She opened the door without knocking. Sam started to demand who it was, and then his voice cut off. She raised her face to his to find a smoldering intensity there that made any words she could possibly have prepared drop right out of her mind.
"It's you."
"It is me. Who else would it be, pray tell, Sam? Have you invited other victims of the Royal Mail to come and heal at your home?"
He shrugged, his gesture loose in a way that looked a little foreign to her. He was shamefully under-dressed, down to his shirt, boots, and breeches. His limp white cravat was thrown over the back of one of the wing chairs, his jacket thrown over another one.
"If you had told me that I'd brought another menace into my home at this point, I doubt I’d really have the wit to argue with you."
The words came out slurred.
Marilee blinked at him.
"Why, you're foxed!"
"No, a lord is only foxed when he cannot sit a horse or fire a shot. I can do both of those things. Therefore, I am not foxed."
Marilee had been taught that men who were in their cups were dangerous. Even restrained lords might forget themselves and do things they would later regret. However, instead of turning and going back to her room, Marilee took another step in, closing the door after her.
"Well, I suppose you have more experience in that area than I do. Is this what you've been doing for the past few days?"
"You sound very recriminating, Marilee."
She grinned at the exaggerated hurt in his tone. She came to sit down next to him on the divan next to the crackling hearth fire. There was plenty of room between them, nothing to get worried about, or so she told herself.
"If I'm recriminating, it must be because I miss you. Where have you been, Sam?"
For a moment, she was sure he wouldn't tell her the truth. He looked as if he were fishing for some kind of lie to feed to her. She would have told him to forget it, to keep his secrets despite the trouble she had taken to find him, but then he shook his head.
"Avoiding you."
"That was rather blunt of you."
"You're lucky you caught me a little drunk, Marilee, I wouldn't have said it otherwise."
"Well, why in the world not? We are friends, aren't we? Why would you ever hesitate to tell me the truth?"
Sam laughed, and there was a hollow sound to it. Suddenly, the amount of space between them felt like less of a protection than it had been before.
"We're friends, is that what you think?"
"It is."
Sam took a long look at her face, and then shook his head.
"You are a very strange thing at that."
She stared at him as he finished off whatever was in the tumbler in his hand. It wasn't the deep garnet of good sherry, but instead, something that gleamed gold in the firelight.
"I was told you were drinking sherry."
"Someone made a mistake. Who was that, by the way? I left orders I wasn't meant to be disturbed."
"If you think I am going to tattle on someone who did me a good turn, you're mistaken. Besides, it's all to the good. Everyone's been very confused and concerned about you."
He gave her a strange look, pouring another inch or so of whiskey in his glass. Marilee was relieved when he didn't simply drink that, too, but instead, sat with the cut glass tumbler in his hand and watched her.
"I must be very blessed to have so many people worried about me."
"You are. There's no one worried about me."
She hadn't meant to say it. Her hand came up to her mouth, but Sam shook his head and pulled it down again. Then he held on to it, and in a moment, it didn't feel strange at all. Instead, it felt like something inevitable and familiar and good.
"I don't think that can be true, Marilee."
"Well, it is, and we had a pact remember? No secrets."
He nodded. "Yes, no secrets. But that leaves so many other things, doesn't it?"
This is where the good girl would flee, when she heard that hungry tone in his voice, when the gleam in his eyes matched the gleam of the fire on the hearth.
"Does it?"
"Why did you come to find me, Marilee? Be honest, because God knows I cannot abide a liar."
"So you have said before. Fine. I came to find you because I missed you."
She gasped a little when he reached over to cup her chin in his hand. There was that fiery jolt that occurred whenever they were in close proximity to each other. He looked deep into her eyes, and she looked defiantly back, refusing to be cowed. Finally, his gaze softened. and he let her go, his fingers tracing a soft pattern across her cheek as he pulled back.
"You are honest. God above."
"You needn't sound so confused. I've never lied, just... stayed silent."
And, of course, there's the matter of my ankle, but we're not going to get into that.
"I never want you silent."
Marilee had to grin at that. "Are you sure? For a man who treasures his privacy and his quiet life, I can imagine that I am like having a noisy puppy bouncing around."
Sam laughed at her words, shaking his head. "I have always liked dogs, though I've not had one around since I was a boy. Perhaps I'll need one around after you leave."
The reminder that what they were doing was not permanent struck her to the heart, and Marilee stood, stepping back from Sam.
"I'm sorry. All I meant to do was to find you and to make sure that you are all right. I should return to my bed now."
Sam must have been less drunk than she had thought, because he was fast enough and steady enough on his feet to rise and take her hand.
"You mustn't think that I can replace you with a dog, Marilee."
She stared at him, and he was so earnest, she started to laugh.
"You are ridiculous, Sam. I am so glad that that damned coach smashed up close to Huntingdon. Otherwise, I would never have met you and found out what a truly odd man you are."
"Am I so very odd?"
"Assuredly so."
She reached up, intending only to run her hand down his cheek, but he caught her hand, bringing it to his lips instead. He nuzzled the cup of her palm before kissing it gently, and Marilee had to bite her lip to suppress a soft sound of pleasure.
"If I am odd, I am glad it is an odd that pleases you, at the very least."
"It... pleases me very much. Please don't hide from me anymore. Soon enough, my ankle will heal, and I'll be gone anyway."
A brief look of pain crossed Sam's face and he nodded.
"All right. No more hiding. I promise."
He walked her back to her room, and though he did not kiss her again, Marilee knew in her heart that it would only be a matter of time before he did.
She told the flutter in her belly upon thinking of that future kiss that it was all quite impossible, but obviously, something inside her did not agree.
* * *
8
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CHAPTER EIGHT
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Sam was glad he had not been drinking enough that he'd forgotten that talk he'd had with Marilee. It would have meant forgetting the way that hearth fire picked out points of garnet in her dark hair, how as she stood, her form was lovely and soft in the darkness.
Of course, he was grateful for other reasons as well. If she hadn't come to find him, he might not have seen her until her ankle healed up and she left. Instead, the next day, he managed to get up at a decent hour, and even if he wasn't the most sociable, they passed a pleasant breakfast together. If she grinned a little too knowingly at the way he flinched from the strong sunlight coming in through the window, she didn't say anything, and for that, Sam was profoundly grateful.
She was shy and more than a little nervous when he offered to take her riding. He soon realized it was more than just her ankle that held her back.
"I've ridden, of cours
e, but it wasn't one of the things that I have ever spent much time doing. There isn't a great call for women to do it in London. I suppose, at the end of the day, I am a little frightened of horses."
Sam stared at her with frank surprise. He realized he had been in the country long enough that he'd forgotten how divorced Londoners were from the natural world. The gentry women in Yorkshire rode as well as the men did, whether they did so primly side-saddle, or in long split skirts that allowed them to ride astride.
"Come here. I have someone I want you to meet."
To Sam's delight, Marilee got on famously with Briseis, the gentle mare delighting in Marilee's increasingly confident pettings and offered apples.
Sam grinned at her. "Ready for a ride?"
Marilee's response was a gleeful yes.
Sam realized later that he would remember that day for his entire life. Marilee was surprised when he was strong enough to simply lift her up on Briseis’ back, and when he had climbed on behind her, she settled back against him as if they had been doing this since they were children.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes!"
She had a natural seat, even as tense as she was, and in a matter of moments, Marilee forgot all about fear in favor of delight. Briseis, sensing the pleasure of her new favorite human, ran all the faster, and Marilee started to laugh.
By the time Sam brought Briseis in a wide circle back to the stable, Marilee was breathless, and her hair had started to come down, inky black strands against her snow-white throat.
"God, but you're beautiful."
The laughter faded, and it left her looking at him with those large emerald eyes. "You should not say such things to me."
"I know that this will not last. I want to say them while I can."
She couldn't tell him yes or no, but she didn't stop him went he planted a soft kiss on her forehead. There was something warm and lovely about her, something alive, and Sam felt as if he had simply been walking among the dead the whole time he had lived in Yorkshire.
In the end, it was not one thing or one moment. All that Sam knew was that even after such a short time, he couldn't take his eyes off Marilee when they were in the same room, and whatever she was doing, he wanted to be doing as well. He would have thought that sooner rather than later, they would have gotten sick of each other, and that they would, of course, start to naturally spend time apart.
Instead, the more they saw of each other, the more they wanted to see of each other, and Sam started to think of the day they would be parted with a pang of near-panic. Whenever he tried to put it out of his mind, the thought would pop up, and the specter of returning to the way he had once lived, alone and silent, was almost terrifying.
We've been very lucky. There is no other place, no other time when we could have been like this with one another. There is no way we could have had this in London. there is no way we could even have this in Yorkshire. This is a perfect meeting, and sooner or later, we will have to return to the world as it truly is, not how we wish it were.
The problem was, of course, that already in his life, he had had to face the harsh reality of the world. He supposed it had made him stronger, but it had also left him uninterested in returning to that reality when he didn't have to.
Instead, one bright winter day, he took Marilee driving in the small barouche that he had had no use for since there was no one to drive with.
Bundled up in an old fur coat that he suspected had originally belonged to an older female relative of his, Marilee laughed and watched the passing countryside. She didn't mind how close they were sitting, and once, when a small flock of birds broke out of the bush, she grasped on to his arm with a laugh.
Sam was set on enjoying the ride, but all unbidden, thoughts of his time in London crept into his mind, a time when he had driven in Vauxhall with another young woman on his arm. It was completely unfair. Marilee had nothing in common with Arabella at all, and she didn't deserve the slow tide of anger and remembered pain that swept over him.
"Are you all right?"
Sam jumped a little, looking at Marilee in confusion.
"What?"
"I wanted to know if you were all right."
"What makes you think something is wrong?"
She gave him that faintly amused tolerant expression that she seemed to wear so well. He suspected that from anyone else, it would be frustrating, but from Marilee, somehow it was adorable.
"Well, suddenly it was as if the temperature dropped by a few dozen degrees, and you are staring at the road ahead of us as if you want to kill it. I assume that something is going on in your head."
When he looked down at her, he felt all that darkness and all that grief just melt away. The ghosts of the past couldn't harm him when he was with her.
He smiled at her. "As a matter of fact, there's nothing important going on in here at all. We're almost to the spot I wanted to show you."
His grandfather had made the Winthrop fortune in stone, and there were still quarries throughout the country that bore the Winthrop name. The quarry closest to Huntingdon itself, however, had been mined out for years, and over time, it had filled partially with water. The alkaline quality of the quarry walls had prevented anything from growing or living within, however, and when Sam drove Marilee to the edge, they were met with a perfectly silver mirror of water, smooth and clear.
"Oh, my goodness, it's so beautiful."
"I have always thought so. My father said that it was beautiful in spite of the death of the water. My mother said it was beautiful because of it. I could not tell you which had the truth of it, but they both agreed that it was beautiful at least."
"It's incredibly gorgeous, but don't you find it sad as well?"
"Sad?"
"Because nothing lives in its waters or in its shores. I think it must be lonely."
Sam smiled at her and took her bare hand in his. It was a little red and chapped from the weather, and Sam made himself a note in the back of his mind to see about getting her a pair of leather gloves.
"You think I'm lonely; you think the old quarry is lonely. Are you on a mission to befriend the world?"
"There are worse things in the world, aren't there?"
"I suppose there must be."
For several long moments, they looked out at the quarry, lost in their own thoughts. At least, Marilee looked out over the quarry, and Sam watched her.
When he spoke, it was both a surprise and with a feeling of intense warmth and familiarity, as if he had always known that it would come to this place, this moment.
"Stay with me."
She turned to him, green eyes wide. "What?"
"Stay with me. I know you don't want to tell me what your trouble is, but—"
"What kind of trouble do you think I have?"
Sam snorted. "Do you think I am utterly blind? You're not even twenty-five yet, are you? There's no way in the world that you are on your own. Whatever you have chasing you, I want you to know that you will always be safe here. You can stay here, you can—"
She was shaking her head. "No. Sam. I… thank you for the offer, but no. I can't stay here. I'm leaving as soon as I can."
"And I am saying that you do not have to. Having you here has been so good. You can't imagine how good it is to have someone else here with me."
She tried to smile. "I knew you were lonely. Now, you just need to find someone who will keep you company on a long-term basis, perhaps some sturdy Yorkshire girl."
Anger trickled through his brain. "No. Don't you understand? I'm not looking for just anyone, I mean—"
"You mean that the first person who has come through in years has managed to be... to be sociable enough for you to form an attachment to. Sam, I'm not special. And I'm not staying."
Sam stared at her for a moment, and something in him that had warmed up froze over again. In a distant corner of his mind, he knew he should be humiliated, but instead he was only cold.
"I see. Thank you for... be
ing sociable enough to let me know all of that in no uncertain terms."
Marilee reached for his hand, a look of regret on her face.
"Sam…"
He shook his head. "No. You have been quite clear. I apologize if I have mistaken the way things stood between us. Come on. We should return to the manor before dark."
Diana Sensational Spinster's Society (The Spinster’s Society) (A Regency Romance Book) Page 29
