Chapter Seventeen #2
“Your reputation? At such a moment as this,” Maria hissed, standing up to cover her nakedness with the dressing gown. “You think of your reputation?”
“Would you like to be thought of as the wife of a rake? Would you like me, the man you love, to be considered a thoughtless cad who jilts a lady for her cousin, and then jilts the cousin for the lady again? And what explanations then must Fanny make against the inevitable insinuations that her failure to catch me led to our folly? And my sister, would you have her disgraced? Left behind in a house full of your angry relations?”
“I am sure she could manage it,” Maria hissed. “Knowing Mary, she would enjoy the intrigue.”
Henry looked as though he meant to argue, but he stopped himself and sighed heavily, tossing aside his shirt.
Clad only in his breeches, Henry slowly crossed the room to take Maria in his arms. She did not move, or make any response to him, but he stroked her hair.
“Mary would enjoy the courtesy of having some choice in the matter, at least—some degree of preparation.”
Maria gasped and looked up at him, her eyes wide. “You want to tell her?”
“I want to find a way, Maria. To please you.” He lifted her hand to his lips and softly kissed her fingers.
Maria laid her head against his bare chest. “I only told you the truth, Henry, because I love you, and I trust you.”
“Well, I love and trust my sister. And she shall become your sister if we do run off. I should like you to love and trust her. Besides, how could you care about the truth getting out, when it would suit your purposes?”
Maria nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose you are right. Oh, Henry, I did not mean that I do not care for her—you must realize the whole thing was really embarrassing when first I heard of it.”
“I know—it took courage for you to tell me, and I love you the better for it. But I think it is time we take Mary fully into our confidence, for I could not face her if she were taken by surprise when all this blows up—it is hardly fair to her.”
“Very well, I trust you. Perhaps she will rise to the challenge, you know. Or perhaps amidst all the chaos of our flight, her dashing colonel will come back and carry her off.”
Henry laughed. “I am sure he will, at some point or other. The two of them have been doing with their eyes what we have done here today, every time they are in the same room. I hardly know how I shall bear it if such an imposing fellow becomes my brother, and it has really made Mary quite missish.”
“But she will help us, do you think?”
“I believe she will. Fanny goes to Portsmouth tomorrow, and we will be able to speak to Mary then. We will make a plan.”
Maria wrapped her arms around Henry. “And tonight you will flirt with Fanny Price?”
He kissed the top of her head and replied, “Tonight I will be in no condition to speak to anybody, for I will be occupied in the happy recollection of the day's events—watch how I shall blush, at no visible provocation.”
Elinor and Edmund rode together to Amberley, and though Elinor enjoyed the exercise of letting her horse do its best, and the excitement of racing Edmund, she was sorry that the journey there was so brief.
Their gallop left them both breathless as they tied up their horses in a small hilltop clearing that afforded them a fair prospect of the parsonage and small village of Amberley.
“Well,” Edmund laughed. “I believe we can call it an easy distance from Norland.”
“Indeed,” Elinor agreed. “I could almost have wished it further.”
Edmund looked skeptically at her. “Why is that?”
“Oh! No, not that I should wish you further away, if you were to take it. Only I was sorry to see our ride so soon over.”
“You had better catch your breath before you make such a declaration as this.” Edmund was still panting, too, as he walked up the summit of the hill.
He carried a sack of provisions with him, and dropped it to the ground before seating himself in the grass.
“Well, will you admit you are tired, too, and come sit with me?”
“I will. I only require a little rest, but I shall sit with you as long as you like.” Elinor gathered her skirts about her and sat down, her legs crossed, near her cousin. “Do you really mean to make a painting?”
“I shall make a proper one later, but for now I shall at least sketch.” He opened the sack and began to lay out the provisions within. “I brought a thermos of tea, bread, cheese and apples, and a few candied pears because your mother said they are your favorite.”
“They are! But how kind of you.”
“And I have brought two sketchbooks and pencils, because Marianne has informed me that you are a more accomplished artist than you will ever own to.”
Elinor arched an eyebrow at him, if only to deflect the great surge of emotion she felt at his thoughtful gestures. “No doubt for some mischievous reason of her own.”
“No doubt,” he agreed.
“But we have everything we need except a proper picnic blanket.”
“Ah, I have been found wanting,” he chided with a playful smile. In an instant he was on his feet; he removed his jacket in a fluid and graceful movement, and laid it at her feet, sitting down rather nearer to her this time.
“Oh, Edmund, no—you needn’t trouble yourself, I was only in jest. You will catch cold!”
“No indeed; I shall have the sun on me, and be the happier for it.”
Elinor smiled at the sight of him in his shirtsleeves, blushing at the recollection of when she had last seen him thus—when he had carried her up the stairs.
His efforts to recommend himself were working very well indeed, and she was emboldened enough to attempt to discompose him, as he had done to her.
She removed her riding habit and tossed it aside, leaning back on her hands with her feet out in front of her as she gazed into the distance.
“It does feel lovely to sit in the sun like this. With such a view, all my cares feel so very distant.”
He had satisfied her with a sly grin and some little color about his cheeks as she had taken off her pelisse, but now it was his turn again to press his luck, and he shifted himself about before reclining himself and laying his head in her lap.
“The sun is very fine—as is the view—but I think a little shade is just the thing right now,” he said.
Elinor could not resist her girlish response to his flirtation, and his pleasure in evoking such giggling made up for the embarrassment she felt.
“Well,” she said, when at last she recovered herself.
She pulled her head back, so that it no longer shaded his eyes from the sun as he gazed up at her.
But how his eyes glittered green in the light—she held his gaze and let out a shaky breath, thrilled by how he was suddenly affecting her.
“Do come back,” he whispered. “I am quite relying on you.”
Elinor laughed, but it was tinged with some little nervousness.
Such flirtation, such physicality was uncharted territory for her, and though she was enjoying the pressing of boundaries, she was not at all sure of herself.
She leaned forward now, letting her shadow fall over his face again, and for a moment they only stared at one another, smiling stupidly.
A cool wind blew over them, and Edmund gave a little shake of his head as his hair landed in his eyes.
Elinor instinctively reached out and ran her fingers through his hair, pulling it from his eyes, which were fixed on hers.
He let out a low hum of contentment, and Elinor repeated her gentle ministrations.
There was another gust, and a lock of Elinor’s hair came loose and landed across her nose, tickling her chin as the wind ran through it.
Edmund sat up, leaning very close, until his face was inches from hers. Elinor pursed her lips in anticipation, but Edmund only smiled and then blew a playful little puff of air at her nose, moving the stray hair away. He leaned back and grinned at her.
Elinor laughed, more relieved than disappointed. “I think you had better begin your drawing now,” she said.
“I think we both ought to,” he replied. He picked up the leather-bound sketchbooks and handed one to her.
Elinor smiled as he held her eye. She felt he understood her—she enjoyed what had passed between them, but for now it was enough. Holding the sketchbook in her lap, she was content to watch him begin his sketch for a time, before she undertook one of her own.
They passed an hour in companionable silence, sitting on the hilltop together making their drawings, and were so at ease that they did not notice they were no longer alone.
A tall, lean old gentleman, with a woman in her middle fifties on his arm, came to stand alongside Edmund, casting a long shadow over him and Elinor.
“You have made my chimney rather crooked, young man. That is no way to impress your lady, sir,” the old curmudgeon quipped. “And you, young miss, you have made your beau rather too handsome, but it is good work.”
“Archie,” the woman cried, smiling at the old man’s cheek.
Elinor quickly covered her secret sketch of Edmund, who had stood and offered her his hand in assistance. She took his hand and rose to her feet, kicking the sketchbook out of sight as she brushed the grass from her skirts.
“Your chimney? But you must be Mr. Ambrose,” Edmund cried. “I sent you a message yesterday afternoon—that is, my valet was told I might direct my inquiry to a Mrs. Mathison.”
The old man’s moustache twitched. “Your inquiry?”
“Edmund Bertram, sir, and this is my cousin, Miss Elinor Dashwood.” He extended his hand; the old parson did not take it, but glanced at his companion.
“I am Mrs. Mathison,” the lady replied. “And I should say pleased to meet you, but you have rather given me away to my brother.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well Hattie, what are you on about?” Mr. Ambrose gave his sister a hard look, but Elinor spied some little humor in it.
“Well, you ought to retire, and I have told you a hundred times it is my turn to take care of you!”