Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
An easy promise to make as, since Mary, he’d never compromised a member of his staff, although more than a few had given him looks that had indicated their inclination to oblige him if he so wished. Would it be as easy to foreswear the London habits he’d formed since he was a boy of sixteen?
“I wish your wife luck,” his mother said, with a curl of her lip. “I formed a liking for her when she visited. You can tell her she’s going to need it.”
His interview with his mother over, Jonathan descended the stairs with care and received his hat and gloves and cane from her butler. The man opened the door for him and he emerged into the summer warmth. A gentle walk back would do him good.
He managed to make it to the avenue more easily than he’d expected and was glad of the shade afforded by the limes.
At the junction, he paused to get his breath back.
Deep breaths were still difficult with his broken ribs only started on their road to being mended.
Up ahead he could just make out the distant sparkle of water through the trees.
He would return via the lake rather than taking the longer route along the main driveway.
He walked slowly, pausing every now and then to regain his breath, and was glad of his cane for once for its normal usage. Birds sang in the trees and beyond their shade sheep grazed, fat lambs by their sides.
Idyllic. Why did he not spend more time here?
Because when he was in London, he could put behind him what had happened here.
He could put behind him his father’s behavior, his death, his mother’s hatred of him.
He could forget Mary and the way she’d died on a bed drenched in her blood.
Of course, that had also meant forgetting Kitty, his biggest regret.
For he loved her dearly, as much as she loved him.
That she had accepted his infrequent visits still astonished him.
He would spend as long here this time as he could, as much time as possible with his daughter.
But, there was someone else he wanted to spend time with too.
Verity.
As a man for whom female companionship had meant blissful oblivion as much as heavy drinking had, he would have been surprised if anyone had suggested he was in love with his wife.
He liked her very much, he was ready to accept, but love?
What was that? He’d known so little of it in his life.
Just Mary, and that had been so fleeting he could barely remember how it had made him feel.
If it meant he was longing to see her face, to hold her in his arms, to feel the warmth of her body beside his in bed, then it might be love.
If it meant he was impatient with his infirmities that prevented him from taking their new relationship further, then that might just be lust more than love.
And that was something he’d felt many times, with every woman he’d ever seduced.
But for none of them had he felt the former.
None of them had inspired him to want to spend time with them that wasn’t occupied by being in bed and indulging in physical pursuits.
Physical pursuits he’d thought had driven his fevered dreams away.
And yet, in the past four days she’d come to his bed at night and slept by his side, her presence comforting and soothing, and no nightmares had troubled him.
There’d been no physical side to this arrangement.
Not even a kiss after that first one she’d bestowed on him when she’d woken him from his nightmare.
He’d lifted his good arm and she’d snuggled up on his left-hand side and sleep had come to him.
Healthy, revitalizing sleep not induced by pain-killing drugs nor the aftermath of lust.
What magic did she possess? Or was love itself a kind of magic? Would he ever know?
He’d been walking along the edge of the lake for a while now, having crossed the bridge without even noticing he’d done so, and he was suddenly jerked back into reality by a voice calling his name.
“Jonnie.” Verity’s voice, as though his thoughts had conjured her. “If you keep going that way you’re going to get wet.”
He stopped, aware for the first time of his surroundings, and blinked in surprise. He was on the very edge of the lake and in front of him the bank curved to his left. Another two steps and he’d have had a decent ducking.
Verity was sitting under a stand of drooping willows, on a plaid rug, with a parasol, and the leafy branches, giving her shade. She looked utterly charming in a pale-primrose gown embroidered with tiny white flowers. Fresh, friendly, sweetly smiling at him. Welcoming, even.
He said the first thing that came into his head. “I thought you were engaged in studying suitable new gowns for Kitty?”
She laughed, a sound that to him had all the attraction of music to his ears.
“I have selected four, as you suggested, and we will send for a dressmaker from your nearest town, or perhaps Oxford itself, to come out and measure her for them forthwith. You will be pleased to hear that, without Kitty’s constant interruptions, I have been able to choose gowns that are modest and therefore suitable for a girl her age.
She would have had them slightly less proper, I fear. ”
“I look forward to seeing her in them. I’d quite forgotten that girls of her age are inclined to grow, or I would have had Mrs. Burke see to her apparel sooner.”
“I don’t think she minded too much, but she’s very excited to be receiving new ones.
” She paused. “A penny for your thoughts? You were walking along the lakeside with the air of someone with his head in the clouds. I could only assume you were miles away. I began to fear for your life if you were to tumble in. I don’t believe it’s terribly deep, but with only one arm I was afraid I should have to undertake a rescue. ”
He laughed. “I’m fairly sure it’s only a few feet deep here. Your rescue would have amounted to giving me a hand out and perhaps removing my boots for me in order to empty them of water.”
She joined in his laughter. “And any damage to you would only be to your pride.”
He moved closer. “Might I be so bold as to ask if I may sit with you?”
She shuffled over. “Of course you may. You need no invitation, but do you need any assistance?”
He’d had enough of being helped, so shook his head. He managed to sit down without showing himself up too badly.
She clapped her hands. “I see being one-armed is becoming second nature to you.”
“I would rather it didn’t.”
She gave a little shuffle that brought her back into her original position, closer to him. “I quite understand. But that was deftly done. I doubt very much I could so the same with such elegance.”
“You would be hampered by your skirts.”
Another peal of laughter. “Which would be the biggest problem when I tried to rise. Believe me, just sitting down in an elegant fashion with two useful arms when wearing a dress is not an easy task. I myself might need assistance to rise.” She looked up at him out of those beautiful, dark-fringed eyes and he felt his insides melt, so much so that he could think of nothing to say.
To be fair, it appeared she was in the same condition.
The silence between them stretched out, with neither of them looking away.
Her tongue darted out and licked her lips and he felt himself harden.
What he really wanted to do was kiss her, an action that had never been difficult for him before.
With the women who’d succumbed to his seduction, they’d been almost panting for his first touch.
Verity was not the same. No air of desperation hung about her, and yet, he was certain she wanted him.
What was it about her that made her so different from every other woman in his life? Except for Mary.
Yes. She was like Mary. An innocent. The thought that he’d accused her of being the exact opposite arose and he felt his cheeks heat.
She appeared not to notice. Instead, she leaned towards him. “Might you perhaps pretend to be asleep and let me waken you as I did a few days ago? Like Sleeping Beauty in her tower.”
An analogy he’d never heard applied to a man, especially not one with the sort of experience he had. Still… “You may.” He closed his eyes.
Her hand touched his chest, gentle as a feather. “You must lie down if you are to be a true Sleeping Beauty. Will you be uncomfortable?”
He would suffer any amount of discomfort for her. For a kiss. He shook his head. “I’ll be fine.” And he let her push him back until he was lying on the blanket, the inside of his eyelids flashing bright and dark as the sunlight filtered through the leaves above his head.
By instinct he knew she was hovering over him.
Then her lips met his in the lightest of butterfly kisses.
He let his own lips open and his tongue darted out to taste her mouth.
A slight hesitation betrayed her, but she didn’t retreat.
Her lips remained on his, and he let his tongue probe further into her mouth, searching for her tongue to dance with.
She pulled back. “If that is how Sleeping Beauty was awoken, then I’m not surprised it worked.”
He chuckled, keeping his eyes shut. “Kiss me again and I’ll show you more.”
But she sat back on her haunches and he had to open his eyes, squinting against the glare. She shook her head. “I shouldn’t be doing this, you know.”
“Why not? You like it, don’t you?”
She nodded. “It’s just that from the moment I met you, I decided you were not a nice man, and then later, after you insulted me so badly, I decided you needed taking down a peg or two and teaching a lesson. This doesn’t feel anything like the lesson I intended.”
“Do you think I still need it?”
She shrugged, but her eyes were dancing.
“To be truthful, I think you probably don’t.
No one is this good an actor. Since you arrived here, you’ve shown me you possess a different side.
In London I formulated an impression of you as a libertine, a gambler, and a rake, who cared little for others.
” She paused. “Yet here you seem to have an alternative personality. You’re kind and gentle and all things you appear to lack in London.
” A frown marred her brow. “I have come to think that the you of London is nothing but a mask you wear—a disguise to hide the real Jonnie. In London you are the Black Earl, but here you’re just Kitty’s father.
” She paused again as though considering her words.
“And I think that here I could accept you as my husband, too.”
He tried to push himself up towards her but her hand on his chest held him down with little effort on her part.
He was weak as a kitten. She shook her head.
“Let me speak. I didn’t like the London Black Earl, but I do very much like Kitty’s father.
But I fear losing that man if we were to return to London. ”
He reached up and laid his left forefinger on her lips.
“I have no intention of returning to London. I’m on my way back from the Dower House.
I owed my mother a visit and now I owe you the missing part of my truth.
I missed a fact out of my story the other day.
My mother witnessed my fight with my father and saw him fall.
She thinks I fought with him because I was angry at his behavior, which is partly true.
I did tell her I loved Mary, but she barely listened.
That explains her dislike of Kitty and her ostracism from me.
I told her I was staying here for the foreseeable future. With you. And Kitty, of course.”
“You are?” The words came out on a little gasp.
He nodded. “I am. Now, kiss me again, if you don’t mind, and I’ll try hard not to think how much else I want us to do and that we’ll have to wait far too long for.”
So Verity kissed him, and nothing mattered anymore but lying there in the sunshine in his arms, with the gentle lapping of the water beside them, and the birds singing in the trees.
Life was good.
THE END