Chapter 2 #2
Not that the Bateses seemed to mind such a thing.
It was Hetty who had to remind them again and again that Edward wasn’t forever.
He was leaving in three weeks, and then two weeks, and then one week, and his motives were irrelevant.
He would soon be on a ship, across an ocean, around the world. And Hetty was not invited.
It did not matter that her family had decided to like him.
It did not matter, either, that Hetty had fallen in love with him.
One really could not blame her, what with the way he charmed her mother, and befriended her future brother-in-law, and threw his back into whatever work her father found for him.
Hetty was slightly ashamed to admit that she liked that last bit the most, the way his strong, sinewy frame moved as he easily shifted pews and lifted boxes and pushed wheelbarrows.
Apparently, working on a merchant ship made one very strong.
Strong enough that when they found themselves caught in a particularly soggy bit of pasture while walking the vicarage grounds, Edward didn’t hesitate to lift Hetty up into his arms and carry her through, setting her down on solid earth before offering, “Your dress is too pretty to muddy the hem, I think, Miss Bates.”
“Thank you.”
“That blush is all the thanks I need,” he said, reaching out to pass a thumb over her rosy cheek.
She leaned into the touch, giving them both what they wished, his palm warm against her face, cradling it carefully as their gazes met, and two weeks of daily walks and conversation and longing surfaced, and Hetty felt like she might go mad if she did not tell him what was in her heart.
Edward spoke first, however. “That’s not true, though, is it? The blush isn’t nearly enough. None of this is.”
She recognized the emotion in his words. Longing. Desire. Frustration. “Edward,” she whispered, lifting her hand to the back of his, wishing she could ask him to stay. Forever. “Don’t…”
“I’m going to miss you terribly, you know,” he said, his thumb still moving, stroking over her skin, setting fire to her.
“I am afraid,” she replied.
His brows shot together, his jaw going hard as marble, readying for battle. “Of what?”
Pleasure thrummed through her at the warning in the question, like he’d defend her from whatever enemy appeared. “It’s silly.”
“Nothing about you is silly, Hetty Bates,” he replied. “Tell me what ails you, love. I shall fight it off.”
Love. He’d taken to calling her that over the weeks, and every time, it set Hetty’s heart to racing.
She knew it didn’t mean anything. It was an endearment that some used so easily.
He didn’t mean it the way she did. The way she would if she said it to him.
She pushed the thought away. “I know you’re leaving,” she said.
“I know you’re headed to the wide world. To adventure.”
He didn’t speak, but his warm brown eyes watched her with utter focus.
“But a part of me,” she pressed on, “a part of me hopes you’ll remember me. This. Even after you’ve seen the world. Even when the adventure is over.”
“Hetty,” he whispered, his other hand rising to cup her cheek, so he was cradling her face, tilting it up to the sun. To his gaze.
“I’m afraid you’ll forget me,” she whispered.
He was silent for a long moment, long enough that she wondered if she’d said the wrong thing. When embarrassment threatened to consume her, he shook his head. “No. Never.”
And he kissed her.
If she were being honest, Hetty had been waiting for Edward to kiss her since the moment she’d met him on the balcony at the Woodhouse ball.
She’d lain awake long after the candles had been snuffed, staring into the darkness, wondering what it would be like if he did, how it would feel if he touched her, whether the scent of him, cedar and spice, would wrap itself around her. Whether she’d like it.
She hadn’t really had to worry about that last bit. Of course she would like it. She couldn’t imagine Edward Harris doing anything at all, ever, that she didn’t like. Except leave.
But he wasn’t leaving. Not in that moment. In that moment, he was kissing her.
And it was magnificent.
Oh, she liked it. Very, very much. He was tall and warm and everything she’d imagined, and the kiss he gave her, it was everything kisses should be—at least, everything Hetty thought they should be.
A taste of temptation. A taste of something else, something a vicar’s daughter absolutely should not be able to identify. Sin.
Not that she was going to stop.
Instead, Hetty reveled in him, loving the way his hands slid into her hair, mussing her tightly pinned curls as she matched his caress, threading her own fingers through his soft, sandy waves.
And then he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her closer, tighter, sliding his tongue over her lower lip, a question she quickly answered, eager for more of him. Eager to be a part of him.
This kiss was dangerous. The kind that ruined a girl for all others. But Hetty didn’t mind, for she was already ruined. Already gone for Edward Harris.
The kiss lingered, long and mind-altering, soft and sweet and so full of pleasure she forgot where they were. Why. For how long.
And when he released her, pressing soft kisses across her cheek to her ear, and whispered, “You are perfect,” she believed him. And when he added, “I’ll never forget you, Hetty, because I’m never going to let you go,” she believed that, too.
After the stolen time in the pasture, Hetty and Edward’s walks became longer, farther afield.
They strayed farther away from the vicarage, to the folly on the far ridge bordering the lands of Salterton Abbey, where no one would see them.
Where no one would interrupt them if their kisses became more frequent, more ardent, more exciting, more consuming, more.
Where no one would find them if the kisses became something else, entirely.
Their last week together was remarkable, full of secrets and longing and the words Hetty had been too afraid to speak, now tumbling out of both of them. Honest and forthright in the way only first love could be—an adventure all of its own.
But love could not keep life at bay, and on Edward’s final afternoon in Highbury, as they lay wrapped in each other’s arms at the top of the folly, the springtime sun teasing them with warmth every time it emerged from the clouds, Hetty prayed for time to stop as she pressed her ear to Edward’s chest, and he held her more tightly than he’d ever done before, and she listened to his heartbeat, strong and true and hers. Always hers.
“I’m coming back,” he whispered, the sound seeming to come from deep in his chest. “For you.”
“What if you didn’t go? I don’t need a fortune, Edward. I need you.”
He pressed his brow to hers. “I need you, as well, my love. But I’m nothing close to the husband you deserve.”
“We’ll manage—” He stopped her words with a kiss, releasing her only when she melted into him.
“We won’t have to manage. I’ll be back by Michaelmas. We’ll feed each other the last of the blackberries.”
“Six months,” she said, hating the words. The torture in them. “Half a year.”
“Will you wait for me?”
It was a mad question. “Of course I’ll wait for you.” She’d wait a year. Ten. Longer, if she had to. Forever.
“Six months, and I’ll have my own ship, and I’ll ask your father proper, and we’ll post banns, and we’ll marry—and you’ll wear blue.”
She lifted her head. “I will?”
He nodded, the decision made. “You look beautiful in blue.”
“I do?”
He kissed her nose. “You do. But I’m telling you your future.”
“I didn’t know you had such a gift.” She grinned and let him.
“After we marry—it’ll be a house for us. Here in Highbury, if you like, and a passel of babies if you like the sound of it.”
She liked it very much, indeed. Six months. She could do that. “And everyone will call me Mrs. Harris.”
He grinned. “Say it again.”
“Mrs. Harris,” she whispered. “Mrs. Edward Harris.”
“Yes. They’ll call you that,” he said. “And when we’re together, I shall call you my Hetty.”
It was her turn to kiss. His to melt.
“I want it now,” she said. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said. “Promise you’ll let me. Promise you’ll wait for me.”
“Yes,” she whispered, happier than she’d ever been, even as her heart was broken open with longing. Half a year wasn’t so long. And then, they’d have forever. “Of course.”
Another kiss, and another, and a dozen more throughout the afternoon, as the sun sank toward the horizon. Every one a promise. Six months, and I’ll be back. You’ll have everything you ever dreamed.
And she believed him.