And then she was flying.
Figuratively speaking.
It was a sensation very close to how she had felt when the earth crumbled beneath her, a sense of weightlessness, and a certainty that something unchangeable was about to happen. She slid over the edge of this new, strange cliff, flailing and panic and a rush of blood to her lungs. Only this time instead of fear, there was the most glorious feeling accompanying the fall, as though every inch of her body had been thrummed to the point of breaking and then loosened, like an arrow. And oh, how she flew.
It stretched out for a long, glorious, insensible moment.
And then she was landing, safely on her back, clouds spinning above her, one singular thought in her head.
Bugger it all, she wasn’t quite sure what had just happened.
But she was quite sure she was going to want it to happen more than once.
THOMAS SETTLED BESIDE her, gathering her into his arms.
To have seen her that way, stretched out beneath the sun, her hair flying wild about her face and her skin flushed pink with pleasure, had been the rarest of gifts. But now she looked sleepy and satisfied, and he felt the sharp arc of possessiveness to know he had been the one to put that look on her face.
Her head tipped back against his bare chest, and as her breathing gradually settled into a more tenable rhythm, her hand crept up to twine in his. How long they lay there, he couldn’t say. They drifted a long moment, lost in the low, happy buzz of the meadow, the insects and birds going about their lives as though something momentous had not just taken place here.
Thomas would have liked to linger. Hell, he would have liked to do it again.
But the sun was climbing in the sky and they had already tarried longer than he’d intended. He pressed a kiss to her hair. Though he’d left her well-satisfied, his own lack of relief was waging a stern protest. His heart might be enjoying this continued bit of tenderness, but the knowledge that there was a very naked, very willing woman in his arms was not at all conducive to the cause of wrestling his body back under control.
“It’s getting late. We should probably go back soon,” he said, shifting his body to relieve the tightness in his groin.
“Just a few more minutes,” she sighed, burrowing her naked body deeper into his arms. “I don’t want to go back to London quite yet.”
Thomas’s fingers tightened. Her words startled him, somehow. She still intended to go back to London, despite all that had passed between them? He could scarcely breathe. She seemed so at ease here, with the serpentine stone glinting about her bare neck, her body nestled against his. He’d thought she would want to stay. He’d imagined, perhaps . . .
Well, that was the problem with imagining.
So often one was disappointed when reality prevailed.
He was selfish enough to hope she might yet change her mind. Nearly selfish enough to stay here, his arms holding her close, keeping the lurking world at bay. But he wasn’t so selfish as to presume he had the right to make that decision for her.
“Your skin is starting to burn in the sun,” he pointed out. Already, he could see parts of her starting to turn pink. Though he hated to do it, he sat up and tugged her nightdress over her head, pulling it down over the body he had just so thoroughly pleasured. As the last inch of fair skin disappeared beneath the hem, he swallowed. Well, that was that. She was covered back up, hidden away. Untouchable once more.
But oh, what a pleasurable interlude it had been.
“What time do you think it is?” she asked as Thomas worked to try to remove some of the bits of grass and twigs from her hair.
“Perhaps eight o’clock. I would guess you’ve missed breakfast,” he admitted. “And that means your father will be here soon. Lizard Bay is only an hour’s coach ride from Marston. If he intends to start for Salisbury today, he’ll want to get an early start.”
She responded with a sleepy pout, but she let him put her boots on her feet and pull her up. Thomas brushed off her night dress, the sea grass clinging to the white cotton the way he wanted to cling to her. It had taken every bit of self-possession not to take what she had so sweetly offered. But much like Heathmore, he knew he couldn’t pressure her on this. The choice, when—and if—it came, needed to be hers.
He had shown her a taste of passion, but her virtue remained intact. He was rather proud of himself on that front. He’d kept her safe. There were no dire consequences in her future.
If only he could be half as sure of his own.
The walk back to Lizard Bay seemed to take only half as much time as it should, no doubt because he was dreading the return. They’d left under cover of darkness, but now the sun was rising higher overhead, and so he stopped her at the edge of town.
“I think it’s best if we part here,” he said, pulling the edges of her shawl closer about her shoulders. “I believe it is in both our best interests for me not to walk you into town in your nightclothes and deposit you on the front steps of Mrs. Wilkins’s boardinghouse.”
She arched a brow. “Because the town loves its gossip?”
He shook his head, smiling. “No, because your father loves you.” He wasn’t afraid if the whole of Lizard Bay knew how he felt about this woman. But Lord Cardwell had made his opinion of him all too clear down the barrel of a pistol. Lord knew what the man might do if his daughter showed up looking like this with her hand twined in his, a dreamy smile on her face and grass in her hair.
“I can handle my father.”
“Yes. But I don’t want our appearance together to force his hand on this. I want it to be your choice, not your father’s.”
“Do you refer to my choice about Heathmore?” she asked, blinking in confusion.
He stared down at her sunburned cheeks, not wanting to walk away just yet. He’d given her all the facts but didn’t know what she intended to do. It wasn’t his place to ask. She might decide to sell the property. Or she might decide to keep Heathmore whole. Either decision might keep her in Lizard Bay, which was an outcome he was selfish enough to want, even if one of those choices meant the destruction of the town. But harder still was the thought that she might still choose to leave with her father today, and he would be forced to watch the dust chase her coach to London.
“No, I mean the choice about us. Whether we are talking about Heathmore or about marriage, I want you to know I don’t believe there is a set of right or wrong answers. The decision is yours, and no one has the right to force you to make one or the other.” He hesitated. “I remain quite serious in my offer of marriage. It is not dependent on the outcome of your decision regarding Heathmore.”
Her eyes widened. “Thomas—”
“I would want to marry you even if you decide to sell the property.”
“But . . . how can you mean that? If I sold it . . . destroyed its natural beauty . . . Heathmore means so much to you . . .”
He reached out a hand to cup her cheek. “Can’t you see?” he told her, his fingers wanting to linger far longer than was prudent, given the high march of the overhead sun and the imminent arrival of her father. “You mean more to me than any of it. I love you, Lucy. My heart has been yours since that day on the train. Possibly even that day in your father’s drawing room. You surprised the hell out of me. You still do.”
“Thomas,” she said, shaking her head. “You are everything that is good and strong and right. But you don’t have to, just because we . . . because you . . . What I am trying to say is—”
He lifted a finger to her lips, stilling her voice. “I am not only telling you this because of that either,” he said. “Nothing happened between us that could be formally classified as ruin. A physician’s examination, if it came to that, would confirm you are untouched.” He smiled as her cheeks flamed pink. “It wasn’t even that scandalous, certainly not for a spinster as wild-hearted as you. And I am not asking for your decision right now.”
He hesitated. “I understand you are not sure if you want to marry, that yo
u consider spinsterhood to be some kind of badge of honor. But I am not some nameless, faceless stranger on a ballroom floor, angling for your dowry and wanting to change you. I love you. Just the way you are. And if you ever find that you are ready to consider marriage, I only ask . . .” He thought back to their very first conversation, that day in a London drawing room. “I only ask that you give me right of first refusal.”
“Oh.” She blinked, as though the question stung her eyes. For a moment he worried she might toss back the same witty retort she’d given him the first time.
I would not depend on it, my lord.
Instead, she drew in a deep breath and smiled slowly, as though inspiration had been found in that indrawn breath of air. “I think I can promise you that.”
His chest loosened. It wasn’t a yes. Not even close. She hadn’t told him she loved him, though he’d bared his heart neatly enough for her.
But neither was it a no.
That was a stark improvement over where he’d feared they were yesterday.
So he leaned down and kissed her. She kissed him back, her hands tangling in his coat, then finally broke off, panting up at him, eyes wide.
“Farewell, Lucy.” He turned to go.
“Wait!”
His feet stopped all too readily, his pulse a mad thing in his veins. Did she mean to accept his proposal? But no, as he turned around, he could she was biting her lip. She glanced down the street, toward the boardinghouse waiting in the distance. “Will you come with me today?”
“To speak to your father?” He chuckled. “I am not sure that is the wisest of ideas without a formal betrothal between us.”
“No, I mean come with me back to London.” She stepped forward to grab his hand, squeezing. “Come with me. Come with us.”
He shook his head, shocked by the request. “You know I cannot do that.”
“Of course you can.” She looked hurt. “I would explain things to my father. Don’t worry about him. He’s all bluster and scarcely ever bites.”
“It’s not that.” Thomas pulled his hand free, the pressure of London feeling like a weight on his chest. “I can’t, Lucy. Think of all that is at stake.”
“Do you mean you can’t come to London now?” she asked slowly, as though understanding was taking slow, painful root. “Or ever?”
His silence, apparently, was answer enough.
She pursed her lips. “Do you mean to say your proposal of marriage is not contingent on my decision regarding Heathmore, but it is contingent on the fact we must always live here, in Lizard Bay?” Her eyes narrowed. “That seems a rather selfish viewpoint. What about your seat in the House of Lords? What about my family? I know I may have put on a brave front coming here, but in truth I am very close to them. I can’t imagine being gone from them so long.”
Thomas wanted to growl in frustration. This was not the conversation he had imagined having in this moment, and certainly not the place he would have picked for it. Were they really standing in the middle of Lizard Bay’s only street having a public argument about where they might live if she ever consented to marry him?
Although . . . the fact they were having an argument at all meant she was actually considering his proposal, so he reined in his objections and shook his head.
“I can’t risk it. Surely you can see why.”
“No, quite frankly. I can’t see why.” She put her hands on her hips, her shawl slipping off one shoulder. “For heaven’s sake, it’s been three years, Thomas. Surely this business with your sister has settled now. Trust me, people have a way of forgetting the gossip. Why, four years ago my sister Clare was publicly shamed, a scandal to be covered up. That’s part of the reason my Season was delayed as long as it was. But already people have forgotten, and she is quite happily married now.”
He shook his head. “For Christ’s sake, Lucy, it is more complicated than that. Now that you’ve read your aunt’s diary, now that you know about my sister, I’d hope you might understand why I can’t live in London. My sister is a strong woman. A good woman, no matter what others might say about her. I don’t want to hurt her again.”
She gaped at him. “Again?”
And that was when he realized that perhaps she didn’t know the whole of it after all.
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
March 4, 1851
Not all grand causes have happy outcomes, but in this, I think, I shall count myself a success. Lord Branston has made great strides toward sobriety. Of course, I threatened Mr. Jamieson with bodily harm if he didn’t stop stocking whisky in his store. Reverend Wellsbury even joined the cause by watering down the wine in the parish Eucharist cup.
I suppose I might grant them both a tiny bit of claim to my success.
But most of it, I think, lies in Lord Branston’s own hands.
He is a good man, and as I watch him struggle to come to terms with his sister’s choice, I am reminded, in some ways, of my own situation. Distancing myself from the family I love is a decision I wrestle with nearly every day. I could never have been the sort of aunt they expected me to be, and I didn’t want to taint my innocent nieces and nephew with the weight of my scandal. Did I make the right choice? It is hard to know.
But I hope, someday, they might understand that I did it out of love.
To know that Lord Branston feels a similarly protective instinct toward his sister nearly restores my faith in men.
Chapter 25
Lucy lifted a trembling hand to her mouth. “Your sister . . . is alive?” As she stared up at him, she thought of all the conversations she’d ever had with Thomas about his sister.
He had said he “lost” her. That he missed her.
As Lucy sorted through the words, the specific phrases, she realized he’d never once said his sister was actually dead.
He frowned. “Didn’t the diary reveal that piece of it?”
She shook her head. “It only mentioned a secret.” She felt as though the street were spinning beneath her feet. “I thought, perhaps, that Aunt E meant you’d confessed your sister had taken her own life.” But she could see now it was so much more than that. Aunt E must not have wanted to betray such a vital trust, not even in her own diary.
His jaw hardened. “No. My sister only pretended to take her own life.”
Lucy blinked¸ trying to clear away the fog of confusion. No wonder her aunt had believed in Thomas so strongly, had trusted him so implicitly. He’d kept his sister’s confidence, even when it cost him a betrothal, even when it forced him to leave London far behind.
“I am glad you know.” His voice deepened. “But now that you do, what will you do with the knowledge?”
She looked up, startled. Once again he was leaving the choice in her hands. Not trying to pressure her or steer her in a particular direction. She swallowed the lump of gratitude in her throat, the answer instantaneous in her mind. “It is not my place to tell such a secret.”
“Thank you.” His voice was scarcely louder than her own, but the words might as well have been shouted, so fiercely did he say them. “If it becomes known . . . well, suffice it to say, Josephine would lose any small measure of respect she’s gained in the last three years.”
Lucy placed a hand on her stomach, still reeling from the surprise of it all. “If I may ask . . . why did she do it? How?”
“As to the ‘hows’ of it, the usual way, I would imagine. I’d left her behind in the country when I came to London, imagining her safe from harm and perpetually fifteen. She was only eighteen, not even out yet, when she found herself with child. So she came to London, thinking I would be able to help her. But instead of the capable older brother she remembered, she found me instead.”
Lucy blinked up at him. “I don’t understand.”
“I was drunk when she arrived, and drunk most of those hours thereafter. I was barely able to take care of myself. I suppose Josephine felt she had no other choice.”
“But . . . did she even think of what it
might do to you?”
“I half suspect she did it for me.” He shook his head. “When it became clear the gossip was going to be ruinous, she decided it would be easier for me to have everyone think she was well and truly gone.” He exhaled, his fingers curling to fists. “She was so, so certain of her path. I know it sounds like a terrible choice,” he added, “but you can’t imagine how cruel the whispers were.”
Lucy thought back to her older sister Clare’s experience with the ton, and its myriad examples of cruelty. She thought, too, of the dread she herself had felt for the Season she’d fled. “I think I can imagine,” she said dryly.
“She was only three years old when our mother died. I imagine her decision had something to do with that. She wanted something more, something better, for her own child. At least now she can live with some measure of respectability, pretending to be a widow.”
Lucy nodded. She could understand his sister’s choice. She was nothing if not sympathetic to the plight of women whose choices in life were limited by fate and Society, and who chose, instead, to take matters into their own hands. In some ways it was brilliant. There was no need to hide. No need for his sister to pretend to be something she was not.
But there was still the matter of Thomas. He was still hiding, it seemed.
And that made her want to help.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that your sister did what she needed to do, and there is no shame in that.” She lifted a hand to the little town, where it sat, quietly waiting. “But how did you end up here in Lizard Bay?” She swallowed the rest of it.
The Spinster's Guide to Scandalous Behavior Page 29
