by Farr, Diane
“Good. It’s a deuced fetching bonnet and all that,” he assured her. “But it hides half your face. Sit down, Natalie, and tell me what happened. Did someone move your roses again?”
She obediently sat, but not, as he had hoped, beside him on the sofa. She perched on the edge of a wing chair that faced him—and tried, but failed, to smile at his last sally. “Not that I know of. Perhaps I should have checked.” She heaved a small sigh and stared at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. “Do you recall advising me, some time ago, to disregard public opinion?”
He was mildly startled. “Good heavens. Did I?”
A faint smile lightened her features and she looked up at him again. “Not in so many words. But that is what you meant, I believe. You told me I should not bother worrying about what people said over their breakfast cups.”
His brow cleared. “Oh, that. Certainly. Excellent advice for nearly anyone, I should think.”
“Well, I took your advice. And it has come back to haunt me.”
“Oh.” He rubbed his chin ruefully. “So some impertinent idiot has said something nasty about you. The best way to nip that sort of thing in the bud—”
“No.” She shook her head. “That is not the problem.” She seemed to have difficulty meeting his eyes. Her cheeks were slowly turning pink. “The problem is, Hector has heard some gossip. And, as I feared, it is gossip about…about you and me. People seem to think we are…” She cleared her throat and directed her gaze out the window. “People seem to expect…”
He decided to help her out. “They expect an interesting announcement.”
“Yes. And Hector has decided…” Her voice trailed off again. He saw the delicate muscles in her throat work as she swallowed back whatever emotion was gripping her. Then she turned to face him, distress in every line of her face. “Malcolm, I don’t know what to do. My brother is very angry with me. He…he wants me to leave Crosby Hall. Permanently. And by that I mean, he wants to—to wash his hands of me. That is how he puts it. He knows I have nowhere to go. Derek will help me if he can, but I fear he cannot. I will have to hire myself out as—as a governess, or a cook’s maid, or whatever I can find.”
“What?” His voice cracked like a whip, and Natalie jumped in her chair. “Sorry,” he said, trying to bite back the anger that had swept through him. “But what nonsense is this?”
She sat very straight in her chair, hands clasped like a schoolgirl, but her chin was high now and her eyes met his squarely. “Hector wants me to marry you. If I refuse to do so, he intends to punish me. I have forty-eight hours to decide. If I do not accept your offer, he will evict me from Crosby Hall. And I cannot come here as governess to Sarah now, because you and I are…because our friendship has made us conspicuous.”
Malcolm stared at her, incredulous. A dozen thoughts and emotions whirled in his brain.
“How am I to take this?” he said at last, shaking his head in baffled amazement. “I understand that you are reluctant to knuckle under to the demands of a petty tyrant like Hector. Anyone would feel the same. I can even understand that you might think life as a domestic would be better than life under your brother’s roof—at least in the heat of the moment,” he added dryly. “But if you would rather be a cook’s maid than marry me, I must tell you, Natalie, it’s hard to take that as anything other than an insult.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, I know. It sounds terrible. It’s not meant that way. I just…” She buried her face in her gloved hands. “I don’t know what to do.”
“This is ridiculous,” muttered Malcolm. He rose and, with great firmness, pulled Natalie’s hands away from her face, lifting her to her feet. He held her there before him, holding her by the forearms as she stared helplessly up at him.
There were tears caught in her eyelashes. They glittered like stars. She looked confused and miserable and heartbroken. And beautiful.
He smiled softly at her. “My dear girl, what are you afraid of? There is no question what you should do.”
The misery in her face increased. “Malcolm, I—”
“Ssh.” He lifted one finger to her mouth and touched her lower lip, lightly as breath, to hush her. Odd. He had not realized how strongly it would affect him. A shock of desire struck him, seemingly out of nowhere, at that tiny touch. Her lip felt warm and full beneath his finger. Soft as velvet. Tempting. His throat tightened with a sudden craving. “You are going to marry me,” he said hoarsely. “And I am going to make you happy.”
“But—”
“No. No more refusals. No more excuses.”
He bent to kiss her. It was time. At last! A mixture of triumph and tenderness filled him as he moved to take her lips—but he was wholly unprepared for what happened next.
Some portion of his soul, unbeknownst to him, had been straining at a leash. For how long? He did not know; he had been utterly unaware of it until his mouth touched hers. At that instant, the leash suddenly snapped…and his heart leaped free.
Astonishment jolted him with paralyzing intensity. Natalie. Dear God in heaven. Natalie. He was kissing Natalie. He was participating in a miracle. His arms tightened around her possessively: mine. This girl. This moment. Unfettered joy rushed and thundered and shouted in his veins.
Something holy and humbling, earth-shattering, life-altering, was occurring.
Natalie.
Malcolm felt his life divide neatly in two: before this kiss, and after it. This, this kiss, was the turning point; there was no going back. This was the cusp of his life. When he lifted his mouth from hers, he would be forever, fundamentally, changed.
At the end of the kiss his lips lingered on hers, reluctant to part from her even by a few inches. He wanted her. His desire for her was so overwhelming it felt like a primal need: he wanted Natalie the way he wanted air. This wasn’t lust, it was something bigger. Something deeper.
Reverence and tenderness tempered his hunger for her, illuminating it. Purifying it. In a revelation that hit him like a thunderclap, he suddenly recalled a phrase from the church’s marriage vows: with my body I thee worship. The image had seemed vaguely blasphemous until now. Now, he understood. This woman would be his wife, consecrated unto him, and he would love and cherish her. It all made perfect sense.
He rested his forehead on hers, savoring the wonder of it all. Gladness sang in him like a choir of angels. “Natalie,” he whispered, choked with emotion. “I love you.”
She went very still in his arms. He felt her muscles tense. Drugged by the kiss, he did not understand what was happening until she pushed him away with her hands. He blinked at her, confused, like a man awaking from a dream.
Her face was white. Her mouth, still soft from his kiss, was set in a tight line. Good God—those were tears on her cheeks. Had she been crying before? She was crying now. Why? He reached for her, needing to comfort her, needing her to come to him. She backed away sharply, shaking her head.
“That’s enough,” she said. Her voice sounded nothing like herself. “Give me my forty-eight hours.”
For a bewildered moment he did not know what she meant. Then he remembered: Hector had given her forty-eight hours to decide whether she would accept his marriage proposal. Give her her forty-eight hours? Why, she must mean she needed time to think. She must mean that she still had not agreed to marry him.
He stood, rooted to the spot, utterly confounded, as Natalie moved to pick up her hat with shaking hands and tie it back on her head. He was paralyzed by the events of the past three minutes. He had no idea how to deal with the feelings rioting inside him. He scarcely recognized himself.
She was going! In another few seconds she would be out the door. It was unbelievable. He still could not seem to move, but he forced himself to speak. “Natalie,” he said, desperate to reach her. “I thought ... I thought that was what you wanted. To be loved.”
She turned at the door to face him, bestowing upon him a ghastly, overbright smile. “I know you did,” she said cheerfully. Cheerfully!
“I said as much, didn’t I? That was foolish of me. Good day.”
On her way out, she nearly collided with Howatch, who was carefully balancing a heavy tray as he headed for the library. Malcolm stared after her departing figure, unable to collect his scattered wits enough to call after her. His gaze then traveled, numbly, to Howatch, who stood uncertainly in the doorway with his tray.
When Malcolm failed to speak for several seconds, Howatch cleared his throat. “Lemonade, sir?” he offered helpfully.
Chapter 16
Natalie fled. There was no dignified name for it; she simply bolted, like a coward, from Malcolm’s presence. She was halfway home before she remembered two things: she was supposed to visit Sarah. And it was absurd to return to Crosby Hall, from whence she had fled just half an hour ago. If she let her feelings drive her to and fro like this, she would soon be running in circles like a headless chicken.
Ashamed of herself, she halted in her tracks and took a deep, shaking breath. Then, resolutely, she turned and headed back toward Larkspur. Her heart was hammering painfully in her chest, but she ignored it. She would visit Sarah. That was what she had set out to do, and she would do it.
As she climbed the grassy rise back toward Larkspur, the graceful manor house seemed to shimmer through her tears. Faugh! She dashed her gloved hands briskly across her eyes. Tears were for weaklings and babies. Natalie Whittaker was neither, and she would not cry. Her world was falling apart, but she would recover. One day, she promised herself grimly, she would look back on this horrid morning and smile.
What are you afraid of? Malcolm had asked her. What, indeed. Only a ninny would feel such panic at the prospect of marrying the man she loved. Very well, she was a ninny. She couldn’t help it. She dared not tell Malcolm what she feared: she feared destroying their fragile, teasing friendship. It seemed, to her, to hold such promise. Left to follow its natural course, it might one day become what she longed for it to be. But forced prematurely into the intimacy of marriage, what would become of it? What would become of her? She dreaded becoming another Catherine.
Oh, there was no chance she would ever jump from a parapet. But to marry Malcolm, loving him as she did, and knowing that—just as before—he sought a marriage of convenience…she shivered at the thought. He had despised Catherine. If he knew Natalie’s feelings, would he despise her, too?
It was impossible to know whether Malcolm had felt contemptuous of Catherine’s emotions, or merely her behavior. It did seem, to her, that Catherine’s conduct had been manipulative rather than loving. But Natalie wondered how much of her perception had been colored by Malcolm’s interpretation, which was, after all, the prism through which she had viewed the tale. Perhaps Catherine’s feelings had been genuine, but so foreign to him that he had failed to understand her pain. He might very well have misread Catherine’s motives; he had, in fact, admitted to Natalie that that was possible.
And now he believed that the only way to win Natalie’s hand was to say that he loved her! She cringed, hating to remember that dreadful moment. She ought never to have confided to him the most secret wish of her heart. It had left her vulnerable to just such a ploy. And what was particularly ghastly, particularly unfair, was that his artificial declaration had soiled what had just been the most wonderful experience of her life.
She was right, she thought wistfully, to have dreamed of Malcolm’s kiss. She was also right to have feared it. It was, as she had dreamed, a halcyon moment. But it also was, as she had feared, too revealing. He had caught a glimpse of her true feelings. And he had felt compelled to respond with that patently false declaration. He wanted her to believe that he loved her! Why, the man didn’t even believe that romantic love existed, outside of books and plays!
Remembering, she shook her head in disgust. One would think, she told herself indignantly, that after all Malcolm had suffered in his first marriage, he would be the last man on earth to use the word love merely to get his way. She had almost said it to his face: Don’t ‘Catherine’ me! He would have known exactly what she meant.
She reached the house and entered, as she frequently did, through the french windows in the music room, then climbed the stairs, unannounced, to the nursery. Sarah had made rapid progress since her fall, and it was becoming more difficult every day to confine her to the nursery. When Natalie peeped in, the little girl was sitting on a high-backed chair, fidgeting, while Nurse brushed her hair. Her arm rested in a sling.
“Mrs. Mumbles believes we ought to go out of doors today,” announced Sarah.
“Mrs. Mumbles hasn’t anythin’ to say about it,” said Mrs. Bigalow firmly. “You want to get well, don’t you?”
“Yes. But why can’t I get well in the garden?”
“Because Mr. Carter says we must keep you quiet. Give over, Sarah, do! You’re too big a girl to wriggle about like this.”
“I’ll be quiet in the garden,” Sarah offered. “I’ll be quiet as a mouse. You could brush my hair in the garden.”
“I’m brushing your hair right here. Hold still, child! I’m nearly done.”
“Mrs. Mumbles wants—ow!”
“There, now, what did I tell you? If you sit still, the brush won’t pull your hair.”
At this point in the game, Sarah’s gyrations turned her toward the door where Natalie stood. Her face brightened. “Look, Nurse.”
Mrs. Bigalow looked up, harassed, and Natalie smiled at both of them. “Good morning, ladies. Am I interrupting?”
Sarah’s face brightened further. “It’s Miss Whittaker!” She jumped off the chair and ran to Natalie. “Miss Whittaker, you must come and speak to Mrs. Mumbles. She’s frightfully bored.”
Something tugged at the edge of Natalie’s consciousness. There was something odd about what had just transpired. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. But then Sarah was upon her, tugging on her hand, leading the way to her play area, chattering as happily as if she’d never felt an hour of pain, and Natalie dismissed the nagging thought. She would consider it later, when she had more time.
Mrs. Bigalow rolled her eyes comically for Natalie’s benefit, indicating that she thought the child was being overindulged—but she refrained from scolding or calling Sarah back to finish her hair. So Natalie went, and obliged Sarah with a little play time.
She knew it was hard on the little girl, having no playmates, and harder still to be injured and told she must rest. And, if truth be told, playing with Sarah did Natalie almost as much good as it did Sarah. She loved to watch Sarah’s expressive little face telegraphing her every thought, and delighted in the inventive play that was Sarah’s hallmark—even when she couldn’t quite follow the fantasy, or decipher the peculiar rules of every game Sarah introduced.
At one point Sarah suddenly went very still, falling silent in mid-sentence. Natalie reached to brush the baby-fine strands of Sarah’s hair off her forehead. “Does your arm hurt, darling?”
“Yes,” she said, almost inaudibly. “Sometimes it hurts worse, like this. But it will go away again in a minute.” She lifted troubled eyes to Natalie. “Nurse says my arm will soon be well. How long is soon?”
“Soon is a different length of time for different things, but always short.”
“It seems long to me, this time.”
Natalie’s heart ached for her. “I know, sweetheart. Pain makes the time seem longer. Afterwards, when your arm has healed, you will look back on this time and think it wasn’t long at all.”
“I wish afterwards was now.”
“I do, too.”
“Papa says I must be brave.”
“You are brave. We’re very proud of you.”
Sarah’s sweet little smile touched Natalie’s heart, but also rang warning bells in the back of her mind. Had Sarah heard what Natalie heard—too late—in her words? She had, without thinking, coupled her thoughts with Malcolm’s. That we had slipped out so naturally, she wondered nervously how many other times she had used it. Had she fallen into a habit of linking hers
elf with Sarah’s father? Had Sarah come to accept it?
Natalie felt as if the walls were closing in on her. Hector’s malice, the village gossip, her love for Sarah, Sarah’s love for her, Malcolm’s persistence—everything was conspiring to shove her into the prison of a loveless marriage. Worse than loveless: a marriage where she loved, but her husband didn’t. She was being dragged inexorably toward the moment when she would accept Malcolm’s hand and marry him. She seemed powerless to fight the tide that was sweeping her along, willy-nilly.
This, she thought resentfully, is what comes of trusting the stars. She had let them pull her into the dance, and here she was, danced into a corner.
She did not care to encounter Malcolm while she was still feeling so conflicted, so she left Sarah and Nurse when luncheon was brought in. She walked home, her thoughts still in turmoil, slipped into Crosby Hall through a side door, and shut herself in her own rooms. There she paced for much of the afternoon, thinking hard and praying for guidance.
By sunset she had made up her mind. Really, she thought with resignation, it should not have taken her so long. Malcolm was right; the solution was obvious. And it was, after all, useless to rail against the stars.
Destiny was truly leading her. She must submit to her fate. She would marry Malcolm. But forewarned is forearmed: she would not make Catherine’s mistakes. No, indeed. What Malcolm wanted was a marriage of convenience, and a mother for his motherless daughter. Very well, she would give him that. That, and nothing else. She would not hang adoringly on his arm. She would not embarrass him with displays of ardent affection. She would do her best to ape the cool, smiling brides of the aristocracy, and give him a wife who would keep a friendly distance. She could shower wee Sarah with loving attention, but with Malcolm she would never cross the line…unless and until she found a way to make him love her.