Daphne opened her mouth, about to point out that he had been the one to leave her all those years ago, but she didn’t think that was quite what he meant. He wandered over to the window, resting one arm against the wall as he stared out at the rain, leaning his forehead up against the glass.
“Edward?” Daphne breathed, chewing her bottom lip anxiously. She took a step after him, resting a hand on his back, and then, when that wasn’t enough, she slipped her arms around his waist and held onto her husband, laying her head against his back, whispering his name again and again until he turned around and held her in his arms.
“I don’t want to lose you, Daff,” he sighed heavily. “I-I don’t think that I can lose you,” he growled tightening his hold on her. “I’ve lost so many people,” he breathed, clenching his eyes shut, relieved when Daphne clung to him all the tighter.
“William? Soldiers?” she whispered hesitantly. “F-friends?” she corrected, and felt Edward’s body tense.
“I saw so many man die that I thought I’d become immune to it,” he murmured, his voice frighteningly even and devoid of emotion. “But it wasn’t that-it was-” he paused for a moment to think. “It’s-it sounds ridiculous, but it’s like when you step into a bath of water that’s too hot. For a moment you feel nothing, nothing’s wrong, and then a second later it hits you, a pain so unbearable that you have to leap out again. Only I can’t get out.” His grip on Daphne became almost painful, but she didn’t try to push away. “I can’t get out, Daff,” he choked, clinging to her like a man drowning.
“You will. You can!” she argued, holding him tight. “I’ll help you!” she declared, looking up into his tortured face, and then fearing that she was giving herself too much power. “If you-if you think I can at least?” she added softly.
“I think that you might be the only thing that can help me,” Edward sighed gruffly. He knew that it was wrong to take advantage of Daphne in such a manner, but frankly he was getting desperate.
She offered him a hesitant little smile and then stood on her tiptoes to dot a kiss against his cheek. “Do you think that maybe I could borrow a towel?” she murmured stiltedly, blushing slightly as she asked.
Edward grinned, a second ago he’d thought that he might never smile again, and yet here he was smiling. “Of course, I’ll ring for-”
“No!” Daphne shrieked, but it was too late because Edward had already tugged on the bell pull. She stared at him in horror. “Edward,” she whimpered. “They’ll see me here!”
Edward couldn’t help but frown. He didn’t see why that was quite the catastrophe that Daphne was making it out to be. She was his wife, and this was technically her house after all! “You can hide under the table if you wish,” he said dryly, “but I should warn you, Eldridge is rather prompt, so you’d better dive under there now if you mean to.”
Daphne turned a delightful pink, even if she did look as though she was battling the desire to make some sort of defense for herself. Whether it was her compassion from the moment before, or the fear of the butler walking into the room, which was stopping her from doing so, Edward would never know, for Eldridge did walk into the sitting room at just that moment.
Edward had to hand it to the aging servant. He didn’t even blink when he found his master soaked to the skin and with a young lady who was similarly drenched… he wondered if Eldridge recognized that young lady in question? There was only one way to find out.
“Eldridge, Lady Coventry would like a towel,” he said evenly. Edward couldn’t quite decide if it was annoyance or satisfaction he felt at the man’s slight raise of the eyebrows.
“Lady Coventry?” he bowed in Daphne’s direction, recovering admirably. “Would you care for a… towel yourself my lord?” asked Eldridge, surveying the scene with a look of a man who knew that someone was going to have to clean the mess up. “And some tea and refreshments perhaps?”
“Excellent idea, Eldridge,” Edward nodded. He was feeling a little hungry after hisexertions in the orangery.
“And-” the butler hesitated, casting a glance in Daphne’s direction. “The Countess’ rooms, should I-”
“Towels and refreshments will be fine, Eldridge,” Edward said curtly. The butler gave an apologetic nod, and left the couple alone.
“Oh dear,” Daphne whimpered. “What must he think?”
Edward’s frown returned with a vengeance. Why did it matter? And what exactly was there to think? He made some noncommittal grunt and wandered over to the window again. Edward was grateful that the storm was passing, he was afraid it meant that Daphne would make her excuses and leave soon.
“I was thinking about your paintings,” he blurted, not precisely because he had been thinking about them, but because he wanted to engage her in conversation again.
Conversation, Edward thought wryly, when had he ever wanted to have a conversation with a woman before?
“What about my paintings?” Daphne asked uncertainly. She was playing absently with a damp ribbon that had become untied from somewhere on her dress, twining it around and around her finger nervously.
“I was wondering if I could see them?” Edward said slowly. It seemed like the logical thing for one to ask if one had been thinking about someone’s paintings after all. “Daphne?” he pressed, when she didn’t immediately say anything.
“Why-why would you want to do that?” she asking, chewing her bottom lip, which was a little habit of hers that was fast becoming completely endearing to Edward.
“Well isn’t that why people paint?” he frowned mildly. “So that other people can see their work?”
Daphne looked at him thoughtfully for a second, but then she shook her head. “I don’t think so, no,” she said slowly. “I mean, that’s the only reason at least.”
“Oh?” Edward coaxed her to say more. He went to sit down on a plush, upholstered chair, but remembered himself just in time. “What are the other reasons then?” he asked, genuinely curious now.
“Well, for pure enjoyment, escapism-” Daphne began, ticking them off on her fingers.
“Is that why you paint?” Edward interrupted gently.
Daphne fluttered her lashes in surprise. “I-I suppose so,” she admitted, and then Eldridge returned before Edward could press her any further.
He handed out towels and then laid out the tea, offering to pour, but Edward assured him that they could serve themselves. The door had barely shut before Edward was stripping off his waistcoat and pulling off his shirt.
“Edward!” Daphne squeaked, averting her eyes, although heaven knows why. “What are you doing?” she gasped.
“What does it look like?” he shrugged, wrapping a towel around his shoulders and then laying another over one of the chairs before sitting down on it and tugging off his boots. “You should do the same,” he nodded, impressing even himself by how matter-of-fact he sounded.
“I will do no such thing!” Daphne sniffed, dabbing lightly at her face with her own towel.
“Take your boots off at least, Daff,” Edward sighed, and then grinned. “Or would you rather I took them off again?” he asked with a roguish chuckle. To his satisfaction, Daphne’s cheeks grew increasingly flushed and she couldn’t quite meet his gaze.
“I think I can manage,” she said breathlessly.
“Why just manage?” Edward purred, caressing her with his gaze. Even wet and bedraggled she looked utterly ravishing… maybe that was even part of the appeal? No one else saw her like this, so disheveled and tousled. It almost seemed to make her more his…
“I wonder if anyone’s missed me at Dunnely?” she mused, ignoring her husband’s last flirtation completely. Edward might have been annoyed, if he hadn’t felt a little flare of hope at her reference to Dunnely as just that, and not as home.
“Will Anthony be beating down the door in a moment if he has?” he asked wryly.
“Possibly,” Daphne confessed sheepishly, but Edward just shrugged his shoulders and muttered darkly: “Well, I’d like t
o see him try.”
Daphne couldn’t quite contain a little shiver of delight at the tone of her husband’s voice, despite the fact that he had just implicitly threatened her brother. At least, she supposed it was delight, and not in fact a shiver of cold. It was surprising how chilly her damp clothes were making her feel. As if he’d read her thoughts Edward sighed, and asked:
“Do you want me to see if there’s a dress you can borrow? I’m sure there must be something lying around that you could use just until your own things dry out.”
The offer was surprising tempting. She really didn’t want to leave after all, Daphne realized, but sadly logic and propriety seemed to win out eventually. “No, thank you,” she said, sadly. “I suppose I should really walk back to Dunnely and change into dry things of my own.” She didn’t know quite how to feel when Edward’s face instantly fell.
“After Eldridge went to the trouble of laying out this lovely spread?” he said, almost pleadingly.
“You seem to be making quite a nice dent in it on your own, my lord,” Daphne couldn’t stop herself from giggling. Edward had finished off half a plate of biscuits and was on his second cup of tea. He gave a sheepish shrug.
“I was hungry,” he mumbled. “The storm hasn’t quite blown over yet,” he added slowly, glancing out of the window.
“Oh, it’s hardly anything,” Daphne said airily. Edward grunted something that his wife couldn’t quite decipher.
“Well, if you’re adamant about going,” he grumbled, (which Daphne thought was rather unfair of him; it wasn’t as if she really wanted to go so soon after arriving. She thought back with a blush to their encounter in the orangery-well, perhaps it wasn’t quite so soon after arriving.) “I’ll order the carriage for you.”
“Edward, don’t be silly!” Daphne exclaimed. “It isn’t far, and by the time a carriage can be made ready I could already have reached Dunnely.” She thought, but didn’t really believe, that Edward muttered ‘exactly’ under his breath.
“You will at least let me walk you back safely?” he demanded.
Daphne opened her mouth to say that that wasn’t necessarily either, especially in his current state of… undress, but Edward appeared to be getting crosser by the second, and she did want to prolong her time with him, so she gave her head an obedient little nod.
“Good!” he sighed, and then glanced ruefully at his wet clothes. “I suppose it would be terribly ungallant of me to make you wait while I change into dry clothes?”
Daphne couldn’t resist nodding again, stifling a giggle as Edward groaned and made a face as he began tugging back on his damp garments. Well it was his own fault for insisting that he needed to walk her home!
“Ready, my lord?” she asked sweetly, as Edward struggled with his last boot. He shot her a look that said he’d like to throttle her, and she thought, with another little thrill of delight, that he must really want her back after all to go to all of this trouble.
Chapter 27
Edward walked Daphne to the same spot where he had left her the day before. He wanted to walk her all the way to the house, but she eventually persuaded him to simply watch her from the top of the hill again. He didn’t let her go without a kiss however… and consequently Daphne practically skipped up the steps to the front door of Dunnely House, fingers lightly brushing her mouth as she remembered the tingles that had shivered all the way to her toes as Edward kissed her in the rain.
“Mistress Daphne!”
The Hargreaves’ butler choked as the bedraggled young lady sauntered happily into the hall. Daphne cast him an apologetic little smile and then hurried up the stairs to her room, leaving a trail of puddles in her wake.
One of Daphne’s maids helped her into a clean, dry dress and undergarments, combing out her hair and then fixing it simply before Daphne wandered back downstairs. She felt like playing her piano in the music room. She might even choose something happy for a change, perhaps?
“…telling you, he’s back!”
Daphne paused in the corridor as her mother’s animated voice drifted out of Anthony’s study. The door had been left open a crack and something held her still, listening. Her brother must have made an answer that she didn’t hear, because her mother then exclaimed:
“You will do nothing of the sort! We will invite the Earl over and-”
“We will not!” Anthony bellowed, causing Daphne to jump and clap a hand over her mouth to suppress a gasp. “He’s not coming within a hundred feet of Daphne as far as I’m concerned!”
“As far as you’re concerned?” Mrs. Hargreaves snapped. “And what has it got to do with you exactly?” she demanded. “Daphne is the Earl’s wife. She belongs with him. As soon as everyone begins to realize that maybe our family will be able to recover a little of its dignity!”
“That man isn’t fit to lick Daff’s boots,” Anthony snarled.
“Yes well,” Mrs. Hargreaves began tightly, and from her hiding place out in the hallway Daphne knew what was coming next. “Perhaps Daphne should have thought about that before she compromised herself six years ago! But Edward is the Earl of Coventry now,” she added, calming down a little in light of this fact.
“He could be a Duke and it wouldn’t change my opinion of him,” Anthony snorted.
“Well! If that’s the attitude that you’re going to take, then I shall just go and call on him myself!”
“No!” Daphne shouted, bursting into the room before she had time to think about the consequences of her actions. Anthony and her mother turned and stared at her incredulously.
“Daphne! Were you listening at the door?” her mother gaped.
“I-was passing and I heard-”
“You were eavesdropping!” Mrs. Hargreaves railed. “You know there are times when I find it very hard to believe that you are really my daughter, Daphne!”
Daphne flinched as though struck. “Be that as it may,” she said, straining to keep her voice even. “You will not visit Edward.”
Mrs. Hargreaves stared at her daughter open-mouthed for what seemed to be a full minute, and then she started brandishing her finger in Daphne’s direction as though it were a lethal weapon.
“I think,” she began shrilly, “that you need to need to remember whose house you are currently residing in, Lady Coventry!” she spat, her tone and face ugly.
Anthony’s? Daphne longed to answer back, but she managed to hold her tongue on that point at least. “Yes mother,” she said shortly, “but you must remember that this is my marriage and-”
“Marriage?” Mrs. Hargreaves sniffed, looking to her son for support. Anthony however seemed reluctant to get involved at this point. “You don’t know what a real marriage is!” Daphne thought, with a little pang in her heart, that her mother might very well be right, but she was loath to admit it in front of her. “Your father and I would never have dreamt of behaving in the fashion that you and the Earl have conducted yourselves!”
“I’m sorry, mother, if I’ve disappointed you,” Daphne said difficultly. She waited for a second, to allow her mother to contradict her. She didn’t. “But-I have to do what I think is right.”
“You have no idea what’s right or wrong as you keep demonstrating,” Mrs. Hargreaves snorted. “Tell her Anthony!” she prompted, rounding on her son, who was scowling blackly.
“I’d rather Daphne never laid eyes on that man again,” he growled, and sat down behind his desk as his mother muttered angrily under her breath about the failings of her children.
Daphne chewed her lip; it wasn’t exactly the reaction from her brother that she wanted, although it was the one that she expected after what had taken place in London, and at least it meant that he wouldn’t be riding over to Packwood House to interfere… unless he tried to chase Edward away?
“Well I don’t know!” Mrs. Hargreaves snapped, shaking her head from side to side. “I despair of the pair of you, I really do! One would think that you like seeing this family ruined!”
“We’re not
ruined, mother,” Anthony sighed heavily, running a hand through his dark hair, however his mother had already stormed out of the study.
Daphne slipped after her, although she quickly hurried off in the opposite direction. She had no desire to listen to one of her brother’s long lectures, She was not in the mood to listen to her mother rant either. She was in no state to do anything but burst into hot angry tears!
“Oh Edward,” she sniffed, as she climbed the stairs back to her bedroom, almost as if she could somehow conjure his presence if she just wished hard enough. “Please come for me?” she whispered, which was ridiculous really, because she had been the one to run away from him…
Let him come though, she prayed, shutting her bedroom door behind her and then leaning back again it. She closed her eyes and remembered their times together, loving, or talking, or simply being, she needed him back so desperately.
Edward didn’t come, not that evening at any rate, but that didn’t stop Daphne from thinking about him, and her thoughts were with him almost constantly. She replayed their time together in the orangery over and over until she was quite flushed and breathless, but she also relieved the other moments of her day, especially the ones inside Packwood when the storm had been at its strongest, when Edward had seemed so wounded. She wanted, so badly, to be the one who might help to heal him!
He was the last thing that Daphne thought about before she fell asleep that night, and the first thing she thought about when she woke up the following morning. She wanted to see Edward again, but she supposed that another walk over to his estate might seem a little too eager on her part.
Deciding that this was definitely the case, and determined to cling to her remaining dignity, Daphne dressed leisurely that morning, allowing her maid to fix her hair a little more elaborately than usual, before she wandered downstairs for a late breakfast. She hoped that her mother and brother would already be finished, that was another reason why she had taken so long getting ready…
Sadly, this was not the case, whether her mother and brother had had a similar plan to avoid everyone else Daphne wasn’t sure, but what was apparent was that the whole family was breakfasting late.
Just One Kiss Page 16
