Chapter 10 #2
Ian kissed her again, an achingly tender kiss that did nothing to assuage her disappointment at the feel of his hand sliding down her leg then tugging her nightclothes down to cover her knee.
“Into the house with you, Augusta. I’ll not be taking you on a hard bench in the garden.”
In the limited light, she saw when his own words registered with him. He shook his head and scrubbed a hand over his face—the same hand that had just touched her so carefully and intimately. “I’ll not be taking you anywhere at all.”
Ever again. He left those words mercifully unsaid.
She’d pushed him as far as he could go, and he was right: This time, they were not far, far from the house, out in the hills with nobody but the birds of the air to see them. Anybody could come along for a bit of fresh night air. There were balconies on this side of the house.
Then too, as a younger woman, Augusta had been coerced into sharing her intimate favors. She had no intention of coercing Ian, ever.
She kissed his cheek and rose, conceding nothing. She was in her room, pondering her latest encounter with the man who was never very far from her thoughts, when another idea intruded:
Augusta had overheard Connor’s confession to Ian, the one about visiting Julia in her bedroom.
Connor had started his recitation with the fact that Gil had seen him coming out of Julia’s room.
The only other occupied room on that floor belonged to Genie.
What had Gilgallon MacGregor been doing outside Genie’s room so late the previous night?
· · ·
What was he doing, letting his hands wander over Augusta Merrick’s person in unseemly and intimate paths? She’d been so eager for his kisses, so yielding and feminine and warm…
Twelve hours later, and Ian was still reliving the most fleeting caress of a breast he’d executed since he’d been a hesitant boy of fourteen. The most fleeting and the most memorable.
Augusta Merrick was willing to risk her very livelihood just for a chance to share the same intimacies with Ian that Genie Daniels would go a lifetime disdaining.
This paradox made Ian’s insides churn and his hand fist around his pen where he sat at his desk.
Right and wrong were supposed to be clearly distinguishable, like up and down, Scottish and English, and yet…
He was not engaged to anybody, and at this rate, he wasn’t likely to be soon.
Augusta was not an innocent; she knew what she risked.
And Ian was sure in his bones she hadn’t offered herself to any other man since her feckless beau had deserted her upon learning of her poverty.
Ian stared at the letter he’d written to the feckless beau—a man Matthew had sworn was honorable—and signed the damned thing.
Before Ian could change his mind, he sanded the signature.
“I beg your pardon.”
The object of Ian’s frustration—and his preoccupation and his delight—stopped just inside the library door, limned in the soft light of early afternoon. “My lord, I wasn’t aware you were still working in here. Shall I leave?”
Yes.
“Come in. I’ve just finished my correspondence for the day.” He rose and came around the desk, lest she see the piles of paper putting the lie to his words. “Can I help you find a book?”
So polite they were, but she seemed amused by it. “Or answer a question.”
He did not allow himself to speculate what manner of question she might ask him. “There’s a tea tray on the sideboard. Mary Fran sends them in when I forget to appear for luncheon. I’d be obliged if you’d share it with me lest my sister get to fretting.”
“If you like.” She took a seat on the sofa while Ian brought the tray over. If he were smart, he’d toss a cushion on the raised hearth and keep the table between them.
If he were smart, he’d be howling with the Canadian wolves alongside Asher.
He ensconced himself directly beside Augusta on the sofa.
“We’re an imposition, aren’t we?” Augusta asked. She poured for them both, the epitome of the graceful lady. “Guests show up at a time when you need to be tending to the crops and the weeding, not wasting entire mornings wandering up into the hills.”
He took a teacup from her, letting their fingers brush because he was an idiot. “Are you fishing for reassurances, Augusta?”
“No.” She smiled at her teacup as if she’d just found a pot of gold. “I think you dispensed those rather convincingly last night.”
Was that what he’d been doing? “What was it you wanted to ask me?”
She passed him a sandwich. White bread piled with thin slices of roasted beef, a thick slab of local cheddar, a dollop of tangy mustard, and a generous helping of butter. He set the plate aside untouched, though it bore a feast by the standards of years past.
“I’m enjoying your sister’s company tremendously,” Augusta said. “I’ve wanted to ask her about handfasting, but didn’t want to give offense. What is it, exactly?”
Ah, a legal question. He seized on it.
“It’s not what most people think it is. Old Sir Walter put it about we handfast by marrying for a year and a day, and then merrily discard our partners for another temporary union if the first doesn’t suit.
That might have been the custom long ago, and perhaps it still is in some places, but the legal concept is different. ”
“Tell me about it.”
It was an excuse to look competent and knowledgeable in her eyes, an excuse to share a meal with her.
“A handfasting is a legal marriage, recognized by both church and civil authorities. It consists of an exchange of future vows to wed, followed by either a formal wedding ceremony or consummation of the engagement. It is held in contempt by the same authorities who recognize its validity.”
“Why?”
She would ask that, even as she placidly sipped her tea.
“It’s said to promote licentious behavior.”
Her brows drew down in puzzlement. “It starts with an engagement, the same as most other unions require. How can that promote licentious behavior?”
“Because, lass, it provides a frisky couple the option of claiming—when they’re caught in flagrante delicto—that they’d previously exchanged those vows to wed.
Upon being discovered at their mischief, they become wed by act of law.
It gives them a way to save face they would not have otherwise had. ”
“I… see.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Mary Fran has made occasional reference to her late spouse as being a sly, handfasting, er, rascal. I did not understand…”
“You still don’t.” He rose and crossed to the window, his gaze on the back gardens that kept so many of his cousins and relations employed—for a few months each year, but only a few months. And they were grateful for what little he paid them.
“Ian?” She’d followed him, had crept right up beside him without making a sound. “I don’t mean to pry.”
“It’s a predictable tale.” He could not put an arm around her waist—they were standing by a window, for God’s sake—so he clasped his hands behind his back.
“Mary Fran chafed badly under Grandfather’s idea of how a proper earl’s granddaughter ought to conduct herself.
The more stern his discipline, the wilder she became.
The business with Gordie… It was supposed to be a minor rebellion, wild oats, a statement of her independence—she was all of eighteen, quite grown-up in her own eyes—and at the regimental ball, her little scheme misfired. ”
“Misfired?”
“As soon as Mary Fran realized Grandfather wasn’t going to have an apoplexy over her peccadilloes with Gordie, it became apparent Fiona was on the way, and that was that.
A handfast marriage was produced from thin air, complete with legal documents and sworn witness testimony, despite the fact that Mary Fran’s taste for English mischief had since abated. Fee is legitimate, but barely.”
“And Gordie?”
“He was off to Canada with his regiment before Fee was born and did not survive his first winter. I send his family regular reports about Fee’s progress, which are works of creative fiction.
They’ve never mentioned sending coin to assist with her upbringing, which is all to the good.
If they had, I’d have cause to be nervous. ”
“Why should it make you nervous?”
“Englishmen bearing gifts make most of the world, civilized and otherwise, nervous. They come either to collect specimens for their infernal museums or to make peace in the name of my lovely, conquering royal neighbor.”
Augusta turned to regard him then crossed the room to retrieve his sandwich plate. “You should eat.”
“So should you.” He held out the sandwich to her, and damned if the woman didn’t bite off a piece. She watched him as she did then chewed slowly.
“It’s good, Ian. You finish it.”
He was doomed. He stuffed a bite of sandwich in his mouth and returned to the sofa. In a bit of divine mercy, she took the hearth opposite, resting her chin on her updrawn knees.
“What’s the hardest thing, Ian?”
She would use his name. “About?”
“About being you? About all this?” She waved a hand around the library and sat back. “I’ve been thinking about that lately: What’s the hardest thing about my life in Oxfordshire? It’s a peaceful little life, I want for nothing material, and my neighbors are good, kind people.”
“But?” He gestured with the second half of the sandwich, and she shook her head.
“But it’s hard too.” She gave him a sunny smile, one that belied the truth of her words. He got an abrupt image of her moving briskly around her little holding, the hems of her nondescript dresses muddy in the chicken yard, her ugly shawls growing more deplorable by the year…
If I could afford a mistress, even… But he could not.
“It’s not so difficult, being the laird.” He tried on the falsehood he told himself several times daily. Spoken aloud, it sounded hollow. “Or it wouldn’t be, if I’d been raised to it. Missing my brother, not knowing what happened to him, that’s hard.”