On the afternoon of their journey, Meg poked her head outside the carriage window, shielding her eyes from the bright sunlight. “Brandon, could we stop for a picnic soon? Not for me, of course, because I enjoy sitting perfectly still for hours upon hours and never have any appetite whatsoever”—she grinned impishly when he cast a dubious glance down from the seat of his stallion—“but Ellie’s groaning stomach is not nearly as stalwart. In fact, I think she might be tempted to eat the bluebird on Aunt Myrtle’s hat if we do not stop soon.”
Through the opening, he heard laughter and saw Ellie reach across the seat to playfully swat at his sister. Then her face appeared through the frame, her cheeks flaming pink. “Pay no attention to your sister, my lord. I am perfectly content. Please do not alter your plans any more than you already have done on my account.”
“I happen to be famished myself,” he said and couldn’t resist a glance down to her lips. “There’s a glade not too far ahead with a brook nearby. We’ll stop there for a spell.”
He spurred Samson forward and informed the driver. Thus far the roads had been clear and dry and they were making excellent progress. There was plenty of time for a picnic.
But surprisingly, Brandon didn’t feel the need to rest. He was filled with an inexplicable surge of energy, as though he could ride all day beside the landau. Hell, he could run the whole way to Wiltshire without tiring. He just felt good. Damn good, in fact.
He didn’t quite know the reason for this but wondered if, perhaps, it had something to do with Nethersole’s absence. That alone had a way of making the warm, luminous day all the more perfect. The only thing better would be to have him change his mind altogether.
It was no secret that he didn’t like Nethersole. But it was an absolute mystery what Ellie found appealing about him. Clearly, she couldn’t see what an utter nodcock he was. But Brandon hoped that would change. She deserved more than someone like Nethersole.
That very thought had been with Brandon for days, pestering and irritating him constantly. In his opinion, there was nothing worse than being blinded by love. If he could, he would save her from that.
Leaving his horse in the care of one of the groomsmen, Brandon joined his party in the clearing. Ellie and Meg laid out a cluster of shawls amidst an archipelago of oxeye daisies. The elder Miss Parrishes unloaded the hamper. And for the better part of an hour, they enjoyed fine fare and easy conversation.
After their repast, the aunts went to forage for berries and his sister followed. But he was glad that Ellie lingered in his company. Gladder still that she’d abandoned her formal use of my lord when they were alone.
“Brandon, I have something for you,” she said, reaching into a tapestry-covered satchel beside her. “I just thought, with the others away, that it would be the best time to give this back to you.” She reached across the fringed border, holding out a folded square of white linen. “It’s your handkerchief, the one you left with me the other day. I washed away the blood and well . . . you can see the rest.”
He did see, indeed. She’d embroidered one corner with a looping letter B in green thread, trimmed with silver to give it a shimmering effect in the shifting light. And right on the very edge, rested a tiny clover.
“It’s remarkable,” he said without any exaggeration. As a gentleman, it was his duty to admire needlework of all sorts but he rarely, if ever, saw something truly stunning. Even with this small sampling, he could see that she had an exceptional hand.
She nodded as one did when grateful for a compliment while, at the same time, knowing her own skill. There was no false show of modesty and he liked that about her.
“To be perfectly honest,” she said, “I was going to come up with a story of how I’d mistakenly began an M for your sister only to find it a trifle too large and was forced to transform it into a B.”
“Quite the elaborate falsehood,” he said with a grin.
“Of course, I never would have been able to say it without stammering and giving myself away,” she admitted ruefully. “So I must be truthful and tell you that I made this for you because I wanted to offer a small token of appreciation for escorting my aunts and me to Wiltshire. And to tell you that . . . I’m glad we are friends.”
“As am I,” he said, tucking her gift into the inner breast pocket of his coat and patting it fondly.
He watched as she absently plucked one of the nearby blossoms. A scattered collection of white petals already lay in front of her, as if those pale, delicate hands required an occupation at all times. And there were many nights that he’d envisioned those hands being quite industrious, over his clothes, over his flesh . . .
“I imagine you are eager to return to your estate,” she said, drawing him away from dangerous musings. “It must be difficult to be away for long intervals when you have so much to oversee.”
“My uncle employed an exceptional steward, who stayed on after I inherited. Mr. Weymouth keeps Crossmoor Abbey running like clockwork and my aunt Sylvia is there, as well, to confer with the housekeeper on a daily basis.”
Her gaze turned tender as it drifted over his features and she said softly, “I am truly sorry for how your inheritance came upon you.”
He responded with a solemn nod, knowing that it wasn’t said out of pity but out of an understanding of great loss. “I only wish that Meg had had more time with our parents. With so many years between us, you can gather that she came along as quite the surprise to them. But Mother had not fared well having a child at her age and declined in the few years following. Father, of course, was the best of men and taught me the importance of living for each day.”
“You are too modest with your own accomplishments, not only in handling a title you were never prepared to attain, but accepting the charge of your younger sister,” she argued.
As always, she gave her opinion openly, and it pleased him to know that her thoughts regarding him had greatly altered from their initial encounters.
“Hmm . . . strange,” he said. “I seem to recall a certain young woman casting the labels of odious and overbearing upon my shoulders.”
“And you still are those terrible things. You’re quite the conundrum,” she said, swiping up a few petals and tossing them in his direction.
He brushed at the ones that landed on his waistcoat and glanced to the figures of his sister and her aunts collecting berries in their bonnets a distance away. Leaning back casually on one hand, he propped the other over his bent knee and twirled a single petal between his fingers. “Then I shall endeavor to be more transparent, like you with your blushes.”
His statement instantly rewarded him with a view of pink saturating her porcelain skin and she threw another handful of petals at him.
He merely smiled and looked up at the blue sky through the kaleidoscope of leaves overhead. It was so good to be away from London and the constant siege. He felt more relaxed than he had in months.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, it occurred to him that everything he could ever want was right here within easy reach. He looked across the little shawl island to Ellie and she smiled, her eyes glittering like gold in the sunshine.
In that instant, a warm, lighter-than-air feeling swept through him. It was a strange sensation, like a nudge in the center of his chest, or a whisper in his ear with an answer to the most rudimentary question, as if he’d been asked What’s two plus two? There was no need to count on his fingers. He just knew the answer was four. It took no calculation or thought at all.
And with Ellie, he realized, every question was like that. So simple it took no thought at all.
Should I waltz with her in the moonlight? Yes.
Should I tease her to make her blush? Yes.
Should I kiss her? Yes.
Should I kiss her again? Hell, yes. You’d be a fool not to.
Should I cancel every obligation to take her to Wiltshire? Yes.
Should I steer her away from marrying a man who doesn’t deserve her? Yes.
; Should I spend this day and all the days for the rest of my life with her?
That answer was the same as all the others.
Unquestioningly, yes.
And all at once, Brandon knew that his sense of certainty had returned.
For years, his faith in other people and his ability to rely on his gut instinct had crumbled. Every time a passing acquaintance approached to ask him for money, or a young woman decided she wanted to marry him—knowing nothing at all about his character or whether or not he was a murderer in the dark of night—he was confronted by greed and manipulation.
Perhaps, if he’d been raised with the belief that he’d inherit one day, he might have become numb to the machinations. But because he’d thought of himself as a gentleman farmer who merely wanted a contented life, it bothered him that he couldn’t find anyone he could trust.
Until now.
Perhaps this feeling had been with him all this time, ever since he’d collided with Miss I did not see you there in the Baxtons’ garden. Perhaps the only reason he hadn’t recognized it was because what he’d once felt for Phoebe wasn’t like this at all.
He’d never been consumed with the need to touch her, hold her, talk to her and kiss her constantly. Never had the pattern of his breathing altered when he sensed her nearby. Never felt as if his entire body had been tuned by a piano fork to vibrate at the same pitch.
He only felt that way with Ellie.
The realization sent a surge through him. He wanted to breach the slight distance between them, ease her down onto the shawl and kiss that smiling mouth thoroughly. He wanted the welcome of her arms around him, the taste of her sigh on his tongue. And the only things in his way were a clover-scented breeze, that flower in her hand and . . . Nethersole.
Damn!
It was utterly maddening to finally have this realization, only to be reminded that Ellie wanted to marry someone else.
“Are you trying to wilt this daisy with your sudden glower?” she asked with a small laugh and waggled the bare stem at him. “I daresay you would have succeeded, had I not plucked the petals already. But it does make me wonder where your thoughts had gone just now.”
“Not far,” he answered distractedly. Leaning across the fringed border, he brushed the tip of the petal in his grasp over the flawless surface of her hand, and then lingered to paint a horizontal line over her ring finger. “Do you have your new ledger nearby?”
She tilted her head, a puzzled smile on her lips as she reached inside her satchel. “Are you about to impart wisdom on me?”
“I am, indeed.” He waited for her to open the book and carefully smooth the page with the flat of her palm. When she was poised and ready, he said, “The thought that occurred to me just now is that a marriage-minded gentleman will surmount any obstacle in his path in order to win the woman he wants. To make her his, and his alone.”
Her cheeks abruptly flooded with more pink, her pencil stalling on the open page as if she sensed that his declaration wasn’t necessarily for her book, but to inform her of his intentions. She delicately cleared her throat, then prompted, “‘. . . to make her’?”
“His,” he repeated helpfully as he pointed down to the page, “and his alone.”
She scribbled with haste, finished, then tried to return the pencil to its sheath. But she fumbled a bit. And with his mind on a course of wooing, winning, and claiming, all it took was the sight of the tip nudging into the tightly closed loop to send his mind on a salacious track. His mouth went dry as he watched her careful prodding. When it finally slipped inside, he nearly groaned on an errant surge of arousal, his pulse thudding thick and low. And he felt more than a bit depraved at the moment.
She looked at him with uncertainty, covering the ledger with both hands as if she was afraid that the latest entry might escape. “Is that all you wished to tell me?”
He took a breath to cool his ardor, reminding himself that he still needed to convince Ellie to choose him, instead of Nethersole.
With a glance toward the berry-pickers, he saw that they were already heading up the hill toward the picnic site. Meg gave a merry wave, lifting her bonnet like a prize cup. Turning back to Ellie, he held her gaze and said, “For now.”
* * *
Unfortunately, by the time they arrived at the cobbled courtyard of the coaching inn a few hours later, Brandon realized that telling Ellie he wanted more than friendship between them would likely send her scurrying off in the opposite direction. She was easily alarmed by anything new and unexpected. Understanding this, he knew he would have to ease her into the idea of a future with him. In other words, he needed to win her heart.
The way he saw it, he had two advantages over Nethersole—her trust and her desire.
Ellie wouldn’t have accepted his friendship or his escort if the former wasn’t true. As for the latter, she’d proven that she was just as overwhelmed by the scorching heat between them as he was. And given the innocence of her response, he knew that he was the only one who had ever inflamed her passions.
This knowledge awakened a primitive side to his nature, one that was determined to keep it that way. She was his. The only problem was, she didn’t know it yet.
Brandon considered a number of delectable ways he’d like to enlighten her, demonstrating how good they could be together. Of course, it probably wasn't wise to allow such thoughts to distract him as they entered the tidy, Tudor-style inn where they would both be sleeping this evening.
The innkeeper, Bertie, was a lively fellow, ready with a cheerful welcome and a pumping handshake. He offered them his finest rooms upstairs, which included two bedchambers and the common room that separated them. The latter was furnished with a small, round table and chairs near a blazing stone hearth that banished the evening chill from the air. And after freshening up from their lengthy journey, the five of them enjoyed a fine meal from the innkeeper’s wife.
Seated next to Ellie, Brandon was frequently called upon to pass a bowl or platter to her. Each time his fingertips brushed hers, the contact jolted through him. And he wasn’t alone. He heard her breath catch and watched as her cheeks turned icing pink.
While he listened to the elder Miss Parrishes discuss the merits of the menu, he caught himself glancing to the door that would be Ellie’s for the evening. A mere nineteen steps from his own. Not that he’d counted.
He didn’t know how he was going to survive the night with temptation so near.
So he made the absolutely brilliant decision to get drunk. Well, he had only intended to have one glass of brandy to help his frustrated body find sleep. But the innkeeper was so thrilled to have a marquess under his roof that he was all too eager to share his homemade cider.
The cloudy brown liquor was known as rough in these parts because it was pressed from the apples or pears that had either dropped to the ground or were left on the branch due to their less than appealing qualities. And after the first biting swallow, Brandon was sure he’d been hoaxed into drinking turpentine furniture polish.
But Bertie reassured him with a hearty slap on the back that it was first-rate rough. So Brandon had another glass. He had to sample the pear, after all. Of course, his tastebuds had disappeared by then and all that remained was the flavor of oblivion, which was precisely what he needed.
An hour or two later and truly tap-hackled, he mounted the steep stairs, ready to find his bed.
But what he found instead was Ellie.
Her door opened as soon as the top stair creaked beneath his footfall. Then she appeared in a white ruffled nightdress tied in a tiny bow at the neck, a gauzy wrapper with more frills, and the plaited length of her hair draped over her shoulder. He stood stock-still, and blinked several times to ensure she was real.
Then his gaze returned to that little insignificant bow. He wanted to take hold of it with his teeth. Tug it loose. He wanted that more than anything.
“Brandon,” she said with a start, her hand gathering her wrapper closed, the soft fabric cling
ing to the luscious teardrop shapes of her unbound breasts. “I thought . . . perhaps . . . that you were a maid.”
“Left my frilly cap belowstairs, I fear,” he teased, his voice husky and in need of another drink. Or in need of something else. Something soft and frilly and warm underneath. “Issthere something I can do for you?”
His tipsy slur caused her lips to curve invitingly. He wished she wouldn’t do that. In his current condition, the gentleman’s code of honor that had been ingrained in him since birth seemed to be sleeping quite soundly. And she was too tempting when she smiled. He knew the flavor of her mouth so well by now that his own watered at the mere thought of kissing her . . . and of doing much more than kissing her.
“I was going to ask the maid for a glass of hot milk. I’m having trouble sleeping.” As she spoke, a very loud snore drifted through the crack in the door. Stepping out, she closed it quietly behind her and shook her head. “My aunts. I honestly don’t know how Meg can suffer through it.”
“Noise has never bothered her,” he said conversationally, his legs staggering a step or two toward her without the permission of his brain. “Even as an infant, Meg would cry incessan—incessant—quite a lot when the nursery was peaceful. But put her bassinet next to the chaos of the kitchen and she slept like a babe. Well, she was a babe at the time so, you can just about imagine the rest.”
That smile appeared again, along with a small laugh as she tilted her head in inquiry. “Are you feeling quite well?”
“If I say I’m not, are you going to cure what ails me?” he said with a rakish lift of his brows.
She covered her mouth, her eyes dancing with mirth. “I’m not certain I can.”
“Oh, you can, you can. I’m sure of it.”
“Well . . . if I help you to your bed, will you behave yourself?”
If she helped him to his bed, he wasn’t sure he could let her leave it. Yet, as appealing as the thought of spending hours, days, weeks, years with her arms and legs wrapped around him was, the last shred of chivalry that wasn’t completely foxed made him shake his head.
The Wrong Marquess Page 19