Chapter Delaford, Dorsetshire #9
All sorts of things were suddenly clear to me: my feelings for him, his for me, and the nature of our love.
He had always been able to read my eyes, so he did this time, too. He reached up and put his hands around my waist, and without a word, I leaned toward him. His hands wrapped around my waist was a sensation that I won’t forget.
He proved to be frightfully strong, because he didn’t drop me to the ground like a lead weight.
“Do you remember how you were always climbing trees when you were small?” he asked, rather surprisingly.
“Of course,” I said—or something like that. I find that my memory is blurred by what happened next. I had a treehouse at Norland Park, and then Sir John had one built for me when we moved to Barton Cottage, because he found out that I was constantly up in trees or under tables.
“You used to curl up in the treehouse and study French in your red boots.”
“Beet-colored boots,” I said.
He frowned at that. We discussed beets for a while, before discovering that he had no memory of calling me a tomato with carrot legs and beetroot feet.
“Do you truly still believe I think of you that way, or even that I thought of you that way back then? I said those things in jest. I was young and stupid and wanted your attention any way I could get it. I’ve always thought you were beautiful.”
I forgot to mention that he had led me over to the old stone wall, and now boosted me on top so that our heads were at the same height.
That involved wrapping his hands around my waist once again, which I liked even better the second time.
Then we both pulled off our riding gloves, without saying a word about it.
I am beginning to realize that it’s hard to move characters around a space, because you have to constantly be reminding the reader where they are. So: once our gloves were off, Hugh leaned his hip against the wall, standing quite close to me, and I thought my heart would pound out of my chest.
I unpinned my hat and put it to the side because I was so happy to hear that he thought my hair beautiful, and also because this conversation might lead to kissing.
I do like kissing, and I’ve done enough to know that hats get in the way. When Hugh tossed his hat down on the wall, I had to work hard to suppress my lips from shaping into a wholly improper smile.
I know I had already turned down his marriage proposal, but at that moment there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to kiss him.
“I only studied French because I thought we’d travel together,” Hugh said. “Squibby and Snaps in Paris.”
“You said—”
I stopped. He waited until I was forced to keep talking. “You said no more Squibby and Snaps,” I said, my voice huskier than I would have liked. I was aiming for an airy tone, but I didn’t get there.
He looked astonished. “What are you talking about?” he repeated.
“You don’t want me to call you Squibby,” I pointed out. If I had to describe it, I’d say that I swallowed “painfully,” because I did feel sick.
“Snaps.”
He reached out and tugged at a lock of hair that had fallen down onto my shoulder. Sally had wound it all up rather than shaping ringlets, so it had a disorderly curl that is particularly my own.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“You requested that I address you as Hugh,” I reminded him. “I understand, and I’m not complaining. I do know that it is improper for me to address you so informally. Especially once you marry someone else,” I added.
He moved a little closer, and that smile was lurking in the corners of his lips again.
“But what if I don’t marry anyone else?”
My mind was boggling, to be frank. I could hear my heart beating in my ears, and my entire body was tingling. I could feel his gaze in my fingers. In my toes.
“Feodora is quite certain that the two of you are virtually betrothed,” I blurted out.
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you referring to the girl with sandy-colored hair?”
I didn’t believe for a moment that he wasn’t sure who Feodora was.
“I only like hair the color of a sunset,” Hugh said, wrapping the curl round his finger. “I have hardly paid attention to Feodora.”
“You danced with her numerous times. You smiled at her.” I couldn’t stop myself from brushing a shock of hair off his brow. “She didn’t have a chance.”
“Actually, she had no chance. You see, a young woman named Snaps came along and caught my heart years ago. It is my dearest wish that Squibby and Snaps will be inscribed on my tombstone. Our shared tombstone.”
“Is that a proposal?” I demanded. “Because it is not romantic to talk about tombstones, Hugh.”
His leg was pressed against mine by now.
To be precise, as a novelist must, I had both my hands braced on the stone wall.
He still had one hip leaning on the wall, but he was as close to me as possible, and somehow when he swung round and put a hand on both sides of my hips, it felt utterly natural.
I took in a quick breath and hoped that my peppermint tooth powder was still effective. Sally has assured me that Pearl Dentifrice is de rigueur for a lady hoping for kisses.
“I’ve always loved your hair,” Hugh said, more romantically. “It isn’t the color of a tomato. It gleams like marmalade in the sunshine, with darker bits and lighter streaks.”
I wasn’t marrying a poet, which is my way of saying that I knew exactly what was happening here. I felt a wave of that crashing joy that one feels when a long orchestral piece is coming to an end.
It was the most delightful compliment that had ever been given to me. When I looked up to examine his hair more closely, planning to be equally admiring, my eyes were caught by his (as they say).
I drew in a breath and found myself without words. Which is not normal for me.
“If my hair was the color of butter, we would be perfect together,” Hugh said thoughtfully.
I almost—almost—blurted out that we were already perfect together, but luckily I caught back the words.
“Even with my hair being the wrong color, I still think we are perfect,” Hugh said conversationally, as if he were discussing breakfast. “Particularly you.”
I gulped. Everything I always believed about love—the burning meteors and raging eyes—reeled through my head, along with the conviction that I’d been wrong.
It might be that love was two people who went together like butter and marmalade. Like the end of a symphony, when you turn to your favorite person in the world, free to go home with him.
“You turned me down last time,” Hugh went on. “I don’t mind telling you that I was pretty shattered afterward.”
“You were?” I blurted out. “You put the ring back in your pocket, shrugged, and said, ‘Oh well.’ ”
I realized that his large hand had wrapped around one of mine, because he brought it to his lips.
“I couldn’t make myself vulnerable,” he said.
“Vulnerable? You whistled as you walked out.”
“Did I ever tell you why I read classics at Oxford?”
I shook my head.
“Because I knew you’d want a man who knew literature,” he said, shocking me to the core.
“If you had left me alone, if we had never met, I’d be like any other peer, Snaps.
I’d be riding to the hounds every week, if not every day.
I’d take up my seat in the House of Lords when I was forced and spend the rest of the time bothering about drains.
Actually, I may still bother about drains, because sanitation is important.
That’s probably the biggest lesson I brought back from the Tour. ”
“I do realize that,” I said, not wanting to sound like a complete lout.
“I read literature in order to win your hand, which included a great many love poems, but I couldn’t share any of them with you because you were too young.
Then when you debuted, I tried to give you freedom in case you found someone you liked better, but you didn’t seem to, so I showed up and tried my luck. ”
“There’s no one I like better,” I said flatly.
I could hear the lark singing again. I suppose I really am a novelist, because I was in the midst of the most important conversation of my life, and I found myself cataloguing everything: not just the lark (shades of Romeo and Juliet!), but the way the rough stones felt underneath my rear and the warmth of his legs against mine.
The clouds had blown away, and the sky was blue behind him, but I couldn’t stop looking at his face.
Hugh’s pupils are rimmed with a thin line of black, and his jaw is frightfully manly. His eyes didn’t precisely flash at me, but the expression in them made me feel hot all over. And happy. Happy deep inside my body.
“At the time, I thought,” I said rather shyly, “that you would ask me again. Or try to make me fall in love with you. After all, you had scarcely danced with me during the Season.”
“I couldn’t,” he said.
My smile was faltering, when he clarified, “I loved you too much, and it made me bad-tempered to see other fellows flirting with you. The night of your debut ball, I was tempted to knock one of my oldest friends down for daring to waltz with you.”
“Oh,” I breathed, seeing that evening in a whole new light. I had thought that Hugh was bored and showed up only out of friendliness. “I thought you asked me because your mother forced you to.”
He shook his head. “She knew, of course. I had to ask her for the ring that’s always given to the next countess, but she had nothing to do with it. I got on a boat for France the day after you turned me down, which is where I meant to take you if we married.”
My heart thumped. “Because I know French?”
“Because you long to travel, and I want to travel with you. We would have started there and gone wherever you wish. As it was, I walked around cataloguing things that you would love and waiting for you to write me. Then I would take off for a new place, leaving a groom behind me to make sure that I didn’t miss a single one of your letters. ”
“I had no idea,” I croaked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”