The memory of Michael helped break the spell. There was no understanding between her and Michael. He might not even be alive now, and even if he was, he knew nothing of her plans. And yet . . . She lifted Hawkeswell’s hands from her and took a very long stride backward.
“I think that was more than three in total. You have used up some of tomorrow’s.”
“At most I have used up half of one of today’s.”
“It was too long.”
“It is for you to decide that, not me. If you do not choose to end the kiss, do not expect me to do it for you.”
Flushing badly, she turned and strode away. She would have to remember to end things very quickly in the future. She had been surprised today; that was all.
These kisses were different from what she thought of kisses being when she agreed to this part of their bargain. Now that she knew his intentions, she would be on her guard.
Chapter Six
The early-evening light bathed the placid lake with golden sparkles. It broke through the branches and leaves of the tree under which they all sat, creating dappled, moving patterns on the linens and plates and the ladies’ hair.
Hawkeswell found himself looking at Verity too often, even though he pretended not to. Those kisses this afternoon had been very sweet, and her reactions had charmed him.
If she were not his wife, he might feel a little guilty for taking advantage of her. Since she belonged to him, he did not have to question the rightness of it, and could enjoy his surprise in the discovery that she was about as ignorant of kisses as was possible.
Which meant that she had not been kissed much before, or at all, in the recent past. That did not totally eliminate the possibility that she had run away with the hope and intention of being with another man. She still might have been in love with someone else. She still might be, and might have proposed this annulment nonsense for that reason.
He noted her poise, and the careful perfection of her manners. There was something of the recent graduate of the school of etiquette in the way she handled herself at this table. She paused before speaking to himself or Sebastian, as if she carefully edited what she planned to say to make sure it sounded like a lady’s speech.
“I am glad that you like your chambers,” Audrianna said to Verity. “That is one of my favorite rooms in the house. The colors and good light remind me of a spring garden.”
“There is a fine tree outside the window,” Hawkeswell said. “I think she wants to climb it. A four-minute tree, she called it. That sounds like an expert to me.”
“Then you must leave your window open someday, and climb in,” Audrianna said.
“Did she never climb trees in Cumberworth?”
“I never saw it. However, we have a tall apple tree at the back of the property, and the fruit at the top did not go to waste.”
“You must have had an active childhood, Lady Hawkeswell,” Lord Sebastian said.
A stillness touched both women upon hearing the address. Audrianna glanced at her husband. Sebastian pretended not to see. Hawkeswell was glad for the small evidence that he might have an ally after all.
“I lived with my father in his house near his mill, and played in the fields beyond. He did not notice that I was growing up for many years, so I enjoyed a childhood longer than some other girls.”
“And when he did realize it?” Sebastian asked.
“He did what any father with a motherless girl would do. He brought in a governess.” She made a little face of distaste, and appeared like that girl for a moment.
“And the drills began, no doubt,” Hawkeswell said.
“In triple force, to make up for lost time,” Verity admitted. “She took her charge very seriously to educate me. She lectured daily on how the better world behaves and the social consequences of sin.”
“I could have saved your father a lot of money,” Audrianna said. “There are books to be bought for less than a shilling that explain all that. You remember those books, don’t you, Sebastian? The ones your mother gave to me?”
Sebastian looked to heaven with resignation, hoping for deliverance from reminders of his mother’s insults. Audrianna laughed. Verity did too, finally, for the first time in three days.
Her eyes sparkled. A little dimple formed on one cheek. It was a very feminine laugh, but not silly and high-pitched. Soft, and a pretty sound.
“Anyway,” she said, relaxing into her story, “I was not the best student. I confess that I gave her a bit of trouble at times. If I found the lessons too horrible, I would sneak off to Katy’s house where I could still be a child again for an hour or so.”
“You may have hated the lessons, but you learned them well,” Audrianna said. “Even Celia assumed that you were born a lady, and she is not easily fooled.”
“I suspect that she was not fooled by me at all,” Verity said. “She noticed, I believe, that I was reciting school lessons, and not speaking the beliefs and knowledge of my own world.”
Hawkeswell did not miss how Verity slipped that in. Once again, she was reminding him that they “did not suit each other,” as she put it. It caused him to wonder if she feared always being thought the unsuitable wife, by society and himself.
That would be unpleasant for her. Even now, sitting with Sebastian and himself, it must be trying to rehearse every word and action before speaking or moving.
“Have you written your letter to Katy?” he asked. “She was Mr. Thompson’s housekeeper for many years,” he explained to Sebastian and Audrianna.
“It is almost finished. I would like it posted tomorrow, Audrianna.”
“Certainly. Is there anyone else to whom you should write?”
Verity pondered that. “Mr. Travis, to be sure. There are things I would like to know, that I have worried about, and he would answer my questions honestly. I should wait, however, until I know exactly what my situation is.”
Your situation is that you are married. This little slip was the most obvious indication that she thought she could still cause that situation to change. He would have to explain to her, very firmly, that she wasted her time on that idea.
“Who is Mr. Travis?” Audrianna asked.
“He is the real manager of the ironworks. He is also the only man my father trusted with the complete secret of the metal boring lathe that he invented. He is surely still there. Bertram cannot get rid of him.”
“That is a dangerous risk to take,” Sebastian said. “What if something happens to Mr. Travis? That entire part of the business will cease.”
Verity accepted some tea from a servant. “I said that he was the only man whom my father trusted. While that governess drilled on etiquette, my father was drilling me on something else. I know the secret too.”
Hawkeswell sealed the letter to his aunt. It explained simply that he had been delayed and would not be down to Surrey for at least a week or more. The one beside it on the writing table, to his cousin Colleen, was not any more forthcoming.
Deceiving his aunt about the recent discovery of Verity did not bother him. Colleen was another matter. She had been instrumental in arranging the marriage, and possibly the most distraught when Verity disappeared. She had indeed mourned, for the girl she had come to think of as her new sister. But then, Colleen had some practice in mourning, and perhaps it just came naturally to her now.
He pulled out a clean sheet of paper and considered how to write the next letter. He had promised to inform no one of Verity’s discovery while they were in Essex, but he had concluded at dinner that he still needed to communicate with her trustee, Mr. Thornapple.
Thornapple and he did not have the best history. Last spring it had become apparent that someone had hired an investigator to look into Verity’s disappearance. Hawkeswell had assumed Bertram was behind it, only to learn it was the trustee. Since that runner had asked insinuating questions about the missing bride’s new husband, the only conclusion was that Thornapple suspected the worst.
He composed his wo
rds carefully, and presented his inquiries to Thornapple as merely more of the same, and the result of renewed curiosity about Verity’s settlement now that there was a chance a new inquest would be held.
Her reference to Mr. Travis had been startling. It had been a mistake, perhaps, to take Bertram Thompson’s word that he, Bertram, managed that business, and to agree that he should be left to do so with a free hand after Verity married. Now it appeared that not only did Bertram not truly manage the mill, on a day-to-day basis, but he did not even know the details of the invention that made the mill so profitable. Only Mr. Travis did. And Verity.
Hawkeswell completed his letter, sealed it, and set it aside. He lay on the bed. The cool night breeze flowed over him, heavy with the scent of the sea. It was sinful to waste such a pleasant night by sleeping.
Not that he expected to sleep easily. First he would have to listen to his baser instincts remind him that a lovely young woman, to whom he had a legal right, lay in another bed not far away. Then he would have to conquer the physical response to that notion, and terminate the speculations it provoked.
If he believed her to be as unmoved as she tried to pretend, the possibilities would not be so compelling. He knew women too well to be fooled, however, and it was very hard to keep his promise when Verity’s eyes and sighs reflected an arousal that she insisted on denying.
The reasons for that denial had been explained, but he suspected there was more. More to her reasons for hoping he would still agree to seek an annulment—and he was sure that was her game here. More to her reasons for running away in the first place. Maybe more reasons for not wanting this marriage to begin with.
His letter to her trustee would clarify some things about that business her father established and grew. They were details that may have been explained two years ago, but that had escaped him because he had not listened well enough.
That had been pride’s doing. He would be glad to receive her significant income from the mill, and elated to get the large amount amassed while she was underage, but he had not really wanted to know anything about the mill itself. Now, he suspected, it was time to find out what he had neglected to learn then.
A sound penetrated his thoughts. It came in the window, as a shuffling sound not far away outside. It sounded as though an animal was on the building. Curious, he rose and went to the window.
His eyes adjusted to the night. The sound came again, from that tree that grew close to Verity’s window. He peered hard, and made out a dark form stretched between the high branches closest to the building and the sill of her chamber window.
The form moved with a swinging motion, and disconnected from the building. A tiny gasp of joy whispered on the breeze.
He could hardly be surprised. He had challenged her to climb down that tree. Or tempted her, with allusions to potential freedom.
A four-minute tree, she had called it.
She had never actually climbed the big apple tree at the back of Daphne’s garden. The narrow skirts of her dresses did not permit it. However, with the aid of a ladder she would manage to perch on a low branch, and use a rake’s handle to knock down the higher ripe fruit.
It had been years, then, since she had done this, but the skill came back. The way she had tied the wide swath of her undressing gown’s fabric high in the middle between her legs, then around her thighs and knees too, allowed her to be fairly nimble. The garment served her purpose of testing herself and the tree tonight. The next time, when she left for good, she would need to find something less ridiculous to wear.
She swung onto the tree and an old, latent, girlish thrill bubbled through her. One felt like a bird when high in a tree. It was very different from looking out a window. It also felt secretive and private. The branches formed a little home that no one else could enter.
She settled herself on a thick branch and looked up. There was not much moon, but the stars were very bright. She loved the way the leaves fluttered against her view of the sky, and the lovely patterns they made.
She deeply inhaled sea air and the promise of freedom. She had not expected the latter to affect her so much, but she was fairly drunk on it.
The potential of being alive in the world made her heady. She felt the cautious, retiring nature that she had assumed after her father died drying, splitting, wanting to be shed like a skin that no longer fit. Sitting in this tree, she tasted again her childhood joy of life.
She unaccountably wanted to laugh. A smile stretched her face for no reason. She acknowledged the Verity Thompson of long ago, reawakening now these last few days. That Verity was something of a stranger after these years, unsure of herself still, because in the time she was asleep, she had also grown up.
Images of Michael came to her, more vividly than they had in months. She saw him as a child and a boy, and as a youth stealing that first kiss. She saw his crooked smile through the years, and its absence the last time they had met, when she had stolen to Katy’s house only to find him full of anger at the world.
He was not at all like Hawkeswell. She knew Michael as well as she knew herself, and Hawkeswell would forever be part mystery. Maybe it was the mystery that caused her to react to his kisses the way she did. She could not imagine Michael making her feel that way. She would not want him to.
She closed her eyes, and pictured Michael again, and tried to summon something of that excitement anyway. It would probably be good to have a little at least, if he agreed to marry her. Of course, before that could happen she had to find out if he was even alive, and where he was, and whether she could undo whatever Bertram had done. Still, if all that happened, and they lived in that house together, would there be thrills in their marriage bed, or friendship and comfort?
She opened her eyes again and looked out to the garden, and knew the answer. Not a bad answer. Probably a better one. Fires could be enthralling, but they were destructive too. They consumed that which gave them power until they died from lack of fuel.
She checked the ties that created her odd pantaloons, then began her descent. It took longer than four minutes. It was a tall tree. She was out of practice and a lot bigger than when she did this as a girl. Next time it should go more quickly. She would throw down her valise, scamper down the tree, and run. She was good at running.
Finally, her leg dangled down, seeking the trunk, so she could brace herself while she lowered herself from the bottom branch to the ground.
Her foot hit the solid support and she began to lower herself. Then the trunk grew claws and grabbed her foot, shocking her.
With her weight still on her last branch, she looked down. Even in the dark she saw sapphire pools gazing up, and the white of a shirt above the hands grasping her foot.
“You misjudged. You were going to fall,” Hawkeswell said.
“I was going to jump,” she lied. She had misjudged, but the fall would not have been far or serious.
He set her foot on his shoulder, then reached up, closed his hands on her waist, and swung her down. “You are fortunate that I happened by just in time.” He angled his head to see her costume. “You have very pretty legs. I was awed by the sight of one hanging above me. Are those pantaloons that you have on, or drawers?”
She bent to untie her undressing gown so her lower legs would not stick out so scandalously. “Neither. Thank you for your help. You can continue your stroll now.”
“I am in no hurry.”
One of her knots would not come undone. She continued working on it with increasing frustration. “You really should go. I did not expect anyone to see me, and I am not dressed appropriately.”
“I am your husband, Verity. If I saw you completely naked, it would still be appropriate.”
She froze, bent over her leg, with her fingers in mid-pluck at the knot. A most peculiar sensation flowed down her, a teasing stimulation much like she felt during those last kisses.
She straightened, with her undressing gown released on one side but still bound to her other thigh and k
nee. She doubted that the deep shadows under the tree hid how foolish she looked. “I must go now. The knot is snarled and I need to go to my chamber and—”
“You went to great trouble to get out. It would be a pity to return so soon. Here, come with me.” He took her hand and led her into the moonlight, much the way he had dragged her behind those rhododendrons.
He dropped down on one knee and lifted her leg to prop her foot on the other. The skin of her uncovered leg glowed like white flowers do at night, making her leg very visible from knee to slipper. He bent his head closely to work at the knot.
“Please do not trouble yourself. I can do this upstairs.” She did not like the sensation of his hands so near her body. His head and face were dangerously close to her too.
“I insist. It is good for you to see how useful husbands can be sometimes.”
She suffered it. He seemed to take a very long time, but then, the knot had been badly snagged. She counted out the heavy pulses of time while she looked down on that dark head.
Finally she felt the fabric fall loosely around her thigh and knee. He did not move, however. He did not let her foot return to the ground or allow the undressing gown to cover that which was bare.
He looked up at her, and caressed up her leg to her knee, his palm sliding slowly. His other hand covered her foot so she could not remove it. He was a big man, and even while kneeling his face was not all that far from hers. She could see his expression well enough to know that this accidental meeting had been unfortunate for her, and for his promise.
She felt his masculinity in the air, invading her. She had no idea how to thwart that power. Her feminine instincts not only shouted warnings but also reacted to the things about this man that would excite any woman. She worried that he might act on the thoughts evident in his hard expression, but also waited for him to do so with a shocking anticipation.
Instead he released her foot, and stood. “If you intend to climb trees, we will have to obtain proper garments for you. Although that undressing gown is very pretty, and you look lovely in the night.”
Provocative in Pearls Page 6