Like No Other Lover

by Julie Anne Long

  The words swelled in her chest. She let them sit there, let the meaning penetrate, and she gave a short, ironic laugh. Almost a moan. Oh, at last, the joke was on the two of them, wasn’t it? For a moment she couldn’t speak at all. She lowered her head when her eyes began to burn.

  “I like him,” she told him gently at last. It hurt to speak; her throat seemed swollen; the words had jagged edges. She knew it was important for Miles to know it, even if she was uncertain. “Truly. Thank you. I…Thank you.”

  The last words contained all of her heart, encompassed everything that had happened during this fortnight, and were barely audible.

  They sat in a little pocket of silent surprise, these two people who’d been so certain love was unnecessary when they set out to get what they wanted. How peculiar it was that this moment of realization and total happiness should be indistinguishable from anguish.

  Cynthia risked opening her eyes. The striped muslin covering her knees now swam before them. Bloody tears. She never wept. Weeping, over the years, had become a luxury. No one had ever been about to hear her do it, or to care. Ah, but now…but now…

  How like tears to take gross advantage of the circumstance. Now that here was someone who cared, and who would do anything at all he could for her.

  Through the moist blur she noticed a tiny pale green insect sitting on her knee. The sun had turned the minuscule wings it wore into miniature rainbows. Well, then. She held very still for it. Interesting that she could be a place of rest between bouts of flight in its brief life.

  Bloody Miles Redmond. She was certain she would think of him for the rest of her life whenever she saw any crawling or flying thing, and of course crawling and flying things were simply everywhere. And then there was Spider the cat.

  A tear splashed free of her eye. It surprised both Cynthia and the insect: its wee wings whirred invisibly and it was gone.

  She dismally watched the tiny damp spot darken her knee. She half hoped it would stain; she wanted the reminder of the moment. She breathed in, and squared her shoulders.

  So be it: this interlude in her life was to be as brief and brilliant as that little winged creature. She envied it the speed at which it had disappeared.

  Still, she had never been one to flee. And she wouldn’t do it now.

  Distantly, voices and laughter came to them. Violet, Argosy, Jonathan, she picked them out from the bright tangle of conversation, and the polite, amused tones of a gardener pressed into answering frivolous questions. The whole crowd of them would happen upon Miles and her and their little tableau of misery-edged bliss at any moment, as they were obscured only by that veritable vat of a birdbath, in which three birds were now hedonistically wallowing, and a robustly green, aggressively uniform hedgerow. Keeping Redmond house, and Miles, in his place.

  She lifted her head, knowing her eyes were damp and ringed in red and that the tip of her nose was likely scarlet from efforts to suppress the tears. She had never been a graceful weeper. This was as stripped bare as Miles would ever see her; he might as well have a good look. She brushed a knuckle at one of her eyes almost defiantly, sending tears scattering like brilliant pinheads from her eyelashes.

  He did look. And the way he looked…

  It was as though he knew this moment would need to last him a lifetime.

  And then he slowly turned away from her to look out over the Redmond parkland that unfurled nearly to the sea, and despite the fact that anyone could happen upon them at any minute, Miles slowly, purposefully, gently, defiantly, slid his fingers through hers until their hands were woven into a single knot.

  Their entwined hands rested between them on the bench.

  It was more shattering, in its way, than that moment of release. It was gratitude and apology; it was acknowledgment of all there was between them that would never be spoken. It was reassurance and farewell.

  And given the voices coming upon them, it was a grave risk.

  Cynthia clung to him. They didn’t look at each other. She fancied she could feel his heart pulsing in his palm, but more likely she was simply marshaling all of her senses to remember forever the feel of his skin against her, and the beat of her own heart echoing resoundingly through her veins. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine his hand was his body, his long fingers his limbs twined with hers, and this was what she did. For this was the very last time she would touch him, and her imagination was greedy.

  Together they sat as though riveted by the scenery that spread in abandon ahead of them. Neither saw a thing.

  Then Violet’s voice rose up, startlingly closer now.

  Miles drew his hand away from hers, inexorably, until just the tips of his fingers touched hers. They lingered against hers for a brief second, like a kiss.

  Then he stood, and with no bow or word, just a single, enigmatic glance back at her, gracefully made himself scarce in the hedgerow.

  Seconds later Violet came bounding forward, turned to call out something. “Jonathan, you really must stop behaving like an ar—”

  She stopped comically abruptly, dumbstruck at the sight of a red-eyed, red-nosed Cynthia sitting alone on the bench.

  Violet mercifully and instantly misinterpreted the red eyes and nose and rushed to Cynthia, reaching for her hand. Cynthia almost snatched it away from her. She felt proprietary about that hand now. She’d wanted the warmth of Miles’s touch to linger.

  But Violet wouldn’t release it. “Oh, Cynthia,” she whispered excitedly. “Dry your eyes, goose! All is well. Miles has apologized and Argosy is mostly unhurt and quite in love with you, and he intends to propose tomorrow! I do believe he meant to surprise you, but I thought I should tell you now.”

  “Tomorrow?” Cynthia repeated numbly.

  “Yes!” Violet repeated triumphantly. “Tomorrow! He shall ask you to go for a walk in the garden, and do it then.”

  “But…why tomorrow?”

  “Violet!” came a male voice from the distance, sounding faintly irritable.

  Violet looked a bit puzzled by Cynthia’s response. She ignored the voice and lowered her own. “Well, he won’t do it today. He’s having a bit of trouble getting out his s’s and f ’s, as his lip is rather large—Miles quite laid him out, didn’t he? I wonder what on earth got into him. He should see a doctor, I’m really quite concerned. Anyhow, Argosy is a trifle sensitive about it. He thought a day might be time enough for the swelling to recede, but if not, he needs time to phrase his proposal properly. The sentence, ‘Will you consent to be my wife?’ contains too many difficult consonants given his swollen lips. ‘I would be honored if you should spend the rest of your days with me’ is scarcely better. We’ve been trying to help him decide upon just the right one. ‘Will you be my mate?’ is easier, but it does sound like something Miles would produce.”

  Cynthia was paralyzed by a wave of conflicting emotions. She was battered by hilarity and grief and relief. She couldn’t find a single word that encompassed any of those things.

  A worried look settled over Violet’s face when Cynthia seemed unable to speak. “I thought I should tell you straight away, regardless. It was just that when I came upon you just now, I thought you looked so very…so very…heartbroken.” She sounded in awe of the word.

  Cynthia took a deep, resigned breath. It felt portentous, that first breath taken in a world without Miles in it.

  She would have to keep breathing, regardless of whom her future contained. She was fortunate, indeed, to have a future.

  She longed for a handkerchief. She began to make do with patting gently at her eyes with her cool fingers when Violet produced one. Its spotlessness was startling; her initials, V.R., were stitched in blue near the hem. Cynthia took it and blotted the corners of her eyes. Then gave her nose a discreet little toot into it.

  “My goodness! Cynthia! It is a lovely day for a stroll, isn’t it?” Violet suddenly all but bellowed.

  Cynthia jumped, whirled on her in amazement.

  Violet whispered, “It’s
just that I’m certain you wouldn’t want Argosy to see you like this, and I know for a fact he wouldn’t want you to see his lip just yet. He hopes very much for the swelling to ease, as I do believe he might want to kiss you after you accept his proposal. ’Tis customary, you know,” she added sagely. As though she were in expert in such things. Cynthia had never asked Violet what sort of knowledge she might possess of such matters. How many proposals had she received?

  No doubt she deflected them with her sheer Violetness.

  Cynthia began to hand the handkerchief back to Violet, who waved at her to keep it.

  On the far horizon, foamy clouds were forming. They would make their sluggish, woolly way across the sky and pour their contents down over Sussex toward the end of the day, most likely.

  “You’ve a kind heart, Violet,” Cynthia said finally.

  Violet, who had never been accused of such a thing before, looked at first taken aback, and then pleased. Cynthia watched her friend silently add it to her mental inventory of virtues.

  Suddenly Violet glanced down. She froze; her expression went peculiarly alert. She bent over and swiftly plucked up something, examined it, frowned, then stopped the frown from forming.

  Cynthia saw a glint of silver before whatever it was vanished into Violet’s apron pocket. A coin? Violet hardly wanted for spending money.

  And then Violet returned her eyes to the clouds.

  “Cynthia, was I wrong to tell you about Argosy’s proposal in advance?”

  Lifting her lips was a Herculean effort, but Cynthia was reasonably certain what she produced could pass for a smile. She at last gently wormed her hand free from Violet’s grip.

  “No. You did…absolutely the right thing, Violet. The very best thing you could have done.”

  Chapter 21

  Over dinner it became clear that the ranks of the soon-to-be-unforgettable Redmond house party had thinned so considerably it scarcely qualified anymore as a party. Neither Lord Argosy nor Miles Redmond were present at the table, the one taking a meal of cold soup in his chamber and the other said to be visiting with a Dr. Price of the Royal Society, who lived a few miles away. He was expected to return later in the evening, weather permitting the horseback ride.

  To her astonishment, Violet seemed to have become by default the lady of the house and therefore the official hostess of the event. The footman could not entirely disguise his trepidation. His voice had a bit of a quaver in it as he dutifully delivered his message, knowing Violet would reach this conclusion by the end of it.

  Fortunately for him, an air of sobriety was laid over the entire dinner when word was sent ahead from the inn in West Chiverley: Mr. and Mrs. Isaiah Redmond would be home the following morning.

  Cynthia disconsolately, distractedly, devoted more energy to stirring her soup than drinking it. And then she pleaded a headache in order to escape the need to eat at all.

  “It must be all the excitement of the past few days,” she told Violet apologetically, though compared with the life she had lived in London, the last few days in Sussex hardly constituted excitement.

  Violet stared at her accusingly. Then her face brightened.

  “You shall want to look your freshest in the morning,” she said meaningfully.

  “Yes,” Cynthia agreed. Thinking, given what her plans were, it was hardly likely.

  When she returned to her room, she found a letter from Northumberland on her bureau. She stared at it, then with trembling hands rushed to slit it open, and read.

  She lay it gently down again.

  She scooped up Spider the kitten and kissed him between the eyes, causing a rumble. She peered up into the corner of the window; the web was still there. Susan the spider must be asleep. She was nowhere to be seen.

  She slipped quickly out of her dinner dress and hung it lovingly in the wardrobe, slipped into her nightdress, then climbed beneath the counterpane and wrapped it around her shoulders, her feet tucked beneath her, Spider playing within her nightdress as though it were a tent, pouncing on her toes to encourage her to move them. She waited for warmth and watched the fire, hoping to find answers in it the way the Gypsy woman found the future in the leaves of tea left at the bottom of cups. Looking for just the right shape.

  He’d given her character depth and dimension now. Her focus had been single-minded before, born of fear and ambition. But now she knew what she needed to do. Light had flooded into her life.

  She decided that was sign enough.

  “Be a good boy,” she told Spider, and placed him, fruitlessly, in his basket in front of the fire. He wasn’t quite ready to go to bed yet; he leaped out and began to attack the fringe on the carpet.

  And Cynthia left the room.

  She tried the handle and found that his chamber door wasn’t bolted, so she gripped the doorknob and turned it slowly, then eased the door open just a few inches—enough for her to slip into the room. It didn’t creak as it opened, nor did the bolt squeak or protest when she turned and slowly slid it to lock it. Of course it wouldn’t: it was a Redmond bolt, after all. It was maintained as scrupulously as the rest of the house.

  The dark in this room was as dense and velvety as his eyes; the fire was lowering; shadows and chill encroached. And for a moment she wasn’t certain he was there at all.

  But then she could hear him rhythmically breathing in that vast…schooner of a walnut bed.

  She waited for the shadowy shapes to come more into focus as things she recognized before she thought it safe to travel deeper into the room, for it wouldn’t do to crash into furniture. When she was oriented, she placed one bare foot carefully in front of the other, slowly, as though walking a high wire, as though conscious of the danger and beauty of what she was doing. The thick carpet silenced her footsteps.

  The bed was before her, and Miles, asleep, mounded beneath his blankets. Breathing steady, rhythmic, deep.

  Slowly, slowly, she crept forward and perched upon the edge of the bed. The mattress didn’t creak so much as sigh; it was thick and she was small. Slowly, slowly, she swung her legs up.

  His arm lashed out and held her arm fast. “Who the devil are you?” he snarled.

  Ah. So he’d simply been pretending to be asleep.

  Angry breathing filled the next few seconds.

  “Ouch,” she said softly. She made it sound like an endearment.

  Miles’s hand flew from her and he rolled away. With a rustle, a clink, and an oath, he had the bedside lamp lit, and then he fumbled to place the globe atop the candle. A soft, small canopy of light swelled over the two of them.

  He was sitting bolt upright now. His hair was in disarray, standing up behind him, falling down over his eyes—well, it was everywhere, really. He pushed a hand self-consciously through it, improving matters not at all.

  For a moment it seemed he couldn’t speak. He simply gazed dumbly at her.

  “Cynthia.” His voice was hoarse. She heard the astonishment in it. And, oh yes, the yearning, too, because she suspected it was the only way he would be able to say her name from now on, and the only way she could say his. “What the devil—you can’t—”

  She leaned forward and abruptly placed her fingers over his mouth.

  He glared at her, almost comically, over the tops of her fingertips.

  It was then that she became fully aware that the bedclothes had slipped from him and he was bare at least from the waist up.

  Whoosh, just like that, she lost her ability to pull air into her lungs.

  She’d taken his beauty in before, in fragments: that wedge of burnished skin through an open shirt, for instance; and she knew the feel of his skin against hers, because wanton that she was, she’d sought it out.

  But Miles entirely bare seemed to demand everything of her senses; weakened, her fingers slid from his lips to lie in her lap.

  She drew in a steadying breath. Viewed from this distance, his bare shoulders loomed; muscle both ridged and elegantly curved met in a torso that tapered to a narrow
waist that was…

  Sadly, at this moment draped in rumpled sheets, and hidden from her view.

  That fine dark hair she’d curled her fingers into before, had brushed her breasts against before, trailed from a flat belly upward, from where it began.

  Beneath the sheets.

  He was at once magnificent and so unutterably male, she felt bashful and peculiarly unequal to him and the occasion.

  And yet he was somehow vulnerable, too, because this beautiful bare person was Miles Redmond, rumpled from sleeping, confused, yearning. And she knew him. She knew him. Odd that in this very moment she should feel protective of a man who could probably lift her by the scruff and toss her from the room. But she would go at anyone with her fists for him.

  As he had done for her.

  He saw her expression; his own instantly reflected hers, she suspected. The awe, the heat, the immeasurable desire, the futility of resistance.

  “Why?” He sounded bemused. He’d whispered the word.

  She supposed he meant: why are you here? Because her mind answered with: Because I love you, and damn you for it. You have both made my life worth living and utterly ruined it, and I’m grateful that you did.

  She smiled faintly. She would never say it.

  She reached out a shaking hand instead, and dragged the bedclothes entirely away from him.

  Why, yes: in answer to her question, he was completely nude. He coughed a surprised laugh. His erection was already curving quite impressively toward his belly.

  Reflexively, she drew a proprietary finger along it. How utterly brazen she’d become.

  He closed his hand around her wrist to stop her.

  And like that, he held her, for the time it took the two of them to breathe in and breathe out. Then gently, slowly, he uncurled his fingers from her wrist. And with both hands he reached for the hem of her nightdress, draped around her feet.

  Thus with those two gestures he told her: I will lead every moment of this.

  Her heart bucked

  She never seemed to have any choice where he was concerned: she gave herself up into his hands.