“No, I’m not truly concerned about those wild tales of a murderer on the loose. If I did I would feel it my duty to urge May to more cautious behavior. But lately she has been different, agitated, restless. I just thought you should know.”
“Perhaps she is just discovering herself, her freedom from worry. She has had little of that in her life,” Maisie said.
“I hope that is all it is.”
• • •
The next morning May determined she would forget about her brief spurt of anger against her mother. It was her own life, and she would marry or not as she chose. Likely not. She could not see marrying anyone after the knowledge she had come to in the night concerning Etienne, and her changing feelings for him. She longed to go to him, but she had to stay until her mother left. She had no idea if she would be able to go to her mother’s wedding, and so this might be the last time she saw her before the momentous occasion.
Maisie must have been anxious to go back to her betrothed and her plans, for she was already dressed in an attractive carriage dress of tan and ochre. They breakfasted together, and then May accompanied her mother out to the portico to see her off. Mr. Banks’s elderly but still sturdy carriage was there, waiting.
They stood in the dull light of a cloudy autumn morning, looking at each other. Dodo had said her good-byes in the breakfast parlor, and so only mother and daughter were present. Maisie gazed steadily into her daughter’s eyes, and then reached out to enfold her in a hug, tentative at first, and then stronger when she felt no resistance in the slim woman in her arms.
May felt the unaccustomed softness of her mother’s body pressed to her own in a tight embrace. She consciously relaxed, and felt surprisingly good about the hug. Her mother released her and held her at arms’ length, looking her over with maternal eyes. “My darling daughter,” she said, her voice softer than normal. “I have been a wretched mother, but I do love you.” She held up her hand when May would have spoken. “I don’t expect you to answer, nor do I expect you to say the same back. But someday, when you really feel it . . .”
Her voice cracked and she sniffed back a tear. “I would have you live to make yourself happy, my dear, in or out of marriage. I hope you can come to my wedding. I have left an invitation on your desk in the library, as well as my direction after marriage, if you cannot come. Mr. Banks asked me to tell you that you will always be welcome to visit for however long you wish at his . . . at our home.”
“I will visit, I promise, and with pleasure,” May said, and found she was speaking the truth.
“Are you truly all right, my dear,” Maisie said. “Are you happy? Do you want for anything?” She shook a faded auburn tendril out of her eyes and gazed steadily at her daughter. The sky was a leaden gray, and a light breeze had sprung up. Maisie held on to her bonnet with one tan-gloved hand.
May smiled down at her mother and sighed. Then she drew her mother into another embrace. “I am happier than I have ever been in my life,” she said. It was true, after all, despite her worries and concerns.
And with that, her mother prepared to leave, climbing into the carriage and letting the window down for a last word. She looked at May and almost seemed to want to say something, but in the end all she said was, “Be happy, my darling daughter, in whatever way you can be; truly happy, as I am now.”
“I will,” May said, and called to the driver to spring the horses. They trotted off and the carriage trundled down the crushed limestone drive through the trees and disappeared from sight.
May reentered the house to find Dodo waiting for her with a searching gaze.
“What is it, Dodo?”
The woman held a letter in her hand. Her dark eyes snapped with worry and the paper crinkled in her tense grasp. “Emily is not well, and Baxter thinks she would benefit by having me there. But my dear, if you need me, or if you are still . . . still worried about anything, I will stay as long as you need me.”
May strode forward and clutched the older, thin woman to her in an embrace. If she had learned one thing in the last twenty-four hours, it was that hugs didn’t hurt. Dodo rocked back in surprise, not used to emotion from May, nor physical contact.
“Of course you must go to her!” May said, her eyes wide with concern. “Will she be all right?”
“Emily is strong, but Baxter says she is restless and it is getting harder to keep her abed, and she must stay abed until the baby—or babies—are born.”
May gazed at Dodo earnestly. “Go to her, Dodo. And take my love. And my prayers.”
Dodo heaved a sigh of relief. “I will go the morning after next.”
Chapter Thirteen
A steady rain set in, and there was no way for May to get out to take Etienne fresh food and wine. She paced and worried relentlessly, but the cold October rain sheeted down against the windows, soaking the landscape and obscuring like a fine gray mist the far glade in which the folly nestled.
She would gladly have braved the rainstorm for Etienne’s sake, but it would just have looked too strange to Dodo and the servants if she had saddled Cassie and rode off with supplies in the torrential downpour. It was vital right now that no one suspect she harbored a fugitive in the folly. Over and over in her mind she tried to remember how much food she had left him with. And did he have enough blankets? Was he warm enough? Did the folly roof leak?
And she had not yet warned him about the Bow Street runners.
The next morning she blessed the faint glimmer of sunlight she saw on the horizon, as, clad in her breeches, she saddled Cassie and rode off with a burden of still more blankets to ward off the October chill, and a large hamper of food, wine and candles. She took a different path into the woods, worried that if anyone was watching her they would know where she went every day.
The wood was fragrant after the day of rain, and she could smell the earthy fragrance of dead leaves as Cassie trampled them underfoot. Eventually she slid off Cassie’s back and led the mare down the unfamiliar path. Sun glinted off dew drops and birds flitted from tree to tree; it was a truly glorious morning. Finally she came up a small rise to the clearing, and the folly.
It looked as it always did, a welcome sight as she tied Cassie to a branch and approached the small building. Etienne was probably still asleep, so she crept up quietly. The view of him sleeping so peacefully, youthful face calm in repose, was one that she still carried in her heart.
She crept to the door and peeked in, but then forgot caution, staring even as she knew she shouldn’t.
He was naked. He stood with his back turned, bathing himself with a cloth, soap and the bucket of water. His back was muscular, tapering from broad shoulders down to taut, rounded buttocks. Dark silky hair covered his bare legs, but the skin of his back and bottom was smooth and pale, like a marble statue.
Some sound she made, a faint gasp or the sound of her boots on the floor as she stepped in, made him whirl around. She felt a deep red blush rise from some heated place in her body all the way over her breasts and up her neck to her face at her first sight, or at least first full sight, of a naked man. She should look away. It was immodest or worse to stare, relishing the sculpted muscle and hard planes of a man’s body the way she was. Her eyes dropped from the thick column of his neck over the soapy hair-covered chest, down the path that the arrow of dark hair pointed, down to his loins, dripping with soapy water, and there her gaze stopped while a dull throbbing in her body quickened to damp heat.
He was a magnificent muscled champion in a world of hacks. Her eyes traveled back up and she met his amused look and the flare of something deep in the tawny brown of his expressive eyes. His breath had begun to quicken.
“You came,” he said unnecessarily. But the way he said it sounded like he had been waiting forever.
She made a faint sound, but no words would come out. Finally her body would move again and she whirled and dashed outside, calling, “I will wait for you to dress.”
He kept up a conversation while she unloaded Cass
ie, his voice occasionally muffled as he pulled a shirt on or bent over to pull on boots, and then he came to help her. When his hands brushed hers above the top of her riding gloves she felt a tingling over her skin. She glanced up, startled; he met her eyes and smiled.
Then he turned and carried the heavy basket into the folly while she followed with the blankets. He seemed much healthier, though he still limped. She doubted he could ride any distance or run far. Maybe he would not go just yet. She prayed that he would not go just yet.
May spread out a cloth on the table by the window. “I’m sorry I didn’t come yesterday or the day before, but I had company arrive unexpectedly, and then it rained. I hope you were warm and dry here?”
Etienne watched her bustle about setting the table and unloading the provisions, filling a plate for him. She bent over once to retrieve a jug of ale from the basket, and he felt his body stir at the outline of feminine beauty and the way her breeches clung to her lithe body like a second skin. The sunlight glinted through the window and the loose blouse she wore allowed the sun to pierce it, showing him an indescribably arousing image of her young, swelling breasts. She was more lovely than any image of Diana, the Huntress, more enchanting than any London debutante or Parisian courtesan.
Dieu, but he had missed her. He had missed her conversation and her care of him, but mostly, he had missed her mere presence. She had been gone from him not even two full days, but they had been empty days without her near, and it was not just his isolation. He rather thought he would have missed her even if he had been surrounded by lovely women. He watched her thoughtfully, not listening as she babbled on about her doings for the past two days.
Instead he remembered her eyes as he had turned and she let her gaze travel his body, and how she paused when she saw his male parts. There had been no revulsion and no disgust, just curiosity, and something deeper that had made him swell with need. It was a good thing she had looked up finally, or she would have seen the effect on him of her wondering gaze. It was torture, remembering that heated look, and he shifted, trying to accommodate his skintight breeches to his arousal.
They sat at the table, she on the chair and he on the heavy basket that had carried the provisions. She drank ale while he tackled the food. He was hungry. The food she had left him had run out yesterday at noon, though he had been able to find some late berries in the brush outside. He encouraged her to talk, finding deep pleasure in the breathy, husky, enchanting sound of her voice. It had a soft, low quality, and filled him with warmth, though later he would have been hard pressed to remember what exactly she had spoken of.
She seemed more comfortable by the time he had finished his meal. He was filled with curiosity. “And so what, little one, did you think of your first view of a naked man?”
Her complexion turned crimson again. “That wasn’t my first . . . I mean I’ve seen . . . not all, but much . . .” She stammered and broke off, staring at him with wide, alarmed eyes.
Etienne felt a painful jolt of anger and jealousy pierce him. His eyes narrowed and he glared at her. “And who would you have seen naked?”
She shrugged and looked away, out the window at the last golden leaves in the glade.
“Who was it?” he said sharply. He struggled to control his feelings as he saw her questioning gaze. Then an awful thought occurred to him. “Did one of your mother’s horrible friends make advances at you? If so, little one, you are not to blame, so do not think you are at fault.” He took her hand across the table and rubbed with his thumb the soft skin. “Too often women are held responsible for the deeds of licentious men.”
“No, oh, no! It was not that at all.”
“Good. I am glad. And now you need tell me no more, for it is not my business.” Etienne gulped the last drop of his ale and patted his stomach. “Thank you once again, little one, for your generosity. I will repay you your kindness someday, I hope.” He watched her eyes, still wondering about the spurt of anger and jealousy he had felt at the thought that she had seen another man. It was unworthy of him, he knew, but he wanted somehow to be the only man she had ever had reason to look at in that state.
His feelings for her had indeed become complex. When he had to leave it would be a wrench. She had become vital to him, and it was beyond mere gratitude, though there was so much to be grateful to her for. How could he ever repay the debt he owed her when it covered the extent of his very life? He rose and took her hand. “Come, I would like to show you what I found the other day, before the rain came. I hope that it is not too wet.”
He grabbed one of the blankets, tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and escorted her outside. She glanced up at him sideways, noting the clean lines of his jaw and the spicy outdoor smell that emanated from him, as well as the fragrance of soap from his bath. She felt a devious, winding thread of desire that spiraled through her, and a sharp curiosity to know how his body worked. It had not escaped her attention that between the time she turned away and the time he had called to her that he was dressed, his body had changed. It should shock her. It should frighten her, especially considering her experience with the awful Dempster. Instead it intrigued her. Was that normal? She would never know.
He guided her through the brush, around a hillside she thought she remembered from her youth, holding branches away for her and helping her under low bushes, even though he was the one with the limp. But she would let him be chivalrous, for it was his natural way, as instinctive to him as his innate gentleness. Her deep conviction of his nature was what lay behind her refusal to believe he had anything to do with the attempts on Lord Sedgely’s life. Someday he would explain all to her. Until then she would just enjoy his company and try to forget about the day when he would leave. She could hear the stream, but he was leading her away from where she collected water for him.
“Here,” he finally said.
The hill had formed a cliff and it overhung the hillside, providing a protected spot from which one could see the stream, and how the light breeze sent golden leaves tumbling through the air to be caught by the water and carried away. She hugged his arm to her side. “How lovely,” she exclaimed, and he looked as pleased as if it was something he had built.
“I have been tired of the folly, no matter that it is pretty and picturesque. Come sit with me here,” he said, spreading the blanket under the overhang. He sat and pulled her down to him.
She found herself nestled in the crook of his arm as they lay side by side, his length stretched out and touching her, their boots touching. It was as natural a position to both of them as if they were lovers, and neither seemed inclined to keep distance between them. She trusted him implicitly, and enjoyed the warm points of contact between them.
“Now,” he said firmly, “you shall tell me how it is that I am not the first man you have seen in his nakedness. I find myself with a curiosity about this that will not be appeased. Truly it is none of my business, but . . .” He shrugged. “I would like to know.”
“But . . .”
“No, little one,” he said kindly, gazing down at her with a smile curving up his lips. He cupped her cheek and rubbed his thumb along her jawline. “I will not judge you, nor call you naughty if you have been spying on some fellow. Curiosity about men is natural.”
She looked up into his eyes and felt his length warm against her, and she knew that she would tell him everything. He would be the only person she had ever told. Perhaps it would feel good to confess a disturbing chapter in her life. She took a deep breath. He smiled down at her and pulled her closer to his body.
She pulled slightly away. She would not be coherent if she was too close to his body, especially with the recent memory of him naked, she thought, breathless. “I had a governess from the time I was eight until I was fourteen,” she started.
“Yes, this Beaty you have told me about before.”
May nodded, and told him about how Beaty was like a sister to her, letting her play, walking with her, teaching her. More like a mother tha
n Maisie. “I liked to play pranks on her,” May laughed. “She didn’t mind as long as it wasn’t toads or snakes in her bed.”
“She was affectionate with you, yes?”
“Oh, yes. I loved her. I could always depend on her, you see. She was the one who taught me, when my menses started, what it meant, for I was horrified at first.”
His hand skimmed lightly over her curves, and he said, “Ah, but that is when a girl blossoms into a young woman, as you did, evidently.”
His hand trembled and his voice was husky. She sent him a quick, questioning glance, but he was gazing down over the stream and did not meet her eyes. “Anyway,” she continued. “One day, when I was about fourteen and my mother had her usual houseful of male guests, I decided to play a trick on Beaty. I told her I was taking the pony cart in to town to visit my old nurse and to pick some things up at the shops. I went unescorted often. I made a pretense of leaving, but then I ran back up the servants’ stairs and secreted myself in Beaty’s wardrobe. I was going to jump out at her when she came in to get something, which I knew she would. She was always sewing or something like that, and would surely need her threads or needles.
“I had just hidden myself, when I heard her door creak open.” May stopped for a moment. She could still remember the cloying smell of old lavender in the closet, and the lack of room as she scrunched down in the wardrobe. The fabric fibers had tickled her nose and she had wanted to sneeze and had to stifle it. She had left the door of the wardrobe open a crack for air and so that the latch would not make a noise when she opened it. She did not want to alert Beaty to the joke before it was sprung.
“And what happened,” Etienne urged, stroking her arm.
The autumn sun beamed down on them under the lip of the overhang, touching her with warmth. She could feel the muscles of Etienne’s powerful arm flex under her shoulders as he settled her more comfortably against him once again. She did not move away this time.
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