Like No Other Lover

by Julie Anne Long

  “Well…sharing is admirable.” He began to brighten a little.

  “I shouldn’t mind at all sharing my bonnets. For instance…” She took a deep breath, in preparation for the plunge. “I have one that I think would look very well on you. It would suit the shape of your face.”

  Goodkin recoiled. His blue eyes bulged.

  “It has a blue lining,” she added encouragingly, but hesitantly.

  He stared at her. Then he stood very, very slowly, straightening very, very slowly, as one crippled.

  “A den,” he muttered darkly, sounding amazed.

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Goodkind?” She was nervous now.

  “A den!” he roared to her, to the sky. He was upright now. She heard a distant little yelp. He’d frightened the gardener. Cynthia scrambled backward on the bench.

  “This place is a den of iniquity! First you encourage me to drink myself into foolishness, and then young Redmond and that lordling rob me blind with wagering on billiards, and now you tempt me with your pretty face and your talk of needs—and you want me to wear a garter and bonnet to satisfy your unique needs? You are depraved, Miss Brightly. Irreparably damaged by your time in the ton.”

  “Mr. Goodkind—”

  He shook his head sadly. “I shall pray for your soul, Miss Brightly. But I do thank you. You are the devil in a beautiful disguise. I have seen temptation, and I have shown that I can conquer temptation, but my writing will be the better for it. I need no longer remain in this den of iniquity, and I will not wear a garter. For anyone! I will depart.”

  He turned to stalk off. He’d gone a few yards when he turned to her.

  “Don’t forget to buy my book this fall,” he added, on a slightly less aggrieved note.

  And then he turned and strode righteously to the house.

  “Garters,” she heard him muttering.

  Miles had just swung his body down from Ramsay and was getting ready to hand the reins off to a stable boy, when a voice made him whirl.

  “Mr. Redmond?”

  It was Cynthia. He wasn’t certain whether he was happy to hear it, because he’d spent the morning attempting to drum her from his mind and body with a hard ride and rigorous planning.

  Yet something about the tone was portentous. He turned slowly.

  Her face inside her bonnet was rosy from heat and from a lengthy walk from the house. She pushed the bonnet impatiently from her face then, and it dangled down her back, and dark dampened streamers of hair clung to her temples. She must have made a point to track him down. She must have asked where he would be.

  Why did he feel a trifle…uneasy?

  “Good afternoon, Miss Brightly,” he said, matching her formal tone cautiously, as stable boys lurked nearby, awaiting orders from him, and eager to eavesdrop if he gave them an opportunity.

  But he couldn’t help it. No matter what: it was wonderful to see her, and his voice was soft. “Was there something I could help you—”

  “It seems, Mr. Redmond, something I said to Mr. Goodkind greatly offended him.”

  Oh, dear.

  “Is that so?” It was a brilliant bit of nonchalance. “Would you, er, care to share what you said to Mr. Goodkind?”

  There was a pause. “No.” One crisp, inscrutable little syllable. “I would not.”

  He waited. He cleared his throat. “What makes you think he didn’t like—”

  Cynthia swiftly moved very quickly toward him, stood so close to him he could have counted her eyelashes. Her eyes were ablaze, and two spots of deep color sat on her cheeks.

  Well, then. It’s safe to say she’s angry.

  “Mr. Goodkind has, in fact, ordered his trunks packed and has departed in one of your family’s carriages for saner climes. Specifically because of something I said.”

  “He did?” Miles said stupidly. He was stalling now. He made frantic shooing motions at the stable boys, who wisely fled across the yard, sensing that an uproar was about to ensue.

  “You lied, didn’t you? About his alleged peccadillo? About the women’s clothing?”

  “Well…” He was still picturing Goodkind storming off, and then he imagined the content of the conversation…and it was nearly impossible not to smile. What, precisely, had she said? “I might have…invented—”

  He stopped. Because she looked stunned.

  “That wasn’t fair,” she whispered. “What you did…it wasn’t…it wasn’t cricket.”

  “Cricket?” It seemed an odd word. He couldn’t quite gauge her mood.

  She was breathing heavier now. “This is not a game.” Her voice was shaking a little.

  “Not a game?” He gave a short laugh. “‘Oh, Mr. Redmond,’” he falsettoed. “‘You’re so inter—’”

  She flew at him before he could dodge and thumped one of her fists against his chest. “It’s not a game for me!”

  “Christ! Cynthia—”

  “It’s not a game!” She hit him again. A good one. The third time she tried it, he captured her hands and held her fast, and it was like holding a trapped wild creature. She was remarkably strong for someone so small.

  “You—You with your money and your bloody grandeur and your family and history. It’s all very well for you and Violet to play at romance. It will all be all right in the end, of course. But I’ve none of that. None. I’ve no one. And you’ve gone and played dice with my future. Why shouldn’t I have what Violet will have? What you will have so easily? Why shouldn’t I? You bloody…bloody…snob.” She could have chosen a different word, a much more scathing word, and somehow he didn’t doubt that she knew words like that; still, the one she’d chosen stung.

  She tried to kick him in the shins; he dodged.

  “Cynthia! Please! Just—”

  She looked up at him, attempted to tug her wrists free. At least she wasn’t biting.

  Yet.

  “I know what you think of me, Miles. I know what you-have thought of me. But I have a heart. I do have a heart. I just cannot afford to use it. Don’t you see? Why can’t you see this? Whereas you—may play at all of this as much as you like. There will always be someone for you. And that is the difference: I cannot afford to use my heart. And you—you choose not to use yours.”

  Stunned, he kept his grip on her wrists. And could say nothing at all.

  Her voice cracked a little. “I have a heart,” she repeated very softly, wearily, as though some invisible audience had accused her otherwise and had been dunking her over and over again for a witch. As though confessing a fatal debility of which she was ashamed.

  She turned her head away from him and gave a halfhearted attempt at freeing her hands.

  He maintained his grip. Such fragile wrists. Her skin was hot, as though her anger, her fear, permeated her skin.

  “Cynthia…” he said firmly. “Do you have any money at all? Anywhere at all to go that isn’t here?”

  She turned away from him. Still breathing hard. She refused to look at him.

  She had no family, no money, the rumors had said. He’d always thought it figurative, a means of social dismissal, social ranking.

  “Tell me,” he demanded.

  “I’ll be penniless within a week or so. And no. I have no place to go when this party is over. I have no one.”

  He’d given her a kitten, he’d given her bliss with his hands and tongue, he’d known bliss at her hands. Playing at romance.

  She was mercenary because she was terrified.

  His stomach knotted in fear for her. Oh, God. He’d been an ass.

  “I liked him,” she said again, finally, and he could still hear the thwarted, fear-tinged exhaustion in her voice. “Goodkind. He was pompous and he wasn’t interesting, but he was kind enough and wealthy and he liked me and it would have been…” She shook her head. “It would have been safe.”

  He pictured this sensual starburst of a woman standing before him married to a “kind enough” man. Would she end up creeping through hallways in the dark toward assignatio
ns? Running away with Gypsies?

  No: she wanted safety. She’d never known it. She’d told him that she would be loyal.

  He didn’t doubt it at all. She had that kind of fortitude.

  He kept his hand tightly round her wrist, as if holding onto her to prevent her from drifting away. Her fist was still a small white knot at the end of it, and her whole body trembled slightly; hectic color stained her face.

  “Tell me what happened in London, Cynthia,” he ordered softly. “What went wrong?”

  She sighed.

  He waited.

  “I’m not good,” she finally said, softly.

  This was an intriguing beginning. “No?”

  “No. Someone was nearly killed because of me.”

  “Ah.” His head went back sharply, then came down in comprehension. “Why don’t you tell me the story?”

  They were quiet for a time. Around them was the powerful, comforting smell of horse and hay and leather.

  “It was so wonderful,” she began, faltering. “If only you know what it meant to me, that season in London. It was a miracle; I could scarcely believe I was there. I was so popular.”

  “I recall. Diamond of the first water, and all that.”

  She made a sound. It was a bleak cousin to a laugh. “And all that.”

  “And?”

  She sighed. “It was marvelous. Nothing so marvelous had ever happened to me in my entire life. I could have—there was a time during the season when I genuinely could have taken my pick of the men, Miles. I was shocked. A brief moment in time where little mattered but that I was charming and beautiful and original.”

  It is fashionable to be in love with her, Albemarle had told him then. And yet no one had ever truly known her, he realized. She hadn’t allowed it.

  “And then?” he encouraged softly.

  “And then…well, Courtland…Courtland proposed.”

  This is what Miles knew of Courtland: young, arrogant. Had all of his limbs, even features, splendid manners. Owned fine cattle. Could hold his liquor, could shoot tolerably well. He knew, in short, the things most men knew about other men of a similar station.

  He knew nothing of the man’s character. He was inclined to think well of him for not abandoning Cynthia because of her lack of pedigree. “I know of Courtland.”

  “I want you to understand, if you can. But I’m not certain you can. Because you…you’ve hundreds of years of family. Family simply everywhere. And for me…well, Courtland was the ending of the story, you see. I never sensed I belonged to anyone or anything. My own family history is hazy at best. So I thought: I will have a happy ending. I will have a family. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Why not, indeed?” He said it easily, to calm her, but he felt the depth of the loneliness she carried with her in the pit of his stomach. There wasn’t a soul to help her bear it. He stopped himself from putting his arms around her, because he would have done it as much to comfort himself as her. He squelched a directionless anger, because it wouldn’t help her now.

  “Well, the Standshaws are from Little Roxbury. And Liza was my friend, and Liza and I made the right friends. I had barely enough money for a season’s worth of dresses, so I took the gamble and I bought them and then…and well, they fought over me. The men in the ton.” She still sounded breathless, bemused.

  “I heard about it.” Endlessly.

  “I found it exhilarating. And Miles, I did play one off another. I can’t tell you why, precisely. Part of it was the pure pleasure of being wanted. For the first time ever in my life someone—everyone!—wanted me. And the other part was that I couldn’t seem to stop testing them, to see if the magic would last. I didn’t trust it. And so I tested it again and again, and it lasted and lasted. Until…”

  “What finally happened?” Behind him Ramsay whickered, his way of clearing his throat: Ahem. I’m still saddled. Ramsay would have to wait.

  “Well, I truly thought it was all drama and silliness—the bets, the bristling, the arguments over who would fetch punch for me, the jealousy. All manly posturing. But Courtland truly was jealous. He had a temper.” She gave a short, wondering laugh.

  There really was no end to the way men could be stupid, particularly over women.

  “So there was a duel?”

  She inhaled resignedly. Looked up at him more calmly now. “You should know I cared for him,” she said evenly. “I did. Or thought I did. But someone who managed to…kiss me in the garden…just a little kiss…” She said this cautiously. She knew all about kisses that weren’t little now, but he wasn’t eager to hear about anyone else kissing her. “I told Courtland about it. To test him, you see. Courtland called him out.”

  She tensed again as the memory rippled through her. He stroked, lightly, the insides of her wrists with his fingers.

  “He would hear nothing of reason. Bloody pride. And so they dueled. He was…” She cleared her throat. “He was shot,” she said baldly. “In the shoulder. Gravely injured. He almost died—it was a very near thing, I’m told—I’m told, because they would never let me see him when he was carried off, and I…I haven’t seen him since.” Her voice had gone thin. “His parents brilliantly hushed it up. It’s not as though dueling is legal.” She said this with admirable irony. “And they somehow made certain I was dropped. Completely. By everyone. I was poison. He broke it off with me with a letter.” She gave a short wondering laugh here, too. It was only a little bitter. “And I can’t say that I didn’t deserve it. And all of this mystery about my sudden loss of status, of course, intrigued Violet. And she invited me here. I’ve always been more fortunate than I deserve.” This she found ironically amusing.

  Fortunate. It wasn’t the word he would have chosen.

  “So, you see, though I didn’t pull the trigger, I did play with his life. And he paid for it. So I’m not good.”

  Suddenly he was angry.

  “Cynthia. Enough self-flagellation. I cannot tell you what ‘good’ means. Perhaps it simply means one hasn’t the imagination or character to think of being wicked, as you once convinced Goodkind. I don’t admire what you did, but I understand it. And Courtland, the bloody fool, had free will. He got himself shot. But it’s a measure of your heart that you would suffer at all over what would make Milthorpe happy, or over Courtland. It’s a measure of your heart that anyone would want to help you or be your friend. It’s you, Cynthia. Don’t you see? You don’t feel kind or good because you don’t like what you’re doing to them or to yourself. People like you because you are good. But mostly you’re you, and that’s worth…” his voice nearly broke. “That’s worth everything.”

  She was staring up at him, eyes wide. Mouth parted in astonishment. Listening raptly.

  “But this doesn’t mean you can use people simply because you’re afraid. And that means Milthorpe, or Argosy, or Goodkind, or anyone. Your fear doesn’t justify it.”

  Her head jerked back; her eyes wide. “I’m not afraid.”

  “You are,” he corrected firmly. “And you’ve every right to be. Anyone would be in your position.” He said this relentlessly. “You’re so afraid, in fact, you’re willing to deny every other part of yourself in order to ease your fear. You’re hurting yourself, don’t you see? And by God, you’re proud.”

  His anger had infected her. “Proud! Interesting thing to say to a kettle, Mr. Pot.”

  This was so nearly whimsical he stopped speechifying at once.

  “What about Lady Georgina, Miles? Do you think you will be happier with her than I would be with Goodkind? Or with Milthorpe? You’ve just had the convenience of having all the work done for you. Your father chose her, didn’t he? Brought her right to your door. And with her comes all of your dreams.”

  “I’ve centuries of family honor and a missing brother and a duty to people who need me. I can’t just abandon it.”

  “I do understand. I do. I don’t begrudge you any of it, I swear to you. But it doesn’t make what I said less correct. It doesn’t make you
better than me.”

  He conceded this with abrupt silence.

  “What would you have me do?” Her voice was harder now. “I shall have what you or Violet has. I want it. Why shouldn’t I have a good marriage, and money, and a home? I’m suited for nothing else. I won’t take money from you, Miles, so don’t offer it. I want a life. A family. What would you have me do instead?”

  Stay with me forever. Be my mistress. Make love to me every night as long as we’re able.

  She read it in his eyes, and he read in hers that she was tempted.

  “Don’t say it,” she said softly.

  He sighed. “I wouldn’t ask it of you,” he assured her softly.

  They let a silence go by. Animals in stalls shifted their hooves, and somewhere a bird sang out its joy in sunshine.

  “Just…see people, Cynthia, first in terms of who they are. And then in terms of what they have. Not as twenty thousand pounds. Or a dour second son.”

  It was out of him before he could stop himself.

  She froze.

  And then:

  “Oh.” It was a gasp. Her face went blank with the sort of astonishment that arrives with a sudden blow to the stomach. “Now I…Oh, Miles. You heard me. At the ball. When you first saw me. Malverney’s. My blue dress. My…face. You heard me talking to Liza. About you.”

  “Ah. So you do remember what you said.” He said this lightly.

  Her face went closed and stoic. She said nothing for a moment. “As I said, I’m not good.”

  “But I understand now why you said it.”

  She was finding it difficult to meet his eyes. “It…wasn’t a nice thing to say.”

  “I won’t disagree with that.” He said it with gentle irony.

  “How you must have hated me.”

  “I have never,” he said with quiet fervor, “ever, hated you.”

  She looked up at him then, searching his face again like a jeweler with a loupe, ensuring that she saw every gradation of meaning in his words, deciding he wasn’t angry.

  “You weren’t meant to hear it,” she offered.

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” he said dryly.

  A ghost of a smile touched her mouth.