Undoing One's Enemy

by Camille Oster

  Lord Eldridge was directing as they were pulling great big logs from the swollen stream out of the water. The horses were straining as they tried to pull the heavy logs. He had a look of grim determination on his face. His blue eyes came up to see her and the look on his face was not happy. He said something to one of the men from a neighboring farm and marched over to her.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Have you lost your senses completely? There is a storm in progress in case you failed to notice.”

  “I did notice,” she defended herself. “I brought food, you will need it if you want to continue with this work.”

  “It is dangerous outside.”

  “It’s just a little rain.”

  “And what if a branch fell on your head? What if you got struck by lightning?”

  “Then I will have extremely bad luck,” she said with challenge. She was not going to be admonished for doing her bit; she’d done a good thing bringing provisions. She marched over and gave the hamper she had carried over to one of the men before returning to him.

  “Job done,” she said forcefully. “I will go back now.” She started marching in the direction of the house. It was nice to be rid of the heavy burden of the hamper, but before she got far, a horse appeared next to her.

  “Get on,” he ordered. “I am taking you back to the house.”

  “The horses are needed here, I can walk.”

  “You will not argue with me. Get on or I will carry you like a sack of potatoes.”

  “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “This is completely unnecessary, I am capable of walking—even with a bit of rain.” He pulled her up behind him as she swung herself up to sit on the animal’s rump.

  “You’ll catch your death out here,” he said. The horse took off and she had to grab him around the waist to keep steady. He was wet, soaked through.

  “I’m not any more likely to than you are.”

  “Yes you are, your constitution is not allowing of this kind of exposure.” Sentiments she’d heard most of her life. He pushed the horse into a slow canter down the road. Amelia had to hold tight to stop herself from falling off. She wanted to put her head on his back, but she stopped herself. The feelings that plagued her the previous evening reared their head again to her dismay. She wanted to put her hand through underneath his jacket and shirt to feel the warm skin underneath, but she didn’t. In fact, she just wanted to stop somewhere and release this tension. She didn’t care if it was in the rain and mud—she just wanted him. Maybe spend a few hours in a secluded hayloft where the context of who she was and who he was, could be put aside for a short time, where they were just two people. She had never seen herself as someone who would succumb to being with a man in a hayloft; it was something maid with weak characters did. She had always looked down on such weakness with utter disdain—now she was a woman hoping it would happen to her. He’d made her weak beyond tolerance, but she couldn’t help it—the feelings wouldn’t relent. If he took her to a barn right now, she would be incapable of saying no, she would be relieved—not that he did. He took her straight home as he needed to return to the bridge.

  He dropped her off in front of the main entrance.

  “Don’t go outside again,” he ordered.

  “I am not some incapable twit that needs to be cossetted,” she stated. She was quite proud of her newfound belief that she was a capable person and she was not ready to give it up, and she was not prepared to go back to the days when everyone around her told her what her capabilities were.

  “You are a guest in my house and you will take care of yourself.”

  “I am not a prisoner!”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he warned. “Now get inside and get out of those wet clothes. You do not want to defy me on this.” She desperately wanted to, but when removal of wet clothes was involved, perhaps it would be better picking another battle, one not involving him removing her clothes, especially in light of her recent hayloft fantasy.

  “Fine,” she finally shouted. He turned the horse sharply and looked at her from the other side before urging the beast into a canter down toward the road again. She was soaked through, but she only felt the cold when she got inside and stopped moving. The soggy garments dropped to the floor in a heap as she stripped off to sit down in front of the fire in her room and dry her hair.

  Richard returned to the bridge as quickly as he could. He’d been completely surprised when he’d looked up and seen her standing there. He’d been shocked, but there was also something in him that had secretly been pleased because it was something a useful person would do—not the actions of a prissy and vacant society girl. He had yelled at her anyway. He wasn’t entirely sure why, maybe because he respected her a little bit more for taking the initiative and traversing a storm to help. The idea of a woman traversing a storm to help him was evocative—receiving help was not something he was used to. He had cared for himself exclusively and hadn’t been able to rely on anyone even in the more dire circumstances.

  It would take some more hours of work to secure parts of the bridge before they washed away. They had to work quickly. The stream was still rising and it was very dangerous in this state; it would wash away heavy bridge materials just as well as people. He knew full well that many of the men here could not swim. Working on empty stomachs would make them careless, and he really didn’t want to have to tell a family that their head was not coming back.

  Hours had passed and they had gotten to the point where they’d done what they could. They’d dragged bridge materials away from the raging water, far enough to take anything but the most severe flooding. If it flooded severely, they had worse problem to worry about than the bridge.

  The horses were exhausted, so they walked slowly back to the house. He realized it must be quite late in the day, maybe even close to dusk by the time they got back, and he would be returning to the puzzle that was his house guest. She provoked him like no one else had. He’d tried to be civil with her but it just melted like butter in warm toast. He swung wildly from wanting to be as far away as possible to wanting to take her up against the nearest wall. He needed to find some equilibrium when she was around; it was embarrassing the effect she had on him. There was also something else that needed her to be here, something that would suffer if she left. He just couldn’t think of an alternative that would be tolerable. At least with this storm, he didn’t have to make an excuse for her to stay; he almost wished in was really bad so he would have the excuse for longer. Sooner or later she was going to return to London. He wasn’t sure when he would be ready for that day. As before, he still had a driving instinct that he wasn’t done with her. He didn’t mean her embarrassment anymore, but he still wasn’t done. She had well and truly won their war. He just wasn’t sure what this new thing was.

  She was waiting in the hall when he got back. It brought an intense bittersweet feeling to him. It had been a long time since someone had waited for him to come home. Whatever battle she had in mind, he wasn’t up to it—he was exhausted. He hadn’t worked this hard in quite a while and his body ached from head to toe.

  “You’re drenched,” she said. “And you’re muddy. Take them off—you’ll drag mud all over the carpets.”

  “They’re my carpets, I’ll draw as much mud on them as I like.” He’d told himself he was too tired to argue, but he had risen to the occasion like clockwork. “Granson! Help with my boots.” He sat down and Granson appeared with a spur to remove the soggy leather.

  “Those will have to dry in the kitchen,” Amelia said as she watched them trying to remove his boots. “I’ve asked for a bath to be drawn in your room. You should warm up.” After much effort, his boots came off with a slushing wet sound. His feet were cold and his skin was pale and wrinkled having been submerged in water most of the day. Once off, he padded up the stairs and she seemed to follow behind. She followed him into his room where a great steaming tub of water waited for him. Granson continued to take the heavy soaked jack
et off him.

  “I will … leave you to it,” Amelia said uncomfortably and disappeared out the door. He continued to undress and submerged himself in the water. It burned his cold skin to begin with but he ignored it and before long he started to thaw out. Granson left him alone and he closed his eyes as he absorbed the heat of the water. He could imagine her in the room fussing over him, washing his hair. Maybe that was what it was like to have a wife, someone to fuss over him when he was tired, someone to wait for him when he came home at the end of the day. Try as he might, he couldn’t see anyone but her doing it. Certainly not some society woman who’s main care was her own social advancement.

  The realisation hit him hard. She was the one person he could see around him. She infuriated him more than any other person in the world, but he couldn’t see himself bickering with anyone else—not that he would say he outright liked her, he just couldn’t tolerate anyone else. Then there was the way she made him feel; he wanted to fight things when she was around—he wanted to take on the world, show her that he was a man to contend with. Maybe that had been something that, in a funny way, he had been trying to prove to her all along.

  Then she had given her body, fully and completely, and he had drunk it down like a man dying for cool water and it had filled him, nourished him. He had made half-hearted attempts to secure her based on desire and fear, but she had pushed him away. His pride had gotten in the way and now she didn’t like him—not that he could blame her, he’d been a complete swine to her.

  He went downstairs just ahead of the supper bell. The service was set up on opposite ends of the table again. Sometimes he wondered if the staff were bigger sticklers for etiquette than the people they served. He ordered Granson to move her service to his side of the table. He really was exhausted, but he couldn’t go to bed yet—something drove him to be with her because he knew he only had a limited time to try to…, he wasn’t quite sure what he was trying to do. Woo her?

  But he knew he could not afford to fail at this, because there would be nothing else if she went. There would be nothing left that he could keep faith in, and he didn’t dare consider what his future would be. Whatever it was, he would be lonely.

  She walked into the room wearing a cream dress that flowed around her legs, hinting at their shape. He’d run his hands along those legs at one point and he wanted to again.

  “Miss Hessworth,” he said and stood as she entered. “I trust you are recovered.”

  “Yes. My constitution is strong, irrespective of how I look.”

  “You look lovely,” he said quietly, and she blushed. The simplest of compliments and she blushed, he thought.

  “Thank you. You look recovered as well.” He was putting it on more than it was true.

  “I am tired; it has been a demanding day.”

  “Did you manage to salvage most of it?”

  “A good deal.”

  “How quickly will you be able to repair it?” she asked. He considered lying, telling her that she needed to stay here longer than necessary. In fact, he would be working to repair the bridge that will provide her means of leaving.

  “A few days.” Lying just wasn’t his nature.

  They ate in silence for a while. He was not a great conversationalist, he knew this, but he had even less to say to her at this moment. There was a part of him that urged him to talk, tell her about his feelings, tell her that his feeling toward her had changed and that he regretted the way he had acted toward her, but it wasn’t something he could bring himself to do.

  “There is water throughout the property. The waters haven’t finished rising yet, so we won’t know until morning how we have fared.”

  “Will you ride out and survey?”

  “Yes,” he said playing with the knife that was supposed to be dealing with the duck in front of him. It was delicious and he was famished, he just couldn’t bring himself to eat—his stomach was troubling him. “I suspect it would be a nice day, it usually is after a storm breaks. You could ride with me. You are more familiar with the land than I am, and perhaps more able to point out things that are not right.”

  “I suppose it has been a while since you’ve seen parts of the property.”

  “That is something we could remedy.” He could tell that she was considering it. He quickly wondered if he could take the pantheon, but the roads would be too uncertain and he really needed to be off the roads to properly survey the damage to his land. “I will make sure no harm befalls you.”

  She smiled. He got a smile, but he didn’t get straight affirmation. He would press it home. “I will have Granson come get you at eight.”

  She didn’t argue, which he decided was just as good as saying yes. He would spend the day with her; get a full day of trying to convince her that he offered her more than some stupid village clergyman.

  Amelia finished her dinner. Lord Eldridge was being strangely civil that evening. She guessed his busy day had knocked the fight out of him, making him too distracted to see faults in her, including her foray out into a storm.

  She didn’t quite know what to make of his invitation to survey the damage from the storm; part of her was screaming yes, and another was screaming the exact opposite. She was also honored that he’d asked, that he wanted to include her in things that were important to him. She just wasn’t entirely sure what he was after—maybe he was just trying to pull her in to get her to agree to the kind of arrangement he had proposed back in London. She wished she knew more about how men went around and did such things—then she could understand what was going on, because she felt completely adrift and at the mercy of this burning desire the plagued her whenever he was near—when he wasn’t near as well, it would seem.

  She should say no, she tried to, but she just couldn’t quite do it. There was that part of her that wanted to know where this would lead, wanted to know what he would say to her, and wanted to let him do whatever he wanted. That was the reason she should definitely say no.

  “I must retire soon,” he said. “I am very tired. With my belly full, my eyes seem to be struggling to stay open.”

  “Then you must sleep. It may be a taxing day tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. It could be a devastating day tomorrow; she could completely reject his intentions. His life would change for better or worse in the next few days.

  She got up and he followed suit. Manners stated that he could not leave until she did. He was both relieved and frustrated that the evening was over. He would not have more chances that evening to persuade her that they would have a good future together.

  They walked up the stairs and were going different directions.

  “I …,” he started. “I appreciate the gesture of you coming today. It was a foolhardy and dangerous venture, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

  “I was trying to help,” she said and turned to him. She looked beautiful in the dull lights of the hall. Her eyes sparkled and her lips parted slightly as if she was going to say something. He wanted to say something else, to extend this moment. Perhaps he shouldn’t, he was too tired to converse rationally.

  He touched the outside of her arm gently, the material was smooth and tactile to his touch; it sent urges through him, an intense shot of desire. Her lips looked so welcoming. Before he had complete command of himself he leaned down and kissed her—the slightest touch, but great reward. The sweetest taste that affected something deep inside him. The wetness, the warmth—he could not think of a better thing in the entire world. She moulded to him like she was made just for him. He pulled her tighter to him and deepened the kiss. He had no plan; he just let it evolve as it must. Most importantly, she wasn’t pulling away.

  He’d forgotten how deeply her kisses affected him. The last one he’d had was under the tree after the funeral. She had taken him by surprise, but he had been completely powerless against it. He wanted more, much more—everything in fact. He knew he was so far below his optimal he shouldn’t press his luck. He tore himself away. Her ey
es were closed and her lips looked full and inviting.

  She hadn’t pushed him away—this was good. He knew he had a chance, he just couldn’t blow it. Tomorrow he would secure her. He wasn’t sure how, but she’d accepted his kiss—that was a starting point.

  “Goodnight,” he said. She nodded and then turned. He watched her walk down the hall before turning slightly to look back at him. Her eyes were big and she looked unsettled. Tomorrow he promised silently.

  Chapter 24

  Amelia was dressed by eight, waiting to be called down. She hadn’t slept well. The previous evening had knocked her senses out. He’d kissed her; she hadn’t expected it or seen it coming, but it took her over completely. It had washed over her and cleaned out every other thought from her mind; she wasn’t capable of putting a coherent thought together, much less an objection, but then she wasn’t entirely sure she could have objected if she wanted to.

  She still felt it on her lips. Her lips burned with the touch, as had the path burnt down lower in her body, igniting a faint pulse that he’d lit in her at the top of the staircase the previous night.

  She was going to spend the morning with him, maybe even the whole day. Maybe the day will end with another kiss. More importantly, maybe more. She considered her feelings; would she be happy if the day ended with more? Would she ever forgive herself if she walked away from this? Would she forgive herself if she didn’t act on these feelings? There were only questions, and no answers.

  A knock at the door made her heartbeat jump. She’d patted out any creases in her riding habit as part of her was trying to convince her that she was doing this out of loyalty to the land that had been her father’s for so many years, but she was doing this because she wanted to be with him.