“Yes,” Francesca replied. “He did indeed.”
And he was acting strangely of late. Being in the same room as her. Watching her. Being not only nice to her, but if she wasn’t mistaken… flirting with her just now.
Flirting.
From Adam Sturridge.
“I cannot imagine the torment he is in, to be near and yet so far from his heart’s desire.”
“Um… yes, I suppose…” Francesca replied, somewhat doubtful.
“To not be able to declare himself for fear of ridicule! Oh, the agony he must be in!”
“I don’t know if agony is the right word –”
“It’s just so tragic. But we should speak of other things, lest our sadness show when they return,” Georgie sighed dramatically. “Come, what do you think of these marzipan treats?”
But Belinda was no longer listening. There was too much to work through.
Adam was acting strange.
Adam was acting strange because he was sad.
His sadness was caused by his having to go back north soon.
By leaving… her.
Because he loved her.
No matter how many times she repeated those sentences in her head, they still didn’t make any sense.
Unless…
Unless she had been wrong all these years, and was now only seeing it. Unless Adam Sturridge had always made the back of her neck prickle because of a reason other than annoyance.
Unless she felt something that she had denied, too.
No, no. She couldn’t think on that now. Right now, she had to paste a smile on her face, and go back into that room, pretending she hadn’t heard anything.
So that’s exactly what she did.
“I’m so sorry, Georgie,” she said as she swung into the room, entirely composed (or at least she hoped she was). “I have no idea where Adam is.”
Georgie watched her closely, but then just shrugged. “It’s no matter, I’m certain he’ll turn up. Here, would you like to try a bit of this trifle? I think it glorious, but I’m afraid it might be too messy for such a crowded party.”
As Georgie offered a slice of the treat, and smoothly Belinda took it, it was as if nothing had been said, or overheard. As if there had not been fainting twenty minutes ago. Indeed, as if the world was completely normal, spinning along as it always had.
Even though Belinda’s world had ground to a complete stop.
And she hadn’t a clue what to do about it.
Chapter Six
* * *
“What, precisely, are we supposed to be looking for?” Adam asked, pulling on his hat and gloves.
“Crocuses,” John mumbled, his mouth full of bacon, shoveling the last of his breakfast into his mouth as he likewise pulled on his heavy outer coat. “Francesca wants them for Miss Gage’s party.”
“The party’s not until Friday.”
“Yes, but Francesca is worried that last night’s snow is going to destroy them,” John sighed, as the butler opened the door for them. “She scattered the bulbs through the woods last year so they should be flowering by now.”
Last night winter had made one last attempt against the coming spring, and dropped a few inches of snow on their newly thawed ground.
“Just tell me, is there anything your wife can’t get you to do?” Adam asked, following his brother out the door. “Searching for crocuses, running back and forth between home and your government work in London… I’m simply curious about your limitations.”
John pulled up to a stop out on the front step, turning to him. “Adam, someday you will have a wife and you will realize that there is nothing you won’t do for her. Are you ready, my dear?” he called out, and for the first time Adam noticed Francesca standing in the drive in front of them.
Right next to Belinda Leonard.
“You kept us waiting for whole minutes,” Francesca said, giving her husband a loving peck on the lips. “It’s positively scandalous.”
It was the first time Adam had seen Belinda since she’d found him behind the painting of monks doing surprisingly non-celibate things. And he was finding it very hard to not think of those monks as he watched Belinda Leonard.
She carried a basket filled with garden tools, wearing a cloak over the blue gown that she’d worn a half dozen times in the last few weeks. He didn’t know why he noticed that. Or why he’d taken notice of it in the past. Maybe because she looked particularly well in it, the cut of the gown elongating her form and the color bringing out the brightness of her skin.
“Adam?” Francesca was saying. “What do you think? Does the plan sound agreeable to you?”
“What was that?”
“I said we should split up, John and I will take the west side of the house, you and Belinda can take the east.”
“Me and…” Adam stuttered.
“Me?” Belinda squeaked. It was the first word she uttered since he arrived.
“Is that all right?” Francesca asked. Then lower, to him. “I would go with you but John has no idea what crocuses look like. Besides, Belinda knows where we scattered the bulbs last year.”
“No, that’s fine,” Adam said quickly, feeling the heat creep up his neck. “As long as you don’t mind –” he said, turning to Belinda.
“No, I can… I mean, that’s fine. It’s of no importance.”
“Right. No importance,” Adam agreed swiftly. Then, clearing his throat, he held out his hand. “Well then…. shall we?”
She stared at his hand, unblinking, for the longest stretch of seconds Adam had ever been tortured by. Then she reached out, and put her basket of tools in his hand.
“We shall.”
* * *
As they made their way through the copse of trees to the east of Sturridge Manor, Belinda regretted giving her basket to Adam. Not because she would have rather taken his hand in hers – no, of course not, that was far too silly. But because since he had her equipment, it meant that if she wanted to use said equipment, she had to keep pace beside him.
She couldn’t run twenty feet ahead. She couldn’t veer onto a different path, to cover more ground. No, she had to stay within reach.
And being close to Adam Sturridge was not something she was prepared for that morning.
“I don’t see anything besides snow,” Adam said.
“They are purple flowers, a few inches off the ground,” she explained. “We scattered most of the bulbs just off the path, no more than six feet away.”
“Wait,” he said, coming to a halt. “What path?”
She, too, had to stop. “The path we are standing on right now.”
“There’s no path here,” he replied.
“Of course there is.”
“No – look.” He stepped three paces to the left on to the fresh snow.
“Stop!” she cried. “What are you doing?”
“Walking through the woods. Where there is no path.”
“You could be crushing crocuses!” She huffed out a breath. “There is a path, and it is right here.”
Adam sent her a look. “Belinda, I grew up here, and I’m telling you there is no path through these woods!”
“And I have walked through these woods for the past fourteen years, and I’m telling you, there’s a path, you’ve apparently just never paid any attention to it.”
“Apparently!”
“Yes apparently!” she retorted. “And apparently it’s not the only thing you haven’t paid attention to.”
His eyebrow went up. He stepped back towards her, coming to a stop so close to her she could see his breath.
“What else have I missed?”
Belinda sucked in her breath. But when she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. Her heart was beating too fast. Her mind muddled and racing.
The blame lay squarely in his eyes. His eyes, which previously she had always considered to be a rather dull greenish-brown she could now see were a mossy color, shot through with sparks of gold. And they way they looked at her… made
her lose her courage.
“Just… crocuses!” she replied instead, her gaze falling with relief to his boots, and the hint of purple peeking up through the snow, mere inches from his boots.
She fell to her knees, and began pushing the snow back from the buds.
“Uh, Belinda?” came a voice from above. “What are you doing?”
“What we’re – oh.” She sat back on her heels and saw that she was eye-level with Adam Sturridge’s thighs.
Now, she was not an aficionado of the male form, but she had been to a museum in London once with her uncle as he conducted some business. On that trip, she viewed a number of Greek and Roman statues. For some reason, the thought filled her mind that Adam’s thighs were comparable with any of those statues. Just as well formed, and just as hard.
Really, this was becoming unseemly. This… distraction he was causing in her, simply by being there.
Or rather, by her being aware of it.
“I’m doing what we are suppose to be doing,” she said, stiffly. Somehow she found her voice and managed to make it sound as if she were completely unaffected. At least, that was the hope. “Keeping the crocuses from freezing. Are you just going to stand there, or help me?”
He jumped back, finally realizing that their awkward position could just as easily be remedied by his moving as it would by her. He turned three times, like a hound trying to find the best position, then knelt in the snow beside her.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” he said, as he handed her the little garden rake from her basket.
“What?” she asked, forcing herself to concentrate on the little purple flowers.
“It means we weren’t on your ‘path.’ Actually.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You are much more tolerable when you don’t have a triumphant tone in your voice.”
He grew still beside her. “So you find me tolerable?”
She turned and looked up at him. Her voice caught in her throat. “Rarely,” she finally managed, turning a particularly warm shade. “But occasionally.”
“So… what are you doing?” he asked.
“Ah. I’m clearing the snow away from the flowers. So it can’t freeze the bulbs.”
“And is the guaranteed to work?” he asked.
“Honestly, I have no idea,” she replied. “Francesca sent me a note this morning and said it was an absolute necessity, so… here we are.”
He nodded. Then… nothing.
He just sort of… stayed there. Beside her. Kneeling on the cold ground.
“You could look for other flowers,” she offered. “We scattered the bulbs in groups.”
“Right,” he said, brightening. “I’ll… just go do that, shall I?”
Belinda did not hide her sigh of relief. She was glad that they had managed to not succumb to bickering, but without the bickering, there was only awkwardness. And awareness. Having him at a slight distance… yes, that was much better. That, she could handle.
“I found some!” he called out.
“Good,” she replied, not moving from her spot. “Just remove the snow from around them.”
“And the dirt too, correct?”
“What?” she stood. “No, not the dirt.”
“But –”
“But nothing – flowers need dirt, Adam.” She crossed to him immediately, and saw exactly what she expected. A trowel full of snow and dirt and a bulb practically shivering.
“Oh heavens, you’re doing it all wrong!” She bent to take the trowel out of his hand, but Adam pulled it away.
“I can do this perfectly well, thank you.”
“Obviously you can’t if your dragging up half the ground when you –”
“Would you stop?”
“Not until you –”
“Oh, for God’s sake, you can’t stop can you?” he cried, throwing the trowel to the side, which sank into a mound of snow, lost till the thaw. “You can’t stop correcting me and everything I do?”
Belinda met his eyes, her blood rising like a tidal wave.
“I don’t do it to be mean,” she countered. “But if things are done right the first time they aren’t a problem later.”
“Well that’s me in a nutshell,” he yelled. “A blunder to start with, and a problem now.”
“Well thankfully, you’re not my problem!” Belinda yelled back.
He took two steps, closing the gap between them. “You know you’re acting awfully churlish for someone who is supposed to be in love with me.”
For a moment, everything stopped. The rustling in the trees, the slight crunch of snow beneath her feet as her weight shifted, all went quiet as Belinda’s ears heard the words he said, and her mind vaguely began to understand them.
She wondered if this is what going mad felt like.
“What?” she exclaimed. “I’m in love with you?”
He blinked at her. Twice. “Well…” he fumbled. “Yes.”
“I’m not in love with you!” she replied, shocked. “You’re in love with me!”
Now it was his turn to be shocked. His turn to rock back as if struck. “No I’m not! Miss Gage said you were in love with me! That’s why you’re setting your cap after Bertram.”
“That doesn’t even make sense!” she replied. “And I’m not setting my cap after Bertram Gage, and… and Georgie and Francesca said you were pining for me – that’s why you delayed going back north!”
“Complete rubbish!” he cried, crossing his arms over his chest, and turning bright red. Then he began to pace. “So you’re not in love with me.”
“Of course not! And, er… you’re not in love with me?”
“Absolutely not,” he replied. “Right. Because if I had been in love with you, I would have certainly known it by now, I should think.”
“One would hope.” She nodded fervently.
“Yes, and if you had been in love with me, I should have known it too. But you’ve never given a damn about me at all.”
“Now hold on –” she said, but was too busy talking himself into a fine lather.
“I’ve been dirt beneath your boots ever since we met. I can’t believe I –”
“Adam, I said hold on!” she said firmly, dragging his attention away from his own diatribe. “That’s not fair.”
“But it’s true. Come now. Ever since we were children. You wouldn’t even accept my apology about the bowls game.”
Now she crossed her arms over her chest. “Excuse me, but you never apologized for that.”
He pulled up short, turned to her. “Excuse me, I certainly did.”
“No you didn’t.” she said. “You might have thought you did. You might have said it to John, or to Francesca, but the words were never said it to me. That is something I would have remembered, I can promise you that.”
“Well, then I’m apologizing now,” he said suddenly.
“For heaven’s sake, why?” she threw up her hands. “It was so long ago, it doesn’t matter.”
“It seems to matter to you. So I apologize. For being a prideful idiot when I was twelve… through twenty-seven.”
“Oh,” she said. “Then… thank you.”
They stood there, dumbly, for whole seconds.
“Well?” he finally said.
“Well, what?”
“Are you going to apologize for anything?”
“Like what?”
“Like… holding a grudge for so long that we couldn’t be friends?”
“I never held a grudge,” she said, shaking her head.
“Are you mad?” He threw up his hands.
“I didn’t hold a grudge,” she replied. “You just never liked me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I liked you,” he said, bewildered. “I did. Your first ball, I asked you to dance.”
“To make fun of me.”
“No, to dance with you. Why on earth would it be to make fun of you?”
“Because it was a waltz, and you knew I didn’t know how to dance a
waltz and you would just go back and make fun of me to all your regiment friends.” Her voice was hot, her face burning at the memory.
“I had no idea you didn’t know.” He replied. “How could I?”
“I…” she faltered. “I…”
“I couldn’t know that. And you turned me down so cruelly it stuck my feet to the ground for the rest of the evening – I didn’t dance with a single girl. And I had plenty of chances, you know, because I was wearing my red coat for the first time.”
“I remember,” she murmured.
“I thought… I thought that if you didn’t want to dance with me when I was in my uniform you never would. I liked you,” he said, moving to stand in front of her. “You just couldn’t see it.”
“And I liked you,” she replied, feeling something wet on her cheek. “You just couldn’t see it. I was so worried when you joined the regiment. I wrote you all the time.”
“I never got any letters,” he replied.
“Ladies can’t write unrelated gentlemen letters, Adam,” she sighed. “I sent you articles.”
“Articles? You mean those packets of clippings from ladies’ journals that came with John’s letters? About how best to darn socks and dry wool?”
“Yes, those!” she sniffled. “John included them in his letters for me.”
“So… you didn’t want me to have holes in my socks at war?”
“I didn’t want you to be shot either, but sparing that, I didn’t want you to be miserable.” Her sniffle turned into a little watery laugh. “And when you went to your estate in the north, I gave you that entire packet of articles about sheep herding, remember?”
“I… thought you were doing that to show me how much I didn’t know,” he said quietly. “How bad I’d be at it.”
“Of course you would think that. Because I’m Belinda Leonard and to you, I’m the girl who is controlling, and mean, and holds a grudge for fifteen years and… just annoys.” Her voice became little, and she shivered against the cold creeping through her cloak. “That’s all I am.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t take the way he was looking at her, with such pity and confusion. She couldn’t take the way she was feeling, lost and cold.
She couldn’t take standing there any longer. So she didn’t.
A Gentleman For All Seasons Page 5
