The Danice Allen Anthology

by Danice Allen

  The last thing Letitia wanted to do was talk about her family; it was much too painful and embarrassing. She had loved her mother and father, but they’d each, in different but nonetheless definitive ways, deserted her and her two brothers. It was their fault that she was presently separated from her beloved younger brothers and must work for a living as a governess. It was her mother’s fault, too, that she constantly doubted her own fortitude. She glanced at Lord Blair. Despite his teasing, friendly manner, he did not look as though he meant to retreat one iota. Resigned, she answered, “I’ve two younger brothers.”

  “At school?”

  “No. They live with cousins in Nottinghamshire.”

  “And your parents?”

  “Dead.” Letitia’s conscience jabbed her. “Well, at least my father’s dead.”

  “Your brothers don’t live with your mother?”

  “No.” Letitia reached for her knife and fork, pretending to be suddenly interested in the cooling food on her plate. “This salmon is delicious.”

  Adam knew he was being persistent to the point of impoliteness, but he wasn’t simply trying to appease a vulgar, overactive curiosity. He was endeavoring to find out more about the woman he had fallen in love with. Miss Grundy seemed to enjoy a friendship with Letitia, yet even she could not tell him particulars about Letitia’s family. Letitia had talked freely about her other positions as a governess, but her life before that she apparently considered a closed book.

  Since it didn’t seem likely that she would explain why her brothers did not live with their mother, Adam tried a different tack. “In looks, do you favor your mother or your father?”

  Letitia’s knife and fork clattered to the plate, and she abruptly stood up. Her eyes welled with tears. “I don’t know why you persist in badgering me about my family, Lord Blair.” Her voice held equal portions of dignity and despair. “But if you must know, my father was a drunk and a gambler, and my mother ran away with my dancing instructor! I hope I’m nothing like either of them! Perhaps now you’ll understand why I choose not to discuss them.”

  Dropping her napkin on the table, she walked quickly out of the room. Adam followed her. He was appalled that he’d brought her to tears with his blundering questions! Her family’s troubles did not lessen her in his eyes, however; rather, he instantly admired her all the more. How much she’d had to deal with and overcome, yet she still managed to be so uncynical, so courageous and unique!

  She exited through the front door and moved hastily toward the gate to the formal garden, a maze of trees and flowers enclosed within an ancient stone wall. Long shadows stretched across the lawn. The misty pink gray of gloaming shrouded the land in an almost dreamlike beauty.

  Despite the urgency he felt to catch up with Letitia and apologize for causing her pain, Adam truly recognized and appreciated the beauty around him for the first time since Maggie’s death. He felt as if he’d been wearing blinders for two years. He felt the beauty, too, in the cool mist against his skin. He heard it in the song of the lark, serenading the tenacious sun that rode the horizon and held back the night. He inhaled the fragrance of lily of the valley, roses, and mock orange blossoms.

  Adam’s senses vibrated with awareness. He was alive to his surroundings again, thanks to Letitia. In fact, he’d never felt so attuned to nature as he did now. He wanted to pull this shining night close to him, embrace it all—from the opalescent twilight sky above his head to the dew-tipped grass beneath his feet. But most of all he wanted Letitia.

  A narrow rock walkway winded through the picturesque chaos of the garden. Chamomile plants grew between the cracks and gave up their applelike scent as Adam trod over them. The cool, deep dark created by overhanging tree branches and crowding, flowering shrubs refreshed his spirit. He breathed in the crisp air and was filled with peace and hope. For Adam, spring had come at last.

  Rounding a bend, he saw her. She was leaning against a tree, her face in profile as she gazed into the dense green waters of a moss-bottomed pond. She heard his approach, and her head jerked in his direction. Even from a distance, he could see the tear tracks on her cheeks. Embarrassed, she wrenched her whole body around, turning her back to him, surreptitiously wiping away the evidence of her distress.

  Adam closed the distance between them with slow, cautious steps, approaching her as if she were a shy forest creature. At last he stood just behind her. She had finished wiping her tears and she held her head regally erect, though she still averted her face.

  He gave a long sigh. “I’ve been intrusive and tactless.”

  No response. He lifted his hands, palms up. It was a gesture of apology, of abject chagrin. “I’m a clumsy clodpole.”

  “Aye, my lord, that you are,” she whispered.

  Buoyed by the return of some sort of communication between them, he stepped closer. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to bring up a subject that is distressing to you.”

  He watched her head bow, the movement unwittingly revealing the beautiful, slender column of her neck. He wanted to slip his fingers around that smooth white flesh, then kiss her behind her shell-shaped ear.

  She turned slightly, throwing him a self-conscious look over her shoulder. “You couldn’t have known. It’s embarrassing.”

  “All families have their closet skeletons, you know.”

  Letitia made a helpless gesture with one hand. “It’s not just what they’ve done. It’s hard to explain. I still love my parents and I think I actually feel guilty about blaming them for my misfortunes. Yet it is their fault that my brothers and I have had to suffer a great deal of unpleasantness in the past years, and I resent them for that.” She turned fully around, her eyes pools of confusion. “My parents’ weaknesses have made me afraid of my own fallibility.”

  Adam took one last step forward, bringing him within inches of Letitia. She did not retreat. He lifted his hands as if he were going to clasp her shoulders, left them poised in the air for half a moment, then dropped them again to his side. He’d promised her he wouldn’t touch her. If he broke his promise, would she think he was implying that she was like her mother? Chances were, however, that her mother wasn’t as bad as the gossips had undoubtedly painted her. She had probably been a casualty of a bad marriage, driven to make a choice between her children and the love of a man who was not her husband. A tough predicament, that.

  “Life is never as black and white as we want it to be, Letitia,” he said. “You have good reason to resent your parents, yet I think you know that they were probably dealing with their problems and needs the only way they knew how to at the time. You and your brothers unfortunately got caught in the middle.”

  Letitia’s brow furrowed. “Most people don’t see it the way you do. Most people want to categorize everyone as either good or bad. Even though they did some good things in their lives, my parents have been labeled as bad because of their mistakes. I’ve done the same thing. I’ve thought them very bad for the things they’ve done. But I still…”

  “You still love them, which makes it all very confusing, doesn’t it? Don’t worry about it, Letitia. Realize that your parents were complex human beings with failings, as we all are. It’s perfectly all right to love imperfect people. If that weren’t true, none of us could ever possibly hope to be loved.”

  Her face lit up. “How wise you are! You have such a compassionate view of people and their foibles!”

  “You’d never have said that to me six weeks ago,” he reminded her, smiling and feeling sheepishly proud of himself.

  “Nor six hours ago!” she retorted, smiling back.

  They stood there, grinning at each other like two infatuated children. But the yearning Adam felt to pull Letitia into his arms and kiss her was very adult. His smile fell away as he studied her face, trying to read her thoughts, to gauge her emotions. She looked so beautiful … and so vulnerable.

  “God, how I want to break my promise to you, Letitia. How I want to touch you.”

  Letitia’s heart ache
d with wanting him. He was so wonderful in every way! She’d come to the castle expecting to be turned away by a tyrannical ogre. She’d been led to believe that he was a cold man, beyond the reach of his children’s affection and no longer interested in the love of a woman since his wife’s death. There were seeds of truth in this pat tale told by the gossip mongers, but the real, complex truth lay far afield.

  Adam was a loving man who’d been caught off guard by his beloved wife’s sudden death. He had grieved deeply for her and inwardly railed against the injustice of it. To gain back a semblance of sanity in his life, he’d forced everything and everyone around him into neat little schedules. Then he’d removed his emotions to a safe place where no one could hurt him again. But there was a price to pay for that sort of protective isolation. Had he realized that? Was that why he wanted to touch her? No matter what had brought on Adam’s desire to touch her—to hold her—Letitia’s own desire to return his embrace was just as strong.

  “I want you to touch me, too, my lord, but I—”

  “Call me Adam, Letitia.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “I’m afraid.”

  “That I’ll make you like your mother?”

  “Worse than that. I’m afraid that if you touch me, I won’t care who or what I am anymore! I lose all sense of propriety just thinking about you kissing me! I’ve thought about it a lot, you know,” she confessed impetuously, darting him a quick, embarrassed look. “And … and if you kissed me very much, I’m afraid I’d be so drunk with love and pleasure that I’d gladly sell my soul to stay in your arms!” Letitia spoke with fervid sincerity, not weighing her words or considering Adam’s response to them.

  Adam knew she spoke from the heart, and his question concerning the state of her feelings for him was sufficiently answered. She’d said it! She’d said she loved him! That was all he needed to know.

  Adam pulled her into his arms and kissed her, tenderly at first, then, against his own determination to go slowly, the kiss deepened and intensified. A fire of desire ignited inside him. She felt so right in his embrace, her slim, rounded curves molding so perfectly to the hard, straight planes of his chest. Her thighs pressed against his, the delicate fabric of her skirt brushing against the bare skin of his legs below the hem of his kilt.

  God, how he wanted to make that early fantasy of his come true; the image of her lying in his bed with her arms upheld in a beckoning pose!

  He pulled away and cradled Letitia’s face in his hands, his eyes exulting in the sight of her passion-flushed cheeks, her parted lips, her heavy-lidded eyes.

  “I’ve a question to ask you, Letitia.” He was surprised and humbled by the huskiness of his own voice. The lass had a devastating effect on his self-control.

  She gave a little moan, her face turning in his hands to look away. “Oh, don’t ask me. You know I can’t refuse you when you hold me thus. Don’t ask me to be your—”

  “My wife, Letitia. Sweetheart, be my wife.

  Letitia knew now that her earlier suspicion that she was dreaming this whole unbelievable episode must indeed be true. She stared at him, her body braced and still for the inevitable return of reality.

  Adam chuckled. “You look as though I’ve asked you to swim the North Sea, mo he’rt. Is it such a horrible thing to contemplate being my wife?”

  Hope soared inside Letitia. “But I’m your children’s governess, my lord!”

  “We’ll get another.”

  “You know that’s not what I mean! You’re a viscount, and I’m just a—”

  “A woman very much my equal in every way. I don’t know any more about your parents than what you’ve told me, Tish. May I call you that, my love? I like the way it sounds when the children call you thus.” Then, not waiting for an answer, he continued. “You are obviously gently bred, well educated, and of high moral fiber. Whether your father was an earl or a merchant makes no difference to me. I love you, Tish. I love your spirit, your compassion, your wisdom. I want you to be the children’s mother. But more importantly, I want you to be my wife.”

  Emotion ached in the back of Letitia’s throat, making speech difficult. But there was something more she had to know. “What about Maggie, Adam?”

  “I’ll always love Maggie. She’ll always be a part of my life, but my past life. I want you to be my future, Tish. You’ve given me back the happiness I lost when Maggie died. I know Maggie would want something … someone … who’s so very good for me and the children.”

  Joy filled Letitia, emboldening her to taunt playfully, “Even though I’m impudent and outspoken, unstructured and prone to romping?”

  “Especially because you are all those things and more, lass. Now shut up and let me kiss you.”

  For once Letitia agreed without an argument.

  A wedding in Scotland could be a simple or an elaborate undertaking. A spoken agreement to marry between the participating couple need only be confirmed by two witnesses to make a marriage union legal under Scots law. This easy manner of shackling oneself to another for life made hasty marriages a frequent occurrence in Scotland, especially among couples fleeing England and their disapproving parents to the border towns of Gretna Green and the like.

  For Adam and Letitia a hasty marriage was desirable simply because they could hardly wait to be wed. Since Adam was determined not to bed his betrothed before they were legally married, by mutual agreement they decided on a simple ceremony in the castle chapel in a week’s time. Although Letitia knew Adam loved her and respected her, and she herself had more than once been tempted to visit his bedchamber before their vows had been exchanged, he wanted to prove his respect for her by waiting till after the ceremony to make love to her. Letitia knew he was being sensitive to her confused feelings about her mother, and she was touched and pleased. At the same time, however, she was in a constant state of pleasant frustration.

  Oh, how she loved him! They spent the week before the wedding in the blissful occupation of getting to know each other better. They passed long evenings sitting in the library in the “cushy” chairs by the fire, with sherry, chocolate, and shortbread to sustain their marathon conversations, and with a nodding maid as chaperon, sitting in a far corner. Childhood memories, politics, literature, and every other conceivable subject was exhausted, then renewed with vigor the following evening. They didn’t always agree about certain topics, but their disagreements were stimulating and made each of them think hard about both sides of the issue.

  Mornings they paid social calls, with Adam proudly introducing his betrothed to the local gentry as well as the tenant farmers. Some people raised their brows when Letitia revealed that she had come to the castle as the children’s governess, but for the most part the obvious love between Lord Blair and his bride-to-be quieted any unkind speculation about the appropriateness of their match. After all, she was the daughter of a baron, and though not a Scot, as would be preferable, they decided that for a Sassenach lass she would do quite well. Besides, Letitia glowed with such happiness that her animation and gracious charm won over everyone within the first few moments after meeting her.

  The children, of course, were ecstatic at the prospect of having Letitia for a stepmama. They saw that Dada was much more fun now, too. These facts, coupled with the cheerful servants bustling about the castle in preparation for the wedding, gave the castle such a festive air of excitement that Kyle and Mary were bursting with high spirits. Adam and Letitia spent each afternoon with the children, and they invariably spent the hours till dinnertime on the moors, running the children about till they settled down enough to eat a meal without bouncing off the walls.

  Some patches of heather on the high moors were turning purple, and the days were long and warm, the twilights seemingly endless. It seemed that Mother Nature had conspired to make the week before Letitia’s fairy-tale wedding a romantic idyll of all that was best about the Scottish highlands. With an atmosphere so conducive to romance, it was only with considerable force of will that Adam managed
to refrain from making love to his delectable fiancée before the wedding night.

  She was no help, he often thought with a tender, grudging look at his betrothed. She always looked so fetching, so aglow with sweet, seductive sensuality! And Letitia knew she was tormenting him, albeit without much conscious effort.

  Letitia, on the other hand, claimed that Adam’s misery were his just deserts for tempting her constantly with the sight of him in a kilt each and every day. She had confessed her fascination with his legs, and he had responded by wearing his kilt all the time! It really wasn’t fair of him to flaunt those gorgeous shanks like that, she’d told him. Ever so badly she wanted to slide a curious hand beneath the kilt to clasp his knee. And those stories she’d heard about kilts … She was prodigiously curious … Did he wear trews beneath his kilt, or was he an authentic Scotsman?

  Thankfully, when Adam and Letitia’s tenuous hold on their passion seemed about ready to break, an announcement from Miss Grundy and Belnap gave them something else to think about.

  “Miss Grundy and I are getting married, my lord,” Belnap soberly informed Adam as he shared breakfast with Letitia one morning.

  Adam and Letitia responded in unison, but displayed a very different understanding of goings-on at the castle.

  “How splendid!” chirped Letitia. “I was wondering when you’d get on with it, Belnap!”

  “Good God, Belnap!” Adam exclaimed, clearly astonished. “I hadn’t the slightest notion! How long has this been going on?”

  “Didn’t you know, Adam?” Letitia laughed.

  “Tish! You knew about this?” countered Adam.

  “Since the first day I set foot in the castle,” she informed him cheerfully, then turned and smiled at Belnap. “You and Miss Grundy have loved each other a long time, haven’t you? Why did you wait so long to marry?”

  Belnap’s eyes twinkled. “Right you are, miss, about Miss Grundy and myself. We’ve loved each other from the minute I started work here at Leys Castle three years ago. But it didn’t seem right nor proper to carry on in a loverlike manner with His Lordship so unsettled. We were waiting for him to marry before we thought it appropriate to tie the nuptial knot ourselves. Naturally we were made quite hopeful when you showed up at the castle and caught His Lordship’s fancy.”