"When do you leave for Timsbury?" Del asked him, her pretty blue eyes not so gay as when they began.
Dare he hope she did not wish to see him go? "After this party."
"I'm glad you came," she said on a soft note.
As am I, my darling. "It would not have been much of a Christmas…" Without you. "I had to leave Paris. The endless fighting has left many eager for the boredom of peace. I am among them."
She gave him a tremulous smile. "We shall make the most of a merry season."
I intend to.
"Miss?" Mary peered out the window. "We've…um…stopped where we usually do."
"Well, then," said Neville with a grin, "come along."
They climbed down from the carriage with instructions to the coachman to return to the Lanes at the stroke of the hour.
A cold wind gusted up from the shore. Del caught her silk and fox bonnet and led them down one narrow lane.
At a milliner's, Neville had to stop before the paned window and point to an apricot creation. "I like that one there. Which is your favorite?"
"That one. Of course, that one! And you astonish me that you remember my fascination for hats?" She stepped next to him, her arm brushing his, her blue eyes glistening in appreciation of the hat and of him.
He feasted on the pristine beauty of her. Her white-blonde hair, her flawless ivory skin, her eyes of summer's blue, her finely boned face. "I remember everything about you. Your love of hats, shoes, skills at the piano and with scissors. Poems that no one should remember."
She threw back her head to laugh.
"Most of all, I remember your voice. Your pleasure and my own when I kissed you. All. All."
She stared at his eyes, his lips, swaying near as he spoke and catching herself when she touched the point of her breasts to his chest. "You are too charming."
"Not charming enough until I can kiss you again."
"Oh, Neville," she mourned and cast her gaze to the cobbles.
"I need to kiss you again, Del. Once at least. Before I leave here."
She swallowed hard. "Neville, please."
"It's the gift I want for Christmas."
"A kiss?" She looked skeptical, tempted, alluring.
He nodded, fear he might not get that from her sweeping away the humor of the carriage ride. "One."
"Oh, my dear." She placed a gloved palm along his jaw, so risqué a move in public but so welcome to his starved soul. "You know we never could stop at one."
"I won't ask for more than God allows."
She chuckled at that. "Oh, you rake! God never permits more than one."
"Except when the two kissing love each other."
"Yes," she murmured. "Except that." Then she shook herself and seized his hand. "Come. We're going to church."
"To talk with God?"
"And a few of his disciples!"
That tingling warmth that had swept through her whenever she was near Neville enfolded her once again. She needed to run her hands over his shoulders, feel his strength, taste his tender kiss and enjoy the electrical spark that could enflame her.
Instead, watchful of her behavior, she took his hand briefly, very briefly, if only to assure herself that in truth he was here. For her. The compliment of it was heady.
But she needed her wits about her. Especially as she was to present one of her Christmas gifts, small as it was, to these dear children who so filled her heart with the possibilities of life.
"I come here often," she told Neville as she led him to the front door where she paused while he read the descriptive plaque to the side of the entry. "I teach them reading, drawing and French."
He tipped his head and arched a brow. "Do they learn another language easily?"
"They do."
"Surprising."
"Some would say, yes. But the more we use it, the better they become. Practice is the key. Not class."
Neville opened the door for her. "I'm eager to meet your pupils."
She sailed inside, the rest of her party following. At sight of Del, the children exclaimed and left their seats. The vicar who had them at some writing task upon the trestle tables frowned at first, then smiled when he adjusted his spectacles and saw it was she. But when he saw she had others with her, he focused on Neville and knit his brows again.
"Good afternoon, Vicar." Del introduced Neville as Major Lord Bromley.
The clergyman was polite. "Good of you to come, my lord."
"Come to talk French, Miss Craymore?" Richard, one of the older boys, asked bouncing up on this toes with expectation.
"Not today, Richard. I apologize. But I did come to bring you the present I promised."
"Jam?" Little Tom rushed forward to wrap his skinny arms around her legs.
"Yes, Tom. Jam!" She'd gone to the kitchen this morning and talked with Cook about the plum jam she'd helped Cook make in September. That lady had happily handed them over.
The tiny boy did a little jig. "Thank you, Miss."
"Mary?" Del beckoned her maid who held the reticule with the jam jars inside. "Let's give them to the vicar."
Mary came forward and opened the bag. Del reached in to take out the earthen jars and appealed to the vicar with a sweet look. "I hope all of you will enjoy these with your bread and tea very soon."
"We will, Miss," said a little red-headed girl. "Will you stay and eat with us?"
"Not today, Clara. But I shall return Christmas morning and we'll share another surprise. Would that be delightful?"
The vicar nodded, a stiff smile upon his lips.
Del had to ignore his attitude. He'd hoped, always in vain, to interest her in him personally. That was never to be. He was a good man, but despite his profession, he showed no life in him. Or rather, no joy of life in him. And that, she would never bear in a man she chose for her partner.
"I cut a dog and cat from paper, Miss," said Richard. "Can I show you? Can I, sir?" he asked the vicar.
"Certainly," the man said and stood aside so that Richard might go. "He's been practicing every day what you taught him, Miss Craymore. He does it to the detriment of his other studies."
Del liked the sound of that because she appreciated the boy's interest in art. But by his tone, the vicar did not value it as highly.
Richard hurried away to the far table, gathered a few sheets of paper, piled them on another and scurried back to her. He thrust them in her hands.
"Oh, my." She stared down at the jumble of cuttings, one atop the other, inside the cradle of the wider paper. "I must sit. These look wonderful, Richard."
Taking them to one of the rough wooden tables where the children sat to do their copy work, Del perched upon one of the stools. Neville followed to stand beside her. She leafed through the cuttings. Shaped from old newspaper were a dozen silhouettes. A cat. A dog. Other animals.
"I tried to make you, Miss, but I didn't like it!"
"What did you do with it?"
"Put in the bin, Miss."
"Make another, would you please, and keep it to show me? You see, Richard, these are very very good."
He blinked. "Can I sell 'em?"
She curled an arm around his waist and hugged him close. "I'd say so!"
The vicar was not so enthused. "Miss Craymore, I would not encourage the boy if—"
"But he is talented, sir," she told him without a doubt. "He might earn enough from these to make us all proud." Himself too for years to come.
"And the jam?" Young Tom chirped, his priorities firmly affixed to food.
"Let's open the jam!" she responded with a clap of her hands.
"Let's have it w' ham!" said one boy who always liked her rhyming rounds.
"We'll eat and be merry," she added, looking round, brows rising high, as she encouraged others to participate.
But there was silence as the eight children stared at her, and from the looks on their faces, their minds churned for a rhyme to her last line.
"But not have it w' berries."
"Cause we won't tarry."
"If we do hurry."
"No!"
"Ugh!"
"Pewww."
A few smirked and others shook their heads at the boy who offered that one.
"We'll have it w' sherry!" shouted Richard and doubled over laughing at his offering.
"Ah, well! On that stanza," Del said with a chuckle, "I think we must open a jam jar, don't you, Vicar?"
Minutes later, they left the church and made their way to the road where the Marsden coach waited to take them home.
"Those children adore you."
"I love them too. They've responded well to drawing lessons."
"And jam."
"And fun with words." She was pleased Neville had come with her, met her little friends and learned that she was more than a naive girl who had fallen in love with a man she barely knew.
"Do they rhyme in French too?" he asked when they were settled in the carriage and the horses were clomping up the Steyne toward home.
"Not yet. But that's a very good idea. I'll add that to my lessons."
Her enjoyment of the children and they with her suffused him with pride. As they rode home, he thought of nothing else except that she'd make a loving mother. A very loving wife. Rhyming in English or French, teaching their children how to draw, paint and use scissors to cut silhouettes of all of them.
He undressed, remarking to Farnsworth how the gifts he had chosen to give her were perfectly suited to her.
Farnsworth, good man, agreed that Miss Craymore was in for many surprises.
"And I'm happy to tell you, my lord, that Mary is eager to smuggle them into her chambers."
"Today proved a lot, didn't it, Farnsworth?" How Del had matured, how she'd found her forte, how she'd contributed so much to the poor children who needed someone to love and care for their health and minds, and futures.
They’d returned to the house just in time to change for supper.
Neville adjourned to his rooms and had Farnsworth arrange a bath for him. Cleanliness was not a pleasure he'd been able to indulge these past years in service to the country, and in the past week since Paris, he'd taken up lolling in the hot water until his skin wrinkled like a prune.
Dapperly attired in another set of new clothes, he took the stairs down totally pleased with the afternoon. Though he was not assigned to sit near Del, his arrangements were pleasant. He was between two elderly ladies. Del, he noted, had drawn two older gentlemen as partners, so this night jealousy was not on his menu. Farther down the table to his left, he saw another sight that made him smile. His cousin Lady Penelope sat next to Theo, Marquess of Tain, and both seemed all smiles with that result.
Would that after dinner, I am too.
As with most house parties he'd attended—and they'd been few—he assumed gambling was the order of the late evening entertainment.
For his own, he had another idea in mind.
So as the guests drifted from the after-dinner gathering with the countess of Marsden holding forth, Neville strode as quickly as his halting step could take him to Del's side. "Might I ask that you keep a promise to me?"
"Oh?" She considered his eyes and lips, as she licked her own. "What promise was that?"
"To help me waltz again with some grace?"
"Hmmm." She fluttered her fan.
He barked in laughter. "I remember a few dubbed that Delpine's Flirtatious Butterfly."
She snapped her fan shut. "I am not a butterfly. Not a flirt. What others perceive is not so! Yet even my sisters think it of me. Ridiculous. While one sister wishes to catch smugglers. Another wishes to win back Father’s lost wagers. Helpful? Perhaps. Realistic? Not very. While I do what? Teach children who need an education. I may never earn as much money as either Bee or Marjorie, but for anyone to criticize me for engaging men and I might add, women in interesting conversation is not—“ She emphasized her last word by pressing the points of her fan's sticks into his breastbone, "—not being careless with anyone’s affections!”
He caught her fan with one hand and held her there. "I meant no offense, my darling. I love everything you do."
"Obviously not."
"You are carefree and—"
"I am no longer that, either, Neville." Her blue eyes were ingots of anger and despair. "I've not been carefree since the day you told me we were not to wed. Not since George died in battle. Our only brother. Not since my father died and left us achingly poor. Not since it's become clear that my two sisters concoct ways to survive without being a burden on the Marsdens for the rest of our days. If people like me, if men like me, it's because—"
"You like them. You talk to them. Take time and care to truly know them. As you do those children."
Her expression melted. "Thank you."
"You are welcome." He offered his arm. "Now will you come dance with me?"
"I might." She flicked open her fan. "Mary is unavailable to chaperone, but we will leave the doors open and we shall be brief."
"Brief and proper."
"Just so. No rumors will escape the ballroom," she declared and looped her arm through his. "I shall perfect your dance steps and you will skate with me tomorrow."
He was not happy at the prospect of ice skating. He could barely walk, so clumsy, so oafish was he. God above, he wished to win her, not repel her. Yet he would refuse her nothing in his power to give. "You think me more graceful than I am."
"But you'll try?" She was so positive, so hopeful.
To embrace her jubilance, to have his arms around her again, he'd agree. "I will."
"Marvelous. And then I need you to turn pages for me when I play the pianoforte Christmas eve."
"So shall it be. And you must do another thing for me."
"Ah, but sir, I am already helping you re-learn your dance steps. What else might a lady do?"
A question whose true answer might earn him a reprimand. "Sing as we dance?."
She snorted. "We Craymores do not sing.”
“No?”
“Donkeys do a better job.”
He was wide-eyed. “We must have music to keep the beat.”
“I’ll count. You hum.”
He held out a hand. “Now, will you step into the ballroom, Miss Craymore?"
"Very well," she said, licking her bottom lip and assessing his stance, "do you always need your cane to take a step?"
"I have not tried to do without it."
"Too painful?"
She could not know how much it grieved him to admit it. But he leaned it against the wall and opened his arms to her. "Immaterial at the moment. Let’s begin."
"You will rely on me." She stepped into his embrace and he reveled in her lavender scent and the wealth of her, near but much too far away. "Now as I understand it from Lady Eliza, the latest in the waltz is for the gentleman to put his hand to the lady’s waist, like so, and the lady to place one hand on her partner’s upper arm. So."
“I’ve seen couples dance much closer than this in Paris.” He suppressed a wolfish grin. “Many of my friends who went to Vienna for the Congress now seem to sway together.”
She gave him a sly look. “We, sir, will glide together. Begin your count. I am very ready.”
He stepped forward on “One,” and led her off. She followed on a “Two, three,” her foot matching his as they flowed with the music.
“One, two-three.”
But he stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
“I cannot continue. I’m off balance and I won’t risk us both going down together.”
She pursed her lips. Then pressed her torso against his. The shock was thrilling. With a flick of her head she flung back wayward tendrils of hair from her cheeks and met his gaze with a dark ardor he’d not glimpsed in her until now. She placed his hand fully around her waist and her own hand fully upon his shoulder. “This must be better. Shall we try once more?”
He nodded, as her bones seemed to melt beneath his grasp. More confident, he led off again
. But he had no grace. It was true that no matter how tightly bound they were, he would be awkward.
"Once more,” she encouraged him. “If we get the rhythm correct, we will be better. You should move one foot forward as I move mine back. Yes. Superb. Now then we move together and I step forward as you go backward, like…so."
That move, bolder than any discreet dance step should be in public, put her thigh to his. The muscles of his groin responded with appreciation.
He cleared his throat.
Her blue eyes locked on his. "That was intended to be not quite so close, I'm sure."
Oh, so am I. "Next?"
"Well, then. Ah-ha!" She cleared her own throat…but she did not move her thigh, her leg or foot.
Superb.
"You should, I do believe, then take a half turn to the left.”
He clutched her closer, her breasts—oh, yes, her bounteous breasts that he'd dreamed of while camped on barren Belgian fields—were pressed to his. He wanted them pressed to his skin, to his lips, to his tongue.
"Neville?" she asked in a breathless appeal.
He found his own voice, he knew not where. "Yes, darling?"
"We're not dancing."
"Oh, we are."
Her blue gaze drifted over his face, her desire spiking his pulse.
"This is a different dance, my sweet woman. One we did before in another house, another room, with other words."
"Neville, that memory was tainted."
He wrapped her closer, so that her entire torso was crushed to him. He felt her curves, her ribs, her core—and his own body rose in appeal. "Let us build new memories. Finer. Stronger."
"I've searched for a man who could replace you, surpass you. I found none."
His proud and joyful heart swelled with her admission. "Let me replace that older image of me with this new one."
"I want to allow it." She had tears in her eyes. "But I know not how to compare him to you in such a few days. Years ago, I was too rash. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
He turned and took her with him so that he rested against the wall. Yet when he brought her to him, she was still intimately entwined between his legs, her arms around him, her breasts and belly flush to his.
The Viscount's Only Love: Christmas Belles, Book 2 Page 7
