Chapter Five
She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.
In fact, she didn’t believe it at all. Because she’d dreamed it too many times only to wake up to the terrible reality that she was still alone and he was married to another—to the one who had conspired and stolen her chance at happiness to appease a social climbing mother.
“No. No. This is not real. This is not really happening. It can’t possibly be,” she whispered.
“Why can’t it? Do you deny that you still have feelings for me, Cecily?”
The denial sprang to her lips immediately by sheer force of habit.
And yet, despite that, she could not expel those words.
It was one thing to lie to others to save face.
It was another entirely to be looking at him and deny that very painful truth.
Finally, she replied, “It doesn’t matter what I feel.
There is too much of the past that lies between us, too burdensome to be removed. ”
“Only if we permit it,” he offered persuasively. “There is no one here now to interfere. No one to plot and scheme against us. We have an opportunity to reclaim what was lost.”
Cecily felt her heart shift, the subtle fluttering of hope blooming where there previously had been none. But there was fear as well. “We hardly know one another. It’s been six years, Malcolm.”
“It could be six centuries and it would change nothing in how I feel for you. I loved you the day I met you and I will likely love you till the day I die… what you choose to do with that fact will not alter it.” His eyes had not left her face as he spoke.
And the sincerity of that pledge was unmistakable.
“I will not be disappointed again,” Cecily insisted. “If you mean what you say… Then we will marry immediately and end my mother’s schemes once and for all.”
“When the rain stops, we’ll head into town. I assume the local vicar is still acting as surrogate for the bishop,” he told her. “We need not wait even a day, assuming the weather cooperates.”
As if to mock their intentions, lightning—intensely bright—split the sky. Barely a second passed before the loud and ominous rumbling of thunder shook the house around them.
A scream escaped her, a startled response that she’d never outgrown.
Her childhood fear of storms persisted and likely would forever.
After all, it had been just such a storm that had taken her father—lightning felling a tree in his path, causing his horse to rear.
And all of it while she’d looked on from the window of her bedchamber.
She could not be certain if she moved toward him or if Malcolm had stepped forward, but she felt the warmth of his arms closing around her. Memories suffused her, but it was impossible for the past to overcome the present when the sensation of being held by him was so overwhelming.
“You are safe here with me, Cecily. Nothing—and no one—will harm you,” he whispered.
That was a promise he could not keep. Whatever their intent, it was just as likely they’d reach town and find her mother and Bartwell already waiting for her.
It had been a foolish choice to run to a place her mother would know to look for her.
It hadn’t been a conscious choice really, but she’d gravitated to the last place where she’d felt safe and happy.
And in doing so, had encountered the very man who’d been responsible for both.
“We won’t be able to go till tomorrow… the footbridge is likely fully submerged by now,” she said.
“Likely,” he agreed. “It was near enough when I arrived. But it will recede quickly enough once the rain stops.”
Cecily nodded. “Stay with me. The storm…”
“Of course. Nothing could drag me away,” he said. “Nothing will. Not ever again.”
*
He couldn’t be certain how it was that Cecily wound up in his arms, but it was possibly the first time he’d felt whole since the night it had all fallen apart.
Even then, he hated to see her fearful, to see the remembered pain in her gaze.
She’d told him once why she hated storms, and he couldn’t imagine how awful it had been for her to have witnessed the accident which claimed her father’s life.
More so, he couldn’t imagine how much the man’s passing had altered her life.
Would he have been a protective barrier between Cecily and her mother?
Would he have shielded her from the woman’s machinations?
Easing back, he took her hand and drew her deeper into the room. “Lie down. I’ll watch over you while you sleep and when you awaken, the worst of it all will be past us.”
“I couldn’t possibly sleep now… It feels like my heart will burst from my chest,” she admitted, though she did sit on the bed. Primarily, he supposed, because there was only one other option and that was a suspiciously rickety chair.
Seating himself beside her, close but not crowding, he offered his assessment of their situation. “I can think of only one way to aid you, and it is highly improper.”
She laughed then. “We are alone in a hunting lodge, trapped by flood waters while I run away from a marriage my mother has devised that I do not want. We are well past improper.”
“When there are unpleasant things that one cannot escape or avoid, the best and only course of action to take is distraction…. Are you willing to be distracted, Cecily?” The circumstances directly mirrored those that had resulted in that long ago afternoon of bliss.
An unexpected summer storm while they’d been out for a drive in his phaeton had seen them taking shelter in that very same location.
The blush in her cheeks was confirmation enough that she recalled it as well. When she looked down, the dark sweep of her lashes rested against those cheeks for just a moment, before she looked up at him through them. “A distraction, however improper, would be most welcome.”
Now his heart was hammering in his chest as he turned toward her.
Reaching out, he cupped her cheek in his hand and felt the softness of her skin beneath his fingertips.
Then he leaned in, his lips brushing softly against hers.
Even that touch, gentle as it was, was as powerful as the thunder and lightning which raged outside.
It shook him to his core—the need for her, the ache of having wanted her for six years and feeling that she would forever be out of his reach.
And now she was in his reach, offered up so sweetly and so perfectly that it nearly overwhelmed him.
Somehow, he found the strength of will to resist, to go slow, to savor the moment, and to be certain that she received all the pleasure he was capable of giving her.