by Liz Carlyle
Kate gave up all hope of sending the man scurrying back to bed. “Yes, Nancy didn’t take any,” she said, taking up the pot again. “You may have her cup. Do you take milk? Sugar?”
Edward paused for a moment. “I do not know,” he said. “I think I shall have both. I find myself in a mood to indulge in all that life has to offer.”
She laughed and tipped the pot. “How odd,” she said. “Nancy said something a little like that recently.”
They settled back and sipped tea in companionable silence, Edward relaxing into his armchair and Kate perched on the long sofa she and Nancy had shared mere moments earlier. After a time, he set his cup onto his saucer with a soft click, and looked at her a little mischievously.
“So, Lady d’Allenay, I gather I have competition for your favors?”
Kate almost spewed her tea back out. “What—?” she said, after forcing it down. “Are you utterly mad?”
“I’m not perfectly sure,” he said earnestly. “For all we know, I may have just escaped Bedlam and fled for the moors.”
“Edward, what are you talking about?”
“Isn’t that what the villain usually does in gothic novels?” He lifted both his harshly angled eyebrows. “Hies off to hide amidst the heather and the bracken until the hounds run him to ground in some miserable, marshy hole?”
“Oh, heavens! That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”
“Ah, you meant the part about the competition?” he said. “I merely ask because, having thus far enjoyed your nearly undivided devotion—well, except for the sheep and the late harvest—I find myself loath to give it up.”
“How flattering, Edward, when your stay here has been so brief,” said Kate a little tartly. “But by all means, do carry on.”
He shrugged a little wanly, though Kate had begun to suspect there was nothing wan about the man. “It’s just that Miss Wentworth suggests that you have your eye, perhaps, on another,” he said, his green eyes warming. “I am not perfectly sure, Lady d’Allenay, that you shall have time for anyone else. I begin to fear my recovery may be protracted, and that I may require the whole of your attention.”
“Well, you certainly have it now,” she said darkly. “Why do you not tell me exactly what it is my sister said to you?”
“That the two of you were squabbling over a man.”
“Ah, and so we were.” Kate relaxed back onto the sofa. “But it has nothing to do with me.”
“It must do,” he pointed out, “or you wouldn’t have been angry.”
Kate surveyed him warily across the tea table. “My sister has formed something of a mésalliance,” she said. “And it was that which we were quarreling over.”
“Ah! So you have no interest in the gentleman?”
“In Richard Burnham?” Kate rolled her eyes. “Goodness, I should hope not.”
“Ah, Richard!” he echoed. “Such a strong, stalwart name.”
“Had you been awake Wednesday,” she pointed out, “you’d know Richard is our rector.”
“Oh, well. He might still be strong and stalwart, mightn’t he?”
“He had better be, if he means to marry Nancy.”
“But you said it was a mésalliance,” he pointed out.
Kate shrugged. “A poor choice of words,” she said. “I’ve the highest regard for Mr. Burnham. But Nancy is, as you may have noticed, the beauty of the family. It was hoped she might make a brilliant match.”
“Hoped by whom?”
Kate hesitated, blinking for a moment. “Oh, my aunt Louisa, who is Lady Upshaw,” she finally said. “She and Uncle Upshaw live in London and are very grand. He’s Nancy’s trustee until she comes of age. They wish to bring her out in a high style and marry her off to a duke, I collect.”
“Ah,” he said quietly. “And what do you want?”
“I want my sister to be happy,” said Kate.
He paused a heartbeat. “And that happiness requires the wealth and status such a marriage would bring?”
Kate gave a sharp sigh. “Actually, I begin to believe that her happiness requires Richard. But I don’t know what’s to be done about it.”
“Interesting,” he said quietly. “But that was not, actually, what I meant by my original question.”
“What original question?”
“What do you want for yourself?” he asked, his voice pitched almost suggestively low.
“For myself?” She looked at him blankly. “What more could I want? I have Bellecombe.”
“Yes, what indeed?” After a long pause, he continued, “Well, may I gather you have discouraged your sister’s pursuit of your rector?”
She nodded. “I have.”
“Why?”
Kate began to neaten the folds of her skirt. “Nancy is just eighteen. She knows nothing of the world.”
“And you do?” He was looking at her quizzically.
Kate flashed a muted smile. “I know all I wish of it,” she said. “I did go to London for a season or two. I … met people—some of whom were quite nice, but many of whom were simply self-absorbed. I prefer Somerset.”
“And mightn’t your sister do the same? Prefer Somerset, I mean?”
“Young girls do not know what they want,” Kate chided. “They make poor choices. It falls to their elders to vet those choices.”
“Hmm,” said Edward pensively. “Why does that sound like the voice of bitter experience, I wonder? Tell me, Lady d’Allenay—”
“Kate,” she lightly interjected. His discussion was growing too personal—and perhaps too near the truth—for her comfort. “We must stand on equal footing, sir. So if you cannot call me Kate, we must make up a temporary surname for you. I propose … Clutterbuck. Yes, Mr. Edward Clutterbuck.”
“Clutterbuck?” he said, genuinely amused.
“No,” she amended. “Bracegirtle. Edward Bracegirtle. We’ve a whole clan of them over Lynmouth way. Smugglers, they used to be.”
“Well, Kate,” he said teasingly, “I might well be a smuggler for all we know. But a Bracegirtle? No, I fancy not. And if we discover that I am, why, I shall feel obliged to throw myself over a parapet. You must have a parapet hereabouts, have you not?”
“We have,” she said, “and a body or two has indeed been flung from it over the centuries. But I should prefer yours not be next, as I feel personally responsible for you.”
“Ah,” he said quietly. “Then it seems I have you just where I want you.”
“Do you indeed?” She looked at him quizzically. “And where is that?”
“Obligated,” he said, dropping his voice an octave, “to me.”
These last two words seemed to ooze like warm honey around Kate, and she didn’t like the strange, fluttery feeling they engendered in the pit of her stomach. Edward, she had realized early on, was a bit of a tease.
On the other hand, Dr. Fitch had said their patient might suffer a temporary lack of inhibition, so she had thus far brushed off that teasing. Now, however, it seemed wiser to reel him in, before he embarrassed himself.
“Edward, I fear you’re flirting again,” she said darkly. “It cannot be good for your concussed brain.”
“Oh,” he said evenly. “Well, it certainly felt pleasant enough. But there, my lady, if we cannot talk of us, I should love to talk of you.”
“Of me? In what way?”
“How does a lady so charming and intelligent come to be unwed at such a mat—” Here he paused to clear his throat. “—er, marriageable age?”
“Yes, I’m approaching my dotage,” she said dryly, “at not quite twenty-eight. And it comes about, I daresay, as much of life does. Gradually, but inexorably, and with very little planning.”
“So you’ve no specific dislike of the male species?” he said lightly. “There are some women, I’m given to understand, who do.”
She shrugged. “Well, I’ve met more than a few men whom I thought arrogant and presumptuous.”
“Does that include me?”
“Not yet,” sh
e said warningly.
A teasing smile split his face, deepening into a pair of glorious dimples that softened his bladelike cheekbones. “And so your Nancy has her worthy suitor,” he said musingly, “but what of yourself? Were you never tempted to step into the parson’s mousetrap?”
“For a man who cannot remember his own name, you’re remarkably forward,” she remarked, but with little rancor.
Indeed, it was surprisingly easy to talk with Edward—perhaps because he didn’t know who he was. Thus, he wasn’t anyone. He was also entirely without prejudgment—and, so far, entirely without advice.
“I was betrothed for a time,” she confessed, “to an old family friend, as it happened. I had adored him from afar since childhood. But in the end, we decided we would not suit.”
“In other words, you decided?” said Edward.
“Yes. Yes, I suppose I did.”
“Poor devil.” Edward smiled thinly. “Left brokenhearted by Vesta, goddess of hearth and home, likely never to recover.”
“Oh, nothing so maudlin as that, I assure you.”
“So your swain just dusted himself off and moved on?” His lighthearted tone returned. “The fellow made a brilliant marriage elsewhere and happily bred himself half a dozen brats, I suppose?”
At that, Kate looked away.
“Well?” he said expectantly.
She glanced up to see Edward studying her with more gravity than the conversation warranted.
“Actually, he never married,” she answered. “I think, really, that he never met anyone whom he loved nearly so well as he loved himself.”
“Not even you?”
“Certainly not me.”
“Ah, then you made a wise decision, fair Vesta.”
Something in his tone unnerved her, and Kate leapt up again. “We had better see if Motte has returned,” she said, starting toward the window.
Edward turned in his chair as she passed. “Who, pray, is Motte?”
“Our head groom. I sent him off again this morning on your horse. We need to find out where you’ve come from.”
And then send you back there on the very next train …
But this she didn’t say aloud. Indeed, she scarcely meant it—which was half the problem. She feared he suspected it, too. Kate could feel his intense gaze following her across the room, could almost feel the weight of his words upon her.
Had she made a wise decision?
Pondering it, Kate drew back the drapery with one finger and stared blindly down at the castle’s lower bailey. At the time, she had been quite sure of her choice; sure of what she’d seen, and sure of what it meant.
That Reggie did not love her.
And Kate had needed him to love her. Desperately so. Indeed, she had convinced herself that she loved him. But had she? In her way, yes. But to be in love? The notion seemed ludicrous to her now.
Moreover, in light of the rumors Aunt Louisa so often passed along from London, Kate had made a lucky escape; Reggie’s notoriety had become the stuff of legend. Kate certainly didn’t approve of how he’d managed his estate. And eventually, he would have dragged Bellecombe down with it. She knew that.
So why, then, had she begun to question her choice these past few years?
Because she was now nearer to thirty than twenty, and no one else had come along?
No, more likely it was because she now understood that, even if someone had come along, the awkward explanations honesty would have required of her would likely have undone Kate—and ruined any hope she might have had for her happiness.
So would it have been better, in the end, to have simply married Reggie? To have merged their estates, had his children, fought the good fight to preserve their capital, and simply looked the other way when his eye—and some of his other organs—went wandering?
No. No, it would not have.
And Kate would be damned before she’d let loneliness drive her into the arms of regret. She was a stronger person than that. She let the curtain drop.
“The bailey is empty,” she said, fixing a smile on her face as she turned. “Motte must still be—”
But to her shock, she practically hitched up against a wall of manly chest. One hand braced on a nearby chair, Edward stood directly in her path.
“What are you doing up?” she scolded.
A mere flicker of uncertainty sketched across his face. “I think I’m about to be arrogant,” he murmured, “and very presumptuous.”
Kate froze like a rabbit in the path of a large, and very dominant predator. She was staring up into eyes that were a remarkable shade of green, and only faintly teasing now. To her shame, she made no move to resist, knowing, even in her naiveté, what was about to happen. And when his hand reached for her, she let her lashes drop half shut.
Edward threaded his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck, then slowly lowered his mouth to hers. It was a kiss as languorous as it was possessive, his lips first settling warmly to hers, shaping and molding, then opening to a plunging taste of sheer intimacy.
For a moment Kate simply closed her eyes and did nothing but savor the warm, swirling sensations as his mouth moved gently but commandingly over hers. Slowly, his other arm circled around her, the palm of his hand settling at the base of her spine to make slow, melting circles as he urged her against him.
Somehow, her hands were sliding around his waist, skimming along his flanks beneath his black coat, the silk of his waistcoat smooth and warm as his ribs rippled against her palms. On a low groan, Edward deepened the kiss, his tongue stroking slowly, then twining sinuously around hers as he thrust.
Kate let her hands slip around to skate up his back under the warmth of his coat, releasing his heat and his scent in an erotic cloud of soap and male essence. She sighed, a warm, sweet lethargy washing through her on a shudder, tugging her will away with it; leaving only the wish to have this—whatever this was.
Something more than a kiss, she feared. Something warm and safe and cozy; a thing that made her want to melt into his strength even as the warmth began to snap and crackle into a reckless flame that blocked the world around her, and drew her deeper into his maelstrom.
But Kate was saved from her folly when, somewhere nearby, a door slammed. Startled, she jerked, then set her palms to his chest, pushing herself away.
Edward slowly surrendered, lifting his mouth from hers. His eyes were heavy and hooded, his expression that of a sybarite, languid but a little thwarted.
“Ah,” he said quietly, removing his warm, heavy hand from her spine. “The world intrudes, my goddess.”
Kate stepped back, eyes locked to his, her fingertips flying uncertainly to her lips. Good Lord. She was not a goddess. She was not his anything. What she was, more likely, was mad.
Or desperate.
Pathetically desperate.
Edward, however, was regarding her gravely, yet with a hint of wry humor in his eyes. “You flay yourself, Kate,” he said, in his deep, seductive voice, “so needlessly.”
“But we … we shouldn’t have.”
“Probably not,” he said blandly.
Edward was again bearing his weight onto the back of the chair, and the hand that had embraced the back of her head was now set on his hip, pushing back his coat to reveal the sleek turn of his waist.
“No, probably not,” he said again, more pensively, “but alas, I could not help myself.”
Kate slowly shook her head. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “You are a man of utter self-discipline. I doubt you’ve ever done even the smallest thing against your will.”
The rueful look returned. “You might be right,” he admitted. “But we neither of us know, do we? Indeed, we know nothing about me.” He sighed. “You’re right, Kate. We shouldn’t have. Not because you’re spoken for; you are not. And not because I am, for I am not. I might, however, be the most egregious scoundrel on earth. That, you see, is the problem.”
“How do you know?” she whispered.
Puzzlement appeared. “How do I know what?”
“That … that you are not spoken for.” She felt heat rush to her cheeks. “How can you really know?”
He shrugged. His hand left his waist, hesitated almost uncertainly for a moment, then dragged pensively through his thick, almost leonine mane.
“I know it in the way a man knows if he’s left-handed or right-handed,” he finally said. “I know it in a way that cannot be put into words, Kate. There is no other half of me; I’m only what you see before you. And I have the sense … I have the sense that I’ve never been anything else.”
“You are not a young man,” she said quietly.
His eyes crinkled. “No, I am not,” he agreed. “A man of lesser years would not be aching and limping after a mere tumble.”
Kate sighed again, and stepped around him. “Oh, it was no mere tumble, trust me.”
He laughed, and set an arm about her waist, but in a companionable fashion. “So do I gather that, even should I prove not to be an egregious scoundrel, I would simply be too decrepit for you?” he asked, strolling back to the sofa with her.
She swatted at him, and pushed him back into his chair. “Do not be ridiculous,” she retorted. “I have never seen a man so … so very …”
“So very what?” he prodded, winking.
“Arrogant,” she snapped. “There, you have achieved it.”
The wide grin flashed again. “Oh, I don’t think that’s what you meant to say, Kate.”
“Very well, then, vigorous,” she snapped. “Vigorous and virile. There, are you pleased? If sin, danger, and temptation were an unholy trinity, their embodiment would look something like you.”
For a moment, he was stunned into silence. She continued to glower at him.
Then softly, he chuckled. “Good Lord, Kate,” he finally said. “Perhaps I had better go fetch my spectacles. Nothing undercuts a man’s virility quite so quickly. Well, that or a creaking corset.”
“Or a posset,” she said on a snort. “Or a pillow for your gout. Or, if you wish, I can wrap that ankle in mustard and flannel.”
Then, to her chagrin, they both burst into laughter.
“My dear,” he said, settling back into his chair, “you have managed to entirely unman me.”
