Chapter Eleven
FOR a moment, Lyssa could only gape like some village fool until she realized what they were doing—and then, she was shocked to the core of her soul.
The man’s naked thighs were pasty white and his hands gripped the Widow’s breasts as if they were plow handles. They were both so occupied in their moans and groans and mutual sweaty activity, they didn’t notice her.
Finally, Lyssa found her voice. “When I said fornicating, I didn’t expect you to do it!”
Nor did she expect his voice to come from behind where she stood. “I’m not. But I do think you should mind your own business, Lyssa.”
Turning, she saw Ian standing—fully clothed in shirt sleeves, breeches, and stockings—at the entrance of another stall.
“Then who—?” she started before turning in horror to see both the Widow and Mr. Anderson looking up at her.
Lyssa thought she would die from the embarrassment. Instead, she turned and ran out of the barn.
Outside in the yard, she stopped. What should she do now? Knock on the door and inform Mrs. Anderson of her husband’s activities? Or sit out here until they’d finished and left?
She certainly couldn’t pretend nothing had happened.
Ian came up behind her. Taking her arm in a grip as tight as a vise, he said, “Not one word, not until we are beyond the house.” He’d pulled on his boots and practically carried her away from the house and the barn.
“But Maggie…she needs to know,” Lyssa protested, trying to turn back.
“No, she doesn’t,” came his terse reply and he half carried her forward.
As Ian had anticipated, Anderson came out of the barn buttoning his breeches. He could almost hear the farmer’s sigh of relief that his guests were heading off toward his pastures instead of knocking on the door to inform his wife.
He led Lyssa toward a pond on the far side of the field.
Beneath the overhanging branches of a willow tree, he let her sit on the cool ground.
She buried her face in her hands. He sat beside her, not saying a word, preferring instead to study the way the moonlight shone off the smooth surface of the pond.
“I didn’t think it was done like that,” she said at last, her voice completely serious. “That didn’t appear pleasurable at all.”
Her reaction startled a laugh out of him.
She turned to him. “This is not funny,” she said. “Catching them was so humiliating.” And yet, in spite of the stain of embarrassment on her cheeks, even she started to laugh, and covered her mouth as if to stifle the sound.
“Think how I felt with them going at it in the stall next to mine,” Ian confessed. “I was hoping they wouldn’t wake you up.”
“How could they not? They were making so much noise.”
Suddenly, the two of them were laughing so hard, Ian feared the sound would carry and Anderson would hear them. He put his arm around Lyssa’s shoulder and shushed her. “We’ll wake up everyone.”
“I’d like to wake up Maggie,” she said, sobering. She turned to him, sitting so close that her bouncing red curls spilled over his shoulder. “She should know.”
“She does know. Anderson certainly doesn’t hide his tomcatting.”
Lyssa looked out over the pond. “What a life she must live.”
“It may be the one she chooses,” he observed quietly. “You can’t convince me he is any different now than he was before he married.”
“But why would she look the other way? If he was my husband, I’d take a whip to him. I certainly wouldn’t let him into my bed.”
Ian had no doubt she wouldn’t. But then Lyssa had a strong sense of self and more pride than was prudent—two things he admired about her. Two things they had in common.
“Look at the house she now lives in,” he told her. “Back when he courted her, he was probably a jovial fellow with a wandering eye and a good piece of property.”
“She told me his family had once been quite grand.”
“So now you know why she married him and with four children and another on the way, no, she wouldn’t appreciate your telling her about her husband and Mary Potter.”
Lyssa leaned forward, hugging her knees. His arm was still around her shoulder and she did not seem to mind. “Love shouldn’t be like that,” she said half to herself.
“Too often it is.”
He didn’t remind her of Lord Grossett waiting for her and his share of her father’s fortune.
Instead, he focused on Lyssa, on wanting her. Yes, earlier in the evening he’d been kissing any willing woman…but the one he wanted, the one he’d tried not to think about was right here beside him.
And what would she taste like if he kissed her?
“You don’t believe in love?” she challenged, looking over her shoulder.
“When the moon is this full, I believe in everything,” he answered recklessly. “Besides, I’m Irish. We’re poets and fools.”
“I thought you were pragmatic?” she returned, a sign there were no more whiskey fumes in her brain.
“Reality has hardened my idealism,” he admitted.
“Not mine,” she said proudly. “I believe love, true love, can overcome anything. And it is worth the price. Even if you have to live in a hovel. My parents had that kind of love.”
Dear God, had he ever been so na?ve? It seemed ages ago. “Why do you say so?”
“Because my mother gave up everything for my father. He was a shepherd who had come looking for work. He hadn’t home or hearth.
The Davidsons hired him and he lived in the meanest conditions.
However, he said the moment he laid eyes on my mother, he knew he was in love, a love he couldn’t deny even if he was poor.
My mother felt the same. She believed they were destined for each other. ”
To a man who had nothing, her words were like water for a thirsty soul. Still, Ian knew the world too well. “Her family did not approve.”
“Of course not. He had nothing. Her father tried to lock her in her room but she escaped and she and my father ran away to London to seek their fortune.” She was silent a moment before adding softly, “Ironic, isn’t it, that now he wants me to marry a man with money and a title?”
“Or that your mother ran away from Scotland to escape her fate, while you are running toward it.”
She sat up and turned to him. “Yes, you’re right,” she agreed thoughtfully. “And instead of allowing me to choose my own husband, he’s insisting on Robert.”
Here was dangerous ground. Ian dropped his hand from her back, warning himself to be cautious.
Lyssa was romantic and what she claimed to want was not always what she wanted…
except a part of him, his pride, most likely, sought to be accepted for himself, in spite of his mistakes. In spite of his failures.
And pigs might fly someday, too.
“There is no wrong in a father wanting what is best for his daughter,” he said.
“No,” she agreed quietly, and then her expression hardened. “Of course, he destroyed my mother’s memory and what they had together by marrying the duchess.”
Ian knew he shouldn’t touch it. After all, what was it to him if Lyssa insisted on portraying her stepmother as the villain? Still…“Your stepmother came down in rank to marry your father. Perhaps, there is deep love there, too?”
Her brows snapped together and her back straightened with indignation. She moved away from him. “How can you say such a thing? The duchess only married my father for his money. Her love has never been tested. And, have you forgotten she is behind the murder attempt on my life?”
“We don’t know that,” he answered—and in truth, in his gut, he didn’t believe she was. “I have no doubt that the love your father and mother had was rare and special. That’s the way it was with my parents and my sisters would have followed their husbands to hell and back.”
“But—?” she prompted.
He smiled. How well she was beginning to know him. “But I believe there may be many different kinds of love. And while one may not be as intense as another, each is important.”
“For example?”
Of course, she would expect him to build his case.
Ian picked a blade of grass and rested his arms on his bent knees before saying, “Well, there is the love of parent and the love of a child. Both are important, but not the least bit similar. Then, there is the love in a friendship. I’ve had friends I would lay down my life for and although the feeling is different, it is as strong as the love between man and wife.
” He tossed the grass aside. “Each love is valid. In a remarriage who is to say which love was stronger, the love for the first or second wife? I can see your father loving your mother for being by his side. For believing in him when no one else did. Could he not love your stepmother for the same? Certainly she gave up some status in society for him. Of course, what he felt for your mother must have burned brighter. They were younger and there was much more at stake.”
She studied him a second, considering his words. Her response surprised him. “You argue your point like a barrister, stating your case while appeasing mine.”
The insightful accuracy caught Ian off guard. Unsettled, he pulled back, suddenly uncertain as to what he had revealed.
If Lyssa noticed his slight alarm, she gave no indication.
Instead, she rested back on her palms and looked up at the stars.
“I wish I’d known my mother when she was as young as I.
My first memories of her were when she was ill.
The doctors could never tell us what was wrong with her save she didn’t have the strength to leave her room.
I used to believe having me had made her ill but Papa said that wasn’t true.
I spent every moment I could with her. She was sick for so long…
” Her voice trailed off wistfully and Ian thought he understood.
And now her father had a wife who was young and healthy, something her mother had never been in Lyssa’s memory. No wonder she was jealous of her stepmother.
“Would you kiss me?”
Ian shook his head, thinking he’d imagined her words.
She sat up and faced him. “Would you?” she prodded.
“Are you serious?”
Her expressive widened. “Yes.” There was a pause and she added, “I think I am.”