for which God be thanked. I’m lonely, Avie. Won’t you lie down beside me?”
Abruptly, Avis’s mouth, which had been full of succulent berry moments before, went dry as a pressed rose.
“Now, don’t poker up. I’m good old Hay Bothwell, with a full stomach and empty arms, and a pretty lady to share a pleasant day with. We’ve things to discuss, Avie, and now is the time.”
Now was the time to move to the dower house. “Now?”
“We have privacy and leisure. Quit stalling and cuddle up.”
She knee-walked across the blanket and sat a few inches from him. This cuddling up he proposed sounded both lovely and frustrating, because the more Avis had of Hadrian’s affections, the more she craved.
“Better,” he pronounced and hauled her against his side. She scooted around, until her head rested on his shoulder.
“You mustn’t doze off,” Hadrian said, though his hand wandered up and down her arm and practically commanded her to close her eyes. “This is serious, Avie.”
“I’m listening.” Mostly, though, she was reveling in the solid warmth of Hadrian Bothwell, in the pleasant citrus and clove scent of him, and in a sense of freedom that had only partly to do with fresh air and sunshine.
Hadrian took her hand and folded his fingers around hers. “Hart Collins is headed for England, and we’re trying to ascertain what his specific destination might be.”
Avis heard the words and understood them on one level. Her body understood them on an altogether different level, as heat, cold, panic, and a curious detachment assailed her in turn.
“Who are we doing this ascertaining?” And would Hadrian please keep his arms around her for the next twelve years at least?
“Harold and myself. I’ll notify Benjamin if I can locate him, and Fenwick knows.”
She nodded, but her ears were buzzing and her chest felt tight.
Hadrian’s arms settled around her more closely. “He won’t come within five miles of you. If I have to shoot him in the back, he won’t.”
“You told Fen?”
“I did.”
“He’d spare you the felony hanging.”
“Why not lay information against Collins?”
Hadrian held her snugly, and Avis turned her face into his shoulder, for she’d asked herself the same question many, many times. “You know why not, and it has been twelve years. Isn’t there a statute of limitations?”
“For many felonies, it’s twenty-one years, love.” Hadrian’s hand stroked her hair now, slowly, gently. “Kidnapping, rape, assault, false imprisonment, take your pick. Your sister is an adult now, and so are you.”
“We were on our own land.”
“But you were taken off your land, onto Harold’s property. Harold would jaunt home for the trial. He’s promised.”
The Bothwell brothers had corresponded about this. Avis was both touched and panicked. “You really have considered my situation, haven’t you?”
“At great length,” Hadrian replied, and Avis was pressed so close to him, she could feel his voice rumbling through his chest. “And not only recently.”
“I was whining because Lily is an irritation.” Avis told herself to ease her grip on the solid, muscular man holding her so carefully. “This news of yours surpasses mere irritation handily.”
“Lily is an irritation for all she means well, but Collins could be a menace of a different sort. I thought you’d want to know what’s afoot.”
And in that, in his consideration for what Avis wanted, Hadrian was different from all the other men professing to care for her, except perhaps Fen on his good days.
“My brothers would not have told me,” Avis said, rubbing her nose along his collarbone. “Collins was back a few years ago when his papa died, and I had to hear about it from Lily.”
“What did you do?”
She’d panicked, of course. Had reverted to a girl terrified of her own shadow, unable to eat, unable to sleep. Worse, she’d had no Hay Bothwell at hand to reassure and distract her.
“I remained indoors for the ten days he was at his seat. He made some pretense of traveling in disguise. He’d grown a beard and darkened his hair, but he was easily recognized.”
“Lily warned you?”
Were those Hadrian’s lips grazing her ear? “Lily socializes more than I do, with the housekeepers and other companions or governesses in the area. She’s well informed as a result, and so, thank God, was I.”
“I don’t doubt Lily’s loyalty,” Hadrian murmured against her hair. “Only Collins’s sense.”
“You can’t call him out, Hadrian.” Avis did ease away, far enough to meet Hadrian’s gaze. “Promise me.” Did ordination preclude a man from dueling? Did anything preclude a man from dueling?
“I won’t call him out, but you will not stop me from thrashing him soundly, very soundly, should our paths cross.”
Hadrian—lovely fellow—had the height and reach to thrash a man within an inch of the pearly gates.
“Don’t let your path cross his, Hadrian.” Avis leaned against him, which felt all too right and comfortable. “He’s a devil and he won’t fight fair. He’ll stab you in the back and laugh while he does it.”
“You are not to distress yourself over this,” Hadrian rejoined, his hand resuming its rhythm on her hair. “I will tell you everything I learn about his whereabouts, and you will tell me or Fen if you see or sense anything suspicious.”
“I will. You may depend on that.”
“Good.” Hadrian’s voice sounded very near her ear, pleasantly so, which was incongruous given the topic. “I want you to consider something else, Avie.”
“This sounds serious.”
“It needn’t be.” Hadrian eased her back and shifted so she was not merely in his arms, but lying against him. �
��I didn’t want this business with Collins to force the next topic onto the table, but it rather has.”
“What is this next topic?”
“Marriage,” Hadrian said, and Avis felt that hot and cold sensation again, but in a different way, and in different and private parts of her body.
“Between?”
“You and me.”
Chapter Seven
Avie hadn’t flounced off and she hadn’t laughed. On the strength of those encouraging facts, Hadrian laced his fingers with hers and brought her knuckles to his lips for a lingering kiss.
“You should at least consider becoming engaged to me.” Not the bended knee and tender sentiments she deserved, but if Hadrian attempted those, she’d likely toss him in the pond.
“I’ve been engaged before,” Avie said, making it sound as if she’d taken a turn in the stocks. “I didn’t care for it.”
Hadrian’s grasp on her fingers firmed, because he could feel the urge to flee building in her. “You were engaged to Collins, and your common sense was about to assert itself and retrace that misguided step.”
“I’m not still engaged to him, am I?”
Had she haunted herself with that fear for twelve years?
“You are not. Harold had Benjamin write and officially break the engagement on your behalf. The letter was witnessed, and the copies were as well.”
“Thank heavens.”
Her brothers should have told her this, but Hadrian understood their reticence. Any mention of the past was avoided when that past was miserable, violent, and traumatic.
“You are free to give your hand where you choose, Avie. I hope you will consider my suit for two reasons.” He’d also prayed about it, oddly enough, a different sort of prayer than he’d undertaken when vicaring.
“You’re lonely,” Avis suggested, “and prone to proposing where you know you’ll be refused.”
She was not entirely wrong.
“Bother you.” He kissed her temple. “I’m mending my ways. If Collins does come sniffing about, I want the right as your fiancé to protect you, and I want him to know you’re absolutely, unequivocally spoken for. You deserve that protection, Avie.”
She deserved more than simple safety, though. A dash of joy, some love, a future that did not consist of choosing curtains for a dower house and biting her tongue in the face of Lily Prentiss’s scolds.
“My tenants and my staff will protect me,” Avis said, sounding more hopeful than confident.
“They won’t take on a titled neighbor with Collins’s reputation for viciousness.”
She fell silent, while out in the pond, a fish jumped. Hadrian considered hunting down Hart Collins and taking a knife to his delicate parts. Fenwick would assist—cheerfully—and Harold would applaud.
“If I put it about that I’m marrying you, there will be talk, Hadrian.”
The eleventh biblical plague, though no mention of it appeared in the book of Exodus. “There will always be talk. We are discussing your safety, and my ability to protect you.”
“I could summon Benjamin home.”
A fine idea, except she’d had twelve years to demand that her brothers share a roof with her, and both of them kept their distance, thinking she wanted privacy.
“Benjamin would take at least a week to wrap up his affairs, more likely two if he’s larking about the Home Counties on some project or other, and then he’d have to make the journey north. Collins could be here by then. Besides, I have another motive in offering for you.”
“I’m not sure I want to hear this.”
“Listen anyway.” He shifted again and fitted her arm across his middle, trying to convey that she could hold on to him, even as he held on to her. “You’re lonely, Avie, and I can help with that.”
“Like you’re helping now?”
“I don’t see you hopping up and bolting off in a fit of the vapors.” Gratifying, that.
“I haven’t had the vapors in twelve years.”
“You haven’t had fun in twelve years, either,” Hadrian countered, though what he meant was that she hadn’t had pleasure. Hadn’t had close friends, shared tears, hearty laughs, or a real future. “You dance with Fen, then collapse into paroxysms of guilt and resentment. If you were engaged, you could dance all you pleased and nobody would comment.”
Nobody would dare comment if Hadrian smiled indulgently at Avie’s every waltz and flirtation. A tree root prodded him in the middle of his back, but he did not shift a single inch.
“I could dance with you, Hadrian.”
“With anybody,” Hadrian corrected her. “As long as I don’t take umbrage, nobody will remark it.” A woman on her way to the altar was considered brought to heel and allowed a certain paradoxical freedom, particularly with her fiancé at hand.
“When I’ve waltzed and cavorted with all the local swains, then what?”
That she would ask was further encouragement. “You face the same choice as any engaged lady. You can marry me or change your mind.”
“And be a jilt as well as a Jezebel?” Her capacity for self-criticism was daunting. Why hadn’t Lily Prentiss addressed this tendency, when it was entirely unwarranted?
“My challenge will be to inspire you to become a wife, instead.” His wife.
Now, she tried to sit up, which flight Hadrian gently thwarted.
“Hadrian, I can’t let you do this.”
Very different from I do not want to be engaged to you.
“You can’t stop me.” This was the part that had kept him up past midnight, not clarifying his intentions, but puzzling out their implementation.
“I will call upon you,” he said, “making sure Lily chaperones us. I will ride out with you when your grooms are in attendance. I will escort you to and from services. I will stand up with you at the local assemblies and make sheep’s eyes at you when all the other couples announce their engagements. I will compose sonnets to you and offer them to the patrons of the local watering hole when I’ve overimbibed. I will—what?”
She was laughing silently against his side. “You would be a callow swain?”
“The most callow, while anybody was looking.”
“And when they weren’t?” Her laughter died, no doubt because his answer could hurt her badly.
“I would be a devoted suitor, Avie.” He hugged her, a friendly, devoted suitor. “If you wanted to anticipate the intimacies of marriage, I would do my best to make them pleasurable for you.”
This was the aspect of his offer that had occurred to him only as sunlight had inched across his bed. The intimate, feminine confidence Collins had taken from Avie must be restored, and an engagement would allow Hadrian to offer that to her.
“You’d anticipate vows I had no intention of taking?”
He would, because in a convoluted sense, he owed her that, but his answer had to be more honest than a simple yes.
“I want this to be a real engagement. I’m a man grown, Avie. I’ve seen all manner of heartache, mischief and loss among my flock and in my life. I don’t expect you to buy a saddle horse without trying him over a few fences.”
The analogy was borrowed from Colonel Devlin St. Just, a devotee of all things equestrian, and of his countess, to whom Hadrian had twice proposed.
In Hadrian’s arms, Avie seemed to grow smaller. “You mean, you can’t marry without being sure your wife can tolerate the steps necessary to conceive Harold’s heir?”
She’d tried to keep the bitterness from her voice, without success. More honesty was called for, lest she cultivate this wrong-headed notion.
“You doubt you can tolerate joining with me, Avie?”
“Any sane person would doubt that, Hadrian, given my past.”
“I know your past better than anybody,” Hadrian said, glad for a chance to remind her of the signal honor she’d bestowed on him twelve years earlier. “I know you can enjoy pleasure, as well or better than most.”
She buried her face against his throat. The he
at in her cheeks suggested mortification, and that was the last sentiment Hadrian wanted to provoke.
“Shall I remind you, Avie?” He shifted her again, bringing her over him as he lay on his back, then scooting down, so the tree root no longer plagued him. He reached to the edge of the blanket, retrieved his jacket, and wadded it up under his head.
“We shouldn’t do this.”
“We should have done this more than once, twelve years ago. Kiss me, Avie, and I’ll remind you of the pleasure you’ve denied yourself while hiding alone at Blessings.”
* * *
Avis straddled Hadrian, skirts bunched, a thousand conflicting feelings fluttering about inside her, but acutely aware that beneath her, right beneath her, lay a man bent on seduction, and not just any man.
This was Hadrian, who had kept her confidences for twelve years, whom she’d sent away when she should not have let him from her sight. That was a lament for a different day, because his hand had found its way to her nape, urging her down over him.
“Kiss me, love, please.” He closed his eyes, as if to better absorb the feel of her under his fingers, or perhaps to give her privacy. Hadrian Bothwell was that perceptive.
Despite a welter of sensations and emotions, Avis wanted to kiss him. She’d enjoyed every kiss they’d shared. Every single one, back for twelve years. She started by kissing his cheek, and even that took courage.
Hadrian turned his head as if seeking light or warmth and pressed his lips to her cheek as well. By degrees, they teased their way to each other’s mouths, and then Avis let herself sink into him, into his mouth, his body, his warmth and strength, his scent.
Him.
Her body came alive over his, until the hard ridge of his arousal felt good, pressing against her sex. Even through their clothes, even knowing such intimacy was naughty, Hadrian felt good to her, and when he arched up against her, he felt even better.
Hadrian Page 11
