Let him think about her and their kiss and how silly it was to worry about her age as she was obviously a fully-grown woman—one whose knees happened to be trembling as she left the room.
Since his guest room was on the same floor as hers, though at the other end of a long, wide hallway, Gray waited a few minutes after Eleanor left before going upstairs.
He didn’t fall easily asleep. He had kissed Eleanor Blackwood, and he’d thoroughly enjoyed it, except for the sense of guilt directly afterward.
Maggie’s younger sister. Beryl’s best friend. A baron’s daughter, not a servant’s offspring. Did those things matter?
If he were honest, it was the best first kiss he’d ever had, better than the first with any new lady friend. His body had leaped to attention, and he’d felt his heart thumping in his chest.
He hadn’t even touched her tongue with his, but he’d certainly wanted to. At the same time, he would have liked to cup her full breasts and grind himself against her. Somehow, he’d refrained, only by holding himself still and focusing on the feel of her soft lips under his.
If she’d been any other willing woman, he would have done much more, probably ending up with her splayed beneath him on the Angsleys’ sofa. But this was Eleanor. Clearly not a child anymore, yet still he had the need to protect her and care for her, the way he did for Beryl or the other young Angsleys.
On top of that, though, was the avid desire to explore every inch of her. How could he be so torn between wanting to cherish her and to make love to her until she couldn’t walk?
Lying in bed, one arm thrown over his eyes, Grayson groaned as he had done into her mouth, recalling what a pleasure it had been to finally kiss her. One time, a year prior, she’d winked at him over the breakfast table at Turvey House, and he’d been rocked to his core by how alluring that small gesture had seemed.
Eleanor was accomplished, good fun, and rather splendid. Moreover, when he was in the company of other females, he couldn’t help comparing them and finding them lacking. London was a necessity for his business dealings, whether handling some order for the Cambrey estate or meeting with his broker to trade on the London Stock Exchange.
And when he went every few months, he usually sought out the same couple of ladies. Neither Cyprians, nor eligible ladies, they were simply women who didn’t mind spending an evening dining, talking, and copulating. One was a widow about five years his senior, and one was a confirmed bluestocking and spinster, who vowed she would never let a man own her through marriage.
Neither knew about the other, and, thus, his need for female company was taken care of. Rather nicely, too. But he was starting to want more.
First, he’d seen Cam’s best friend, Simon Devere, marry Jenny Blackwood, Eleanor’s oldest sister, after knowing her a very short while, and then Cam, himself, had fallen prey to the swaying bustle and dazzling smile of Maggie, the middle Blackwood sister.
As for himself, a few years back, he hadn’t given Eleanor a second thought, but she’d barely been out of childhood, or so he’d told himself, even when it was obvious she had curves to spare and the sharp mind of a woman.
With each visit to Turvey House, she became dearer to him, and as each year passed, she changed from awkward teenager into a young woman. Not polished like Maggie to a high shine, not considered practical like Jenny, but something mature, deep, and intensely interesting, like nature itself.
Thoughtful, at times she could stay utterly still and focused. He’d seen her sketch for hours while studying the most minute flower. Yet like a weathervane in a stiff breeze, she could change her manner and shriek over something exciting, running about, arms flapping. Then she would seem exactly like a young girl again.
It was vexing, and yet, he wouldn’t change anything about her.
In fact, Eleanor seemed practically perfect. Gray had only to determine her feelings on certain matters, namely becoming attached to him and living in a small house on the Cambrey estate. She would be the wife of a seamstress’s son, a man in service to the very same earl her older sister had married.
Or was she hoping for bigger, better things?
She was a baron’s daughter, with sisters who hadn’t simply married well. They’d both become countesses.
Would she be content? Or was she eager for next year’s Season? For all he knew, she might have a young man already sweet on her and with whom she, in turn, was enamored. She had said she’d found some interesting men in London.
Perhaps men who were titled or, at least, sons of the nobility.
Men her own age, no doubt. If he thought on it, she was a decade younger than his widow friend, though only eight years younger than him, and a lifetime less cynical than his bluestocking bedmate.
He had no business thinking of her in a romantic way.
The feelings warring within him were like nothing he’d ever experienced. Moreover, he had known this would happen if he ever gave in to the impulse to touch her.
Now, he had to decide if he were going to give in to his baser instincts when the next opportunity arose, or take the high road and treat her as the forbidden younger sister, as he would for any of his close friends. And Cam, Eleanor’s brother-in-law, was the closest of all.
After a restless night, Gray was still pondering the issue of desiring Eleanor, while feeling he shouldn’t want her at all, when he wandered into the morning room, following the aroma of bacon and sausages.
Eleanor wasn’t there, but everyone else was except the two youngest who still ate in the nursery with the nanny.
“Good morning.” Then before he could stop himself, he blurted, “Where is Miss Eleanor?”
“She ate already,” Phoebe said, munching on toast. “She gets up very early for a girl.”
He smiled. “So, she has gone for a walk?” Eleanor had a way of moving quietly, effortlessly across a meadow, her head up watching everything like an observant deer. It was a joy to watch, and he’d done so on many a sunny day at Turvey House while going about his duties.
“No,” Lady Angsley said. “She didn’t want to miss Beryl and Philip’s departure. I believe she is with Beryl even now. You look thin, eat something,” she ordered, changing the subject.
He smiled. Lady Angsley sounded like his mother when she said that, reminding him of his duty.
“I’ll have something light and then go have tea with my mother. She knows I’m on the estate and wouldn’t forgive me not stopping in first thing.”
“You’re a good son,” Lady Angsley said. “Please take her whatever you think she might like from the buffet.”
Thus, after toast and a coddled egg, he found himself heading to the granary lodge with a basket laden with food, both cooked items and some baked goods. He wasn’t avoiding Eleanor, he told himself, as he hurried across the back lawn and then the pasture. He simply was delaying seeing her again, knowing how she affected him.
Eleanor watched the carriage until it was out of sight. It carried away Beryl, Philip, and their curiously personable cat. Grayson had appeared a minute before their departure to hug Beryl and shake the captain’s hand, and then he’d disappeared again while the rest of them said their goodbyes. Young Asher stared after the carriage, looking morose at the sea captain’s departure.
Truthfully, she felt a little at loose ends, too, with Beryl gone.
Sighing, Eleanor thought, Now what?
She hoped she would get a letter from Turvey House with some good news. Meanwhile, she’d put off her walk and now intended to take it. A watery sun was struggling to warm the earth a little, though clouds still hung over the landscape. She thought they looked beautiful.
With a cloak, her favorite straw hat, and her Wellingtons on again, she headed out the back, having got nearly as far as the first copse of trees when a figure seemed to appear from nowhere.
She gasped at the gnarled man who’d stepped from behind a birch, practically into her path.
Chapter Six
“Where are you going, mi
ssy?” the old man demanded.
Momentarily surprised, Eleanor gaped before responding. “Simply a walk, sir.”
Why she answered the brusque stranger, she had no idea.
“Be careful,” he warned her.
“Of what?”
He cocked his head of white hair, his ruddy, lined farmer’s face taking measure of her.
“Vicious foxes, for one. Though some say there are packs of wild dogs.”
She hadn’t heard of either, and, surely, someone from the hall would have told her if she needed to beware.
“I thank you for the warning. Good day.”
She had to go around him since the old man hadn’t yet moved. After she’d taken a few steps, he called out to her, “Missy!”
Hesitating, she waited.
“Don’t go anywhere near the river, not if you know what’s good for you.”
“Why, sir?”
“It’s a death-trap! All this rain has swollen her something fierce, and she’s about to spill from her bed. When she crests, it’ll be a sight to see, but only from afar. You’d be swept away and lost forever.”
She shivered. He certainly had a way about him, but he obviously meant well.
“Thank you,” she called out over her shoulder.
When he didn’t respond, Eleanor turned around and nearly shrieked, for as he walked away, hanging down his back was a coarse burlap bag, stained red from the inside with what looked like blood.
Dear God, what was he carrying? And why was he going to Angsley Hall?
Wondering if she should go back, she tried to make sense of him and his sack when she recalled the happenings of the night before. The chickens, the dogs, and the farmer.
Realizing he was carrying evidence of Lord Angsley’s spaniels’ mischievous adventures, she shook her head at her own imagination.
She would try to remember to tell Lord and Lady Angsley at dinner how the Gothic tone of her visit had continued even this morning. Then she set out on a brisk walk, what her oldest sister Jenny called a prancing pace, all the while heeding the farmer’s warning but wanting, at least, to see the River Great Ouse in all its majesty.
He’d been correct. The riverbed was full, and the water was moving more swiftly than she’d ever seen. As long as she stayed a few feet up the bank, however, she felt perfectly safe.
If the rain held off, she would bring her sketchpad the next time she walked, maybe even later in the day, and try to capture the beauty of raging nature. She wished she could sit for a while and watch, but the ground was wet. While her feet were kept dry by her boots, her cloak would do nothing to stop the rainwater from seeping from the ground through every layer.
Glancing around, Eleanor decided she could, perhaps, manage to climb onto a low branch and lean against the trunk. From such a perch, she was sure to see not only birds, but perhaps fish jumping, and other creatures coming to the water’s edge.
To that end, she placed the toe of her boot in a crevice in the tree. Wishing her Wellie’s were more pointed and not so uselessly round, she grabbed hold of the lowest branch in order to pull herself up.
A hand on her shoulder made her nearly shriek for the second time that morning. But Grayson’s voice at the same time stopped the scream in her throat.
“What on earth are you doing?” he demanded.
Gray had watched her as he’d approached. He’d left the house not long after she had, feeling a little anxious about her destination, particularly when Farmer McNeil arrived with the bloody evidence of the prior night’s mischief of Lord Angsley’s dogs. When the old man mentioned how the river was soon to crest, Gray hurried after her.
At first, Eleanor looked to be simply gazing around, quite responsibly and maturely, and then, to his surprise, she seemed to try to climb a wet, slick oak tree, whose branches all hung out over the raging Ouse.
He’d reached her as she was pulling herself up.
Without releasing her hold on the tree, she turned and looked over her shoulder, shooting him a grin that seemed to squeeze his heart.
“Perfect timing,” she declared. “Can you give me a boost? Make your hands into a stirrup for me, will you? These boots aren’t made for climbing so much as for mud puddles and stomping about.”
Was she insane?
“Are you mad? No, I will not help you into a tree so you can fall to your death in the river. Release the branch at once.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.” And he stepped forward, reaching up and disengaging her hands. “Look at your gloves, soaked and filthy.” He still held her hands but turned them palm up for her inspection.
She did look down at them, then back at him. “You sound like a fussy old woman.”
Ouch!
She yanked her hands free.
“Do you really think I would scoot out to the end of the branch over the river?”
“Well, I…I don’t know what you might do.”
She rolled her eyes. “I am not George or Iris,” she protested, mentioning two of the youngest Angsleys. “I was simply going to sit right here in the crook of the branch, safely cradled as only a tree can do, and watch.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, drawing his eyes there, though everything interesting was hidden by her cloak.
“Quietly and alone,” she added.
His gaze flew back up to hers.
“I see. My apologies, then. You’re right. I should have known better. You’ve always handled nature very responsibly.”
He looked around. “I bet the view is very good from up there, but I think we need to go up one more branch at least.”
“We?” she repeated.
“Yes, I’ll give you a hand up if you let me enter your tree paradise with you.”
She smiled, and it was breathtaking. He knew at once he was going to fall hard in an irrevocable and forever way for Eleanor if he so much as even cracked open the door to his heart.
He had a notion it was already too late.
Then she did something entirely inappropriate yet perfectly sensible. She tossed open her cloak to reveal an ordinary day gown, and she reached between her legs to grab the hem at the back. This, she pulled up, and easily tucked into the waistband of her skirt, creating a pantaloon effect.
If her mother, Lady Blackwood, could see her, Gray knew she would be scandalized.
He grinned. “Good idea. That will make it much easier.” On the other hand, he could see a portion of her stockinged legs, only a few inches though, because her boots came up nearly to her kneecaps.
“I should have worn my riding habit though, honestly, it doesn’t make me feel any more able to muck about.”
It would have been a good idea as the skirts were much fuller for draping over the pommel and the jumping head. As easily as riding in a saddle, she could have climbed the tree. Today, however, she would have to make do with his help.
Bending, he clasped his hands together and made a stirrup as she’d suggested. She hesitated only an instant before stepping onto his palms and attaining the first branch. His hands were now filthy and got more so as he scrabbled up beside her.
“You were right,” she said. “We need to go one higher.”
If they were going to do this harebrained plan, he would go up first and then help her to follow. Thus, by way of his climbing and then pulling her up as she needed, they went up two more branches.
“Oh, this is perfect,” Eleanor exclaimed as she sat in front of him with a leg dangling down on either side of the branch and balanced between his legs so he could steady her.
Looking over her head to see the river, he agreed it was a magnificent view.
“It’s just as though we’re birds,” she said.
“As long as we don’t attempt any flying,” he said, then caught his breath as she wiggled in excitement, her rear end warming the front of him.
Naturally, he encircled her with his arms to keep her safe, and after a brief hesitation, s
he settled back against him as he leaned against the trunk.
Grayson would like to have said it was comfortable, but it wasn’t. The front of him was on high alert and throbbing due to her glorious curves both in his arms and resting against him. The blood had left his head and gone to parts south, which he hoped to God she couldn’t feel.
Moreover, at the back of him, a tree knot was pressed painfully into his spine, and the hard branch under him was numbing the flesh of his bottom and thighs.
Yet, he would have sat there forever if it pleased her. As it was, they stayed for about ten minutes in absolute silence, just watching. It was the most peaceful minutes he could ever remember, especially with a female.
“I’m ready for tea,” she said suddenly and stretched.
If he hadn’t been holding her, she might have toppled out of the tree for the uncaring way she stretched out her legs and arms. He had to grip the branch with his thighs to steady them both. What a trusting nature she had!
“Though I think I am more in the mood for coffee,” she added.
Then Eleanor tried to twist in his arms to look at him. “I can’t recall whether you like coffee.”
“Stop moving,” he ordered, nearly losing his balance. Then he looked down into her upturned face, realized his arms were around this fascinating, lovely woman whose round bottom was snugged against his crotch. How wonderful was life!
He could kiss her again, though if they both closed their eyes, they might end up on the ground with broken limbs.
“Well?” she asked. “Do you?”
“What?” He couldn’t remember her question as her brown eyes blinked up at him.
Had he ever seen more soulful eyes? And with such a flame of passion flickering in their depths, he could hardly breathe.
When he sunk into her the first time, exploring the peaks of desire with her, he wanted those eyes open and looking directly into his.
The Midnight Hour: All-Hallows’ Brides Page 58
