Chapter Thirteen
The cob stopped in the middle of the lane and lowered its head towards the verge. Nothing Selina did with the reins made the smallest impression upon it.
“You are holding them as though they had insulted you,” Nathaniel said.
“They are attached to an animal with opinions.” She tightened her grip and was rewarded by the cob tearing up another mouthful of grass. “We have not yet agreed whose opinions are to prevail.”
“At present, his.”
“I had observed as much.”
The phaeton stood a hundred yards short of the gate in a private lane at Wexford Park, the may still white in the hedges and the morning already warm. Nathaniel sat beside her upon the narrow seat, close in the way the seat required and no closer.
“You are gripping too hard,” he said. “He feels the strain in your hands and knows that you are uncertain. Loosen the reins.”
“Was that a lesson in horsemanship or a criticism of my character?”
“Both. I economise.”
She kept her eyes upon the cob’s ears. “And if he takes advantage?”
“Then you correct him. Firmly, but without quarrelling with him over every blade of grass.”
“You make it sound very simple.”
“It is simple. That does not make it easy.” He paused. “Loosen your hands, Selina.”
The sound of her name in his voice startled the tension from her fingers. The reins slackened. Whether persuaded by the change or merely satisfied with its breakfast, the cob lifted its head and consented to walk.
The phaeton rolled forward.
Selina laughed aloud in surprise. When she glanced at Nathaniel, he was looking very deliberately towards the hedge.
They had been at Wexford Park for a se’nnight.
The house sat low and honey-coloured among the Berkshire hills, its lawns descending towards the river and its beech woods older than the title itself.
On the first morning, Selina had stood before one of its long windows and thought that it was the first place in eight years which did not appear to be preparing to ask her to leave.
The country house was less imposing than the London residence and possessed none of its rigid order.
Its floors complained beneath the tread, doors required persuasion in wet weather, and generations of Sinclairs looked down from fading portraits with the indifference of people too securely dead to care whom Nathaniel had married.
The housekeeper showed Selina the linen presses on the second morning and left roses in her room on the third. She asked no questions about London, the Calverts or the speed of the marriage. Selina was grateful enough for the omission that she did not mention the roses either.
Their days gradually acquired a shape. The three of them breakfasted together in a sunny room overlooking the east lawn.
Georgiana, removed from London and the expectation of disaster arriving with every knock, had grown easier.
She still quarrelled with her brother, but without the old desperation beneath it, and Nathaniel had begun to answer rather than forbid her.
Selina walked in the beech woods before breakfast and discovered, after the second morning, that Nathaniel had developed the same habit. Neither of them called the meetings arranged.
On the fourth morning, he was waiting beside the stile when she reached it.
“There were bluebells here a fortnight ago,” he said as they walked. “You have missed them.”
“I believe that is generally what happens when one arrives after a flower has finished.”
“I am sorry for it.”
She stopped to free her hem from a bramble. “You are apologising to me for the calendar.”
“I am regretting that you did not see them. It is not quite the same thing.”
“No. It is very nearly gallant.”
“That was not my intention.”
“You should let it stand regardless.”
He held a damp branch aside for her. “There will be bluebells next year.”
“Yes,” she said. “There will.”
Neither remarked upon the assumption.
Their evenings were equally undemanding. Georgiana played the pianoforte with confidence largely unsupported by her ability, while Nathaniel sat with an estate book upon his knee and failed to turn a page.
“The book is upside down, Your Grace,” Selina observed one evening.
“It is closed. A closed book has no orientation.”
He turned it regardless.
At Wexford Park, silence did not always mean that something had been withheld. Sometimes it meant only that three people had remained in the same room because none of them wished to leave it.
The phaeton lesson had been Nathaniel’s suggestion. Selina suspected that it had less to do with her education than with the opportunity to sit beside her in the sun, but she had accepted without requiring him to admit it.
“You have never asked me to teach you anything,” she said once the cob had settled into a steady walk. “Yet now you have contrived a lesson for me.”
“I did not contrive the existence of the phaeton.”
“Only my need to drive it.”
“You said you wished to know the estate.”
“I might have walked.”
“You might.”
She glanced at him. “When you wish to be near someone, do you always find something useful to do beside them?”
Nathaniel considered denying it.
“Yes,” he said at last.
“That is uncomfortably honest.”
“I had no convincing alternative prepared.”
Selina looked ahead again. “You might simply ask.”
His hands, folded in his lap, tightened almost imperceptibly.
“I am learning.”
They took the phaeton out on each of the following two mornings. On the third, the weather turned before they reached the house.
The storm came over the western hills in a dark wall. Nathaniel turned the cob and urged it into a smart trot, but the first drops struck the lane before they had gone a quarter of a mile. Within moments the rain had thickened into a grey sheet.
“There is shelter above the river,” he said.
He directed her towards the rise, where a small stone folly overlooked the valley. They reached it soaked to the knees and laughing with the breathless absurdity of people who had been thoroughly defeated by the weather.
The folly consisted of a single round chamber, open on one side to the view. A stone bench followed the inner wall, and the pale flags still held the warmth of the morning. Beyond the opening, rain swept across the river and bent the trees along the bank.
Selina pushed the wet hair away from her face and went to watch the storm. Her cloak had admitted the rain at the shoulders. She wrung out one fold and heard Nathaniel come to stand behind her.
“It may be some time,” he said. “I should have watched the sky.”
“You are usually better at watching things.”
“I have been distracted.”
She turned her head slightly. “By the cob?”
“No.”
The answer settled between them.
Nathaniel stood an arm’s length away, his coat darkened by the rain and his hair wet across his forehead. He made no attempt to lessen the distance.
Selina looked back towards the river. “You covered my hand; that day at the park.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted to kiss me in the conservatory.”
“I did.”
“And now you have arranged three lessons in a phaeton.”
“I begin to see that they were not as subtle as I imagined.”
“They were not subtle at all.” She turned to face him. “You told me that if anything changed between us, the choice would be mine as much as yours.”
“It will.”
“Then why do you look as though you are waiting for a verdict?”
“Because I am.”
The rain beat against the open side of the folly. Water had begun to run over the threshold in a thin shining line.
Selina had spent years recognising what men wanted from her before they named it.
Desire generally arrived disguised as kindness, opportunity or rescue, and the disguise was expected to make refusal ungrateful.
Nathaniel stood before her wanting plainly and offering nothing in exchange for permission.
“You may kiss me,” she said, “if you are still waiting to be asked.”
For a moment he did not move.
Then he crossed the distance between them and lifted his hands to her face. His palms were cold against her cheeks and not entirely steady. He gave her enough time to turn away.
She did not.
His mouth met hers with a care that was almost unbearable. The kiss was warm despite the rain, restrained despite the tension she could feel in his hands. Then, much too soon, he drew back.
His hands remained against her face.
“Was that…”
“Insufficient,” Selina said.
She caught the front of his wet coat and pulled him back to her.
The second kiss belonged to them both. His restraint broke without becoming haste; one arm went around her, drawing her against him, while her hand remained closed in his coat. He made a low sound against her mouth, half surprise and half laughter, and she felt herself answer it.
When they parted, neither went far. Selina rested her forehead briefly against his chest, listening to his heart beneath the wet layers of his clothing. His hand moved once along her back before settling between her shoulder blades.
Outside, the rain softened.
“There is something I ought to tell you,” Nathaniel said.
“That is rarely a promising beginning.”
“I love you.”
She became still within his arms.
He did not tighten them.
“I had not intended to say it today,” he continued. “Certainly not while wet through in a building my grandfather erected because he disliked walking back to the house for shelter. But it is true, and I have promised you no lies.”
“How long?”
“Long enough that I have ceased to find the fact surprising.”
Selina kept her hand against his chest.
“You need not answer,” he said. “I did not tell you in order to obtain the same words in return.”
“The last person I loved was hanged.”
Nathaniel said nothing.
“I know the comparison is neither fair nor sensible,” she continued. “But fairness and sense have very little authority over fear. I have not used the word easily since.”
“Then do not use it until it is true and you are willing.”
She lifted her head. “I am not saying no.”
“I know.”
“How can you?”
“Because you have never had difficulty saying no to me.”
A reluctant smile touched her mouth.
“Not yet,” she said.
“Then not yet.”