At length, they came to a section where a couple of gnarled trees grew close to the wall, their branches arching over the top.
‘I should have asked,’ he said, turning to her with a wary expression. ‘Are you any good at climbing trees?’
‘Actually,’ she replied with a proud toss of her head, ‘I am very good at climbing trees.’ At least she had been as a girl. You couldn’t grow up on the fringes of the army without learning all sorts of things that decently brought up girls really shouldn’t. Or so Aunt Charity had frequently complained.
‘Is there anything you cannot do?’
He’d said it with a smile. A rather fond sort of smile, she thought. Or was she just looking for signs that he liked her well enough to think that marrying her wouldn’t be a total disaster? He might just as well be the kind of man to cover his doubts and fears by putting on a brave face.
‘I believe,’ she said, pushing back the waves of insecurity that had been surging over her ever since she’d kissed him, and he hadn’t been willing to kiss her again, ‘in rising to any challenge. Or at least that is what Mama used to say. Whenever things were hard, she’d say we mustn’t look upon them as stumbling blocks in our way, but as stepping stones across troubled waters.’
‘And what would she have said about walls that block our paths? That we should climb them?’
She was about to say yes, when something stopped her. ‘I don’t know about that. I mean, that wall was put there to keep people out, wasn’t it? And I’m starting to get a horrid feeling that we may be...um...breaking in.’
He’d already admitted he didn’t scruple to break into places when it suited him. He was one of those men who thought the end justified the means. Not that he was a bad man. Just a bit of a rogue, as Papa had been.
‘We’ve already had a farmer threatening us with his gun this morning. What if some gamekeeper mistakes us for poachers? It is just the sort of thing that would happen, the way my luck has been running recently.’
‘I can promise you faithfully that we won’t be mistaken for poachers once we get over that wall,’ he replied, drawing back his arm and tossing the valise over it. ‘And, what’s more, one cannot break into property that one owns oneself.’
‘You are trying to tell me that the estate that lies beyond that wall belongs to you?’ She eyed his clothing, then his black eye and his grazed knuckles dubiously. ‘I thought you said it was your aunt’s?’
‘I said my aunt lives there,’ he replied, planting his fists on his hips. ‘Prudence, never say you’ve been judging me by my appearance?’
He ran his eyes pointedly from the crown of her tousled head to the soles of her shoes, via the jacket she’d borrowed from him, which came almost to her knees, and the stockings she’d borrowed from the farmer’s wife, which were sagging round her ankles. Then he flicked his eyes back to her face. Which felt sticky with jam and was probably grimy.
‘That’s a fair point,’ she admitted. ‘To look at me nobody would ever suspect I was an heiress, would they? But just explain one thing, if you wouldn’t mind? If this is your property, then why are we about to climb over the wall when there must be a perfectly good front gate?’
‘Because it would take us the best part of an hour to walk all the way round to the main gate. And your feet have suffered enough abuse already.’
‘You want to spare my feet? Oh.’ She felt mean now, for suspecting his behaviour to be shifty. ‘Then, thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me just yet,’ he said, eyeing the tree, the height of the wall, and then her again. ‘I really should have taken into consideration how hard it will be for you to climb up that tree in skirts.’
The very last thing she would do was admit that she hadn’t climbed any trees for a considerable time.
‘I will go first,’ he said. ‘And help you up.’
He strode up to the tree. Put his fists on his hips and frowned. Which puzzled her, for a moment, since there was a gnarly knot at a perfect height from which to commence his climb. But then she worked out that he must be considering it from her perspective.
‘I am sure I will be able to manage,’ she assured him. ‘This tree has lots of handholds and footholds,’
‘Footholds?’ He looked from her to the tree, then back to her again, his expression rather blank.
‘Yes,’ she said, pointing to the stubby projection left behind from where a branch had snapped off years before.
‘Ah, yes. Indeed.’ He rubbed his hands together. Stayed exactly where he was.
‘What is the problem?’ What had he seen that she hadn’t considered?
‘The problem... Well,’ he said, ‘it is merely that I have never climbed this tree before.’
Oh, how sweet of him to warn her that he wasn’t going to be able to point out the best route up it.
‘There’s no need to worry. Although I haven’t climbed a tree since I was a girl, this one looks remarkably easy. Even hampered as I am by skirts.’
‘Well, that’s good. Yes. Very good.’
A determined look came over his face. He stepped up to the tree. Set one foot on the knot she’d just pointed out. Looked further up the trunk. As though he had no idea what to do next.
‘Do you know?’ she said with a touch of amusement. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’ve never climbed any tree before—never mind that one.’
His shoulders stiffened. Oh, dear, she shouldn’t have teased him. Some men could take it, and some men couldn’t. Funny, but she’d thought he was the type who could. He’d been remarkably forgiving so far, about all sorts of things she’d done to him.
Without a word he reached up for the most obvious handhold, then scrambled very clumsily up to the first branch thick enough to bear his weight. With only the minimum of cursing he pulled himself up and onto it, swinging one leg over so that he sat astride.
Then he turned and grinned down at her. ‘Nothing to it!’
She gasped. ‘I was only joking before, but it’s true, isn’t it? You never have climbed a tree, have you?’
He gave an insouciant shrug. ‘Well, no. But I always suspected that if other boys could do it I could.’
‘What kind of boy never climbed trees?’
‘One whose parents were terrified of some harm befalling him and had him watched over night and day,’ he replied.
‘Oh. That sounds—’ Very restricting. And a total contrast to her own childhood. Compared with her life in Stoketown, it had taken on a rosy hue in her memory. But, if she looked at it honestly, it must have been a very precarious sort of existence.
‘I suppose,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘that is what parents do. Even mine—I mean, since they couldn’t protect me from actual danger, they did what they could to stop me from being afraid by making light of all the upheavals and privations of army life. Treating it all—in front of me, at least—as though it was all some grand adventure.’
‘Which is why nothing scares you now?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say that,’ she countered. Right this minute she was, if not exactly scared, certainly very wary of climbing up to join him. Because she’d suddenly become very aware that learning to climb trees was not the kind of activity that should have formed part of her education, if there were even some boys, like Gregory, who hadn’t been allowed to do it. And also, more to the point, that when she’d been a girl she hadn’t cared about showing off her legs.
‘Come on,’ he said, leaning down and holding out his hand to her. ‘Up you get.’
‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘I need to take some precautionary measures.’
She hitched up her gown and her petticoat as high as she dared, then reached between her legs and pulled the bunched material from behind through to the front, forming a sort of shortened, baggy set of breeches. It was the best she
could do. She only hoped nobody came up over the rise and saw her display of legs bare to the thigh. With one hand clutching her skirts, and her face on fire, she set her foot on the knot she’d shown him earlier, took his hand, and let him haul her up onto the branch next to him.
‘What a pity it is that ladies’ fashions demand they cover their legs so completely,’ he said, running his eyes over hers.
‘Impractical, too,’ she said with a nonchalant toss of her head, since it was impossible to blush any hotter. ‘When a lady decides she needs to climb a tree, breeches would make it far easier.’
He grinned at her again, then shuffled along the branch to the top of the wall, slid across it, and dropped down into the shrubbery that grew right up to the base of the wall on the other side. He turned to her and held out his arms.
‘All you need to do is slide to the edge and drop down. I’ll catch you,’ he said.
All she had to do? In a gown that was hitched almost to her waist?
‘It’s all very well for you. You are wearing breeches.’ Which protected his vulnerable parts. It was no joke, shuffling over a crumbling brick wall when shielded only by a cotton chemise and a bit of kerseymere, since his jacket was trailing uselessly behind her.
But at last she was right at the edge of the wall, her legs dangling down into the park. With Gregory standing below, a wide grin on his face.
‘Enjoying the view?’ she asked tartly.
‘Immensely,’ he said without a trace of shame. ‘You have very beautiful legs. Even those hideous stockings cannot disguise how very shapely they are.’
‘You really shouldn’t be staring,’ she scolded.
‘I would be mad not to.’
‘I should slap your face.’
‘You will have to come down here first to reach it.’
So she jumped.
And he caught her. And steadied her. And then held on to her elbows for far longer than was necessary. And what with all the talk of legs, and the heated look in his eyes, somehow she didn’t wish to slap his face any longer.
‘Prudence...’ he breathed. ‘Prudence, about us getting married...’
Her heart sank. She’d already worked out that he didn’t really want to marry her. That he was probably thinking of ways to let her down gently.
‘I’ve already told you—you don’t have to,’ she said, nobly letting him off the hook. If he didn’t want to marry her she wasn’t going to force his hand. ‘It was just a silly idea I had. I could—’
‘No. You couldn’t. I won’t let you go—do you hear me?’
And then, to her complete surprise, he hauled her all the way into his arms and kissed her. Savagely. The way she’d always suspected a man with a face as harsh as his could kiss.
Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was heavenly. No question this time about who had initiated the kiss. Though of course she kissed him back for all she was worth.
‘Oh, Gregory...’ She sighed when he broke away. ‘That was lovely.’
He reared back, an expression of astonishment on his face. ‘Yes, it was.’
All the pleasurable feelings humming through her dropped through the soles of her feet.
‘Didn’t you expect to like it? After our last kiss I thought— Oh! Did I do something wrong? Was that it?’ She tried to pull away from him.
But he held on to her tightly, refusing to release her from the circle of his arms.
‘How could you have done anything wrong?’ He shook his head in a sort of daze. ‘You kissed me back.’
‘Well, then, what was wrong with it?’
‘Nothing was wrong with it. That was what was so surprising. Prudence...’ He shifted from one foot to another. Took a deep breath. ‘I never really saw the point to kissing—that’s all. There are more...interesting parts of a woman I’ve always wanted to pay attention to, you see. But your mouth...’
He looked at her lips again. In the way he’d done before. The way that made them tingle, and part, and wait expectantly for the touch of his lips.
‘Your mouth is worth...’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Savouring—yes, that is the word. I would never feel as though I was wasting my time, no matter how long you wanted to kiss me.’
He cradled her face with one hand, then bent his head slowly, as if they had all the time in the world. This time he kissed her in a far less savage manner, as though—yes, that was just what it felt like—as though he was savouring her.
And she savoured him right back. Pressed herself as close to him as she could. Slid her hands inside his coat and wound her arms round his slender, hard waist. Raised one foot and ran it up and down the back of his booted calf. Feeling all the while as though her body was bursting into song.
‘Oh, Gregory,’ she moaned into his mouth when he paused to take a breath. ‘Oh, please don’t stop.’
‘I must,’ he growled against her lips. ‘I thought I could kiss you for ever, but the truth is that I’m starting to find it hard not to throw you down behind the bushes and ravish you.’
‘I don’t think I’d care,’ she admitted. ‘I know I should, but somehow—’
‘No. Don’t say it. Don’t tempt me.’ He closed his eyes as though in anguish and rested his forehead against hers.
‘Oh, very well,’ she grumbled. ‘I suppose you are right.’ After all, she didn’t really want her first time to take place out of doors, on the ground, did she?
‘Come on, then,’ he said with a sort of gentle determination. He took her hand. ‘Let’s get you into the house, while we can both still walk, and set things in train to make our union respectable.’
He picked up the valise and headed for a gap in the rather overgrown shrubbery.
‘Gregory,’ she said, when he let go of her hand for a moment to raise the branch of an overhanging beech sapling so that she could pass. ‘Can I ask you something?’
He blinked. Visibly braced himself. ‘You may ask me anything,’ he said.
‘Well, I’m sorry if you think I’m prying, but I simply cannot understand how it is your wife went with someone else. If you kissed her the way you just kissed me...’ She blushed, suddenly realising that this was one of those topics properly brought up girls didn’t mention.
‘I told you—my wife hated intimacy of any sort. With me, that is. I never managed more than a peck on the cheek.’
Good grief. The woman must have been a complete imbecile. If only she’d let him kiss her, thoroughly, he would have made her feel gloriously wonderful. Although he’d only been a stripling when he’d been married. Perhaps he hadn’t yet learned how to kiss like that.
How had he learned to kiss like that?
‘You kissed other women, then, didn’t you?’ she blurted, after turning over the thought for a while. ‘I mean, you have been a widower for a very long time. I suppose you’ve had a few...er...liaisons?’
He froze in his tracks. Turned and glanced over his shoulder at her. ‘I’ve had more than a few “liaisons”, Prudence, and you may as well hear about them now. But understand this.’ He turned and looked her straight in the eye. ‘I was angry. Bitter. I’d stayed true to my marriage vows while she...’ His mouth twisted. ‘Can you imagine how it felt to know I’d been faithful to a faithless wife?’ He seized her hand. ‘Just think how you felt the moment you knew that your aunt and uncle—the people you relied on to guard your welfare—had conspired to rob and humiliate you.’
‘Yes, I think I see.’
‘Do you? Then you will understand my burning need to make up for lost time. Why I bedded as many women as I could. Why I never risked feeling anything approaching affection for any of them. Why I made sure they knew exactly what their purpose was. Which was why I never kissed them the way I just kissed you. I may have kissed their hands in flirtation, or used my mouth or my tongue
on sensitive parts of their bodies to arouse and inflame them...or—’ He broke off, looking exasperated. ‘Good God, Prudence, how do you manage to get me to tell you things like this?’
‘I only asked you about kissing,’ she pointed out. ‘I didn’t force you to tell me anything about your...liaisons.’ Even though what he’d said had helped her understand him better. ‘You could have just told me to mind my own business.’
‘For some reason I don’t seem to be able to tell you any such thing,’ he growled, before turning his back on her and stalking off through the undergrowth.
She had to break into a trot to keep up with him. But neither the fact that he was walking so quickly nor the grumpy way he’d spoken to her could cast her down very much. For one thing, the confidence with which he was striding through the undergrowth proved that he was very familiar with the layout of the grounds. Which laid to rest her fear that they might be trespassing. For another, she couldn’t help being pleased that he couldn’t keep things from her. Last night’s confidences might have been due to some after-effect of the drug. But there was no trace of it left in either of them today. If he couldn’t keep anything from her, then it was because somehow she’d got under his guard.
She smiled. He was the kind of man who wasn’t used to sharing confidences with anyone, but he couldn’t hold back from her—not with his thoughts, or his kisses. After only knowing her for just over a day. Which made her feel very powerful, in a uniquely feminine way.
She was still smiling when they emerged, blinking, onto a massive swathe of lawn on which sheep were grazing. On its far side sat a very neat little box of a house, in the Palladian style, two storeys high. Or perhaps not so little. She counted seven windows across the top floor.
She turned to look at Gregory, who’d come to a complete standstill. He caught her enquiring look and glowered at her.
‘This is it,’ he said. ‘God help me.’
‘Whatever do you mean? Gregory, what is the matter?’
A muscle in his jaw clenched, as though he was biting back some unpalatable truth. Whatever could there be inside that house which had the power to make him look so reluctant to enter it? The dragon of an aunt? Surely she couldn’t have too much influence over him, since he claimed to own the house? Unless he’d fallen on hard times and the woman held some financial power over him? Well, that wouldn’t matter once they were married—unless she was the kind of old harpy who would make him feel bad about marrying an heiress.
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