15 #3
Pleasure shot through him, replaced a moment later by frustration.
Her honesty was baffling, and refreshing, and like a brilliant flower in a barren landscape.
He had spent so many years dealing with people who hid the very heart of themselves beneath lies and subterfuge, had lost his living to men who had deceived and betrayed others.
Yet here was this woman who laid every part of herself out in the open. And now, with this new intimacy between them, her artless honesty was making him want things he had never dared to hope for. And it shook him to his core.
“Lovely?” He took a step back from her, needing the distance, his volatile emotions causing him to lash out at her. “How can you say something like that? How can you be so damned honest?”
She blinked, and it was as if the world shifted in that blink, the hazy pleasure of a moment earlier gone, a muted hurt in its place.
“I’m sorry,” she said, voice tight as she pulled the blanket firmly about her again, like a gingham shield.
“I never meant to make you uncomfortable. It’s just how I am.
I have a thought and it immediately comes out of my mouth. I know I am odd—”
“You are not odd,” he growled, something in his chest cracking at the self-condemnation in her voice—and that he had been the one to put it there.
And then, because he could not have held it back even if he tried, “You are the most fascinating, wonderful, lovely woman I have ever known. I like you just as you are.”
Which blessedly did the job of stopping her apology in its tracks. Unfortunately, it also gave voice to exactly how he felt, something he had not even fully understood the scope of until this moment. Truly, he thought with no little bafflement, was her honesty catching?
She stared up at him, mouth agape. “What did you just say?” she whispered.
He should shut his mouth, turn and walk away, anything but repeat the asinine thing he had just admitted. But looking down at her, something like hope or happiness peeking through the heavy cloud of misery that had so briefly fallen across her face, he couldn’t bring himself to.
“I like you as you are,” he said gruffly.
He had thought his words would bring the smile back to her face. And it did. But it was accompanied by, of all things, tears. They filled her eyes, pooled along her bottom lid, spilling over until they tracked in torrents down her cheeks.
He gaped at her. “Why are you crying?” he demanded helplessly.
She sniffed, though the smile remained fixed, those beautiful bow lips in a curve of happiness. “Because no one has ever said anything so wonderful to me.”
“That cannot possibly be true.”
She shrugged, wiping at her tears with the edge of the blanket. “It is. My mother was wont to use small daily acts of support as her affirmations. The women I live with now are encouraging, but they never quite voice things as you have.” Her smile widened. “Which is why what you said is so lovely.”
Strangely pleased, he could only manage an awkward, “Oh, hmph, well then.” More than a bit flustered, he looked about. Where the devil was Verity? But he had to say something, to veer the conversation into safer waters.
“How did you come to live with Lady Vastkern then?”
“Lady Vastkern?” She pulled the blanket more firmly about her. He had the sudden wish that he could rejoin her beneath it, but brutally squashed it.
“She was my mother’s dearest friend and is my own godmother,” she continued, quietly stating information that would have sent his senses on high alert a mere day ago but now was just another piece of the intriguing puzzle that was Iris Rumford.
“When my mother died I was distraught. My emotional state only grew worse when her home, the home I had lived in nearly all my life, was destroyed by fire shortly after her death. But Sylvia—Lady Vastkern—took me in, cared for me.” She paused, and he heard the pain threaded through her voice when she spoke again.
“If not for her, I don’t know what would have become of me.
I shall never be able to repay the kindness. ”
There went that urge to take her in his arms again, though this time it was to give not warmth, but rather comfort. She looked so forlorn standing there, talking about some of the darkest days of her life.
He crossed his arms to keep from reaching for her, though he could not help saying, “I’m certain, if she was as good a friend to your mother as you say, that she would never expect any payment. I know I never expect something of that sort when I help someone I care about.”
Her lips twisted. “Perhaps it’s not so much that she expects payment. Rather, I believe I owe it to her.” She looked up at him. “Haven’t you ever felt the need to repay someone for something, though you’re certain in your heart they never intended that?”
“My stepfather,” he replied without thinking.
She cocked her head to the side. “Your stepfather?”
“Yes.” He ran a hand through his damp hair and sighed.
“My mother was struggling to support me alone after my father died. My stepfather stepped in, took care of her, raised me as if I were his own son. He saved us, and never once made me feel I owed him for it. Even so, there was always the thought in the back of my mind that one day I would do everything in my power to make his life easier, a kind of repayment for what he had given us.”
He paused, closing his eyes, the memory still too clear, too sharp.
“But I was never able to. When I returned home from the war, determined to take my place at his side, it was to find him in debtor’s prison, the result of unscrupulous men taking advantage of his generosity.
He had been trying to keep it from me for so long, said his mistakes weren’t mine to pay for.
But to me, he had saved us; I had to try to save him as well.
” His lips twisted as pain ripped through him.
“But no matter how hard I tried, I wound up failing.”
Her hand on his arm gently tugged him free of those horrible memories, and he opened his eyes to see her gazing mournfully up at him. “What happened?” she asked quietly.
He nearly shrugged but stopped himself just in time, not wishing to dislodge her hand. “What happens to so many stuck in those horrible places? He became ill and wasted away. And I was far too late. I would have cut off my arm if it meant bringing him comfort for even one more day.”
Suddenly he stopped, shook his head. “But why am I telling you this?” he muttered to himself.
“Sometimes,” she said quietly, “we need to know someone else feels as we do. It’s what makes us human, I think, that need for connection.”
He gave her a bemused look. “That is a truly beautiful way of looking at it.”
She smiled up at him, wide and beaming, and in a moment every discomfort and heartache was gone. How did she do it? How did she turn his world on its head with one sweet smile?
Someone called from the distance. He turned to see Verity, arms laden with what he supposed was every single towel they owned, hurrying across the field toward them.
And to his surprise, regret crashed through him.
It didn’t make a bit of sense, of course.
He was cold, and wet, and had to get back to work immediately.
But he wanted more time alone with Iris, wanted to see further into her mind—and her heart as well. A strange thing, really, considering a mere half hour ago he had been reminding himself to remain cautious where she was concerned.
Yet in that half hour, between the dunk in the stream and her care for his sister and her response to his kiss and her opening her heart up regarding such a painful part of her past, she had effectively snuffed that struggling suspicion out, like a candle flame by a soft breath.
Before he knew what he was about, he turned to her and asked, “You will come back to our house with us once you are not in danger of catching a chill?”
Her smile widened, the apples of her cheeks turning her beautiful eyes into crescents. “I would like that very much.”
So would I , he thought as Iris turned to greet his sister. And it surprised him how very true that was.