by Lara Temple
Her voice hitched and caught and he set aside the book and took her tense hands in his. They were shockingly cold.
‘You’re frozen.’
‘No, my hands are always cold after a megrim, and when I’m nervous.’
Her voice was as rough as gravel, but she didn’t pull her hands away. He took her towards an armchair and went to find a blanket.
He’d never credited confessions could be seductive... One learned something new every day.
But she was unwell and vulnerable... Hell, he was vulnerable. He would not take advantage of either of them at the moment. All he would do was warm her, calm her, and send her on her way.
He repeated this to himself, just to be absolutely clear. Warm, calm, send away...
He brought the blanket and crossed the line a little by smoothing it over her primly pressed together knees, then he stepped back behind the line and went to sit in the armchair opposite.
‘If you wish to make amends, you can sign the book you gifted me. Not Gen. Maitland. Your full name.’
She opened her mouth, did some more damage to his resolve by licking her plump lower lip, and then gave a nervous smile.
‘My full name? Genevieve Elisabeth Calpurnia Maitland?’
‘Calpurnia? Good Lord. Genevieve Maitland will do. You shouldn’t hide behind your grandfather’s name.’
‘I cannot write under my own.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not? That should be obvious.’
‘Not to me. These are your books, not his. You can dedicate them to him, but they are yours.’
‘No one would read a book about battles written by a female.’
‘It might be a trifle difficult at first, but you might actually gain some readers due to the novelty—in particular female readers. I read the first two essays while I was waiting for you to exhaust your Mrs Pritchard excuse. They are far more than dry accounts of battles; they are deeply wrought human tales.’
‘I don’t want anyone knowing I write books. Other than your grandfather, and Julian who sees to all the interactions with the publishers, no one knows.’
Her mouth had flattened completely. Stubborn Genny was back. Genny the General might pen part of these stories, but the rest was by the young girl who’d sat up into the night spinning tales with her only anchor of safety.
He set aside the issue for the moment. It did not matter now. The only problem was he wasn’t quite certain what did. Not any more.
Two weeks ago he’d known full well what mattered. His list of responsibilities had been quite clear—his sister and her mother, his friends, his men, his ship. The Carrington title and responsibilities had been nothing but irksome duties, imposed upon him by a family he despised and which despised him, to be evaded for as long as possible. Perhaps he had even believed what his so-called family had always seemed to convey—that in time either he or they would conveniently fade away.
Nothing had truly changed since his return. He might play at being Lord Westford, but he wasn’t. A proper Lord Westford would wed Lady Sarah Ponsonby and do his best to obliterate the tarnished stain of his birth and occupation.
His guests might enjoy his wine and admire his art collection, but they couldn’t completely hide their distaste. He was a novelty, and he was tolerated, but not accepted. Nor did he wish to be. He would never sit comfortably in Lord Westford’s life. This...this performance was a temporary illusion—a what-might-have-been-but-will-not-be. Because at heart he didn’t wish it to be. Soon he and Mary would attend Emily’s wedding and then he would join the Hesperus and be on his way again.
That plan had not changed simply because he’d found himself temporarily entangled in Genny Maitland’s web. Neither her plots nor this confusing, unfamiliar, sometimes painfully aggravating pull she exercised on him should make any permanent change to the trajectory of his life. It would not be wise for either of them.
Genny gave a sigh, her knees sinking a little from their rigidity. But her hands were still tangled in the blanket.
‘Are your hands warmer?’ he asked, resisting the urge to test for himself.
She touched them to her cheeks and his own tingled.
‘Yes. Thank you. I was so nervous.’
‘I’m not an ogre.’
‘You were furious. Rightly so.’
‘Upset,’ he corrected. He didn’t add hurt.
‘Upset and furious,’ she corrected.
‘Do you wish for me to apologise?’
‘No, of course not. I was merely explaining why I was...why I am nervous.’
‘Still?’
‘Are you still...upset?’
‘I’m absorbing everything you have told me. I’m not angry.’
Bruised, battered, confused...but not angry. Not with her, anyway.
She smiled. ‘I promise no more plotting. It isn’t working, anyway. What you said earlier, about Serena... You are right. She isn’t ready. I think... I think I’ve known all along that she is still in love with Charlie, but I hoped perhaps... And Mary... I don’t think there is anyone here she fancies, either. Perhaps she too is still...’ She stopped and sighed again.
‘Still in love with my father?’ he continued. ‘I hope not. I think Serena’s affection for Charlie was far truer and more grounded than what Mary thinks she felt for my father. Unlike Serena she was very young and untried when she married him—and unlike Serena she never had the experience of being loved. I’m hoping that when she finds someone who feels love for her she will see the difference and be drawn to it. This house party might yet do her some good. With Emily away she cannot cluck about her like a mother hen, so she is being forced to enjoy herself all on her own. If that is all that comes of this week, then it is well worth it.’
Her smile grew. ‘Thank you for rescuing that ember from the ashes of my ambitions.’
‘You’re welcome, Genevieve Maitland. Thank you for fighting for her. As for the rest... Well, I should perhaps have taken everyone into my confidence earlier about my actions, but quite frankly I planned to leave it until after I departed, so there would not be unnecessary discussion around it. I’ve already settled Charlie’s debts, as well as set up funds for Serena and Mary. If you three decide to continue to live together at the Dower House, that will be your choice—your choice.’
Her smile fell away, her hands twisting back into the fabric of the blanket. ‘I didn’t tell you this to force you... This isn’t...’
He pulled his chair closer and closed his hand over hers. Her hands were warmer, but only just.
‘This has nothing to do with you, Genny. I realise it will take you a while to cut yourself loose from the moorings of responsibility, but you didn’t create my duties and you are certainly not forcing me to honour them. The only thing you did was draw my attention to them. If in a rather convoluted and uncomfortable manner.’
She was still looking a little stunned. ‘What of your grandmother?’
‘Are you guilty at how happy you feel to be shot of her?’
‘A little.’
‘Well, don’t be. She is about to become a duchess. Burford proposed.’
Her mouth spread slowly into her lovely smile. ‘Oh! I am so happy. He is so very right for her.’
‘You don’t seem very surprised.’
‘I am not surprised that he cares for her. I wasn’t certain she cared for him—though I was hopeful, since he is the only person she seems to wish to please.’
‘I saw as much today. I feel a blind fool not to have realised that before.’
‘You have been...distracted.’
‘True...’ He took a deep breath and placed his last card on the table. ‘I am giving a substantial amount to Julian as well. Grandfather ought to have done that long ago.’
Her smile faded and her hands dug deeper into the blanket. ‘I ho
pe he took it. I’m afraid it will make him resent you even more, though.’
‘He took it. As for resentment—that is his problem, not mine.’
He only hoped Julian didn’t tell her either of their grandmother’s offer or his own stipulations.
She nodded, her teeth sinking into her lower lip. It set his own lips tingling and he wished he had something to sink his fingers into as well...preferably warm and soft.
Without the defensive barrier of anger, lust was seeping through the cracks. Not that she would notice. She was still looking dazed, and there was certainly nothing on her face to indicate that his proximity was affecting her as hers was affecting him.
Perhaps, as he’d suspected, whatever impulses he sparked in her were more the product of circumstance and curiosity than anything deep and lasting. It was probably eminently better that way. In a couple days he would leave for Hampshire and then join the Hesperus and be on his way to France within a week. All this would be behind him.
‘That’s the lot of them, isn’t it?’ he prodded, trying for lightness. ‘Unless there are some bequests for the servants you wish me to make? No? The dogs, perhaps? Carmine the canary?’
She smiled and shook her head, her eyes warming from pale grey to liquid mercury, driving up his temperature with it. He gave in to temptation and took her hands in his, untangling them from the blanket and rubbing them in a pretence of warming them as he spoke.
‘So now you’ll have to find some other strays to succour—or, better yet, don’t. Think of all the energy you could expend on your writing if you had nothing to think about but Thermopylae. Which side are you writing, by the way? Persians or Spartans?’
‘Both...’ she said dreamily.
She looked as if the concept of being unmoored from the anchors which had held her in his family’s port for so long was both tantalising and terrifying. His heart gave another of the annoying squeezes it had become prone to recently.
He kept his mind firmly on other battles. ‘I have never read any records from Xerxes’ side of the battle. Are there any?’
‘I only know of Herodotus’s account.’ Her gaze focused back and she was Genny the General, surveying her troops with a critical eye. ‘It may be the fashion to revile the veracity of his reports, and compare him unfavourably with Thucydides, but I think he is sorely maligned. He may be more colourful than Thucydides, and less objective, but he is no less valuable as a recorder of history.’
‘I never said he wasn’t,’ Kit said meekly, still gently rubbing her hands between his, despite her increasing agitation as she spoke. ‘I happen to enjoy reading them both. Two of the books you purloined from the library are mine, you know. I’d only just put them there the day we arrived, which was why I was surprised to see them gone. The Greek copy of Herodotus was given to me by a woman named Laskarina Bouboulina—one of the leaders of the Greek war of independence. Now, there’s a tale for you to write about—although most people would find it too fantastic to be true. She’s an Albanian widow with seven grandchildren and eight ships to her name.’
Genny’s eyes lit like a kitten with a stretch of yarn dangled above it. ‘You were there?’
‘I didn’t take part in it, if that is what you are asking. Unlike Laskarina, many of the klefth—the warlords—are little more than pirates themselves, and I don’t deal with their kind, however much Lady Calista might be disappointed to hear that. Not that they wanted me there. They were afraid I might be part of the English Navy’s attempt to replace the Turks. But I did bring arms and provisions to her on Spetses, and I was also there when she took Monemvasia.’
‘Oh, how I wish I could speak with someone like her myself.’
Her hands had warmed and softened in his as he spoke, her eyes turning dreamy again. If he could have produced Laskarina at that very moment, he would have. But it was a very bad sign if he was contemplating outrageously unrealistic chivalric gestures...
‘I could write her story,’ she murmured, the dreaminess gathering into purpose. ‘What it must be like for a woman to take those risks—her family, her possessions, everything at stake. It would be different than for a man. There is no distance...’
He didn’t answer, merely watched the thoughts and ideas chase across her face. Was this how she wrote her tales? Boarded her mind’s ship and sailed into those other worlds?
There had been that same intimacy and presence in the essays he’d read. She might as well have been standing by Tiberius Longus’s side as he watched Hannibal’s monstrous-seeming elephants charge the plain along the Trebbia River and destroy three-quarters of the Roman army. It was a sign of his addled mind that he was beginning to believe that Genevieve Maitland would have found some clever way of routing Hannibal’s enormous army without harming a single elephant in the process.
She smiled at him, her eyes focusing. That now familiar, near-unbearable surge of energy gripped him, demanding action, outlet—something.
He sat this out as well.
He was glad to have cleared the air between them, but it had not resolved the real problem—Genny Maitland was disastrous for his equilibrium.
This was new territory for him. It wasn’t the first time he’d been attracted to the wrong woman, but he’d always been able to solve those situations quite readily, merely either by distance or by finding more convivial company to soothe his libido and his pride.
Those reliable solutions no longer felt practicable.
There was one potentially practicable solution, of course—he could offer marriage.
His hands tightened on hers, his hunger threatening to spill over.
‘Never go to the market hungry,’ his mother had used to tell him when they’d dock at a new port and he’d want to run ahead and see what treasures awaited them. ‘Shopping with your stomach is the best path to indigestion.’
A breeze twitched the curtains and with it entered the distinct sound of carriages coming up the drive. Genny glanced down at her hands in his and with a slight shiver withdrew them, lighting each nerve-end in him.
‘They have returned,’ she said, her voice muted. ‘Mrs Pritchard has arranged for an early dinner as they will be tired. I’d best go.’
‘Of course.’ He rose and went to the window. ‘You needn’t come down to dinner if you are still unwell, Genny.’
‘I’m not...’ She stood hurriedly, the armchair grunting a little as it was shoved back. ‘Of course. Goodbye. Thank you.’
‘I didn’t mean you shouldn’t come down...’
But she was already out through the door.
Blast the girl—he couldn’t do a damn thing right around her.
Chapter Twenty
Genny woke in the dark, but immediately knew that it was almost dawn. The birdsong had a clear, faraway sound, carving the air into crystal notes. She lay on her side, listening to their avian conversation for a long while, postponing the moment when she must think.
At least her head was clear of the last remnants of pain. She hoped another dozen years passed before another such assault.
A dozen years...
She lay on her back, staring at the blank ceiling. She’d always been careful not to think of the future. She had her writing, her sister, her friends, a home...of sorts. It had always felt enough.
Now it felt like a chasm. No...a desert. A great, empty, parched expanse. Nowhere to stop, no one to talk with, no one to hold her hand or kiss.
She covered her burning eyes with both hands.
She’d never felt this before, and she rather feared that it was a sign of something very bad. If this...all of this...was love, then it was horrid. And stupid. It made one maudlin and weak and unable to think clearly except of deserts and loneliness and other foolishness. No wonder some poets wrote such pap.
Yes, but most of those foolish poets weren’t really writing about love, but about lust. They ma
de a great show of feeling desperation and loneliness, but they hardly seemed to know the objects of their desires beyond having seen them in the village square or across a dance floor. One could probably exchange their particular maiden with another and they would hardly know the difference.
Perhaps that was all this was—her first encounter with lust. After all, he was so damnably beautiful, and he kept walking around in nothing but a shirt, and on the ship not even a shirt, and...
She turned over and shoved her face into her pillow.
It was definitely, unequivocally lust.
But what frightened her most was that it was more. Far too much more.
He mattered.
She shoved her face deeper into her pillow but it was no good. The list kept growing.
His opinion mattered, his wellbeing mattered, his presence calmed something deep inside her even as it sent other parts into chaotic confusion. He’d brought her to life when she hadn’t even realised she’d been hibernating.
She fisted the soft linen of the pillowcase against her burning eyes. Her head didn’t hurt but she felt exhausted and battered. She wished her grandfather was alive. She needed him to tell her that all would be well. That she was strong, that she needed no one but herself, that life would still be good and full when he left.
He’s only passing through, Genny. You’ve never been a dreamer...don’t start now.
She sat up abruptly and tossed away the blanket. She needed to clear her head, and there was one place on the Carrington estate that always did that for her.
Outside, Milly came dancing along the path at her whistle, delighted that his mistress had finally come to her senses and resumed her early morning walks.
The breeze was blowing in from the sea, bringing saltwater promises, the sun still too low to soothe away the chill of dawn. The ground too was wet with dew, weighing down her hems, but they would likely soon be even wetter with sea water so it hardly mattered.
