Chapter 17 #4
She ought to have been desperately angry at his grace for pulling her attention away from Lord Greystone, but suddenly her closeness to the lord was not nearly so inviting as it had been before.
“Yes,” she said, perhaps a little too firmly, and Lord Greystone’s brow arched.
“Perhaps your tolerance for dancing has come to an end, My Lady?” he suggested, and she realized that perhaps he was right.
All she wished to do was run from the dance floor.
Yet, she smiled and assured him, “I am most content to dance with you, My Lord.”
All the while they danced, she felt his presence, and it was utterly distracting. Though she had not a clue as to why he suddenly affected her so.
Perhaps it was the look in his eye, the softness with which he gazed at her, the expression that was not nearly so cold as it had been before.
And a part of her wished to question him as to why.
She was most relieved when the dance finally came to an end and the dance partners retired to the edge of the floor.
Her feet ached, her muscles were tense, and her mind was utterly confused.
Something had changed, though she was uncertain as to what.
And when yet another gentleman came to offer her a dance, she found herself declining in favour of needing some air.
The ballroom had become stuffy. She felt dizzy with the closeness of its patrons, her heart beating unbelievably fast, and though she tried not to hurry, her feet carried her swiftly from the room.
Out on the terrace, she firmly gripped the balustrade to compose herself, her eyes firmly closed.
The cool air of the evening was a tender kiss against her feverish flesh, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“Lady Cecelia?”
Her entire body tensed at the sound of his voice, low and gentle, utterly changed from his ordinary tone with her.
She didn't dare to look around as she felt his grace inch closer behind her.
“Yes, Your Grace?”
She was barely able to utter the words, her mouth dry.
“Might I have a word?”
He stood by her now, barely just out of reach, his own hands on the balustrade as if he, too, needed some stability.
“Of course.”
She barely dared glance at him out of the corner of her eye, and when she found him gazing at her, she was quick to look away in favour of viewing the gardens, gardens they had played in as children.
“Might we sit?” he suggested, and Cecelia sensed more than saw the way he gestured to a nearby stone bench.
Feeling as though her legs would barely carry her there, Cecelia steeled herself and moved to the bench, waiting for his grace to sit before she carefully perched herself on the far end, as far from him as physically possible.
There they sat in silence until she began to feel dizzy with the need to speak but was entirely unsure of what to say.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but his grace was the first to break the silence. “I wish to apologize.”
Cecelia's head snapped up, and she stared at his grace in shock. “I beg your pardon?”
“My behaviour in the park was entirely unwarranted,” he said, and the way he looked at her, with such sincerity, made her chest ache.
“It … it is entirely forgotten, Your Grace,” she assured him, suddenly wishing they could put everything behind them.
His grace shook his head.
“Please, allow me to say this,” he insisted, his tone almost melancholy. “I am sorry for how I overreacted.”
Cecelia swallowed hard.
“I felt as if you were mocking me,” he admitted, and Cecelia blinked, unsure of what to say.
“Mocking you, Your Grace?”
She could have sworn she saw his grace shiver.
“When you proposed we play blind man's bluff,” he said as if that might answer the thousand questions swimming in her mind.
“I … I do not understand, Your Grace.”
His grace looked at her then, a turmoil of emotion in his startling blue gaze. Though everything in her told her she ought to look away, she couldn't bring herself to do so.
“It reminded me of that day at Fernworth, the day you named me a coward,” his grace said, and she saw the way his entire body tensed as he spoke.
“Your Grace, I do not understand—” she said, shaking her head, though her gaze never left his. She saw the hurt that flashed there. “That was so long ago.”
His grace scoffed, and he looked away, causing a well of disappointment to open up in Cecelia's gut. “And, yet, to this very day, the memory has never left me.”
Cecelia's throat constricted. The sheer pain in his tone made her nauseous.
“Oh, George! I had no idea!” she exclaimed as suddenly so many things started to make much more sense. Forgetting herself entirely, she reached for his hand.
She anticipated his pulling away, expected it even, yet his fingers gripped around hers. The heat of his touch through their gloves was enough to make Cecelia quiver.
“My father expected my participation in the war,” his grace went on, staring out at the gardens beyond the balustrade. “He expected I should be as brave and valiant as our ancestors during the Anglo-French conflicts, and I, coward that you named me, felt no such thing.”
Her heart squeezed, and reflexively, she gripped his hand tighter.
“Of all the people in the world, I had hoped you would be the one to understand,” he continued when she found it utterly impossible to speak.
“I shared my true feelings with nobody but you, and when you … when you mocked me for all to see, I could not bear it. We may have only been children, but I suppose childish things were all I had left to hold onto during the war.”
Guilt coiled like a snake in Cecelia's stomach.
“George, I—”
He did not let her speak as he turned his gaze upon her then. “You were right to name me a coward, Cece, for I have always been one.”
“No, George!” she insisted, another emotion suddenly claiming her heart. “You are stubborn and foolish at times, but never a coward. I never truly believed that. I was a fool myself. I was reckless and childish, and I never imagined my words might have wounded you so!”
Their gazes met for several seconds, and Cecelia felt tears creeping into her eyes.
All this time, this was what had kept them apart, kept their friendship from rekindling.
Suddenly, she snatched her hand away.
“All those letters,” she gasped, remembering the months she had spent in her room, pondering why he had never written her back. “I wrote so many letters and not once did you respond!”
Anger bubbled up inside her, and she rose from her seat. The weakness in her legs was gone, utterly replaced by adrenaline.
“You could have written me. You could have told me all of this before!”
His grace did not rise. He instead turned his gaze up to hers, his face twisting in pain.
“Then you truly see me for the coward I am,” he said, and she thought she saw his lip quiver.
“No,” she demanded, firmly shaking her head, “No! I do not accept that.”
The emotion that had been welling inside her all evening came to a head, and her tears burst forth in a flood down her cheeks.
“You could have written,” she insisted, struggling to keep her voice even as she tried her hardest to hold back the tears. “You should have!”
In an instant, his grace stood before her. He pulled her into his arms so abruptly that it was a shock to Cecelia's system.
In the blink of an eye, her anger began to ebb away, and she relaxed into his arms. The tears continued to stream down her cheeks.
“I am truly sorry, Cece,” he said, his hand caressing the back of her head as he held her to his chest. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Cecelia wished to tell him that she couldn't, that she would never get over the years of hurt his silence had caused, and yet, when she lifted her gaze to his, she was overwhelmed by the desire to say yes.
Her lip trembled, her eyes still streaming, and she was surprised when he raised a handkerchief to her face. The gentleness with which he wiped her tears away almost broke her heart.
Suddenly, it felt as if there was nothing left to say. She feared that if she spoke, she might say the wrong words, and this tender moment would be lost like a leaf on a stiff breeze.
Instead, she found herself pushing up onto the tips of her toes.
And when he leaned down in response, her heart skipped a beat.
His gloved hand, handkerchief still loosely gripped, cupped her cheek as their lips connected, leaving Cecelia utterly breathless.
Desperation and desire consumed her; her body pressed so intently against his that she felt as if they melted into one. The night all around them seemed to whisper words of encouragement as her hand slipped up his chest, traced along his neck, and came to rest upon his cheek.
“Cecelia—” he whispered her name, barely more than a breath, and the world exploded all around her.
For one more second, she was swept away. Her entire body sang with the need of his kiss, with the desire to remain there like that for all eternity.
Then, suddenly remembering herself, she pulled away.
“How dare you?” she demanded, even as she thought, How dare I?
Anger came boiling to the surface once more as she was overwhelmed by conflicting sensations of desire, embarrassment, pain, and longing.
“Cecelia, wait,” he said as she turned away.
She felt his fingers brush her wrist, pleaded silently for him to stop her, but her feet carried her away down the terrace steps and into the garden.
Desperately, more desperately than she needed to kiss him, she needed to be alone.