by Liz Carlyle
Cole stared at her in stark amazement. “When what?” he asked, both his logic and his temper clearly frayed.
Jonet feigned total innocence. “When might you want to wed me?”
Every blasted minute of every blasted day, for as long as I live, thought Cole darkly. But what he said was, “Jonet, I do not recall your mentioning marriage except as a—a necessary measure. I understood you wanted an affaire—an offer which, though tempting, I cannot accept”
Suddenly, Jonet looked down and began to carefully rearrange the pleats of her skirts. “Then I am asking you now” she said quietly. “I have always wanted to marry you. There! I’ve thrown my heart beneath your bootheels! Use me and cast me aside if you will.”
“Jonet, be serious,” he whispered, letting his head fall back against the squabs. “You cannot possibly wish to wed me.”
In obvious frustration, Jonet pummeled her fist into the velvet cushion. “Oh, for pity’s sake, Cole!” she fumed, leaning impatiently toward him. “You are supposed to be possessed of a brilliant mind, but I begin to think you have no notion of what I want!”
Suddenly, the carriage lurched sharply, the left wheel striking a deep rut, sending Jonet bouncing off the edge of her seat. Instinctively, Cole reached out to steady her, dragging her slight frame up from the floor. For a long, timeless moment, their faces were almost touching, until slowly, Cole’s eyes drifted down to the high swell of her breasts. “Well, I knew what you wanted two nights ago,” he softly challenged, the words low and husky. “Did I not?”
“Oh, yes,” Jonet admitted, lowering her lashes and turning her face into his. “You certainly did.”
Her invitation could not have been more blatant, and as he watched her bottom lip quiver expectantly, Cole’s carefully honed self-control blew off its hinges. His burning jeal ousy, his aching loneliness, and all of the seemingly endless days of despair and desire exploded, melted, then fused into something hot and irrepressible. Heedless of Jonet’s attire, he dragged her up and into his lap, crushing her silk gown.
The kiss was open and carnal from the very first. Desire rose up from his belly unrestrained as her lips opened beneath his, eagerly inviting him to partake, urgently offering herself to him. Not that it would have mattered. The last several hours had driven Cole to near madness. He drove inside her mouth, yearning to take her, to possess her, to meld them together in a way which could never be torn asunder. Sinuously, Cole wrapped himself around her, entwining their tongues, their arms, and seemingly, their very souls, until his every conscious awareness was of Jonet. He wanted her. God help him, but his blood rushed and his body throbbed with the wanting. And he was no longer sure he could say no to anything she might ask of him, no matter how wrong or imprudent it might be. And so, Cole let himself slide deeper inside, probing, exploring, and leaving Jonet whimpering with need. Through her thin black gloves, her hands were hot and demanding, flowing over him like molten heat, chasing shivers of desire as she touched him. Urgently, boldly, she kissed him back, her breath coming hard and fast.
Sweet heaven, but she was so easy to know. A man would never suffer the frustration of blindly wondering what she wanted. And as Jonet’s hand slid up his inner thigh, he realized that what she wanted from him was all too plain. Unfortunately it was nothing he would—or even could—give her in the confines of a traveling coach. However, there was always tonight. But tonight they would reach Elmwood. It was as if someone had dashed a bucket of damp sand over the smoldering embers of his passion. Damn! He was in a carriage. With Jonet and her children. In what was undoubtedly a very treacherous situation, on any number of fronts. And in a few short miles, they would arrive at Elmwood Manor, the one place he really did not wish to go.
Gently, Cole began to pull back, setting Jonet a little away from him. With one last tremulous kiss, her mouth reluctantly left his, her hand coming up to cradle his face so that he could not tear his gaze from hers. The ache he saw in her eyes said it all.
“Stop, Cole,” she whispered. “Just stop trying to deny what is between us. What we have both known from the very first”
Cole had not the heart to jerk his face away, but as she had guessed, he could not bear to look at her. “And just what is that, Jonet?” he asked softly, closing his eyes and swallowing hard. “What is it that we both know?”
“That we need each other,” she said, sliding reluctantly back into her seat. “That we were meant for one another. That we love one another.”
Cole laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. “Do you love me, Jonet? Do you even know me? Have you any idea what a life with me would be like?”
Jonet’s expression was suddenly sad. “And have you any idea what I want out of life?” she softly returned. “Perhaps that is the better question.”
“I know what was meant to be,” he said, staring into the depths of the carriage.
“Oh? And what will I do, Cole,” she asked, her voice catching on his name, “when all this is over, and you are gone from my life? And please! Do not you dare give me that gratuitous tripe about ‘being there’ if I need you. I shan’t listen any more, do you hear?”
Cole turned his face away to stare through the carriage window at the passing scenery. Every village, even the cow byres and cottages, looked familiar. This was his homecoming, and the green, open landscape should have felt welcoming. He should have felt comforted. But instead, Cole felt as bleak and as lonely as the day he had left it all behind and gone down to Whitehall to join the cavalry. “Perhaps you should marry Delacourt,” he said quietly.
“Oh, my God!” Jonet’s closed fist crushed into the fabric of her gown. “Is that what this is all about? Is it? I begin to think that the two of you will drive me mad.”
Cole turned from the window to look at her impassively. “You seem fond of his mother and his sister,” he answered quietly, as if that settled things.
“What—” she rasped. “I seem fond of his family, ergo I should marry him? Cole, I play whist with them! I gossip with them! I wish for nothing more!”
“They are of your class, Jonet,” Cole gently returned.
Oh, Lord. She was going to have to tell him. Could she? Jonet could think of no other alternative. She had come to need him too desperately to go on without him. And yet, she had no real idea of when she had come to trust him. To love him. But slowly and inexorably, it had happened, and now, when they were apart, her consciousness was spiked with sudden, bittersweet thoughts of him.
If she closed her eyes, she saw him. Not just now, but every waking moment. And in most of her dreams, too. Cole, his spectacles sliding down his nose as he lost himself inside a book. Cole, bent solicitously over her boys, laughing at some inane jest. Cole, making love to her, his head thrown back in mindless passion. There was no escaping it. His strength, his decency, and his intelligence aside, the man was sheer beauty in motion as he walked, or rode, or played cricket with his unerring masculine grace. She could not possibly live her life haunted by memories the likes of those.
She looked at him again, his face bathed in the soft, afternoon sun, which shafted obliquely through the window. As they passed through the trees, the light shifted and changed, alternately shadowing then highlighting his strong, stark beauty. Never had she seen him look so bereft, so horribly alone. And yet, she resisted the impulse to reach out and touch him. It was not what Cole wanted.
And what of Cole? What about his needs and his wishes? Perhaps she was far too presumptuous in assuming that she knew what was best for him. God knew he was a strong and brave man who would fight valiantly for her. But perhaps not for himself, not against his own demons. Moreover, Jonet could not escape the belief that they were meant to be. In her arms, she had seen his almost unfailing reserve collapse. With her, he could be both firm and tender, in just the way she needed, but she had seen the wild abandon that took hold of him as he spilt himself inside her. And she had felt the peace that had flowed between them afterward.
He made her a better perso
n, and returned to her some small part of the innocent girl she longed to be again. And she had dragged him from the shadows, to make him feel passion and anger and yes, love again. Oh, they were complete opposites in almost every way, but they made one another whole. Did he not feel that metaphysical symmetry—that bone-deep sense of emotional completion—as much as she did? Surely he must! Still, David stood between them. What would he say about all this? Jonet suspected he already knew where her heart was. And perhaps he was none too pleased. But David wanted her to be happy, did he not? And if that meant having Cole in her life, then David would simply have to accept her decision.
But would Cole? Certainly not without explanation. Nonetheless, many lives were at risk of ruin. And yet, after all that she and David had been through—the denial, the guilt, and ultimately, the deep and ceaseless devotion that no one else could ever understand—she knew that he wanted her to move forward with her life. To go beyond him, and find the man who was right for her.
And damn it all, she had. Oh, yes. And she would not let him go without a fight.
———
Cole sensed the turn to Elmwood long before Jonet’s coachman slowed his team and drove them expertly between the tall brick gateposts. The gate itself was open, but the tiny gatehouse stood empty. Surely they were expected? He had sent a messenger ahead from the inn at Loughton. But as the carriage spun down the drive beneath the double row of old elms that sent the shadows sweeping over them, Cole’s heart was filled with foreboding. The crunching gravel, the rhythmic sound of the horses’ hooves, all served to heighten his anxiety. Good Lord, this had been a dreadful mistake. He ought not to have come here. He ought never to have come back again.
Abruptly, he reached forward and let down the glass, shifting his weight as if to look out through the window. Jonet’s hand came out to gently stay him.
“She is not there, Cole,” Jonet whispered gently. “There is nothing to see.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he answered, jerking back into his seat.
“Rachel,” she said, her mouth forming the word almost silently. “Rachel is gone, Cole. I know how you feel, but that part of your life is over.”
Cole opened his mouth to tell Jonet that it was hardly her business, and that she knew nothing at all about what he felt But in truth, she already knew a great deal more than he wanted her to. And perhaps it was very much her business. Was it? Was he about to make his life her concern? Was he about to foolishly lay open his heart and soul to this woman who seemed already to know him with the intimacy of an old lover?
He simply did not know. And at present, he was beyond thinking about it. The house was very near now. The carriage went rumbling over the bridge, and he could feel the coachman beginning to make the sweeping arc into the tight circular driveway. He could hear the happy cries of the boys as they sat perched upon the box. And then they rolled slowly to a stop.
Jonet’s coachman leapt down to help the boys, and Mrs. Birtwhistle rapidly descended the front stairs to stand in the driveway, her spindly arms thrown open wide. Reluctantly, Cole pushed open the door and dropped down without the steps. Then, there was nothing for it but to catch his housekeeper in his arms and give her a little twirl. After all, she seemed to expect it Certainly, she deserved it She had known him and loved him since he was in leading strings, and for the last six years, he had more or less ignored her.
“Oh!” said Mrs. Birtwhistle breathlessly, when he’d set her down again. “Why, we’d begun to think, sir, that you might never come home again, and look how wrong we were! Oh! It will be just like old times!” The housekeeper let her eager, expansive gaze drift from the children to Jonet, who was being handed down by her coachman.
She rushed forward a pace. “And please, ma’am, may I be the first to congratulate you?”
Jonet, whose rapt eyes had been drifting over the facade of the house, immediately dropped her chin and smiled sweetly at the housekeeper. “Congratulate?” she said vaguely.
Too late, Cole realized he should have seen it coming. He should have leapt forward and clapped a silencing hand over Mrs. Birtwhistle’s mouth. Instead, he froze as she blurted out the words, “Oh, congratulations indeed, ma’am! Why, we’d begun to fear that Mr. Amherst would never bring us a new mistress. And may I say we are all just beside ourselves with pleasure.”
For a split second, Jonet’s mouth hung gracelessly open. Then, as usual, her composure returned in full force. She gave a gracious laugh and leaned companionably forward, patting the old woman on the arm. “Oh, my dear Mrs. Birtwhistle!” she said lightly. “On that score, I must warn you that we are both one step ahead of Mr. Amherst.”
“A step... ahead?” The old woman looked disconcerted.
“Indeed, ma’am, I am quite shocked at your acuity!” Jonet cut a teasing look in Cole’s direction, then dropped her voice to an intimate whisper. “You see, I have indeed set my cap at him, but I have not yet convinced him.”
“What sort of cap, Mama?” asked Robert vaguely, lifting his head from the fat, and rather obviously pregnant cat, which he and Stuart had been petting.
“Oh, my!” said the housekeeper, her attention snapping back to Cole. “But your message said—” A little desperately, she began to pat her apron pockets. “I had it right here, and I thought it said that... well, that there was a lady and her children to be made at home... and I daresay we mistook your meaning, and thought...”
Cole laid his hand lightly upon Mrs. Birtwhistle’s arm. “Heaven only knows what my message may have said, ma’am,” he said soothingly. “I wrote it in such haste, I wanted only to do you the courtesy of letting you know that our arrival was imminent. And I am sure that you have prepared as best you can on such short notice.”
His remarks seemed to further distress poor Mrs. Birtwhistle. “Oh!” she remarked, one hand flying to her mouth in horror. “And I have made up the family rooms on the second floor.”
“The second floor?” interjected Jonet brightly as her coachman began to toss down luggage. “I am sure that will do nicely. I always say that two is such a lucky number, do I not, my dear?” She slid her fingers possessively beneath Cole’s elbow and shot him another spectacular smile.
The housekeeper looked as if she might say something more, but Cole simply nodded. “Mrs. Rowland is right, Mrs. Birtwhistle,” he interjected, using the name they had agreed upon. “The second floor suite will suffice.”
———
It was almost five by the time Cole finished reacquainting himself with his meager household staff, and nearer to six by the time he concluded his discussions with Moseby regarding the status of estate business. Overall, Moseby and his tenants had managed to patch things together during his absence, but after years of near neglect, many pressing issues demanded his personal attention. Time and again, he had cause to question the wisdom of his having stayed away so long.
Now, barns and granaries were urgently needed. Tenant houses required new roofs before another winter passed. The livestock required an infusion of new blood, and some serious decisions needed to be made regarding drainage and crops for the coming season. It seemed as if there was enough work to keep Cole at Elmwood for a full year without so much as an afternoon off. Here. Alone with his memories. It was a daunting prospect.
As the door to his father’s old study swung shut behind Moseby, Cole crossed the room to a side table by the window and poured out a measure of brandy. His gaze drifted over the scene below—the perfectly trimmed grass, the graceful symmetry of the rose arbor, the cheerful white belvedere, all of it framed in a high hedge of boxwood — and he thought faintly of Rachel. How often had he watched her, just strolling through that garden in her quiet, solitary way?
He stood at the window for a long moment, simply swirling the amber liquid in his goblet and staring down into the shadows, both real and imagined. But that simply would not do. He tried to will away the vision. Through the open glass, he allowed himself to breathe deeply of the
scents of warm boxwood, fresh grass, and newly tilled earth, discovering with some surprise that they were still quite comforting. Oh, yes. He had been away too long. He had left too many things ill tended, his own heart and soul amongst them, perhaps.
Suddenly, a shriek of feminine laughter tore through the silence, and Cole’s eyes shifted to the little wooden belvedere that sat in a distant corner of the garden. Behind it, young Stuart appeared to be forcibly dragging his mother out of the shrubbery. “Found you, found you!” he chanted triumphantly. “Fair and square, Mama! Now you must seek while Robin and I hide!”
But Jonet was apparently unwilling to accept her fate with anything near ladylike grace. Still giggling, she resisted him mightily. A sprig of boxwood appeared to be protruding from her hair, which was rapidly tumbling down, and her skirts were a mess of dust and cobwebs. The hem of her black dress was caught on a dry twig, revealing a lovely ankle and a goodly portion of her well-turned calf. Stuart jerked her free, then clapped his hands with delight, looking suddenly like the little boy he was supposed to be. Moving backward, he danced away from his mother. “Now, Mama, you must be sporting about it. Count, and go slowly now! You mayn’t cheat.”
Cole watched, entranced, as Jonet sweetly agreed, and then in a sudden flash of motion, darted across the open lawn after Stuart. She caught him easily, pulling him down into the warm, sweet grass and kissing him madly. Stuart shrieked and laughed, struggling to escape until his mother gave him one last kiss atop his head and then set him free.
“Aye, Stuart,” Cole muttered under his breath as he tossed off a goodly portion of his brandy. “That’s the way of her alright Sweet one moment, willful the next. And before you know it, she’s got you down and having her way with you.”
But of course, Stuart could not hear him. He was off and running, his brother and their effervescent laughter trailing in his wake. Slowly, Jonet strolled up the steps into the belvedere, shut her eyes, and began to count in a loud, ominous voice. Tearing his gaze from the scene, Cole smiled, put down his drink, and went down the hall to begin to dress for dinner. It was only later—much, much later-—that Cole truly understood that the sight of Jonet kissing her son in the lush summer grass had obliterated his irrational association between the memory of his late wife and the beauty of his garden.
