Chapter 10
“That was well done, Clara. Ferocious.”
As she walked deeper into the glasshouse, Desmond followed her.
She turned to face him. He looked every inch the roguish highwayman, with his dark hair loose about his shoulders, his deep blue eyes vivid beneath his brows.
He was in his shirtsleeves, and without the impediment of his coat she had a marvelous view of the lean length of his body, his waistcoat close to his torso, the fabric snug to his chest and over his flat abdomen.
His breeches clung to his taut thighs, and with his tall, cuffed boots, he was indeed a vision from a romantic ballad about gentlemen of the road.
Her senses were alive and sharp, keen after what had been one of the most harrowing, thrilling moments of her life—and that included dealing with a gang of highwaymen invading her home.
She pressed a hand to her pounding heart. “It’s difficult to believe I did that.”
“Indeed, you did.” He stopped a few feet away from her. His gaze was warm and appreciative. “You took a flame to those leeches and burned them off.”
“For years, years, I wanted to bar them entrance to my home. I never…I never felt I had the authority to.”
“This is your home. You’ve a right to refuse access to whomever you choose.”
“Is that so?” She arched a brow.
A grin tilted in the corner of his mouth. “Well, most everyone.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and the fabric of his shirt pulled against the solid forms of his shoulders. “A quick thinker, you are, coming up with such a ruse. The highwaymen become the force hunting the thieves.”
“Years of reading fables, I suppose, prepared me for spinning my own yarn.” She swatted his arm. “You nearly ruined it, telling the Ballantines that I chased the highwaymen off with a hunting musket. What a preposterous notion, that I could ever attempt something so bold.”
“Not so preposterous.” He captured her hand with his own. “Consider the way you’ve held your own against us, a gang of dangerous criminals.”
“Dangerous criminals who don’t fire their weapons until fired upon.” His skin was hot beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, the muscles of his arm firm and solid under her fingertips.
“We didn’t use to.” He glanced away, a troubled frown creasing his brow. “Things have changed. Cyrus changed.”
“Why?”
Desmond’s gaze met hers again, and a debate seemed to rage behind the blue of his eyes.
“The world never quite works out the way we hope it will,” he said at last.
It wasn’t precisely the answer she was looking for, but each crumb of his tale intrigued her more than the last. Clara yearned to know who this man was, so thoughtful, and yet he made his living robbing travelers. She’d no idea what in his life had brought him to this point.
“Was it a love match?” he asked abruptly. “You and your husband?”
Her brows rose again at the change of subject.
“As you said,” she answered, dropping her hand from him and moving toward the pear trees that lined one wall of the glasshouse, “the world never quite works out the way we hope it will. The Ballantine family had made their money in trade, and the rest of his kin…they were lovely. Comfortable with themselves and their position in society. But his parents…they seemed to think the ranks of the aristocracy were worth climbing. Which, as someone who was raised within those ranks, I know for certain that there’s little about the nobility that’s admirable or deserving of esteem. ”
His mouth twisted, and he made no objection. Clearly, then, he had considerable experience with the gentry.
“My father had a paltry income as the third son of a viscount,” she went on.
She selected a pear, its weight heavy in her hand, and picked it, then picked a second one.
“Even less from his medical practice. But that was enough of a proximity to the elite that Arthur courted me assiduously. His parents thought that their son marrying me would somehow gain them entrance to glittering ballrooms and elegant dinner soirees. They were particularly hopeful that, when I conceived a child, the babe would cement their entre into society. But you see…”
Her smile was wry as she handed one of the pears to Desmond. “I never conceived. I went a year, two years, and never got with child. And if they were cold to me before my failure to give their son an heir, well, afterwards…”
She shrugged, and took a bite of the pear.
Its musky sweetness filled her mouth, and she focused on the flavor.
Better that than revisit the sneering faces of Mr. and Mrs. Ballantine, calling Clara a fiasco and a disappointment, and bitterly lamenting Arthur’s fate, trapped in marriage to such a failure.
Desmond held the pear but didn’t eat. His attention was entirely on her.
She ate in meditative silence for a moment, but the taste of the pear had turned to ash, and she set it aside.
“The worst of it,” she said, her throat thick, “was Arthur’s utter silence.
He never interceded, never defended me. Just sat there, letting his mother and father harangue me for hours.
He even looked bored by it all, by my utter humiliation, as though it was taking him away from something he’d much rather be doing. ”
Desmond dropped the pear, and his steps were quick as he moved to stand beside her. “I would’ve plowed my fist into the old man’s gut. I never countenance hurting a woman, but Mrs. B. would have surely tried that dictate.”
A stunned laugh broke from her. “Arthur would sooner have bathed in porridge than go against his parents. And I can only believe that it was his idea to ferry me out to the country. Since I couldn’t give him an heir, and I wasn’t the sparkling patrician hostess they desired, what purpose did I serve? ”
“You were his goddamn wife,” Desmond growled. “The only reason you serve is being yourself, and him being grateful to have you.”
“That reasoning was not part of Arthur’s rationale. I was told that I ought to be thankful that he purchased this house for me.”
“There’s no thankfulness for neglect.”
“At the least,” she continued, “he left me the manor after his death. It belongs to me. I wonder, sometimes, if it was some form of apology. Or perhaps he felt it was an even trade, the house for assuaging his conscience.”
Clara went to her potting bench, where several empty clay pots waited new transplants. She picked up and examined her trowel, and her gardening fork, testing the points with her thumb.
“The Ballantines, though,” she said distantly, “were livid when they found out that this house was mine. They felt it ought to have been theirs and treated it like such. They’ve even,” she gave a disbelieving laugh, “taken things from the house, paintings, furniture—”
“Epergnes. I don’t even know what that is, but I know if it’s under this roof, it’s yours.”
“An epergne serves little purpose other than looking decorative on a table. They’re often quite ornate and ugly. Mine are no exception.”
“But,” he pointed out, “you didn’t let those arseholes have them.”
“I cannot account for it.” She set down the gardening fork and faced him. “This has been going on for years. But today… It feels as though…”
“There’s been a change.” He gently laid two of his fingers beneath her chin, tilting her head back so that their gazes met.
“Perhaps there has.” She stared into his eyes, with their color the sky just before nightfall.
She could just imagine the moon rising in his eyes, the moon that always called to her, rousing her, awakening her.
“I don’t know who I am, only…only whoever she was, she’s not the same.
And I can only think…that I have you to thank for it. ”
He shook his head. “The credit’s all yours. That other self has been inside you all this time.”
“In some things, I have a kind of courage.” She considered what she could do. “I can doctor a wound. I live on my own. But…” She pressed her lips together. “I think…in many others, I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” His question was soft.
“One thing or another.” She considered it. “Failing my father as I helped him in his work. Fearing that I’d be alone after my father died. Terrified that I disappointed Arthur. And…frightened that, in my exile, someone would learn why I was sent away, and the shame of it. So many fears.”
“Are you afraid now?” Desmond asked this gently. His gaze locked with hers.
The atmosphere between them grew suddenly charged, crackling with potential.
He was much larger than her, physically, yes, but also in his nature.
He was alive with energy and strength, hard where she was supple, bright where she clung to shadows.
He was a criminal, an outlaw who shunned authority and lived his life on the open road.
She was a viscount’s granddaughter, clinging to the security of this house, and her isolation.
She swayed toward him, drawn through invisible but palpable need, a craving for his wildness, as though she could taste the night itself through him.
In answer to his question, she lifted up on her toes. Pressed her lips to his.
Desmond stilled. He didn’t return the kiss.
Acidic humiliation flared in her. She’d read this wrong, read him wrong.
“I’m sorry.” She backed away. “I should have known. Foolish to think…someone could want me.”
She turned, ready to break into a run and flee from the glasshouse.
An arm wrapped firmly around her waist. She was spun around and then she was crushed against the hard surface of Desmond’s chest. One of his hands splayed low on her back, holding her to him.
The other cupped her jaw, enfolding her, angling her head so that, when his mouth crashed down onto hers, there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but receive his kiss with all the reckless joy her heart could bear.
She’d had gentle suitors’ kisses, tentative and polite. She’d been kissed by her husband with perfunctory duty. She’d even, once, kissed a groom, which had been a little clumsy but still thrilling. She’d always hoped that kisses would meet her fantasies, and none of them ever had.
This one did.