by Carrie Lomax
It took several moments for her embarrassment to fade, but finally Harper began to hitch up her underskirts until they were bunched around her waist. Slowly, gently, she began feeling her perfect white thighs. Though her sex was still curtained, Edward could see her fingers experimentally disappearing beneath the fall of cotton.
“Lift your skirt higher,” he demanded hoarsely.
Harper relaxed. Her skirts fell back as she leaned into the experience, finding her way. Edward needed little prompting to find his satisfaction. He squeezed and shook as his cock pulsed hotly in his hand.
Harper immediately tugged the hem of her skirt down in embarrassment.
“Keep going,” he demanded roughly.
“I…I’ve never done this in front of someone else.”
Shame about sex was one thing about England that Edward had not missed. He fisted himself. Harper’s even white teeth appeared at the plumpest part of her lower lip. A tiny moan escaped her as she worked her fingers in the barely visible space between her legs, and a flush of pink spread over her chest. Her body tensed, and her eyes closed. Edward pumped himself hard, imagining himself buried inside her even as he cried out with release and collapsed beside Harper’s limp body.
They lay there for a while recovering from their bliss. Harper tucked her soft head beneath his chin and wrapped her arms around him. It made her breasts press pleasantly flat against his chest. Being naked together in the aftermath was almost the best part. Edward had missed this peaceful feeling.
“You’re mine, now,” he whispered, brushing a kiss against her neck. Harper snuggled closer, her hair sticking to his sweat-damp skin.
“Lost nearly an hour’s work—”
Harper startled at the unfamiliar voice. Edward went still.
“Not my fault you can’t keep track of your tools.”
“They’ll leave in a moment,” he whispered against her hair. He could feel the tension in Harper’s body. “Just be still.”
“Not here,” the first worker said.
“Curse you for a fool, you’d lose your own mother,” complained the other.
“I’ll check upstairs in the loft.”
Edward rose silently. In one hand, he gathered their clothing and tossed it behind a large bale of hay. Harper was on her feet, terror in her expression as she covered her naked breasts. He motioned her out of sight, behind the hay bales. The workman’s boots thumped on the wooden ladder.
As quickly as he had shed them, Edward pulled on his smalls. There was no time for more. The workman shuffled around in the hay for a moment, then headed right toward their hiding spot.
Edward burst out of hiding with a whoop. He leapt from the loft and hung in the air for a moment before his hands found the rough rope that held the hook they had been swinging on earlier. He would have a rope burn, but no matter. The distraction had achieved its intended purpose.
“What the—”
“It’s the Beast! The wild lord!”
The two men fled. Edward swung on the rope for a few moments, then flipped in the air and landed in a crouch.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
A disheveled Harper had padded down from the loft. His clothes hung over her arm.
“Why not? We were about to be discovered. I’m not about to let you be sent away now.”
“About that. This afternoon has been wonderful, but it was a risk we must never take again, Edward.” Harper tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she came closer. Edward reached out and plucked a stray wisp of hay. She was shaking. “We both have so much to lose. You especially, but me as well. I don’t want to be known as the doctor who seduced her patient.”
“You didn’t. I seduced you.”
“I don’t want to be known as the doctor who let her patient seduce her, either. Do you understand why?” She descended the ladder and offered him his clothes. Unable to bear the sadness in her beautiful eyes, Edward glanced down at the bundle of proper English garments. As uncomfortable as they were, they were still better than a straitjacket. Solemnly, he took them from her and began to dress.
“I understand. It doesn’t mean I like it. But I understand, Harper.” He loved the intimacy of her first name, soft on his tongue. “I’ll wait until you’re ready.”
“We can’t risk any more wild man stunts, either. You must act like an Englishman, in addition to dressing like one. You’ve been doing so well.” She glanced away, biting her lip.
“What is it that you aren’t telling me?”
Harper turned away. “You will find out soon. It is for your father to explain to you. He should have told you already.”
Edward felt the distance growing between them as though he was floating away on the ship that had taken him from the tribe he’d called his people. But this time, he wasn’t helplessly ensnared by a noose. The only circle that bound him this time was the thin green one he’d made himself and placed on the third finger of her left hand.
“You wear my ring now, Harper. We are as good as wed. One day, I’ll replace it with one of gold.” He brushed a kiss over her knuckles, tasting the remnants of her body’s pleasure. “I will never let you go.”
* * *
At supper that evening, Harper sat with shaking hands folded in her lap as turtle soup appeared before her. With great concentration, she picked up her spoon, lifted it to her lips and ate without tasting the rich broth. Her mind rang with a single phrase. What have I done?
Then the memory of Edward’s hot hands on her skin sent flames racing to her cheeks. Harper forced herself to breathe until the sensation subsided.
“You are quiet this evening,” commented the earl, peering at her.
Harper swallowed. Yes, I spent the afternoon rolling about in a hayloft with your son. “I have a slight headache, I am afraid.”
“Too much sun,” the earl nodded sagely. “Easy to let happen this time of year.”
Harper only nodded. If only Edward would stop looking at her with such blazing hunger in his eyes. He couldn’t possibly want her. Not really. Edward just needed some exposure to ladies of his own class, his own kind. Then he would see how awkward she was. How unsophisticated and out of place in society. In a few weeks, when he appeared in London as a reformed, elegantly dressed, extraordinarily handsome heir to a title and fortune, he would be besieged by lovely young debutantes and look back on their afternoon together with embarrassment.
The thought made her throat catch with a sob. She didn’t want Edward to be embarrassed of her. The afternoon had been the most wonderful, exciting thing that had ever happened to her. The thought that Edward would soon enter another world, one to which she had no access, made her feel as though something had been severed in her breast.
Harper wanted Edward with a ferocity that shocked her. To succeed as a doctor, she must help him successfully enter society—her entire reputation depended upon it. Yet to watch him take his proper place in life meant heartbreak. The instant she’d returned to her room, she’d locked the little grass ring in her writing kit. She told herself that he deserved everything that was due to him. Wealth. Prestige. A life of comfort and independence. He and his future wife could learn to be happy with one another.
Harper had planned to let Edward go, after she’d shared a few intimate memories with him—but she hadn’t counted on how hard it would be to let him go. A liveried servant arrived bearing a pale ivory envelope on a silver platter.
“A message, Miss Forsythe, for you,” the earl said with surprise. There was a second letter for Charles. Harper accepted the missive, broke the seal and unfolded the paper. Its contents sent her heart racing.
“I must leave at once,” she blurted out, already out of her seat.
“This is shocking, shocking news,” the earl exclaimed.
Harper felt Edward’s eyes on her. “Doctor Patton is closing the asylum?”
“What?” Harper gasped. “He would never! It has been his life’s work!”
“It says right
here in his own hand that the asylum has closed to new patients and that a new owner will be in place by the fall. You are needed immediately to assist with the transition.”
Harper felt faint. “I... When is the next mail coach?”
“There is no need for that,” the earl insisted. “Your services have been of great value to myself and to my son. It would be but a small measure of my esteem for your work to have you conveyed home.”
In the space of a few moments, the path of her life had been determined. She would leave Briarcliff and return to Doctor Patton’s asylum, where she must find some way to maintain her place. Somehow, some way she would continue her practice. It was all she had left. The choice had been made for her. The future she had envisioned, always remote, had winked out. She’d been sent here, Harper understood with a flash of misery, to get her out of the way.
“There is one outstanding issue remaining to be discussed,” Harper said, forcing herself to sit in her seat again.
The earl waved. “Of course, your fee will be paid. My secretary shall see to it.”
“Not that, your lordship. It is the matter of your plans to take Lord Edward to London.”
The earl’s expression went frosty. “I was not yet ready to discuss that with him.”
“Now you must. The season begins in a few weeks. If Edward is to succeed in London, you must give him a chance to prepare.”
“Miss Forsythe, you do not dictate my actions. Least of all toward my own son.”
She bowed her head. “I beg pardon, your lordship. I speak in Edward’s best interests.”
“I am not an imbecile to be talked over,” Edward said sharply.
Harper could see the anger boiling beneath Edward’s surface. Unlike his father’s cold fury, Edward’s anger was molten. It flowed through the line of his jaw and the set of his mouth. Or perhaps it was only their recent intimacy that made him so legible to her.
The earl looked uncomfortable. “I was going to tell you in my own way. As Miss Forsythe has said, in a few weeks we depart for London. You will take your place in society and quell the rumors of my mad, beastly son.”
“I won’t go. I’m not ready.”
“You must be, or the entire purpose of Miss Forsythe’s presence here these last weeks has been beside the point. I took a great risk in allowing her to work with you, and it has paid off. You owe it to her to see that her efforts were not in vain.”
The earl turned to Harper. “If you will go and pack your bags, the coach will be waiting for you to leave immediately after supper. I will send a tray to your room.”
“I need her with me in London!” bellowed Edward.
“You shall have another doctor, one who is not a young woman. No matter how skilled she is, surely you see that she cannot accompany you in society?”
Edward was one breath from exploding. Harper caught his eye and made a subtle gesture. Slowly, his shoulders unclenched. His fists fell to his side. It was almost miraculous, watching him wrestle his rage and win. If only they had more time, she was sure that she could cement these changes in place.
“I do see that, Father,” Edward replied quietly. He had come so far in such a short time. Perhaps he would be all right. Harper could only mumble an excuse and flee the room, her eyes brimming with tears of pride and loss.
Chapter 14
The creases turned out crooked as Harper folded her few dresses into her little trunk. Never mind that. Wrinkles could be ironed. Carefully she tucked away her writing set, hairbrush, and few sundry belongings, and covered it with her night wrapper.
Picking up the black patient journal, she tucked a ribbon into the page opened to read:
Though indifferent to English social customs, Edward displays no disordered thinking, only resentment at being coerced to adopt new behaviors he sees as nonsensical. Richard, the younger brother and heir apparent whose fortunes have taken an understandably distressing turn for the worse, does not appear to be adapting to his displacement as heir with grace or alacrity. Instead, the shock has robbed him of reason where his elder brother is concerned. He reacts with a vicious cleverness aimed at destroying his brother. The harder Edward works to regain his footing in polite society, the harder Richard will push to keep him out. Without some degree of influence over the younger brother, who appears both jealous and angry at his brother's return, there will be little chance of a full re-entry to society.
The earl himself is the most difficult part of this cipher. He refuses to see that forcing his son to go to London could reverse all the progress we have made. I fear for his well‐being.
Harper closed the book and placed it in her trunk. It was no longer her problem. The underlying problems in the family had not been resolved, and Harper could only hope that she was leaving Edward with the skills to school his patience. Richard was not finished trying to undermine his brother, and his opportunity to do so would only magnify in London. Any idiot could see that.
The earl wasn’t an idiot, but he was blinded by his ambition for Edward.
Harper watched woodenly as the footman hoisted her trunk. She followed him down the stairs realizing with each step how much she would miss this grand building with its wainscoting and warren‐like layout. It had been her home for only a few weeks, but they were weeks that had changed her life. Her life’s work now seemed meaningless compared to the work she had done to help one singular but damaged man find his way.
Edward stood at the bottom of the stairway, silhouetted in the evening light. His tousled hair—always in need of a cut, it seemed—turned his silhouette lion-esque. Harper knew she should stop mentally comparing him to large cats, but so much about him evoked that same grace and feral majesty, even dressed as he was in proper evening attire. Her feet refused to descend farther.
“Doctor Forsythe.” He intoned her name and title with a slight nod as her toe left the final step. Harper knew without looking that the earl stood nearby. This was not the place or time for a display. “May I walk you out?”
“Of course, Lord Northcote. Permit me a moment to wish your father goodbye.” She turned to the hall, not yet lit with candles, where the earl’s shadowed form lurked.
He knew. Harper read it in every line of his body. The earl’s coldness to her told her everything she needed to know. Had it not been for the letters arriving this evening, he would’ve sent her away. Harper felt the knowledge settle deeply into her stomach like too much greasy food, a weight only time would remove from her midsection. The weight had a name. It was shame.
Harper was ashamed of what she had done with Edward. The only honorable thing was to end it, here and now, once and for all.
“Your lordship, it has been a pleasure to serve in your household these past weeks,” Harper began humbly. “I regret that matters take me away at this crucial juncture. I trust that you will see your son safely introduced to London society and soon settled into his right and proper role. Lord Northcote is much improved in his comportment and his education has come a long way in this short time. Whilst there is yet much work to be done, I am confident that you and he, working together, will achieve the final polish of a true gentleman.”
Harper felt more than saw the earl relax. As she was on the verge of departing the premises with no intention of returning, he could afford to be generous with her.
“You have worked miracles, Miss Forsythe. I wish you, your family and Dr. Patton good health and happiness. I will be most pleased to offer a recommendation to any future employers considering your services.” Implicit in his response was the desire never to lay eyes upon her again.
Harper gave a brief, clumsy curtsey. She turned to Edward and took his arm. Had it been just hours ago that she had felt his magnificent body pressed against hers, caressed the velvety steel of his muscles and reveled in the touch of his lips on hers? The heat of his hand on her arm threatened to burn through her thin sleeve.
Edward did not turn his head to speak, whether to pretend their conversation wasn’t h
appening or because he couldn’t stand the sight of her Harper did not know.
“You’re leaving me,” he said so low she almost did not hear him. She acknowledged his accusation with a nod.
“I have not seen my sister in more than a decade. She is traveling a long way to see me. Between that and the asylum closing, you of all people should understand why I must return home without delay. You are not the only person I care about in this world.”
“You are running away.”
Harper slowed her step. There were two carriages in the circular drive, one to the right and the other to her left. One she recognized as the earl’s; the other she did not.
“Richard arrived while you were packing.”
Harper nodded and slowed her step. “Watch out for him, Edward. He hates you. You have taken away everything he cares about: the title, the money, status...people kill for less than that.”
“He is my brother.”
“Cain and Abel were brothers, too. I mean it. Richard will do whatever he can to undermine you. Don’t give him an inch.”
Edward stopped so suddenly that she was forced to swing about and face him. Harper felt herself blushing as she met his angry, accusative eyes. The somber blue of his eyes lashed her like a whip.
“I am coming for you, Harper. This afternoon was a bond. You have the ring?”
“In my writing case.”
“It will dry out and break, but I’ve made you a sturdier one. Not of gold, not yet, but this one won’t deteriorate.”
Edward pressed a small, weightless object into her gloved palm. Harper could barely see it in the low evening light. The new ring was intricately woven from strands of his hair.
“The earl would never permit it,” she whispered. If he couldn’t see that, well, it was her job to help him understand. She had failed at that thus far, but she had one last chance. Harper gave him the ring.
“I won’t see you throw your life away when you have only just begun to rediscover it. I am going because I have a higher calling, and I have failed to live up to it. You are meant for greater things than an alliance with an awkward country bumpkin with a penchant for helping the desperate and the insane. You are meant to be an earl. You will never have that with me at your side. Our togetherness would always be something hidden, in shadow. I deserve better than that. I will be loved openly or not at all, and that is something you cannot give me except at great personal cost. I will not let you pay that price,” she said.
