Chapter 11 #3
“Oh.” Why didn’t I think of that? She couldn’t very well say that he hadn’t bought one yet, if Mama was spreading the story that their engagement was already two months old. She should have thought to rescue some relic from her jewelry box that could pass as a love token.
“It’s too fine to wear to an afternoon party,” Mama cut in, with a speaking look to Mr. Corbyn, who was doing his best to pretend he couldn’t see her.
Mrs. Brandon seemed to notice that something was amiss, for she watched Hannah’s “fiancé” with a questioning air.
Hannah cleared her throat delicately. “Is anything wrong, m-my love?” She stumbled over the unfamiliar endearment. “You don’t seem like your usual, sunny self.”
He finally deigned to look her way, an unspoken challenge in his eye. “I’m sure I’m as sunny as ever, darling. How is Miss Annabelle doing?”
What had Miss Annabelle to do with anything? Was he put out that she’d gone off alone? It had only been for a few minutes; certainly nothing worth making a fuss over in front of the other guests.
“Quite well. She extends her congratulations.” Annabelle would forgive the lie. Particularly once all of this was all over and she learned that Hannah wasn’t really getting married.
The conversation lapsed into an awkward silence.
Mr. Corbyn looked supremely uncomfortable.
Though he was trying to stand at attention, his thumb was running over his index and middle fingers mechanically, in a repetitive motion he didn’t seem to realize he was making. He must be more nervous than he let on.
It isn’t easy to be the newest face at the party. Hannah still remembered how uneasy she’d felt in her debut season. And she had the advantage of extensive preparation, while Mr. Corbyn had been thrust into it with a week’s notice. How did he feel about all this?
“Would you please take me to see the roses?” she asked, remembering his earlier attempt to avoid socializing. “I should love to go before the path gets too crowded.”
For a moment, it looked like Mr. Corbyn might refuse, but then he extended his arm without a word and she slipped her hand through the opening to link their bodies once more.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Brandon,” he said with a curt nod.
Mama must have felt that Mr. Corbyn had put in enough time to deserve a respite, for she let them go with a warning: “Don’t be too long. I want to introduce you to a few more friends before we leave.”
It was amazing what a difference the promise to marry had wrought. Only last week, Mama would have sooner died than let Hannah stroll through the hedges with a man.
Not that there was much risk to her reputation at a garden party in broad daylight.
“Is everything really all right?” she asked, once they were free from eavesdroppers. “You seem like something is troubling you.”
“I’m fine.” His voice was clipped. “This just isn’t the sort of party I’m ordinarily invited to. That’s all.”
Even through the silk fabric of her gloves and the wool of Mr. Corbyn’s sleeve, Hannah could feel the tension in his forearm. Like a spring coiled too tight.
“Are you angry with me for going off to see Miss Annabelle?” she guessed. “I’m sorry I left you alone, but I haven’t been able to see anyone else in weeks.”
“I’m not a child. I don’t need you to keep me on leading strings.”
“No,” Hannah agreed, “but I suppose it wasn’t very considerate of me not to help you through the introductions when it’s my fault you’re here. I’ll stay with you from now on.”
“If you like,” Corbyn muttered. Though he tried to sound indifferent, Hannah thought he relaxed a bit.
She let their conversation lapse into silence, trying to read Mr. Corbyn’s mood. He was a difficult man to know. It seemed everything that she’d learned about him thus far had been obtained in accidental snippets.
Still, even if he was mostly a mystery to her, Hannah had to admit that it was thrilling to walk around the garden party with the most handsome man here on her arm.
Normally she spent her time relegated to the corners of these events, trying to avoid attention until she could escape back to her guest bedroom at Jane and Eli’s house.
This was the first time she could walk with her head held high—safe from her mother’s machinations and happy in her present company.
“Do you want some refreshment?” She slowed their step as a waiter came by with a plate of almond biscuits and glasses of lemonade. The food was designed to be easy to eat with gloves on, and Hannah popped the tiny treat into her mouth in a single bite to avoid the risk of any crumbs. “Here. Go on.”
She took a second one to offer Mr. Corbyn, who eyed the treat suspiciously.
When he didn’t make any move to take it from her hand, she brought the biscuit to his lips.
The instant she did, Hannah recalled herself. What had possessed her to be so bold? She’d been so carried away by the thrill of appearing on the arm of Mr. Corbyn that she’d overstepped the limits of their arrangement.
Hannah froze, her gloved fingers a scant inch from Corbyn’s lovely mouth. Could she still pull back or was it already too late? It would be so embarrassing if anyone saw him snub her publicly.
Mr. Corbyn must have been thinking the same thing, for he parted his lips and took the almond biscuit from her fingertips, barely touching them. The curve of his Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed.
“Thank you,” Corbyn murmured, his voice devoid of any clue that might help her judge whether he had been annoyed by her display or whether he had already dismissed it as part of their act.
Hannah’s hand was trembling as she brought it safely back to her side. She wished she could be half as indifferent. It seemed nothing moved Mr. Corbyn.
While they’d been distracted by the refreshments, they’d crept up on a trio of ladies just before them on the path to the roses, and now snatches of their conversation reached Hannah’s ears.
“Discharged in disgrace, I heard. After a fight with his superior officer. I wouldn’t let a man like that near my daughter.”
“I’m not sure she had much choice in the matter. The genie’s already been let out of his bottle, as I understand it.”
Mr. Corbyn stiffened. He’d heard them too.
“Um, let’s take this path, instead.” Hannah steered them down a little fork to the right instead of continuing past the gossiping women.
They walked until they were sheltered from view by a hedge wall that bordered this section of the garden.
Mr. Corbyn released her arm as they stopped to rest. It was almost peaceful here, with the gentle breeze bringing the scent of the flowers to her nose.
If only she could forget about all the people on the other side of the hedge.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said softly.
“Why are you apologizing to me?” Mr. Corbyn frowned. “You’re the one I’ve ruined.”
He said that as though he’d forgotten that she’d asked him to do the ruining.
“Yes, well, you wouldn’t have to hear them talking about you that way if my mother hadn’t insisted you come.”
“I know what people say about me, whether I’m there to hear it or not.” He almost looked indifferent. The matter-of-fact assessment and his expressionless face combined to form the image of a man who didn’t care what anyone thought of him. That was certainly what he meant to convey.
But his thumb was still running over his fingers in that same nervous motion. Maybe some things did move him, after all.
Hannah reached for his hand before she could think better of it, the impulse born out of a sudden twinge of concern.
“What really happened?”
Mr. Corbyn jerked in surprise, though he didn’t snatch his hand back. He was looking at Hannah as though he’d never seen her before.
“What do you mean, what happened? I punched my superior officer. There was an entire court-martial over it. There’s no mystery here, Miss Williams.”
“I don’t believe that.” Hannah wasn’t sure when she’d come to doubt the story, exactly. It might well have been on that first night, when he’d found her crying and been kind to her. “It doesn’t fit with your character.”
“What do you know of my character?” His challenge didn’t fool her. It felt as feigned as his indifference—a shell she might crack open with the right pressure. She was beginning to know him well enough to understand that.
“You might be a bit dour, but I don’t believe you’re violent. And you said you joined the navy when you were eleven. It doesn’t make any sense that you could rise from cabin boy to midshipman without a blemish on your name and then one day suddenly attack your superior.”
Mr. Corbyn said nothing to this, his silence the clearest confession she could ask for.
“I can’t force you to tell me if you don’t wish to speak of it,” she conceded, “but I wanted you to know that I don’t believe the rumors.
In—in case that matters to you.” She was starting to feel a bit self-conscious at his ongoing silence.
Carrying on like this when he hadn’t wanted to talk about it in the first place.
But to her great astonishment, Mr. Corbyn began to speak. Far from his usual brusque manner, his voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. “I did punch him,” he began. “It was only that he deserved it. Which the navy wasn’t much interested in hearing.”
“What did he do to you?”
“To me?” Corbyn echoed. “Nothing worse than any captain. He was strict and would dole out punishments quickly, but I never gave him cause to whip me, so I had less to complain about than some.” The muscles in his jaw tightened as if he were chewing on his words before he spat them out again.
“One night at port he had too much to drink and decided he wanted the attention of a local girl who didn’t much agree.
I stepped in long enough for her to get away from him.
” His eyes filled with a dangerous mixture of fury and regret.
“And that was the end of my naval career.”
“But that’s disgraceful!” Hannah gasped. “A captain shouldn’t behave in such a manner. Wasn’t there anyone who could tell the court-martial you weren’t to blame? The tavern owner or another serviceman?”
“Those who’d seen what happened didn’t want to bring trouble on their own heads. He was a gentleman. His word was worth more than mine.”
“But it isn’t fair!”
“Life often isn’t.”
Hannah fell silent. Her outrage sounded childish when compared to Mr. Corbyn’s stoic acceptance.
“Maybe not,” she admitted softly. “But just because that’s the way things are doesn’t make it any less horrid.”
He was looking at her strangely. Again, Hannah had the impression that he was assessing her as if they’d never met before.
She was still clinging to his hand. She should have released him ages ago, but having failed to do so, she didn’t know how to go about it now. Her hands kept gravitating toward him, it seemed. Like a magnet. It was extraordinarily disconcerting.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said. Talking about himself didn’t seem to be Mr. Corbyn’s strong suit; she was grateful he hadn’t brushed her questions aside. “I know it must not have been easy.”
To Hannah’s surprise, he laughed at this. A staccato bark that didn’t seem to carry much humor.
“Why are you laughing?” She didn’t understand. Had she done something wrong?
“Because it’s absurd to hear you thank me.
It should be the other way ’round.” He squeezed her hand.
So he had noticed that she’d been holding onto him this whole time.
And now she’d missed her chance to slip free without giving the gesture more importance than she’d meant to.
And now Mr. Corbyn was leaning forward as if he was about to whisper some secret in her ear, except that he didn’t reach her ear at all, he imparted it directly on her mouth.
Oh.
Hannah couldn’t move. Her whole body began trembling, though whether from shock or from force of emotion, she couldn’t say. Regardless, Mr. Corbyn’s response to this confusion was simply to keep on kissing her. He brought his other hand up to cup the back of her neck, drawing her firmly in.
She couldn’t help but surrender.
This was nothing like the clumsy mashing of lips she’d inflicted on him at Bishop’s.
He was doing things with his tongue. Stroking her lower lip until she parted for him instinctively, and then he was inside her mouth, exploring her.
It made Hannah fear her knees might give out, except that she couldn’t afford to faint now because that would end the kiss.
She didn’t want it to end. A whimper escaped her, swallowed up by Mr. Corbyn.
He seemed to swallow her better judgment in much the same manner.
Any sense of where they were or why they shouldn’t be doing this tumbled from her mind, leaving nothing behind but the most elemental urges.
Yes.
More.
Then it was over, leaving her gasping at the sudden sense of loss. She looked up at Mr. Corbyn, searching for words that wouldn’t come. He looked nearly as surprised as she was, his face flushed, his breath coming in quick bursts. He dropped his gaze to her lips.
Do it again, she urged him silently. Please.
But before they could find out whether he’d understood her plea, a snapping twig alerted them someone else was approaching their alcove.
Hannah’s reason came flooding back to her.
What am I doing? Mr. Corbyn had no business kissing her!
She had no business letting him either. She should be ashamed of herself, behaving in such a manner when anyone might stumble upon them.
She’d acted out of necessity the first time, seizing her only chance to escape Mama’s matchmaking.
But that was done with. There was no reason for them to kiss again.
Hannah stepped back quickly, putting some distance between them. She was far too shaken to speak, but she tore her gaze away from his face. As long as she didn’t look at him or touch him or stand too close to him, Mr. Corbyn couldn’t muddle her thinking.
“There you are.” It was her mother, looking a bit cross, though blissfully unaware of Hannah’s turmoil. “I told you not to dillydally. There are at least a dozen more people you must meet and precious little time to do it.”
It was probably the only time in her life that Hannah readily agreed.