Chapter 5 #2
Anthony’s heart broke for her a little as she spoke. What a terrible end for a courageous woman.
Nerissa fell silent and continued to pick the cherries without saying another word. He ached for her like he had never ached for another human being in his life.
“If I could but take away all the cares from your heart,” he said softly.
She smiled wanly but did not look at him, concentrating on not getting prickled by the bush. “Ah, but Anthony, ‘tis the pain that we feel which reminds us that we truly have loved.”
There was something wrong with his throat, and Anthony found that tears were threatening to fall from his eyes.
In an attempt to prevent himself crying far more than anything else, he said gruffly, “But you have made a life here, and that must be pleasant. There must be wonderful society here.”
Nerissa laughed and started to hand cherries to Anthony to hold as her left hand was full. “I think that is more wishful thinking than anything else!”
“It is not diverting enough for you here?”
“It is certainly nothing like my memories of London society,” she said with a smile, “although I admit that I am almost certain that my recollections of my time in London are not entirely accurate. I was only there for one season, you see, and that was five years ago.”
This felt like a much safer topic to Anthony, and so he decided to plough on with some recollections of his own, rather saucier adventures in the capital of the world.
“If you have not been there in five years, you will not have heard of Alexander, Duke of Caershire’s scandalous marriage?”
He saw her eyes brighten, and warmth washed over him to give her such pleasure.
“Ah, you should have been there when she was first presented at court. Miss Teresa Metcalfe, as was, had spent some years as a courtesan to the rich and famous – ”
“So you knew her, then?” Nerissa interrupted with a sardonic smile that Anthony felt looked a little more enquiring than usual.
He swallowed, and thanked God that his one opportunity to get to know Miss Teresa a lot better had been accidentally thwarted by Samuel’s most recent escapade.
“No,” he said firmly. “But when the newly created Duchess Teresa was presented at court, the Regent obviously was decorum itself, but the Royal Chamberlain snubbed her by refusing to take her hand after the presentation.”
Nerissa’s eyes were wide now, and she had forgotten her cherry picking in the depths of the story. “And?”
“And Teresa,” laughed Anthony, “looked him up and down and said, ‘My goodness, sir, you must barely recognise me. I certainly hardly recognise you with so many clothes on!’”
Their laughter echoed in the trees around the clearing, and Anthony found himself finding more joy in her merriment than in his own. To make Nerissa Fairchild laugh, to make her happy every day – why did he long for her almost as much as he longed for her body?
“And yet despite all of the glittering lights and entertainments that London can offer,” he said more seriously, “nothing has compared to the time that I have spent with you over the last two days.”
Nerissa’s laughter slowed and disappeared, but she was still smiling and did not take her eyes from Anthony. Without looking down at her hands, she placed a cherry in her mouth and the deep red juice coated her lips.
Anthony swallowed. He was in very real danger of dropping all the cherries that they had gathered to the ground, kissing Nerissa very hard on the mouth, and taking her right there in this forest if he was not too careful.
He could see the same desire in her eyes, a desire that she did not quite understand, but it was growing, it was real.
Realisation dawned across his mind, and his body stirred to attention.
He could have her; he could make love to Nerissa and she would probably not resist. She was hardly his typical woman, and she was adventurous, and kind, and everything about her was enwrapt in the most arousing body he had ever seen.
But no. He could not – he would not take the innocence of a woman without her consent. It had always been that way with him, and that was not going to change now. Even with the most tempting morsel before him.
Anthony coughed, and then swallowed, as though that would remove all his desire for her. “I-I think we should go back to the clearing,” he managed in a strangled voice.
They walked the few yards together in silence, and although he was desperate to know what Nerissa was thinking, he did not have the words to ask her without potentially revealing his own longing for her.
They sat down, and Nerissa silently began to eat the cherries from her own hand. Anthony looked down and found that his own hands were full of them, and a few had burst, staining his hands.
He ate, quelling the hunger pains in his stomach which had been a distraction for so long, but now he was left with the hunger of an organ a little further down his body, and that was much more difficult to ignore.
But there was a thought which had occurred to him, and although he hated to speak it, he knew that he must, or regret that he did not comfort her.
“You may no longer have your mother,” he said quietly, eyes carefully watching her, “but you do have your father.”
Despite his concern that Nerissa would blanche at the contentious topic, she once again surprised him, doing something that he could never have expected.
Nerissa raised her eyes to his own, and smiled weakly. “And yet I sense that my father was…was wrong to do what he did. To you. To your sister. To all those others.”
It was all Anthony could do to prevent his jaw from dropping.
“I will admit that I am not entirely sure what he did, or did not do,” she continued in an undertone.
“He never spoke about his job with me, although I comprehend his duties and responsibilities. I just…I just have the feeling from your words, from your passionate desire for justice no matter the cost, that what my father did…was wrong.”
Anthony felt a pang, a sharp stab of pain. It had never been his intention to turn Nerissa against her father, it had never even crossed his mind – but at the same time, he was not about to lie to her, to stop being true to himself and to the truth that he knew about Mr Fairchild.
It seemed an impossible situation, and he opened his mouth with absolutely no idea what he could say, but thankfully Nerissa spoke before he could.
“I have no choice but to support him,” she said, with a wry smile, her dark blue eyes fixed on his own. “For you see, I have no other protection.”
Anthony’s heart started to race. Now here was an opportunity that he had never considered, never thought would occur to her.
Here was the moment that he could be closer to her, to take her in his arms, to possess her.
He had only offered his protection to one mistress before, and that had given him a year’s worth of heady pleasure.
And now Nerissa – Nerissa Fairchild – was offering the same to him. By God, it was too good to be true, it was all his hopes for her rolled up and handed to him on a plate.
He tried to get a hold of himself. This was a delicate conversation, not one that could be undertaken with half of his mind already undressing her.
If he wanted Nerissa to be his mistress and offer his protection, he would have to be careful.
“I…I could be your protector,” he suggested quietly.