by Lisa Torquay
His hand slid down to her soft full breast, palming it as if he had found heaven. She wore no stays, bloody hell! He would be lost in five seconds! She groaned as is thumb sauntered her erect nipple. He went so hard it hurt. Their kiss became more profound if that was possible.
“I’ll come to you tonight.” He murmured on the brink of shaming himself. “I cannot wait any longer.” Passion overthrew him.
Her hands lowered to his chest and push him in a brusque movement. Her hazy eyes lifted to him, a dazzled expression transmuting into one of confusion, as if she lay between a rock and a hard place.
She had signed the agreement she herself had requested days ago. He had felt smug at the occasion. Attention down on her at that second, though, he did not feel so certain. Quickly, she disentangled from him and left without a word.
Damn. Damn! Damn it to blasted hell! Aurelia cursed on her way out of the orchard. What was she thinking? Fool, fool that she was! Telling herself off, though, would not change the fact she caught fire in his arms. Again!
There would be no way of escaping the whole… mechanics of it. She had signed the agreement. If he had not claimed his husband’s rights these last days, maybe because he had set upon himself not to do it. He might, though. And would, by the looks of it. No other option available than to abide by this, blast it! He met the terms on his side. She must do the same! And melt. And surrender. And be a fool. And enjoy, for pity’s sake! He had come back a full-blown man, hot blooded and intent on seducing her. A man she had not known before today. A man she did not find in herself to resist, despite everything. What got into her? Her insides twisted in a caricature of jumbled feelings, frustrated desires, mal-resolved loneliness. The solution? Be stupid anew to the point of falling for him as before and being hurt all over again! No, oh no! She would not permit herself that final downfall. Ever!
She marched to the kitchen to talk to cook, fuming and angry with herself.
Now, ask him if she showed up for dinner. Clearly not! Every time he gave a step toward her, she gave three backwards, sideways. Away. Blazing hell, but the kiss swamped him with heavenly bliss! The way they merged in each other. The passion, her fiery response got him enthralled, ravaged. Her withdrawal put him in an impasse. Of course, he could seduce her, as he had. And then what? Listen to her crying bitterly one more time. He did not forecast if he would survive it. No, he would not. That had been one of the most lacerating sounds of his life. His wife weeping because of his mistakes.
He had faced enough consequences of that past in the lives he had destroyed one way or the other. The people in is estate living on too little, the gambling companions who returned home with nothing, the odd crowd he drank with, and brawled with, hurting many. The women he paid and never remembered having treated with dignity. It resulted in a long rap sheet. One he did not feel proud of remembering. One that shamed him to wrenching depths. He would not force his own wife to that. At least he had learned a few lessons with his past mistakes. The worst being perhaps his marriage was lost forever.
After eating a delicious dinner with indifference, poor cook, he walked to his study. He crossed with Hughes in the corridor, seeing a worried expression on his face.
“What is it, Hughes?”
The butler eyed him distractedly. “Milord.” He bowed. “I am going to call milady. There is a situation.”
“Lady Strafford had a busy day. Can I be of assistance?” The amount of work she took upon her lay beyond reasonable. If he could, he would like to unburden her.
“One of the school children is missing, milord. It is possible milady knows something.”
Conrad taught in the school the whole week. Even aware of it, the butler sought Aurelia. What did it say about the trust his people put in him?
“I met the children all week, as you remember.”
The butler made a startled face, as if having that sudden memory. “Of course, milord.” He breathed tense. “It’s Bess, milord, the cook’s daughter.”
“She mentioned something about finding her kitten, if I remember well.”
“Yes, Lord Strafford. Cook said this, but now we don’t have an idea of where she is.”
A quick walk to the front door, Conrad instructed. “I’ll get my coat. Please, have my horse saddled.”
“Yes, milord.” Said the butler, positively surprised.
Conrad, Bess’ father and a few other tenants rode about the lands calling and looking for Bess. The darkness did not help. The fact Bess was in the habit of running all around the huge estate did not either. They separated to cover diverse areas at a time. This would take several hours, he estimated. They would be searching into the night. He regretted not instructing Hughes to send a message to Aurelia, so she would find out about his whereabouts, whether she liked it or not, the message or the whereabouts equally.
Chapter Five
Aurelia sat by her secretary, staring fixedly at the connecting door; she waited with a mixture of apprehension and expectation. Her heart performed elaborate pirouettes. He had said at the orchard he wanted to visit her chamber tonight; to that, she would not say no. Did she want to, she wondered? The hour grew late; no light came from his chamber though. Or any movement. He might be in the study as usual. She preferred to lose an arm than to ask any servant and give them, or him, any hint of what her mind roved about. So, she sat and waited. Anticipated. Recollected.
In her usual priggish nightgown, for lack of anything else. Without bothering too much, she had bathed and combed her rosewood hair, leaving it loose down her back in soft waves reaching her waist. After a few hours, she sat in bed with a book, of which she did not read a single page. The light under the door continued absent. Tiredness won her over at last. She fell asleep.
After finding Bess on the other side of the lake, hugging a wet bony kitten, and delivering her to her father, Conrad headed home. Muddy boots, an icy drizzle wetting his clothes. The clock marked past five as he took his weary, tousled self to bed. He did not have the energy to undress. He fell on the fluffy mattress in breeches and shirt, slumber overcoming him.
Her eyes snapped open to the daylight seeping through the curtains. She had drifted into sleep, her unread book fallen on the counterpane. First thought: Conrad had not come; he had not been in his room. The hour rather early this morning, seven something, if the light was anything to go by at present. She got out of bed, wrapping herself in a woollen shawl. Bare feet, she looked at the connecting door. Sharp curiosity assailed her. Without conscious decision, she paced to it on the worn out carpet, she made a point to keep rigorously clean.
As a burglar in her own home, she neared her ear to the centenary wood. No sound came from the other side. Her fingers rested lightly on the polished carved surface, pulling it inch by inch enough only to have a crack. His bed came into view.
The morning light poured on him from the open drapery. He lay on his back, in black breeches and white shirt, buttons undone on the neck, revealing a hint of his tanned, hair-peppered chest. His wavy midnight hair contrasted with the pristine pillowcase, mussed and inviting. The perfect features relaxed, unconcerned. The large brow, the long dark lashes, the perfect aristocratic nose, the thin discoloured carnal lips, the square jaw. Her eager eyes draw an excursion down his strong neck, his flat stomach, the breeches revealing, more than hiding, his narrow hips, his voluminous manhood and solid thighs. Her inspection continued to his long, angular feet that completed his blunt magnetism. She was mesmerised. She had never seen him sleeping, a vision worth of a warrior. Her hand flew to her neck in overflowing sensuality. Her first impulse being to go there and touch him with her hands, her lips, her entire body. He had always been one of the most virile man she ever set eyes upon, if she was to be true to herself. After these years away, he looked stronger, more powerful. He pulled her like never in those years.
He stirred in his sleep, ripping her from her luscious trance. Quickly she closed the door without a sound, going to her dressing table and sitting o
n the chair, still under the influence of the view of him.
Moments passed, her eyes lifted to look at themselves in the mirror. Downing. He had been on a night binge. So obvious! No sign of him the previous evening; fallen on bed all dressed, possibly drunk. He had been putting an act with his water and tea and the first nights at home. God, how stupid of her! She breathed a cynic ugly smirk to the mirror. The odious rat! She nearly gave in to an incongruous need to throw something, break something. Kill someone! Frustration. Sexual frustration mingling with old stale feelings. She stared at her whitish-fisted hands, the rage so red-hot she feared she would lose control. Her darkened rosewood globes stared back to the mirror. Hard, furious. A leopard would never drop its spots; did she not know it? To realise she would have given herself to him last night. Willingly, lascivious. Stupid woman! Would she never learn?
Her chin lifted on the mirror. No! She would not walk down that path again. The path of bitterness, rancour. Like so many times. She did learn hard lessons. She would use them now. Focus on her welfare, on the estate business, on its people, as she had been doing lately. Which made her happy, if not loved. Well-esteemed by her people, sure. That must suffice. Decisively, she stood up to change and start her day.
She was avoiding him. Conrad concluded three days later, not having seen sign of her. She managed to slip his search with cunning precision. Mrs Hutton came back to school and he found himself released from his position as substitute teacher, with time to try to find her.
She did not have dinner with him, immersed at work before he raised. The servants would never inform him of her whereabouts, surely directed by her. This was too strange, indeed. She had been withdrawn and reluctant to stay in his company, but she had not been avoiding him with such single-mindedness. The worst part was it made him incapable of trying to sort this out in any way, understand what happened. She did not give him the chance. He did not visit her chamber and risk her putting even more distance between them. The time came for him to stop walking on thin ice and set up a number ground rules or this stale mate would never end.
After dinner, she would be at her secretary working. For a variation. He strode into his room and headed to the connecting door, satisfied he had the lock removed. He opened it in a square movement and entered her room. The perfume of verbena greeted him with memories of that fatidic night.
She sat at her secretary, head bent on ledgers. Prudish nightgown and robe. As soon as she perceived him in the room, she stood abruptly, her face assuming a stony expression.
“Get out!”
This was definitely not amicable.
“Why would I do that?” His feet apart, his fists on his hips, he took her animosity head on here.
“Because I say so!” She crossed her arms over her alluring breasts.
“Only when you tell me the reason you are avoiding me so patently.”
They stood their ground, ogling each other in the eyes, in a battle of wills, where both displayed sharp weapons.
She squinted her eyes, certainly vexed by his invasion. He did not care, and would have an explanation. He had been home for less than a month and gave her no reason to act like this.
Her hands clasped her waist and she tramped towards him, a bitterly sarcastic glint in her darkened rosewood eyes.
“A leopard never drops its spot, does it?” She approached him and he discerned a well of contempt in her.
“Would you care to explain?” He held his ground, becoming utterly angry at what he saw as her unfair behaviour.
“Three evenings ago, for example.” She lifted her chin defiantly and stopped two feet away. “Absent, out carousing, no shadow of doubt.”
He contemplated her perplexed. Funny how she believed the worst of him without any proof. She had certainly not heard of Bess’ search. Coleman had not been with them, which meant he would not have told her.
“So you judged and condemned without giving me the chance to defend myself.” The evenness of his voice only superficial.
“I don’t need to clearly. I saw more than enough for three years.” Her expression held a mixture of repulse and chagrin.
“My past condemns me, you say.”
“Exactly!” Her hands fell to her sides and fisted. “When I remember your scoundrel hands touching me, I feel disgusted!”
That came as a spear through his heart. A sliver of bitterness crossed his chest. Her anger seemed irreversible, there for life.
“You are breaching the contract, I understand.”
That had to be the lowest blow he had given someone in his entire life. An undisguised rage adorned her beautiful eyes, her jaw set. He understood how important this was to her.
Aurelia sensed as if a leopard’s paw nails dilacerated her insides, her stomach burned with rage, disgust and contempt. He tried to make her choose between degrading herself by sleeping with him and risking her self-sufficient lifestyle. She did not find her voice to answer to this. It got arrested in her tangled feelings. She just stared him in the eye, daring him to annul the blasted contract.
They stood in the middle of the carpet in a battlefield, hot and cold chills cutting through her. The tension wired her body to a point she could not move a single muscle.
“I did not go partying or anything.” He said, voice low, grave, he looked her directly in the eye. “I haven’t drunk, gambled or whored since I left for India.” He defended himself even unrequested.
With that, he gyrated and passed through the connecting door, shutting it silently behind him.
Aurelia stared at that damned door for long minutes after he left. Contradictions and incongruences criss-crossed her mind, jumbled and undefined. Like a melting pot with the most unusual ingredients, it boiled and boiled, never to get to a defined point.
She stared longer still. He did not lie. She sensed it in her guts. That being the worst of it. Or the best. She did not fathom yet. Because, if he did not lie, she had made an excruciatingly bad mistake. But if he did tell the truth, it demonstrated his years away meant something. What, she did not have the slightest idea. Maybe he learned something from it. Oh, sod him! This resulted very blurry indeed! She sighed long and heavy, passing her hand over her brow, and turned to the secretary. She would not be able to continue working though. So she changed direction and stopped before the fire, observing its changeable flames unseeingly. Chest cumbersome, she tried to go get a few hours’ sleep. Tomorrow would be a busy day.
Conrad raked his both hands through his midnight waves as he paced his chamber. Anger mixed with a sense of emptiness towelled him. Her misjudgement twisted his guts tight and left him with a sour taste from it. He began to contemplate this was all for nothing. He had come home to a cold wife, distrustful people and a deserted home. Deserted because the isolation marked his every move. Ok, he had just arrived so to say. Apart from that, her attitudes toward him did not look promising. As he saw it, she exhibited barbwire wrapped around her, making it hard to reach her. He must find a way. Diplomacy did not seem to be working. He would have to be more forthright. He paced his room nervously until tiredness overcame him.
Aurelia knelt on the fluffy humid dirt to check the vegetables. This year would produce plenty of pickled carrots, cucumbers and cabbage. The grey sky promised rain and a cool wind blew the strands of her rosewood tightly tied hair. Her woollen dark blue dress warmed her. Not that her thoughts reeled off very warming. Her concentration levels tended to zero this morning. She tried to keep the events of the last days at bay.
“My lady.” Aurelia lifted her head and saw cook standing by the vegetable garden. “I will help you with this. Things in the kitchen are running smooth for now.”
“Yes, Mrs Tobias.” She smiled the middle-aged cook. “Thank you.”
The cook knelt beside her as they cleaned the weed, rearranging the plants and moistening them. A long time passed with them engrossed in work.
“I…” She started at a point, swallowing nervously. “I don’t have words to say it.�
� She began, eyes downcast. “I am so grateful to Lord Strafford, you know.”
“Grateful, yes?” Aurelia had an amused expression on her face. “Did he help with the stew or something?”
“No, my lady. We were so worried all day and when night came we didn’t know what to do.”
“Indeed.” She commented puzzled, never stopping her work.
“Then Lord Strafford took his horse and found our Bess.” She pressed dirt at an exposed root. “Our relief immense.”
At the information, Aurelia stopped mid act. She did not understand a word. “Mrs Tobias, please, can you tell me the whole story? What happened to Bess?”
The girl lined as the eighth of her children, but a mother would always be a mother, worrying about any of them equally.
“Oh, my lady! Bess went looking for her kitten and we lost her.” She wiped her brow with her hand. “We wanted to call you to see if you knew her whereabouts, but Lord Strafford said you had had a tiring day and went after our Bess himself.”
She talked about the night he absented himself? Goodness gracious!
“Did he find her?” She sat on her heels, all ears.
“Yes, my lady. He took his horse in the cold drizzling night with the men.” Her brow darkened with the dirt when her hand rested on her thighs. “They looked for her for hours! So desperate she got us!” She paused for a moment and resumed. “He found her on the other side of the lake with the kitten and all.”
“It’s good to learn Bess came back safe.” Aurelia looked at the woman perplexed.
“Yes, yes.” She nodded swiftly, sitting on her heels too. “We never expected this from him. He used to be so indifferent.” She shrugged. “But now he helps you, substituted the teacher and never leaves the manor.”
