Diamond in the Rough

by Jane Goodger

  In the end, her mother was tipsy and embarrassing, her father was stoic and silent, Harriet was charming and Lord Berkley amusing. Clara was not present at all. Instead, her mind was firmly on her garden—or rather with her gardener behind his shed.

  After their kiss, Clara could not bring herself to go out to the garden and she wondered if she would ever find the courage to do so again. What had he thought of her, agreeing to kiss him like that, allowing him to take such liberties? Allowing? No, she had begged for his kiss and relished every moment of it. Would she ever forget the feel of his mouth on hers, the hard planes of his body, the way he’d pulled her against him as if he didn’t want to let her go? That long, hard ridge she’d felt, that could only be one thing, mean one thing. He’d desired her as much as she’d desired him. She’d hardly gotten a moment’s rest last night, lying in bed and reliving every touch, every sound that had come from his throat. Should she be ashamed of herself? She found that shame was the least of the emotions that warred within her.

  “…garden?”

  Clara looked up from her plate to see all eyes on her, including his lordship’s. “Please forgive me, I was lost in thought. Did you ask a question about our garden?”

  Hedra let out an impatient sigh. “I was wondering if you and ’is lordship wanted to take a stroll around the garden. And ’is lordship agreed.”

  “Oh,” Clara said, forcing a smile. Then a terrible thought hit her. Mr. Emory would likely be in the garden, working. How awful for her to be walking about their garden on the arm of another man, and an earl at that. “Of course.”

  Lord Berkley stood and looked at her politely. Bored. He had no more interest in touring their garden than she did, but it seemed they would. The earl darted a look at Harriet, as if silently asking her permission to step out with Clara, which seemed a bit odd, but Clara thought rather sweet of him. Did he think Harriet should have been included in the invitation?

  The earl held out his arm and Clara took it obligingly. “It’s not much of a garden as we’ve just begun to plant it. But I’ve heard Costille House’s gardens are lovely and perhaps you can offer some advice on our small plot.”

  “I fear my knowledge of gardening is likely far less than yours, Miss Anderson.”

  When they stepped out the door, Clara held her breath, giving a silent prayer that Mr. Emory was not still at work. Of course, he was. He looked up when he heard the door open, and froze for a moment when he saw she was not alone. Clara felt her cheeks heating.

  Mr. Emory was a servant, and as such, Clara should not acknowledge him as they made their way around the garden. She’d been taught by her mother that the divide between staff and employers was sharp and never should be crossed. Kissing one’s gardener had certainly been crossing that divide. Headfirst. Without hesitation. One day ago, she’d been behind the shed in a passionate embrace with Mr. Emory, and today she would hardly acknowledge him as she strolled arm-in-arm with an earl. Her entire body was filled with a sickening heat. It felt almost as if an imaginary string tethered her to Mr. Emory, and as they drew closer and closer to where he worked, that string only tightened until it was a painful thing.

  Mr. Emory, after that one, long glance, continued to work, but Clara sensed he was intensely aware of the couple as they walked down the path he’d raked not a few hours prior. Everything was neat and well-kept, not a weed in sight, not a dead petal or brown leaf to be found. He must have suspected their fine visitor might be viewing their garden and had made the necessary preparations. It must have taken hours, and Clara felt her heart clench at the thought of him rising before dawn to make certain her little garden was perfect for their visitor. A visitor he must know had come to see her.

  “A lovely patch,” Lord Berkley said, but Clara sensed he was merely being polite. “What is your favorite flower, Miss Anderson? I shall be certain to send you and your sister a large bouquet.”

  “Bluebells,” she blurted out, and nearly laughed at the earl’s expression. “I’m afraid they are long past their bloom, so I shall forgive you for the lack of a bouquet.”

  He nodded and smiled at her, but his eyes flicked back to the house.

  They moved past where Mr. Emory worked, and Clara noticed that despite the chill in the air, his back was wet with sweat and his hair damp along his collar. His jaw was tense, sharp, and he kept his eyes shadowed by the brim of his cap. He moved aside and bowed his head in deference to the earl, his boots sounding overloud on the gravel, and of course Lord Berkley didn’t acknowledge him. Earls did not engage in niceties with gardeners—unless it was their own gardener perhaps. As they passed, he looked up at Clara and winked, and just like that, the heaviness in her heart lifted.

  And just like that, she fell just a little bit in love with her gardener.

  Nathaniel had not met the current earl, but had met his father when he was younger, under less than desirable circumstances. His father had gotten blind drunk and barged into a meeting of the London Historical Society, thinking he was at another meeting entirely. A lad had been sent to their townhome with a note asking him to come and fetch his father, who was “indisposed.” His father was not just a drunk, he was a loud, obnoxious, and vicious drunk, who had made many an enemy among the ton. Nathaniel both feared and loathed him, for at times, he would enter his bedroom and stand there, red-faced and swaying, and stare at him until his liquor-soaked brain could come up with some complaint to make of him. The day he died, half of England celebrated, including Nathaniel.

  That late evening, Nathaniel had been roused from bed by his father’s valet, who insisted Nathaniel attend to his own father. With no one else available, Nathaniel headed out alone to fetch his father home. When he’d arrived, Lord Berkley, considered one of the most powerful men in England at the time, had taken him aside and told him in no uncertain terms that his father was no longer welcome as a member of the society. Indeed, he was not welcome in the same room as Lord Berkley in the future. It was, perhaps, one of the most humiliating moments in Nathaniel’s life. Of course, when he’d arrived, his father could hardly focus on him and had what Nathaniel had come to call the “hundred-mile stare.” He’d become exceedingly belligerent when Nathaniel suggested the pair of them return home, and it was only when two footmen appeared to bodily remove him from the society that he agreed to leave, perfectly affable and sloppily acquiescent.

  That had been eleven years ago, when Nathaniel was still only fourteen and home on holiday shortly before his father died, but the humiliation of that moment still burned in his chest. Seeing Clara on the new earl’s arm burned nearly as much.

  It was at that moment when he most regretted his plan, when he wondered if he could have used the Andersons’ love of the aristocracy to his advantage and perhaps enlisted their help in finding the diamond. Now, he realized, that might have been a better plan. A woman with an eligible daughter who wanted nothing more than for her daughter to marry a title would have been easy to manipulate. They might have hired workers to assist them, thinking that if he found the diamond, they would also have found a husband for their daughter.

  How easy it would have been if he’d known then what he knew now.

  But he hadn’t, and now here he was, two months into his search, with winter bearing down on Lion’s Gate and tenants who were facing another grueling season with less than adequate housing, still searching for the damned diamond. If his grandfather hadn’t been so sure, so precise with his story, Nathaniel would have quit long ago. The diamond had not been found, so it was still here, still in St. Ives, still buried in the Andersons’ garden. Somewhere. A thousand times, he had closed his eyes and tried to imagine his grandfather as a young man, walking up the hill to see this property. It would have looked much the same as when he, himself, had stepped onto the land. If he were a young man who wanted to hide something, where would he have hidden it?

  “It’s in a box made of black locust, so it
wouldn’t have rotted, with metal straps. It’s still there…It’s…” His voice, hardly a whisper, barely audible, words said slowly and with extreme effort. “It’s…”

  He’d waited, holding his grandfather’s hand. “It’s all right, Grandpapa, we’ll talk again when you’ve rested.”

  The old man had opened his eyes, his lips had moved…and then he was gone. Nathaniel had watched as the life flickered out, as his face went slack, and he’d dropped his head to his grandfather’s still chest and wept. It wasn’t until weeks later that he even cared to recall the diamond. By then, it had become imperative that he find it.

  His plan, ill-conceived and driven by desperation, had seemed like a good one at the time. Find the property, dig about for a while, and leave a richer man.

  Now all he had for his labors was a pretty little garden and a girl who was making her way into his heart.

  And he couldn’t tell her.

  How had he allowed this to happen? Yes, he could very well imagine the conversation he would have with her eventually. “I’ve something to tell you, darling. All this time when you’ve thought I was nothing but a gardener? I’m a baron. Just what you were looking for all along. Why was I pretending, do you ask? I was simply attempting to steal something from your property. Ends justifying the means and all that.”

  And what if he never found the diamond? She was an heiress and he was a man in desperate need of an heiress, one of those men her mother had been hoping to find for years. Here he was! A desperate peer in search of a bride. And what a coincidence! They already were quite fond of one another, if only she could find it in her heart to forgive him for lying and lying and lying. What possible explanation could he give for impersonating a gardener?

  No matter the damage to his heart, he needed to simply walk away, whether he found the diamond or not. And that meant never touching her again, never kissing her. Never doing any of the things he longed to. Another thought entered his practical mind, pushing his heart firmly out of the way: He knew Clara did not come with the sort of fortune he would need to do what he needed to do for his estate and certainly nothing that could come close to the value of the diamond. He would not be the first man in history to forgo love for the sake of his legacy and he would not be the last.

  It was a depressing thought. Just the thought of leaving, even with the diamond in hand, made his chest hurt. He would miss her.

  During the few social events he’d attended while at university, he had not conversed at length with a member of the opposite sex. It was a dance, this looking for a mate business. Few women knew him, knew what made him smile or laugh or made him angry. Clara knew, though. Those long afternoons while they toiled in the garden were spent discussing far more than the health of her rose bushes. He knew, for example, that she loathed the aristocracy, that she was beginning to resent being molded into the kind of person she detested. It was like pressing a bit of once pliable clay, now hardening, into another shape. He admired her resistance while at the same time recognizing the deep irony of his position.

  Only she knew he missed his home, never knew his mother, and mourned the death of his beloved grandfather. Only she knew he was fond of gooseberries but didn’t care for strawberries. Only she knew the sound he made when he wanted a woman so badly, he shook with it.

  All of this had been imparted through those long days that were now growing shorter with the approach of winter. A snap in the air, the changing leaves, all pointed to the cooler days to come. At Lion’s Gate, they would soon see their first snowfall. He’d thought he would be home by now, supervising the changes that were needed to bring his estate back to life. The old home was the last on his list, but by God, he wanted to bring her back as well.

  This, Clara did not know. She knew only that he was alone in the world.

  Chapter 8

  “You are in a fine mood today,” Clara said, noting her sister’s high color and general bon vivant spirit.

  “I am having luncheon with my friends,” she said, gazing in the mirror and adjusting the ribbon beneath her chin. Harriet, who had not seemed to mind what she looked like, had of late been taking a bit more care with her appearance. Perhaps her friends were having a positive influence. “Would you like to come with me? The girls miss you, you know.”

  “The girls” were Harriet’s group of friends—Alice, Rebecca, and Eliza. Clara often had accompanied Harriet to her outings with them, but had never felt part of their group. Today was a gloriously sunny day and she already heard the sound of Mr. Emory’s hoe in the soil. Despite their awkward meeting the previous day when she’d been on Lord Berkley’s arm, Clara was determined to spend time in her garden.

  She looked outside pointedly, and said, “What do you think?”

  “I think you would much rather be outside in your garden than cooped up in a room with four gossipy women. You are such a strange bird, Clara.”

  Clara grinned, liking that description of her. She plopped on her gardening hat, pushing it down for good measure. “I adore being strange.”

  “I’m off then,” Harriet said with a laugh.

  Clara sighed after Harriet had disappeared, and wondered what her sister would think if she knew Clara had been kissing their gardener. No doubt, she would be horrified and concerned. Likely just as horrified and concerned as Clara was. While she refused to call the kiss a mistake, it certainly was something she had no intention of repeating. Her curiosity had been assuaged. No more kissing their gardener. No more flirting. No more staring at him like some spoony girl who’d never had a beau.

  And then, all those thoughts flew from her mind the moment she stepped outside and saw him and her heart picked up and her insides gave an odd clench. She smiled and swallowed and allowed her eyes to dip to his mouth, upturned in a smile, which hardened into a straight line as she watched.

  “Good morning, Miss Anderson,” he said gruffly.

  “Good morning, Mr. Emory.”

  They stared at one another for a moment too long, breathing in unison, bodies taut. Clara was about to turn and run back into the house, afraid of the feelings that swept through her, her inability to calm her heart and tame her desire, when he said, “I’ll be right back. I need something in my room.”

  He dropped his hoe and spun about before heading directly to the shed, leaving Clara standing there uncertain about what had just happened. Before he disappeared into the darkness of the shed, he stopped, just for a moment, then continued on and closed the door behind him.

  “Oh,” she whispered, and pressed her fists against her stomach. She didn’t think, didn’t dare allow herself to, before walking toward the shed, hands clenched tightly in her skirts, heart beating madly in her chest. As she reached the end of the shed, the part where his small room was, a hand shot out, wrapped around her neck, and pulled her out of sight of the house, causing her hat to slip from her head and land at her feet behind her.

  Before she knew what was happening, Clara was pushed against the rough shingles, a hard, male body warm against her, lips capturing hers in a head-spinning kiss that nearly made her swoon. He dropped his hand from her neck, and soon both were around her waist, then sweeping down and back to cup her bottom so he could pull her even closer. He let out a low sound as he pressed the hard length of his arousal against her center.

  “You are driving me mad,” he said, pulling away just far enough for him to speak. “Do you realize that?” He pushed his hips toward her so she could feel him, and he let out another groan. “God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be doing this.” He said these words, but tightened his embrace and kissed her long, and deep, and in such a carnal way, Clara was lost. In some dim part of her mind, she knew she was acting immorally, like a common hussy, but his body against hers, his mouth teasing hers, his tongue drugging her with his skillful caress, all served to turn that practical part of her brain off. The feel of him, his scent, the sounds that came fr
om his throat, everything combined to send Clara into a state she had no name for. Rapture? Abandon? Never could she have imagined a kiss—no, this was more than a kiss—could take control of every bit of her.

  He stopped suddenly and rested his forehead against hers, breathing heavily. “I’m so sorry,” he said again, but this time he seemed to be filled with deep regret, the sort that meant this would never happen again.

  Mr. Emory stepped back and Clara noticed that his hat had fallen from his head to rest near hers. His hair was mussed, and she recalled dragging her hands through his thick, wavy locks, pulling him closer to her. His expression was harsh, his jaw clenched, his eyes dark and piercing. Angry. “You’re no different from any other woman,” he said, his words stunning her as much as a slap would have.

  “I’m not?”

  “No, you are not. Why, then, can I not control myself around you? Why do you do this to me?” he asked, crudely indicating the long length of him that showed clearly through his trousers. “You are making this impossible, Miss Anderson. I don’t know if I can continue here.” He shook his head as if searching for an answer.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice, because it seemed to her that he was blaming her for the passion that flared between them. Indeed, she’d been taught most of her life that it was up to a woman to tame a man’s baser side.

  He let out a sigh and his expression softened. “No, no, you are not to blame. I apologize if that is what you thought I was saying. I’m no good at this sort of thing. The blame, all of it, is on me. I just don’t understand why I cannot keep my hands to myself around you.” He smiled. “You haven’t bewitched me with some strange Cornish curse, have you?”