Vows to Save Her Reputation

by Christine Merrill

  But even that was enough to startle her and she leaned back suddenly as it fell, bumping the arm of her seat with her hip. With a shriek of strained joints, the sofa gave way entirely, collapsing out from under her. For a moment, she sat on the floor, in the rubble, unsure of whether to laugh or cry at her latest utter failure to be a proper lady.

  Before she could struggle to her feet, Robert was there, his hand outstretched to take hers and pull her up, as easily as if she was a woman half her size.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said, automatically.

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’ he said, just as quickly. ‘Why did you choose that particular seat?’

  ‘I assumed it was mine,’ she said, gesturing at the arrangement of the room.

  ‘Actually, I keep it there for the cat that sometimes joins me, of an evening,’ he said, trying not to smile. ‘I had no idea it was so flimsy or I’d have replaced it long ago.’

  ‘I sat in the cat’s chair,’ she said. ‘I thought...’ She did not want to mention what she’d truly thought, which was that she was occupying a dead woman’s seat and it had rejected her, just as her husband had.

  ‘Despite what it may look like, I am not going out of my way to make your life difficult,’ he said with a gentle smile, ‘but the least I can do to prove it is to find you a comfortable chair.’ He glanced around the room. ‘Let us see if there is something that suits you better.’ Then he stood and offered her his wing chair.

  ‘No,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘You can’t sit down,’ he said, pretending to be puzzled. ‘Is there something wrong with your knees?’

  ‘I can’t sit in your chair,’ she said, shaking her head at him, confused that he could not see the obvious.

  ‘They are all my chairs,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Even the one I broke,’ she said, embarrassed again.

  ‘Even the one that collapsed under you,’ he corrected. ‘You did not throw it against the wall. The damage was not a malicious act, was it?’

  ‘No. But it was my fault, all the same.’ She was simply too large for a normal chair.

  ‘You might just as easily have said that it was my fault for leaving such a rickety thing where anyone might risk themselves in using it. You are not hurt, are you?’ he added, as if remembering that it was his obligation to see to her safety.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said, smoothing her skirt.

  ‘Then, as you keep claiming, you are very resilient,’ he said with another smile. ‘Now, as to the location of your future seating.’ He grabbed her by the arms, turned her and pushed her gently into the wing chair.

  She landed on the cushion with a surprised sigh.

  ‘Comfortable?’ he asked.

  ‘It is still warm,’ she whispered, a little shocked by the heat of his body still lingering in the upholstery.

  ‘But do you like it?’ he asked. ‘And do not think to lie to me for I will watch you and know the truth.’

  She nodded. ‘It is very comfortable.’

  ‘Then from now on, it is your chair,’ he replied, then removed the rubble that had been the seat she had destroyed. He glanced around the room. ‘And I shall take this.’ He walked to the window, where an even larger chair was arranged next to a small table and dragged the chair back towards the fire. ‘Unless you prefer the light from the fire on your right. We can just as easily switch sides.’

  ‘It is kind of you to offer, Robert,’ she said. ‘But this has been your sitting room longer than it has mine. You have already yielded your chair to me. I will not ask you to change position as well.’

  ‘As you wish,’ he said with a grin. Then he arranged the furniture accordingly so that he was in his usual place and his old chair took the place of her ruined one.

  * * *

  They sat in comfort for the rest of the evening and, as the mantel clock struck midnight, he rose with a yawn and proclaimed that it was time for bed.

  She froze in her seat, unsure what was to happen next. There was no rule that she should retire when he did. Perhaps, since he did not want to visit her, it would be appropriate to wait a few moments before following him. Or perhaps she was expected to go first.

  ‘May I escort you to your room?’ he said, clarifying the situation for her.

  She rose and let him take her arm and lead her up the stairs. When they arrived at her room, he released her and turned to walk down the hall. Then, as if in afterthought, he turned back. ‘I am sorry for my shortness with you at dinner. It cannot be easy for you to put up with requirements that seem arbitrary. But they are the rules I have been living by, for some time now. I did not realise how difficult they had become. Goodnight, Emma.’ Then, without warning, he leaned in, kissing her lightly on the lips.

  He probably intended it to be a simple salute between friends, over as quickly as it was begun. But once their lips met, neither of them wanted to draw away. The touch was sweet and gentle, but they lingered over it, neither one wanting to be the first to see it end. When he finally raised his head, it was to look back at her with a dazed smile. ‘Sleep well,’ he muttered, then turned and hurried down the hall to his room.

  ‘And you, Robert,’ she said, breathless with surprise.

  He had kissed her. It was the smallest possible kiss of apology, barely a brush of his lips against hers. All the same, it was everything she had dreamed her first kiss might be. And it had come on the second day of their supposed celibacy. Was he already weakening, or was it the sort of gesture he was accustomed to give his last wife as they settled for the night? The idea that it might have been a kiss intended for another was more than a little disappointing.

  But before he had turned away, she had seen the look in his eyes and his smile of pleased surprise. He had enjoyed it and so had she. And she would lay in bed tonight, hoping that it was the first kiss of many.

  Chapter Nine

  After all intentions of keeping his distance, he had kissed her goodnight.

  She must have been more upset by their dinner argument than she had revealed for as she had sat by the fire with him she had barely dared to breathe in his presence. And as it had been at dinner, the silence, which had been his constant companion for years, had worn on his nerves.

  She had been trying too hard to please him, to make up for her earlier difficulty. In doing so, she had tried to force herself into a place she would not fit. Worse yet, he had allowed her to do it, not even noticing how uncomfortable she must be.

  It was just one more example of how difficult the world could be when one was not the average size.

  But it was clear that she took such things as personal flaws in her character. He had been careless not to notice the problem before it had happened and spare her from embarrassment. He’d have never thought to take such a chair for fear that exactly what had happened to her would happen to him. But he had forced her into a mould created for another and allowed her discomfort. If he meant to care for her, he must do better.

  She needed reassurance that he would not always be so heedless and that their marriage would not always be as difficult as these first few days. So, he had kissed her. It was a harmless enough act and had seemed so natural at the time that he had done it without thinking.

  And it had been as delicious as taking a single bite of a summer peach. It had left him wanting more. Now, Robert stared up at the canopy over his bed, baffled by the sudden wakefulness that the simple act had raised in him.

  Normally, he slept deep and well, and, if he was honest, too often. With a lack of company, the days sometimes seemed to pass in a haze of unused time, books that did not hold his attention and nights that ended far too early. Now, he had a wife and things would be different. He’d made no real plan to change anything, but as he lay there, he could not seem to shake the feeling that the house was fuller. The air had a different quality, lik
e a faint perfume.

  Then he realised what it was. Perhaps he was imagining it, but he thought he could hear the sound of her through the bedroom door.

  It was not snoring, nor could he complain that it was loud enough to be annoying. Simply the faint inhale and exhale of another person in the vicinity and the shift of the covers as she turned in her sleep. It was surprisingly comforting to know that there was another soul present where there had not been before. Without realising it had happened, he was smiling into the dark, a faint anticipation creeping into his soul.

  But what, exactly, was he waiting for? There was not going to be a rustle of bedclothes thrown aside and no soft steps on the rug as she came to the adjoining door. He doubted that she had the daring, even though she was a strangely forthright girl on the subject of what she had expected in marriage. She might be sound asleep right now, dreaming whatever dreams she might have. Or she might be laying there, listening to him breathe and wondering the same things he did.

  Considering the conditions he had set upon their marriage, all such thoughts were dangerous. The pair of them awake might lead to another wayward kiss in the dark, a touch to a caress, and caresses to greater prolonged intimacy. If he brooded on the presence of a woman so close in the darkest, loneliest hours of his life, his resolve would falter.

  Consideration led to compromise led to action and eventual regret.

  He thought of his last wife to cool his blood. It had been a fair marriage, all things considered. She had been a delicate creature, with wide blue eyes and a frame so small that, at first, he had been afraid that he might break her with a touch. But she had been accommodating in the bedroom and he had been cavalier when remembering his grandfather’s warnings of a family curse. His own troubles had stopped while they were together. His luck and health were good, and his nerves were steady. When things were going well, his grandfather’s warnings had sounded like nonsense.

  Yet, a year later, he had been a broken man, digging graves.

  He would not risk that again. He turned his head towards the neighbouring bedroom and blew a kiss to the woman sleeping there. Then, he turned deliberately away and thought of other things until sleep came.

  * * *

  The next morning, however, he was almost overcome with a desire to see her at breakfast. Perhaps it was not her company specifically that he missed, but simply the society of another human soul. Even though their conversations so far had often been unpleasant, they were still more welcome than sitting in silence by himself.

  That had to be it. Being too long alone had left him susceptible to her in ways that went far beyond the carnal urges he had expected would be easily conquered. His need for companionship gave her an unexpected power over him and he was not sure he liked it.

  Perhaps he should limit their interactions until he was confident that he could control himself, just as he had planned to do when he’d agreed to wed her. So, he ate breakfast in his room and took the morning post in his study, with the door closed against intrusion.

  Even so, he could not get her out of his mind. In the bedroom, he listened for sounds of her in the adjoining room. In the study, he caught himself staring at the door, trying to imagine where in the house she might be. And when he tried to think of nothing at all, he remembered the sight of her uncovered legs as she ran from the bull.

  When he had made the plan, he had not thought his unspent sexual energies would be aroused so quickly. It was more than foolish, for he had noted the attractiveness of the girl before he had married her. And now, as he had told her at dinner, there was no escaping the union. They would not be parted until death.

  The realisation overwhelmed him and with it the futility of his plan. She had been wiser than he allowed when she’d informed him that much could change over the course of a lifetime. Why had he imagined that it would be possible to keep himself apart from her for decades if he was already failing after days?

  Perhaps he simply needed a distraction. Vigorous physical activity during the day would exhaust him so that, by evening, he would sleep, rather than thinking of the woman laying just a room away.

  He summoned some footmen and went down to the outbuilding where the yard games were kept and located a dusty set of bows and arrows and the straw target that went with them. Then he had the servants set up a creditable range on the back lawn.

  He pulled an arrow from the quiver on the ground and fitted it in his bow, raising it and drawing back slowly. He sighted and released. The arrow cut through the air in a smooth arc, landing just shy of the centre of the target. A little practice would improve his aim. And what had he to do with his time but practice?

  But the process itself, of slowly coiled energy and sudden release, was not so much calming as evocative of the very act he had been trying to forget.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  His hand stopped as he reached for the next arrow, surprised that she had approached without his hearing her. But at the sight of her, he felt an unwelcome lifting of his spirit and an uncontrollable urge to smile.

  ‘A little target practice,’ he said, looking back to his arrow. ‘Nothing more.’ He left fly with another bolt that came even closer to the centre of the target.

  ‘Do you often practice archery in the garden?’ she asked.

  He hesitated. She was still trying to dig out the details of his life. It made him wonder why he was so unwilling to share, even when confronted by a question as simple as this one. Did he often practice archery? The correct answer to that was no. But if he told a small lie, it would seem less unusual. ‘As often as I can,’ he said.

  ‘How very interesting.’ He watched as she ran a tentative hand over the fletching on one of the arrows. ‘And is it difficult to learn such a sport?’

  ‘It can be. But one improves the more one practices,’ he said.

  ‘That explains why you are so accurate,’ she said with a nod.

  ‘Actually, the last two shots were more luck than anything else,’ he said, not wanting her to expect a marksmanship he could not reproduce.

  ‘So, you admit to being lucky, on occasion,’ she said, the corners of her lips twitching as she tried not to smile.

  It had been a bad choice of words, for it fed into her curiosity. ‘If you are asking if I assume a family curse can affect the course of an arrow, no, I do not. But generally speaking, you will find that I have no particular skill as a marksman and do not hunt or fish because of the previous lack of success.’

  ‘A moving target is harder to hit than a standing one,’ she said, staring down the field at the straw disc.

  ‘How would you know if you have never tried?’ he said, feeling an unexpected swelling of confidence at knowing a thing that he might teach her.

  ‘Would you allow me to shoot?’ she asked, surprised.

  ‘If you are inclined to do so, I see no reason you cannot,’ he said. ‘I do not know that this bow will suit you, but it will have to do for the moment.’ He set his own bow aside and handed her the other of the two weapons that the footman had brought for him to try. The draw was lighter than the one he was using, but it was still a man’s bow, meant for a man’s strength.

  To his surprise, she pulled the string back easily and held it with a steady hand. It seemed that she had the strength of an Amazon to match her height. ‘Hold it thus,’ he said, adjusting the position of her arms. ‘And be sure to keep your elbow like so, to prevent a slap from the bowstring.’ He stood behind her now, his hands on hers, and felt a slight shock as his arm brushed the side of her left breast.

  If she noticed, he could not tell. Instead, she seemed focused on the advice he was giving her. ‘I see.’ She adjusted her posture as he had directed, then eased the string back again and grinned at him. ‘But it is no good without an arrow.’

  ‘Very true,’ he agreed and showed her how to nock the arrow on the string. Then he step
ped back, his hands on her shoulders, sighting down the length of the shaft to help her aim. ‘A little to the left, I think. And remember to aim higher than you think you need to, as the bolt will fall in flight.’

  In front of him, he could feel her body tensing and the breath she released as she let the arrow fly. It struck the target a few inches wide of his own. He had not expected she would hit the thing at all, but she held the bow with the grace of Artemis and did not hesitate as she shot. Apparently, her athletic build gave her a natural affinity for sports that did not carry over to the drawing-room mistakes she was always apologising for.

  ‘Well, done,’ he said, and squeezed his hand on her shoulder in a gesture of friendship that would have been fraternal, had she been a man. But since she was not, it was strangely intimate, and very pleasant.

  ‘That was wonderful,’ she said, dropping the bow and turning in his arms to face him. Suddenly, the posture he had taken, meaning to be nothing more than a teacher guiding a pupil, had turned into an embrace. Her face, so close to his, was lit with a joyful smile, her lips parted and welcoming.

  He was going to kiss her again. He knew he should not. To do so was to tempt fate and to raise false hopes. She did not deserve to be teased. Nor did he want to start something he knew he did not dare finish.

  But suddenly, the urge was stronger than common sense and years of bitter experience at how much it might hurt to grow close to someone only to lose them. He wanted her. She was his. There was nothing as important as that. He leaned in and touched his lips to hers.

  There was no hesitation in her response. As she had with archery and any other challenge he set for her, she threw herself into it with enthusiasm and a surprising amount of natural ability. Her mouth opened to his and her breasts pressed against his chest, as if begging for the touch of his hands.