‘Are you hungry?’ Pen sliced bread at the table, putting pieces alongside hunks of cheese on the tin plates she’d brought. This was all part of the fantasy today—playing house, playing at being a commoner, at living the simple life.
He took off his greatcoat and hung it from his chair. She let herself imagine he was her husband, home from work, perhaps, from the fields overseeing a harvest. ‘Yes, I could eat.’ He laughed. ‘I assume you guessed that. As you’ve noted, I can always eat. This is quite a step up from yesterday. We’re progressing. We have plates today, mugs, a tablecloth, a knife. This is fine living.’ He glanced at the fire. ‘It would be a shame to eat this excellent food cold. Shall I grill the bread and melt the cheese?’ He took the plates to the fire and Pen watched as he arranged the bread with its cheese on top of the grate. Satisfied, he turned to her. ‘Come sit, Em. I’ve had a deuced difficult day. Tell me something interesting to take my mind off it. What did you do last night after you left me?’
Pen took her seat by the fire, that little pinch of guilt she’d felt last evening pinching her a little harder. She could not tell him what she’d done. She hated that, but even more she hated the idea of lying to him, so she said instead, ‘Perhaps it would be best if you talked about your difficulty? We might find a solution together.’
He pulled the bread from the fire and put it on a plate for her. ‘Very well, my trouble goes like this. There is something I want to purchase, but the gentleman who owns it is unwilling to sell it to me no matter what price I offer.’
Pen bit into her toasted bread and cheese with a murmur of delight. ‘Mmm, this is ambrosia.’ She swallowed and turned her attentions back to his problem. ‘Do you know why this gentleman resists?’
‘He doesn’t agree with what I want the thing for.’ Matthew poked at the fire. ‘I’ve tried persuading him, showing him that my purpose is beneficial to so many, but he only sees the bad. Worst of all, I feel we’ve reached a point in the discussion where he simply won’t listen any more.’
Pen nodded. She knew the feeling all too well. She’d felt that way this morning at breakfast. ‘I know. Sometimes I think my father has stopped listening to me. It’s as if he’s already decided my fate and he’s just going through the motions now to placate me.’ The only thing that kept her from believing that in full was Phin, who quite often stood between her and her father when they were at loggerheads, as he’d done last night. When Phin had an opinion, her father listened.
‘What do you do when that happens?’ Matthew pulled his own bread out of the fire, crisp and golden.
She thought for a moment. ‘I find an ally. Perhaps you need one, too, someone whom your stubborn gentleman will listen to. For me, it’s my brother. Sometimes it’s not the message that matters, but the messenger. Two people can say the same thing, but be heard differently. Is there someone this man could be persuaded by? Perhaps he has a son or a friend who also shares your wisdom, but to whom he might be more receptive?’
He seemed to mull the idea over as he ate. ‘An ally is a good idea, I just don’t think I have one.’
‘Then we’ll keep thinking of a solution. Surely, between the two of us, we can come up with something.’ She stood, brushing her hands on her skirt. ‘I’ll bring over the pie and cider.’
‘You needn’t wait on me.’ He half rose, setting aside his plate, but she stalled him with a hand to his chest and a smile.
‘Sit. You’re still eating. Let me. I want to.’ She did want to. She liked serving him, talking to him, helping him. He treated her like a partner, someone he could confide in. She was no one’s partner at home. At home, she was swaddled, protected, something precious to be hidden away. No one would think of burdening her with their troubles.
* * *
Cassian sat back down with a laugh. ‘You’re bossy.’ But he liked that she was assertive and willing to stand up to him, willing to solve problems with him even if he couldn’t make use of her suggestion. So many of the women he knew were sycophants more interested in his title and what came with him than in him.
She returned with a large slice of pie and something primal stirred within Cassian. A man could find happiness in a simple life: a one-room cottage, four pieces of furniture, one good woman to partner him in life. Who needed ballrooms and titles when one had that? It was a potent fantasy he was spinning and an impossible one. Hadn’t his conversation with Inigo last night been about this very subject? The finite limitations of this affaire? Dukes and their heirs weren’t entitled to simple lives. Their lives were complicated, their alliances complicated; it was all part of their duty, their sacrifice for the greater good.
Despite his vast resources, this woman, like his land, was beyond him; she was a virgin he couldn’t marry, a virgin whom he could not take to bed out of personal honour. No matter how low her birth, he would not risk leaving her with a child. Even if he compromised her, he couldn’t marry her. Yet he wanted her: her company, her time, her kisses.
‘Tell me,’ he said once she’d settled in her chair. ‘What does your father not listen to you about?’ There was something different about her today. Perhaps it was that she was starting to grow used to him, more confident about their companionship, or perhaps it was something else he couldn’t put his finger on. Maybe it was that the conversation was different today. At the fair, the conversation had been a general trading of tales. Yesterday had been a flirty game of questions. But today, the discussion was far deeper. This was about real life, things they dealt with in the world beyond the cottage walls, things their real selves dealt with. The line between the reality and their fabricated identities was very slowly starting to blur.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to tell you,’ she demurred, perhaps in proof of that blurring. To tell would be to bring the other world too close, but Cassian was persistent.
‘Why not? I told you about my problem. You can trust me.’
‘It’s not that.’ She rose and collected the empty plates, suddenly restless. ‘If I tell you, you will think I am fishing for something, although I assure you I am not.’ She paused and set the plates on the table. ‘This time here with you is important to me. I don’t have much time and I don’t want to ruin this.’
‘You think telling me will ruin us?’ Cassian was doubly curious now and worried. People only used phrases like running out of time when circumstances were dire. A horrible thought came to him. ‘Are you ill?’ Did she need money for a doctor? For medicines? A bolt of panic shot through him. Was Em dying?
‘No, I am not ill,’ she quickly disabused him. ‘Oh, dear, I’ve worried you. I think I have to tell you now,’ she blurted out the words. ‘My father wants me to marry.’
Cassian should have felt enormous relief. To an extent he did. The tension that had welled so quickly in him had evaporated when she said she was not ill, but it had also been quickly replaced at the mention of marriage. ‘To someone particular? Does he have the man picked out?’ he tried to ask casually. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. She was of age to marry, more than old enough, and it was the natural course of events. Yet, he didn’t like the thought of his Em, his first-kissed Em, pledged to another.
‘No one, not yet. But he’s pushing for it.’
Cassian understood why she’d held back. She didn’t want him to think she was looking for a proposal. ‘It’s all right, Em. We don’t owe each other anything, no commitments.’ This explained her need for the false identity, for the need to return home alone for fear of discovery.
‘That’s just it,’ she said, ‘I didn’t want you to think you did.’
‘We are just Em and Matthew,’ he assured her. ‘Nothing more.’ The thought was less satisfying than it had been earlier, though. Em and Matthew could be nothing to each other. That had always been the case, implicitly acknowledged, never spoken of. It allowed them to be free. But it was less pleasant to contemplate when explicitly address
ed. Freedom had suddenly become finite. This would be the ideal time to tell her about London, how he needed to leave at the end of April, but that seemed far off when viewed from the seventh of March, especially when it might end sooner. There might be no need at all to bring it up. He would bring it up, though, he promised himself, if the day drew closer.
She returned to the fire, and he drew her to him, pulling her on to his lap. He smiled, trying to take the new, furtive edge off the afternoon. Only three days in and already the clock was ticking. ‘What else is your father stubborn about?’
She wrapped her arms about his neck and settled into him with a warm smile. Perhaps she, too, was eager to chase away reality and return to the fantasy. ‘Pets. When we were growing up I wanted a dog badly, but he absolutely refused. No dogs in the house, he’d say. But I was desperate for one. I thought a dog could be my friend. After my brother left for school, the house was lonely.’ It was the second time she’d mentioned her brother with fondness; her ally, her playmate. Cassian’s throat thickened at thought of Collin. They’d been allies and playmates once too.
‘I had great images of how it would be—my dog would wander around beside me, romp outdoors with me, lay by my bed at night, a constant companion, just like in the stories.’ There was such wistfulness in her tone, Cassian suddenly wanted to shower her with a litter of puppies. Eaton’s dog, Baldor, a magnificent hound with a nose for truffles, had just sired a new batch born a few weeks ago. She would love them.
‘Since you didn’t have a pup, how did you entertain yourself?’ He liked the feel of her on his lap, her body against his. It was easy to talk to her, to listen to her. She was interesting and she didn’t even know it. She had no need to dissemble and no desire to do it.
‘I played with maps. You go to faraway places, but I dream of them. Seeing them on a map helps make them real.’ She wasn’t as lowborn as he thought. Somewhere in his mind, a silent warning bell began to clang. A brother sent to school, access to maps, the ability to read, a father who wanted to arrange a marriage. These were not the acts of a peasant or an artisan. Yet she seemed to want for certain things. Her dress and cloak were the same each day and they were showing their wear. And she’s a virgin, his conscience nudged. Might she be the daughter of gentry down on their luck?
If it wasn’t out of respect for the game of Em and Matthew, and out of respect for her need for privacy, he could probably determine her identity if she were gentry. It was tempting to try. But that would end the game. She didn’t want to be exposed any more than he did. It was for the best. Knowing the truth of their identities would complicate things, especially now. If her father was eager for her to marry, and if her family was truly down on their luck, he’d look like a plum from heaven if they knew who he was. These two false names of theirs was all that kept the fantasy in place, a fantasy they were both desperate for, some time out of time to hold back the world.
He whispered against her ear, breathing her in, all sweet honeysuckle and rose water, ‘Let me tell you a secret. I had an awful night last night after I left you, full of disappointments, and all I could think of this morning was getting to you. If I could get to you, if I could get here, everything would be better.’ He kissed her earlobe and heard her breath catch. ‘I was right. Everything is better even if it’s just for a short while.’
He moved to take her mouth and she gave it, fully, deeply, as she’d given it before, passionately for a woman who’d not been kissed until yesterday, until him. She was all his. What a heady thought that was. He was the only one who had kissed her, who had tasted her like this, who had held her like this. It was an idea darkened by the thought that to be the first meant he wouldn’t be the last. In the end, he would lose her to a faceless suitor yet to be named, one who was already on the horizon.
Em’s hand was soft on his face. ‘Are all kisses like this? Consuming? Burning?’ she whispered against his mouth.
‘No, definitely not.’ London debutantes didn’t kiss like this with their whole bodies and mistresses didn’t kiss like this, with every honest feeling burning in their eyes.
‘Perhaps we should start here next time.’ They were talking between kisses and it was quite the loveliest conversation Cassian had ever had. Em’s hip moved against him at his groin. There was no hiding his arousal, no protecting her from it. ‘I do this to you?’ Her eyes registered wonder and shock at the hardness she found there.
Of its own accord, her hand seemed to find its way to the space between them, seeking him. Cassian put a stop to it, delightful as the prospect might be. ‘Careful, Em. I am no saint. It would be too easy to take what you’re offering and worry about regrets later.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to be a saint either,’ Em pressed.
‘You should at least think about it first. Those are easy words in the heat of the moment,’ Cassian cautioned. He shifted her from his lap in a pretence of stoking up the fire. He was going to need some relief and soon.
‘Don’t worry about the fire, I have to go. It’s later than I thought.’ Em was already at the table, packing up their lunch and sounding flustered. He’d hurt her feelings.
He went to her and wrapped his arms about her, pressing a kiss to her neck in reassurance. ‘It’s not that I don’t want you. I do. I want you more than I’ve wanted any woman in a long while. But I know the cost and I would not make you pay it for something that can never be more than it is now, a fantasy, a moment of escape from our real lives and selves.’ He kissed the length of her lovely neck. ‘I can take you part way on my horse.’ He was reluctant to let her go, to step outside the door and back into that reality.
‘No, I can’t allow that.’ She turned in his arms, her face alight with the same worry as yesterday, asking for the same promise as yesterday. ‘Promise me you won’t follow.’
‘I promise. I won’t follow you.’ He thought he understood her fear better today. ‘But you have nothing to fear from me, Em.’ He whispered his wish. ‘What would you say if I said I wanted to know the real you, Em?’
‘I would say you already do.’ She wrapped her arms about his neck, her hips pressed against him once more. ‘Everything I’ve told you is the truth.’
‘Except your name.’ The one thing he wanted to know most. But he could not give his return.
‘I didn’t tell you my name. You gave me one,’ she corrected. ‘We have truth between us, Matthew, let that be enough.’ Enough to bind them together? Enough to bring her back for as long as they could both stand it before inevitability tore them a part?
He nuzzled her neck. ‘Can you come in two days?’ He had business that required him in Bodmin. There was some disappointment in knowing he couldn’t come tomorrow. It would be an eternity until Thursday, until he could return to heaven. ‘I want to take you on an adventure. We’ll be careful. No one will recognise us.’ He assured her, knowing how important that was to her.
Her face lit up at the prospect. ‘Where? What shall we do?’
He kissed her once more in promise. ‘You’ll have to show up to find out.’
Chapter Nine
He took her to Mutton Cove to see the seals. They were lucky. The rain had stopped and an early spring sun had found its way out for the afternoon, although she would have loved going even if it had been wet. She would have gone anywhere just to spend time with him. Pen rode behind Matthew on his horse, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, her cheek pressed to his broad back, her body warm from the heat of his own despite the breeze. She was hardly noticeable sitting behind him, which was exactly what they’d intended. No one would pay them any mind.
At the cove, a sailboat awaited them, borrowed from a friend, Matthew explained. It was small but seaworthy, something a fisherman might use, or—the naughty, rather adventurous thought crossed her mind—a smuggler. ‘The best way to see the seals is on the water.’ Matthew grinned and handed her on board before shoving the littl
e craft off the beach and into the surf. He splashed in beside her, the little boat skimming the quiet waters with Matthew competently at the sails.
‘Is there nothing you can’t do?’ Pen admired him from the bow, the hood of her cloak thrown back, her face turned to the fresh air. Matthew merely smiled at her and shrugged out of his coat. He settled beside her in the bow seat, content to let the sailboat bob at will in the cove.
‘Do you like your surprise?’ He stretched out his long legs as they looked back at the empty beach. There were no seals yet.
‘I love it. The wind in my face, the fresh air, no one around for miles.’ She let her smile say it all. ‘You have no idea what it means to me to be free for just a few hours.’ Yet, she wasn’t entirely free. Her smile faded at the realisation.
‘But?’ he prompted. ‘Something is amiss?’ His arm was about her, and she snuggled against his side.
‘I’m not really free, even in these moments. There is so much I wish I could tell you, but I can’t, not without giving away too much.’ She paused, gathering her courage. ‘Sometimes I wish we hadn’t made the rule about names.’ What would he say to that? Did he feel stifled too? Were there things he wanted to tell her, but couldn’t?
His hand stroked the length of her arm. ‘It’s a type of freedom, though, Em. Knowing our real names creates a different set of limitations.’
All except one limitation. Pen sighed. Real names meant this could last, that she could find him. ‘I wish we could stay here for ever. The water is peaceful.’ There were no worries here. She didn’t have to think about her father, or the suitors, or what she was going to do for the rest of her life. She looked up at Matthew. ‘How long do we have? Not just today, but how long...?’
The Passions of Lord Trevethow Page 7