Chapter 8 #2
“I’m not about to ask Wealtha. She will add the offense of my equivocation to the great list of injustices she’s suffered all while she has amassed an embarrassment of bonnets, slippers, cloaks, parasols, reticules, and other folderol.
She thanked me for buying her the mare, and I had to explain that the horse was not hers, but she was certainly welcome to ride the beast.”
“You were naughty.”
“I was honest. Being her brother does not mean I impersonate an overly indulgent nursemaid.”
“Good for you, but go carefully, please. When Wealtha is unhappy, the whole shire can suffer as a result.”
When Wealtha was unhappy, Amabel likely bore the brunt of her step-cousin’s displeasure. “Perhaps we should send her to London after all.”
Amabel rose. “Do not even jest about that, please. If anybody should uncover the fact of her questionable legitimacy, she would be torn to shreds. Some highly placed people in Town delight in inflicting such misery on the unsuspecting, and Wealtha would never recover.”
Richard stood as well, a bit stiffly. Long days, short nights, troubled sleep. “You are right, of course, but what does it say about me as a brother that I avoid my sister’s company?”
“It says you are typical of many brothers.” She gazed out over the pond, her expression wistful. “I know when I’m weeding that Wealtha won’t disturb me for anything less than a French invasion. You will note the back garden is quite tidy. Has Orla asked you to increase Wealtha’s settlements?”
“Indirectly, but I don’t know the details of those settlements, so my response was equally indirect. I thought I’d have my meeting with the solicitors, glean from them all I can, then thank them for their hard work through the years of the estate’s intestacy and send them on their way.”
“Unpunished and unlamented?”
“For now.” Richard offered her his arm, which was only polite.
Amabel curled her hand around his elbow.
“I see. And when they believe they have concluded their spree of embezzling unscathed, they will find other clients discharging them with similar courtesy, no new business walking in the door, and every client they do keep scrutinizing their work with painful care. I like this plan, my lord.”
“I am in trade, though I must now pretend I’m not.
Nobody wins if a matter deteriorates into litigation.
Better to let the opinion of the marketplace pass judgment and render sentence.
” This little chat by the pond had eased his reluctance to sack the solicitors, and his relief was disproportionate to the task.
“Thank you for listening. My thoughts are clearer for being aired.”
Amabel started them moving toward the path. “You listen to me too.”
Richard risked patting the hand she’d wrapped over his sleeve. “I always will.”
“It means a lot, that you listen to me.”
She had taught him much in a short time, about the Glen, about estate management, and about where his future might lie.
“Everybody listens to you, Amabel, from the potboy to the butler to the head gardener and the goatherd. The neighbors sing your praises, and even MacNulty at the livery allows that you are a fine, bonnie lassie with a ‘guid heid upon yer shawders.’”
Richard’s recitation inspired her shy smile, the one he’d seen in his dreams and even tried to sketch. The one that added a sparkle to her eyes and a softness to her gaze.
“Amabel?”
“You flatter me. I know it means nothing. You mustn’t make a habit of it.”
He vowed to present her with at least three compliments a day. “I mean every word, from the bottom of my heart.”
And then, with a hand to the warmth of her nape and looking her in the eye for a moment so she would not mistake his intent, he bent his head and kissed her.
Oh, to be kissed. To be gently, sweetly, and by stealthy degrees passionately kissed. Mabel had left Mayfair certain such kisses existed only in a schoolgirl’s imaginings.
Richard was unhurried, even leisurely as he brushed a thumb over her cheek and wrapped an arm around her waist. The request to bundle closer was wordless and irresistible. Mabel tucked into his warmth and winnowed her fingers through his hair.
Later, she’d lecture herself about poor judgment, risky behavior, and men being helpless to manage their humors. Later, she’d wish and regret and wish some more.
In that golden, magical moment, she kissed Richard back, feeling him smile when she took a grip of his hair. That smile was enough to send desire singing through her and to silence caution’s futile warnings.
When Mabel would have begun her advances in earnest, Richard eased away.
“A moment,” he said. “Anybody could come whistling up the path. I apologize for that.”
“Don’t you dare apologize for kissing me, Swidhelm. I kissed you too.”
He tucked a loose curl behind Mabel’s ear. She smoothed her hands through his hair in retaliation, though he looked frustratingly tidy.
“Do not, I pray you, regard me thus,” he said. “I cannot tell if you are plotting my ravishment or preparing to explain to me that I made a hash of what was meant to be a pleasurable overture.”
“You did not make a hash of it.”
“Pleased to hear it.” When he scowled like that, he was too alluring for words.
Mabel tried to scowl, too, and failed entirely. Her attempts at retaliation were doomed to failure, it seemed.
“What was that kiss an overture to?” She regretted the question as he gazed off past her shoulder, his expression turning to puzzlement.
“That’s for us to say.” He made no further move to touch her. “For you to say. If I have given—”
She poked him in the belly, which was like poking seasoned oak. “None of that. I am not offended. Ambushed—you excel at the art of the ambush. Not offended.” Bewildered, flummoxed, and delighted, but not offended.
Ye bleating nanny goats. Orla had been right. Partly right, anyway.
“I am pleased,” Richard said, “that I can surprise you in any regard, but your expression is more thunderous than sanguine.”
Habit would have had Mabel charging back to the manor while the light lasted—the weeds never rested, and she needed time to reassemble her dignity—but she could not make her feet move.
“Orla says we will not suit.” Said they must not suit, and in that, she was also, blast and perdition, right.
“For a woman who incessantly tells me to mind my own business, Aunt Orla has been very presuming. You and I just kissed for the first time. Questions of suitability lie far outside Orla Fielding’s purview.”
Such sternness. That ferocity had lurked below Richard’s surface, kept carefully out of sight. Mabel was glad to know it could rise when appropriate.
Rise. A fraught word choice. “I agree that Orla speculated unnecessarily. She has little else to do, though, and Wealtha constantly tries her patience.”
Mabel did not want to discuss Orla and Wealtha and their capacity for vexing behaviors. She wanted to resume kissing Richard, and she wanted to go back to the pond and sit in the quiet until darkness fell.
What are you doing, Mabel Fielding?
“Let us return to the house before our prolonged absence is remarked,” Richard said.
“We have had a pleasant ramble after supper, as has become our occasional habit. I’ll send to York for some sizable young nanny goats of a dairy persuasion, and you will promise to dance the waltz with me at the assembly. ”
“I haven’t waltzed in years, and I doubt one will even be on the program. A half-dozen nannies will do.”
Richard had returned them to the firm footing of their usual conversations. Animal husbandry, village affairs, anything but kisses and warm embraces and crossed lines. Mabel was grateful for the respite and resentful of the retreat.
He went on to inquire regarding local swains who might stand up with Wealtha at the assembly and whether Orla had any admirers.
Mabel picked up her pace as the path opened out into the stable yard.
“Orla? She’s… She’s a widow. She’s ill. She’s been preoccupied with looking after Wealtha.
I can’t imagine Orla would leave the Glen, particularly not when Wealtha has yet to find a match.
” The question disconcerted for reasons Mabel could not clearly identify.