26
It took them more than an hour to reach the point where a piece had fallen off the cliff.
Or a piece was too generous a word. Where a giant chunk of white chalk the size of a house had broken off and now blocked the beach. It must be the rain last night that had loosened the chalk.
Robert jumped from his horse and ran to the debris, frantically looking for any signs of Jo. He screamed her name over and over as he started digging through the chalk. He broke his nails and scratched his fingers in the process but could not feel it.
“Robert, Robert,” Thornston called behind him.
Robert felt his friend’s hand on his shoulder but shook him off. He needed to find Jo. If she was trapped under the debris… if she did not survive…
“Robert,” Thornston told him more persistently. “Look at the tracks on the other side.”
The words penetrated Robert’s dazed mind, and he was able to see what Thornston was pointing at. There were tracks on the other side: Two leading away and one leading to the debris, indicating Jo had opted to turn around rather than risk climbing over them.
The heavy fear lifted off him so suddenly that he felt weightless for a moment.
Of course she had not climbed over it. Jo was smart. She would not risk ending up in a second landslide by climbing over it… which was exactly what Robert was doing at the moment, he realized.
He hurried away from the debris, dragging Thornston with him, and then mounting his horse without a word.
When he found Jo, he would… They needed to talk. They both needed this marriage to work. He could not sit by in silence and let it wither away because he was scared to have an uncomfortable conversation.
They started to make their way back and were able to join the main road via Ovingdean.
She must have opted to go to Newhaven and then found someone to give her a ride there.
Part of Robert’s mind knew that he could simply wait for her at the house, but he would not be able to sit still until he knew she was safe.
He kept urging the horse forward and ignoring Thornston’s knowing smirk. They had to see her soon; they must meet whichever vehicle she had hired.
But no. After more than two hours they found her walking along the road from Newhaven.
Robert had told himself that he was not afraid anymore.
His haste had nothing to do with panic and everything to do with Jo being his responsibility since she was his wife.
He would have done the same for anyone else that he cared about, he told himself.
Once again, relief washed over him though when he had visual confirmation that she was unharmed.
Without thinking, he jumped from the horse when she was thirty feet away and ran to her and gathered her in his arms.
“Jo,” he mumbled against her cheek.
He felt Jo shiver against him and then put her arms around his shoulders. They remained like this for a while, before Robert gently set her down.
“I was so afraid. We saw the place where the cliff had fallen. I wanted to dig through it, but Thornston said he could see your tracks on the other side of it,” Robert rambled as he squeezed her hand tightly, then spontaneously drew her into an embrace again.
“I walked back to Newhaven when I saw that it blocked my path back,” Jo explained with her mouth pressed against his collarbone.
Robert did not want to examine why this felt so good. It would be the same with everyone else. Perhaps he would not have embraced Thornston or Xavier as tightly if he had feared for their life, but it would be the same feeling he told himself even as he was unable to release her.
“Thank Heavens, nothing happened to you,” Robert mumbled against the top of her head.
Jo gently extricated herself from Robert’s hold to greet Thornston, who had taken the reins of Robert’s horse and was quietly observing them from a distance.
He made no flippant remarks, which Robert was thankful for.
“I am sorry,” Jo said as she turned her attention to Robert. “I just…” She sighed and looked away. The water was gleaming far below them in the late afternoon sun. “I just needed to clear my head.”
“I am sorry too,” Robert mumbled, so Thornston could not hear them. “I should have granted you more time to adjust… after what happened.”
They looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Jo’s eyes were soft yet searching. He remembered the look from the first night they met in the Thistleworth garden.
“Let’s… let’s talk about it back at the house,” Jo muttered and Robert nodded.
Jo sat in front of him on the ride back to the house.
Robert placed an arm around her and held on tightly – so that she would not fall, obviously.
He was allowed to relish the feeling of her soft form against him and the way the curve of her bosom grazed his thumb with the motions of the horse.
He could not focus too much on it though; riding with an erection was not pleasant.
It was almost a relief that Thornston was there, but only almost.
Robert was growing a bit tired of his friend’s teasing smile. Luckily, Thornston said goodbye to them at the gate.
“I am glad that you are well, Curious Jo,” he told her with his usual charming grin as he rode off. He placed a hand at his hat in greeting to Robert, who only mock-scowled in return.
Robert felt Jo’s eyes on his face and turned to meet her gaze. He could feel his features soften immediately when he looked at her.
“What is wrong?” Jo asked confused.
Robert sighed as he jumped from the horse and then lifted his arms to help Jo down.
He was buying himself time to find a way to answer her, he knew that.
He needed to tell her the truth or part of it, since it was beyond him to put the fragments he did know together: Thornston flirted with everyone, and Robert did not like the implication that he did with Jo as well.
He was afraid that Jo might misunderstand, he told himself, but of course he could not tell her that.
And he had to be certain to frame his reply the right way, so that she did not think he was jealous.
Because he was not, it was merely that it was inappropriate that his friend would flirt with his wife.
“I don’t like him taking liberties using your given name,” Robert finally settled on as he nodded in acknowledgement to the groom who was leading the horse away.
“But your family does. You have invited Xavier to do so, even though he mostly calls me duchess,” Jo commented as they headed into the house.
“Xavier is my brother.”
Jo stopped in the dimly lit hallway and studied Robert. He met her eyes as calmly as he was able to while hoping she could not read any of the thoughts he was hiding in them.
“I assumed you thought of Thornston as a brother as well.”
Robert stood very still and rubbed his chin. His affection for Thornston was the same as for Xavier, even if they were not formally tied together as a family. He had not considered it more closely before, but…
“I suppose you are right,” he finally muttered.
“I just…” He sighed heavily and looked in the direction of a footman, then ushered Jo into the nearest room, a small library with a large bookcase taking up most of one wall, a desk at one end and a seating arrangement with two high-backed chairs and a small sofa at the other.
Robert closed the door behind them. “Thornston flirts with everyone and I just don’t like… ”
“That he flirts with me?” Jo whispered and her eyes lit up.
Robert nodded and looked away. Fuck, she was going to read too much into it. She was going to believe it meant more than it did.
“He means nothing by it. It is actually rather fun, that such a dandy would flirt with me. An old married woman from Hampshire,” Jo teased and Robert allowed himself to smile slightly. “Why don’t we sit?” Jo asked and gestured to the chairs.
Robert nodded and waited for her to sit in one chair, before sitting in the other.
They were silent for a long moment as both of them were evidently figuring out a way to start.
“Jo,” Robert began at length as he peeled off his riding gloves and looked at his scabbed fingernails. They looked horrible. He had to ask his valet whether he knew how to treat them.
“What happened to your hands?” Jo gasped and reached for one of them.
The touch of her warm fingers sent a frisson of desire down Robert’s spine. Heavens, how he longed for this conversation to end with them heading upstairs. But he could wait, he told himself, as he once again tempered his expectations. Of course, he could wait.
“I… was trying to dig through the chalk to find you,” Robert said as he looked at Jo’s hand holding his, rather than looking at her.
“The chalk?”
“At the landslide? I thought you might be caught under it…”
“Right,” Jo muttered, then rose decisively.
Robert moved to stand reflectively, but Jo halted him with a hand on his shoulder.
“I am going to ring for soap, water, and a cloth, and then clean your hands,” she told him in a firm voice as if she expected him to argue. He certainly was not going to.
It seemed futile to start a deep conversation moments before a maid would interrupt them with the required necessities and Robert opted to ask Jo about her trip and why she had walked from Newhaven rather than drive.
He felt his entire body tense when she told him that she had not brought any money and that no one believed her to be a duchess due to her shabby clothing.
“Please bring enough money to hire someone to bring you home the next time,” Robert said in a tight voice.
Even though Jo was sitting right across from him, he felt the panic at not knowing where she was and what had happened to her rise yet again as a prickling uneasiness.
He briefly considered asking her to bring a footman with her the next time as well but knew it would be too much to ask.
Walking in order to clear her head and organize her thoughts was an essential part of who Jo was, and Robert had to find other ways to make certain that she was safe.
Perhaps he could teach her to box and use a knife.
His blood heated at the thought of standing close behind Jo as he showed her how to wield the knife against a potential attacker.
Before he had a chance to suggest it, a maid arrived with the soap water and cloths on a tray.
“Please close the door on your way out,” Jo told her in a kind, but assertive tone.
She leaned forward to clean Robert’s fingers, but the angle was awkward with them sitting beside each other in the high-backed chairs.
“Why don’t we move to the sofa?” Robert suggested.
His body heated further at the idea of sitting close beside her, but he once again told himself that he had to be patient.
He remembered Thornston’s words about allowing Jo to come to him rather than him pushing her to be intimate.
Robert knew it was the right path forward and he could be patient for Jo’s sake.
Jo started cleaning his hands in silence.
“Weren’t you wearing gloves?” she asked after a while.
“I…” Robert began, then remembered picking them up from the beach once he walked back to his horse. He could not remember why he had pulled them off in the first place. “No,” he finally settled on, which seemed to be answer enough for Jo.
They were silent again for several minutes. The only sounds were Jo dipping the cloth in water and their breathing: Jo’s even and calm, Robert’s that seemed too loud and uneven.
“I should explain,” Jo said at length as she was intensely focused on Robert’s hand.