Chapter 8 #3
“Wealtha is arguably an Honorable now,” Richard replied. “I’ve asked the appropriate authorities to see that she is extended the courtesy. Will her change in status improve or defeat her chances of a local match?”
“Improve, whether or not the honorific is granted. By association with you and your title, she can look higher and look further afield. Take her with you into York, let her buy out the shops. Word will travel.” Further afield in particular would benefit Wealtha’s prospects, the local eligibles all having thus far failed to come up to scratch.
“I will take her with me into York if and only if you accompany us and do some shopping of your own.”
Mabel marched along the walkway leading to the back garden. “I have very limited means, sir, and my wardrobe suits me adequately.” No means at all, really, when it came to ready cash.
“You have been the unpaid steward of the land, the house, the village, and your step-mother and step-cousin. Allow me, in a token gesture of appreciation, to include your expenses in those I cover for the household, as I will Orla’s and Wealtha’s.”
The sternness was politely in evidence. “I can’t let you buy me… items of value.”
“Because I kissed you?”
“We kissed each other.”
“Barrister.” His smile took the sting out of the accusation. “Are you refusing my token of appreciation because we kissed each other?”
“No.”
He cocked his head.
Well, yes. A little. “You cannot pay my expenses because nobody buys me anything. I manage on the household pin money, the better to safeguard my competence. I make my clothing, and that suffices. I have no need of finery.” She had every reason to distrust where finery and flirtation led, and yet, Mabel had kissed him back and wanted to kiss him again.
More than kiss him.
“Then allow me,” Richard said, “to subsidize the purchase of some fabric that you will enjoy making into new frocks.” He glanced up the path at the house. “Please. I will beg, pester, and importune you to grant me this boon.”
Wretched man. Nobody begged Mabel for anything either. Wealtha frequently wheedled. Not the same thing at all. “Very well. A few yards of this and that.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t sound so smug, my lord. I might make you up a new frock coat.”
“I’d like that, provided you measured me very carefully before taking your shears to the fabric. I favor sober colors and lightweight fabrics. Easier to move about. And no padding, please.”
He needed no padding. “You must not tease me like that.”
“You take no offense at a stolen kiss, but you forbid a little harmless verbal repartee.”
“You were flirting. I am being ridiculous.” They had reached the garden path, and try as she might, in the lengthening shadows Mabel could spot not a single weed in need of yanking.
“You were ambushed,” Richard said gently. “You do not care for ambushes. It won’t happen again. I did not announce my intentions for fear they’d be rejected on a laugh.”
And that admission was another ambush, designed to ensnare trust and acceptance.
Mabel flailed about for sensible words even if she could not find any sensible thoughts.
“I have no wish to be ambushed or courted, Richard. Please believe that. Your kisses are delightful, as kisses are meant to be. An adult woman of independent means who knows her own mind should be allowed her discreet indulgences, and I certainly qualify.”
If a hoarded pittance could be called independent means. If a lady in a complete muddle could be described as knowing her own mind.
His expression was perplexed and patient. “What are you not saying, Amabel?”
She looked down at her sensible brown skirts, her sensible hands, and her sensible boots.
She considered the tidy garden, not a weed in sight.
She considered the months and years and decades to come, living in a household where she had no blood ties or, if she was lucky, living in dignified, solitudinous poverty.
“We cannot court,” she said very quietly. “We can dally.”
The patience and puzzlement resolved into a tenderness Mabel could hardly bear to behold.
“I have never dallied before, Amabel. I’m no innocent, but neither have I been a dallier.”
“We’ll hope for beginner’s luck, then.” Stupid thing to say, but to push him away, to deny herself even more kisses while he yet bided at the Glen, would have been an altogether different and worse sort of folly.
“If those are your terms, Amabel, I accept them—for now. Shall we plan our excursion to York for the day after tomorrow?”
To blazes with blasted York. “That will suit.” Mabel started up the terrace steps, a delicious sense of boldness warring with the certainty that she’d just committed an act of foolishness greater even than her worst Mayfair mistakes.
Which said a great deal, all of it troubling.
Mabel had yielded to impulse, to yearning, and to pleasures of the flesh. She’d yielded to Richard, and if she was to have regrets, she’d rather regret a few weeks of shared dalliance than regret that she’d beat retreat after one tantalizing kiss.
Or so she told herself when sleep proved elusive and even counting sheep would not bring slumber nigh.