Chapter 10 #2
“Put me down, Owen. Heavens!” She squealed again as he set her on the ground, then spun her in his arms so that she faced him. The delighted and all-too-smug expression on his face made her want to smack his chest. So she did, but not too hard.
“Why not dance with me?” he suggested.
“What?”
He still held her waist, his grip firm but gentle.
“Dance with me, Milly. Come on.”
It was impossible to deny Owen when he flashed that smile of his. The one that made her chest ache and her knees wobbly.
“You like to dance, too?” she asked.
“More than anything,” he replied, then seemed to reconsider. “Well, almost anything.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“You mean...oh!” She felt the red-hot blush flood her entire body.
“Yes, what we did last night is much better than dancing.” He kept one palm on her waist, the other clasping one of her free hands.
“A waltz?” he offered.
She could only shake her head. “This is ridiculous. We are in the middle of a country garden, not in a London ballroom.”
“And that is exactly why we must dance.”
“But we have no music.” She desperately tried to find other excuses. If she danced with him…Her heart thumped wildly at the mere thought of how wonderful it might be.
Owen started to sing, just vocalizing a familiar waltz.
His voice was beautiful. Lulled into the spell of his singing and the pull of his arms, they began to dance.
The world around them spun in a shimmering haze as they twirled and whirled.
The gravel of the garden path crunched beneath their boots and the occasional thrush chirped along with Owen’s captivating melody.
He was a wonderful dancer, anticipating her own pattern of steps as though they’d danced together for a hundred years.
By the time he finally slowed their steps to a stop, she was humming along with him.
“There now, see? Breaking the rules of propriety can be fun.”
She smiled. She supposed dancing in a garden wasn’t exactly breaking propriety, but she hadn’t thought she would ever do such a thing. He was right, though; it had been fun.
“Now, let’s get to town. I peeked at your list this morning and we have quite a bit to accomplish.”
Two hours later, she and Owen were visiting the last shop, a tiny bookseller, at Owen’s request. Not that Milly would have argued, since she adored books.
Owen didn’t hover over her as she perused the shelves.
The store didn’t have many of the most current titles but that was no surprise.
A small shop, out of the way of London, wasn’t likely to have the latest books.
She selected a few classic titles like Ivanhoe and Emma before she went in search of her husband.
He was standing by the doorway of the shop, deep in conversation with another man.
Something about their rigid stances made her stay concealed, peering at them from around one of the bookshelves.
“Never thought I’d see you settle down, Hadley. Finally found a rich widow who doesn’t mind paying your debts?” The barbed comment came from the other man and Owen clenched his hands into fists at his sides.
“Brandon, you are on dangerous ground.” Owen’s tone was low but hard as iron.
Brandon laughed.
“You went too far when you had an understanding with my sister. When you cried off, it broke her. She’s never been the same, especially not after the scandal with her condition.” Brandon growled. “No man would have her, even though the babe died.” The last was uttered in a vicious growl.
Owen stepped back, his face ashen. Milly covered her mouth, hoping to quiet her frantic breathing.
A baby? He cried off an engagement and left a woman with child?
“It wasn’t my child, Brandon. I broke it off because she didn’t love me. She told me she loved someone else. I let her go. Whoever she was seeing put her in the family way, not I.” The barely restrained fury sparked in Owen’s eyes, so strong that Milly could see it from where she stood.
Brandon squared his shoulders, sneering. “My sister wouldn’t lie. She said it was you.”
Owen showed his teeth like a cornered wolf.
“I’m not going to be a scapegoat for Scarlett. I never bedded her. Do not put that lie on my doorstep.”
Brandon stepped back, but his voice was icy.
“I hope your new wife learns what sort of man you are so she doesn’t end up with child and alone.
” Then he stormed around Owen and exited the bookshop.
Milly tried to duck behind the bookcase, but Owen glanced around and caught sight of her.
The emotions racing across his features were wiped clean and he met her stare with a cold, blank expression.
“Milly, have you found any books you like?” he asked.
She was still clutching Ivanhoe and Emma to her chest. She nodded mutely and walked past him to the small shopkeeper’s desk to pay for the books.
Owen lingered by the doorway, restlessly pacing.
Once she paid for her items, she tucked them in a small satchel and followed Owen out of the shop.
Neither of them spoke on the ride back to Wesden Heath.
Milly couldn’t get the words out of her head.
Scarlett. A child…
When they reached the house, she was so numb inside that she didn’t flinch when he helped her down from her horse.
“Milly,” he began, then paused when she refused to meet his gaze.
“I think I’ll take some tea in my chambers.” She skirted around him and rushed to the house.
“Mistress,” Mrs. Nelson greeted, but Milly fled past her, up the stairs to her room.
“Milady?” Constance leapt up from the seat by the fire, a pair of boots and a polish cloth in her hands.
“Oh, please sit, Constance,” she all but gasped out.
Why did she feel like she was going to cry?
She shouldn’t, but the tears were there, ready to fall.
She would never forget what she’d overheard, that Owen was the seducer she’d always feared he was.
A coldhearted man who took what he wanted and left devastation behind him.
This is why I refuse to fall in love. I’m not in love with him.
I’m not. Then why did it hurt so much? Why did the thought of him getting another woman with child feel like a knife to her heart?
He’d seduced that woman just like he had seduced her and he’d abandoned that woman…
just as he would abandon her. It was too much to bear, her heart shattering into a thousand glittering shards.
The door to her room crashed open as Owen strode in, a thunderous expression on his face.
“Excuse us, Constance.” He cleared his throat and jerked his head toward the door.
“No, Constance, stay,” Milly begged. Her poor maid looked between the two of them.
Owen crossed his arms over his chest.
“I won’t bother you much longer, Milly, but we will talk.”
Constance bolted for the door and left them completely and utterly alone. Owen closed the door and leaned back against it, preventing any means of escaping him.
“Owen, I have no interest in talking to you.” She sat down in a chair by the fire and opened her satchel of books, pulling one out, not that she could actually read at a time like this.
Owen took the second chair by the fire and leaned forward, angling her chair toward his. He snatched the book and her satchel out of her hands, tossing them onto the bed.
“Listen to me. What you witnessed today doesn’t have anything to do with what lies between us.”
That lit a fury inside her to match his. “It clearly has nothing to do with us. You loved another woman, got her with child, then cried off. Thank heavens you never dared to love me. I should hate to think how I would have fared being a woman in such esteem in your affections.”
Owen’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
“Scarlett was a woman I once cared deeply for. But I never loved her. Would I have married her? Yes. But she didn’t love me.
There was a young man who came through the village that summer, and she set her cap for him.
She threw me over for the other man, and I let her.
There was no reason to keep a woman trapped when she did not love me. ”
Milly almost scoffed. It wasn’t as though he could have set her free; they were past the point of no return.
“We never made love. Not once. We shared a kiss or two, but I swear to you, Milly, it was not my child she bore and lost.” His voice dropped and turned rough. “I swear to you on this house, on these lands that give me a reason to draw breath, that is the honest truth.”
Her throat was squeezed so tight, she couldn’t get a breath into her lungs for several long seconds. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream, to hit him, to show him the pain that was tearing her up inside. Even if what he said was true, she was already cut and bleeding.
He stood, his lips parted as though to speak, when an urgent knock came at the door.
“Enter,” he said.
Mr. Boyd came in, holding a piece of paper. “Telegram for you, sir. It was delivered just now from town. Urgent.”
Owen didn’t immediately take the telegram. He continued to watch Milly for a long moment before he accepted the slip of paper. When he unfolded it and read the words, he growled and crushed the paper in his palm before striding over to the fire and tossing it in the flames.
“I have to go to London tonight. I’ll hire a cab from town and leave as soon as it arrives.”
Milly swallowed the lump in her throat and looked at him. Stark pain laced his features and her bleeding heart quivered in response.
“I shall write to you. Every day. Please at least do me the courtesy of reading my letters.” His shoulders slumped and he exited the room.
She glanced back at the fire and noticed the telegram had fallen short of the flames. It rested on gray ashes, unburned. She used a poker to extricate the slip of paper and smothered it flat on the ground so she could read the message.
Jack drinking again. Need you to come at once. Only you can stop him. Hampton.
Jack? Was this Jack Watson, Owen’s friend that went to war with him?
Milly stared into the fire for a long while, the bit of the note still grasped in her hands.
Who was Owen really? The rakish man who seduced women and left them in a state of trouble?
Or was he a good man who dropped everything to help a friend?
She wasn’t sure what to think and she could only pray what she hoped in her heart was true.
That Owen was the man she’d started to fall in love with.
Her heart gave a shuddering few beats out of sync and she tried to catch her breath.
Please don’t deceive me, Owen. Be that man I so wish you to be…
Her bedroom door opened and Constance entered, her eyes wide with worry.
“Milady? Is everything all right?”
Milly summoned up her courage and put on a brave face. “Yes. I should like to retire now.”
She let Constance help her undress and then she crawled under the covers, shivering from more than just the cold. She missed Owen’s warm bed, but she missed Owen even more. A hundred thoughts fluttered through her mind and she couldn’t sort any of them out.
It was going to be a long, cold, sleepless night.