Such realisations were hard to face. He was surprised and perhaps a little shocked the fantasy had got this far, this fast, perhaps helped along by the sight of Beatrice coming around the dressing screen, her dark hair down, her modest white cotton nightgown not nearly as modest as it should be in the firelight, outlining the full swell of her breasts, the lush curve of her hip, the hint of a dark shadow at her thighs. It was enough to make his blood heat.
But perhaps the nightgown was just carrying coals to Newcastle. He’d been on the verge of arousal all night since she’d stripped him out of his wet things, since Burke had demanded a pummelling for looking in her direction, since she’d laid hands on him, bandaging his injuries. That state of arousal raised the question: when had Beatrice become more than a friend? He wasn’t making headway here. Wasn’t this where his conversation to himself had started? Where did it end?
In answer to that question, another dangerous rootling began to set down; Bea, Matthew and him at Seacrest, his grandmother’s estate near Shoreham-by-the-Sea, the little boy learning to toddle in the fields of wildflowers, learning to swim on the beach at the base of the cliffs. There was another image, too. This one was more unsettling—him hugging the little boy tight, kissing Beatrice goodbye and riding off to apprehend an arms dealer or mercenary who’d far prefer gutting him than being hauled before the English justice system. How did a man balance the darkness and the light? How did he leave all he cherished behind to keep up the greater fight for good?
Preston adjusted the sleeping baby in his arms, letting his dreams catch up with his thoughts. His mind had picked out strong words, strong images. Cherished? Kissing Beatrice goodbye? Both implied an intense sense of intimacy, further proof his attachment wasn’t to the baby alone. Where had that come from? He supposed he should have been more concerned about the issue of balancing work and family, but in his fantasy, his thoughts seemed to come back to this one instead, perhaps coaxed there by other images like the ones tonight: of Beatrice stripping him out of his clothes, laying hot towels on his wounds, of Beatrice kneeling before him to wrap his ribs, her eyes falling to the vee of his thighs, catching sight of the arousal he couldn’t hide. Neither of them had been oblivious to the consequences of her closeness. Beatrice knew full well what a man’s body was capable of and the signs.
Perhaps it was for the best this journey was nearly done. Enforced proximity and crisis were strong kindling indeed to fan the flames of attraction and they were beset with both. They’d be home the day after tomorrow, Beatrice and Matthew to Maidenstone, and he to his responsibilities at Seacrest, yet he’d prolong it if he could. One more day with Beatrice and her conversation, her herbs, and competent hands on him, one more day with baby Matthew in his arms... Beatrice and Matthew. A fallen woman and another man’s child. Mad thoughts. Hardly what his parents envisioned for him when they thought of him marrying. Preston yawned, his body starting to relax. He’d do better to stay awake at this point. Dawn couldn’t be far away, but he was going to lose the battle.
Chapter Six
Beatrice stretched, feeling luxuriously well rested and full. Full? Painfully full. The luxury of awakening under her own power faded quickly, sharply. Her eyes flew open, taking in the morning light. She’d slept through nearly the entire night since she’d fed Matthew. Memories of a whisper came to her. Preston! Her hand went to the other side of the bed, only to find it empty.
She sat up, her heart racing until her eyes found him across the tiny room, slumped in the ratty wing-backed chair, Matthew nestled against his chest. Both of them sound asleep. She could see their chests rising and falling together, sending her pulse fluttering again for different reasons.
She let her body slow, let her eyes drink their fill; Preston’s bare and bandaged chest, his hair falling forward over his face, his jaw darkened with rough stubble, her infant son’s tiny hand curled around Preston’s finger, Preston’s head resting against his. Beatrice shut her eyes, making a mental picture of the image, intuitively knowing this was an important moment as much as she knew it was an impossible moment. They were nearly home and that meant the fantasy had to stop. Now. Whatever playacting she’d indulged herself in this week had to end. It would be unhealthy otherwise.
The front of her nightgown dampened. She needed to feed Matthew whether he was awake or not. Bea padded towards her sleeping men and gently dislodged the baby. She settled with him on the bed, knowing physical relief as he began to nurse. She looked down at his little dark head, let the wonder of him sweep her. ‘Very soon you’ll meet your grandparents,’ she whispered her conversation. She spent hours talking to him like this.
‘Maidenstone is where I grew up and you’ll grow up there, too.’ It was hard to believe they’d be home, today if they pushed hard. They should push hard. She glanced across at Preston still sleeping, remembering. Today was his birthday. He should be home for it even if she wasn’t ready to have this journey end. She couldn’t hold him captive for her own selfish reasons. She’d stolen enough time from him. She returned her gaze to her son, continuing her conversation. ‘You will love it at Maidenstone.’ She suspected she said it more to persuade herself. Truth was, she’d never been so scared to go home in her life, so uncertain of what she’d find and what it would do to her.
She felt more than saw Preston’s eyes on her. So, he was awake. And watching her, a thought that invoked a very different response from her than it first had. She’d originally attempted to shock him with her display of maternity, but now, there was something almost sensual about the idea of him watching her, a man not repulsed by a nursing mother as so many high-born gentlemen were. Something seductive, too, in the idea of wanting him to watch her. She lifted her eyes to meet his, acknowledging the electric undercurrent for just a fraction of a second. Any longer would be too dangerous. ‘I’ll change your bandages in just a moment.’ Far better to talk about the routine and the tasks that needed performing.
A small smile tinged perhaps with rueful awareness flitted across Preston’s mouth. ‘Whenever you’re ready will be fine.’
* * *
They were on the road by nine o’clock. They’d all slept late after the long, muddy day yesterday. But today the sun was out and the roads were passably dry. Travel was good in spite of their later-than-usual start. ‘We’ll be home by evening if the roads hold.’ Bea dropped the window curtain and forced cheerfulness into her tone. The morning miles had sped by and there was no reason to stop for lunch at noon since they’d started late. Maybe if she thought more positively about getting home she’d start to feel more positive about it. It was nearly two o’clock. Another five hours would see them at Little Westbury, although they usually stopped for the evening around six o’clock.
‘We don’t need to rush,’ Preston offered, taking a break from playing this little piggy with Matthew’s toes. ‘There’s a nice inn between here and home. We could stop there tonight and then only have a couple of hours in the carriage tomorrow morning. We’d be home in time for luncheon. It would give you the afternoon to settle in.’ He paused, having made his argument, before adding hastily, ‘Unless you are eager to arrive tonight? Then by all means we can push on.’
Bea shook her head. ‘No, it’s not that at all. I was only thinking of you.’ She hesitated, suddenly shy. ‘I haven’t forgotten it’s your birthday, Preston. I thought you might like to be home with your family.’
‘That’s very kind, Bea. But I am in no hurry to get home for myself.’ Their eyes met and held, an unspoken message passing between them. Neither of them were quite ready for the journey to be over, whatever their reasons. She didn’t dare suppose the reasons were the same, because if they were... No. She couldn’t even begin to travel down that path of thought any more than she could travel down the path her thoughts had taken last night. Preston was her friend and she’d already made one mistake with a lover. She could hardly afford to make another.
>
Bea sat back against the squabs, relaxing now that it was settled. She wouldn’t face Maidenstone until tomorrow. There was peace in the procrastination. ‘What are your plans when you get home? I don’t believe you ever said.’ That omission struck her as odd considering all the conversations they’d had over the week. ‘Are you off on another mission for the government?’ Preston operated on special assignment these days since his injury.
‘No, not for a while. Cabot Roan comes to trial in June and I’ll be needed in London, or at least close at hand.’ Preston uncrossed and crossed his legs perhaps in latent restlessness at the thought of being at loose ends, a man of action consigned to merely waiting.
‘Will you spend all your time in London, then?’ Beatrice tried to probe without looking too needy. In theory, she’d known it was unlikely he’d spend the Season, the busiest part of the year for a man like himself, loitering in Little Westbury. In practice, the idea of him being that far away with no chance of running into him on the street or at a gathering was harder to tolerate.
Preston stretched out his legs, still restless. ‘No, I just need to be near enough for a message to reach me. I’ll probably split my time between Little Westbury and Seacrest.’ She tried to remember who or what was at Seacrest that demanded his attention. For an awful moment, she feared it might be a ‘who’. More specifically, it might be a ‘she’.
Preston took pity on her. ‘My grandmother passed earlier this winter, shortly after May’s wedding. She was my mother’s mother, if you recall. You would only have met her once or twice. She was fairly reclusive and very old. Even when we were little, I thought she was ancient. But she made old bones. She was ninety-five.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘She left me Seacrest and, while it is in decent shape, you can imagine there’s some natural negligence when an estate is run for decades by a woman over seventy.’ Bea heard the underlying hint of pride when he mentioned the estate.
‘I see. Congratulations,’ she managed to say, her mind already five steps ahead considering the consequences. A man like Preston would be proud to have something to call his own, even more so to have something to make his own. Preston would be cognisant of the responsibility that went with such an estate, not just the running of the estate and overseeing its productivity, but the extenuating responsibility, too, for the land and its people. Both were expensive and time-consuming undertakings. A man with land and money needed a wife. The concept was as English as tea.
Preston would have to marry. Soon. She recalled their earlier conversation. He’d protested he was not ready to marry. But he would, personal preference aside, because family and duty and honour were everything to him. Beatrice reached across the small space of the carriage and squeezed his hand, wanting to reassure him as he’d reassured her countless times this week. She smiled. ‘No wonder neither of us is in hurry to get home. Both of our lives are about to change.’
Preston chuckled, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Seems like a perfect time, then, to stop for a late-afternoon picnic.’
Neither of them was hungry, but it felt good to be out of the carriage and to have the sun on their faces. Matthew certainly enjoyed the fresh air. Preston romped with him through a field of wildflowers, tossing him high and catching him while he laughed until they were both tired and Preston could no longer ignore the lingering soreness in his ribs. She scolded him for over-exertion as he lay down on the blanket and stretched out, hands behind his head, his jacket and waistcoat off, his shirt open at the throat showing the muscles in his neck.
‘You’ll be stiff tomorrow for all that.’
‘I’ll take my chances. I won’t have an opportunity to toss the little man tomorrow.’ Preston smiled, but there was sadness, too. ‘I can’t imagine your parents allowing such rough and tumble behaviour.’
‘But you’ll be able to sleep all night,’ Bea tried to joke. There were a lot of things about coming home she couldn’t imagine and some things she didn’t want to imagine. How would she be treated by the people of Little Westbury, people she’d known all of her life? Would they turn their backs on her? Pretend she didn’t exist? She was keenly aware that tomorrow everything would change for them and between them. Whatever this was that had sprung up on the road would go away. They would go back to being old childhood acquaintances joined in friendship through his sister, not these new adults they’d become on their own, together.
‘Sleep is overrated,’ Preston teased, but he yawned as he said it and his eyes closed, his body drowsy in the sun. Matthew was already asleep on the blanket beside him. Overrated or not, Preston joined him in a nap five minutes later.
Now was her chance. Beatrice rose from the blanket, careful not to disturb Preston or Matthew. She’d been thinking of a birthday gift for Preston all morning. There was no question of shopping for something without Preston wanting to come along and no guarantee of any shop being available or open when they arrived at the inn. Besides, she didn’t think any shop-bought gift would adequately suit these circumstances.
At the coach, Beatrice opened her travelling bag and found a spare white cotton petticoat, a silk chemise and her sewing kit. Then she took a short walk through the wildflowers, finding the lavender she’d spied earlier when they were strolling with Matthew. Supplies gathered, she sat down at the blanket to work, cutting fabric and stitching seams while Preston slept, taking pride in the quality of her handiwork. The gift would be simple but neatly done and perhaps Preston would understand the purpose of it; she wasn’t looking to give him a ‘thing’. She was looking to give him a ‘memory’. Something by which he could look back and remember this time on the road, this time out of time before his life changed. Maybe, if she was entirely honest, he would look back and remember her, too, and the way they were in this moment before the future happened.
Chapter Seven
The coach pulled to a stop in the inn yard of the White Horse and Preston drew a deep breath. The future was here—not at the White Horse precisely, but it was here in his mind; had been there, with him, all day. It was one of two thoughts that had managed to dominate his mind since the morning. When he wasn’t thinking about Bea and Matthew and how much he’d miss them, he was thinking about the future, how today was his twenty-ninth birthday and the clock had started to run.
Preston jumped down and reached up to help Beatrice and the baby, noting with appreciation how much better kept this inn was. He’d known it would be, of course. He’d stayed here before. But there was still some relief in knowing they would be provided for tonight. ‘They have the best venison stew,’ Preston whispered to Bea. ‘And they always have fresh vegetables.’
Bea laughed. ‘But do they have any bread pudding?’
Preston smiled. ‘Not if I have to fight anyone for it.’ It wasn’t just Matthew he was going to miss. He was going to miss the teasing banter, the conversation. He was going to miss Beatrice. The shock of it hit him rather hard. She’d always been his friend, someone he’d known. She’d always be somewhere in his life. But not like this. They’d become close this week, sharing with each other thoughts and feelings not everyone was entitled to know.
Bea squeezed his arm, as if she understood the thoughts running through his head, and maybe she did. Maybe she was thinking them, too. She leaned towards him as he ushered her through the door. ‘Just get one room. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing you’re close. Besides, the place looks busy and I don’t want to take up extra rooms when others may also be in need.’
‘All right.’ He didn’t question the choice. He just accepted it. It was an easy choice to accept. It was what he wanted, too. He didn’t want to waste a moment of the freedom that remained to him and he wanted to spend it with Beatrice.
They settled into their room quickly. There was little to unpack and they were used to the routine. Preston excused himself for a walk before dinner and to give Beatrice some privacy. But a
pparently she was just as eager for his company as he was for hers. She was already waiting for him downstairs when he came back from his walk.
She’d changed into a clean dress, a pretty green poplin with a simple white lace collar, very demure. She’d washed, too. He could smell the faint hint of rosewater on her skin and a dash of lavender rinse in her hair. Matthew was bouncy in her arms, reaching for him with pudgy arms as if he knew who he was.
Preston took him from Bea and Matthew laughed. ‘He knows who I am,’ Preston marvelled. ‘It’s hard to believe they know so much at such a young age.’
‘He can tell emotions, too,’ Bea said. ‘He seems to pick up on whether I’m happy or sad. It affects him. I always try to be happy.’
A bottle of red wine was already at the table, waiting for them, and Preston grinned. ‘Was this your doing?’ He had a better idea now of what Bea had been up to while he was on his walk.
She smiled mysteriously. ‘Maybe. Don’t ask too many questions, it’s your birthday, after all. We have to celebrate a little even if you are stuck on the road with me.’
‘It’s right where I want to be, Beatrice. You gave me the option to go home today and I chose this.’ He poured a glass for each of them. He raised his. ‘Here’s to turning twenty-nine with a good friend in the middle of nowhere.’ The last part wasn’t quite true. They’d gone around London and were now somewhere between the city and West Sussex. Home was drawing near.
She clinked her glass against his, her eyes solemn. ‘Me, too.’ Was it just him, or did the air seem charged with an odd electricity tonight? There were a hundred reasons for it: the pressing weight of the burdens he’d find at home, the disappointment of losing Beatrice to the demands of real life, the knowledge that he was only one year away from thirty, the magical age of automatic male adulthood. The list was intense and endless. All those reasons aside, there was no denying that Bea’s hair looked shinier, the obsidian depths of her eyes darker, the curve of her mouth, fuller, seductive even. She looked at him over the rim of her wineglass and he wondered—when had Beatrice Penrose become a beautiful woman, a tempting woman? Had that beauty always been there and he simply hadn’t noticed?
Marrying the Rebellious Miss Page 6