The Mistake

by Lily Maxton

  With a start, she saw familiar brown hair and a narrow-eyed glance. The vehicle, which had been taking up the middle of the road, swerved toward her at the last moment. With a thumping heart, she threw herself clear of its wheels. But in the process of avoiding the vehicle, she landed hard on one ankle and fell on her backside in the grass.

  She moaned, trying to push up to her feet. The ankle that had taken all her weight throbbed like the devil. Had she twisted it?

  When she heard the slow roll of wheels coming back toward her, she looked up. It was Mr. Smith.

  Probably coming back to finish the job.

  “Stay away from me!” she shouted, stumbling back and falling again.

  Mr. Smith stopped the carriage next to her and jumped out. “Are you hurt?”

  “Yes, I’m hurt! You tried to kill me!”

  His face was pale, except for two red splotches on his cheek. “I didn’t try to kill you.”

  “Oh? You didn’t see me before you almost ran me down? Were you asleep?” she asked sarcastically.

  He took off his beaver hat and held it in front of him. “I was…I only meant to startle you.”

  She watched his face. His lips were thin, and he looked rather miserable and regretful. “Well, you succeeded,” she said, just as shrilly, but not quite as sarcastically.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I didn’t wish to cause you injury. I simply—”

  “You saw me on the road, and you had the sudden urge to strike back at me for damaging your pride.”

  “Something like that,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

  “It will please you to know that my pride has been damaged now, as well.”

  He looked down at his hat. The knuckles gripping it were white. “It doesn’t please me. I really could have killed you. It was a moment of spite and childishness.”

  “Yes, it was,” she replied mercilessly. “I’m not against your self-flagellation, but perhaps you could cease for now and escort me back to Blakewood Hall.”

  “Certainly,” he said. “Anything.”

  She had to lean against him as he pulled her up from the ground, and then he had to practically lift her to get her into the passenger side of the curricle. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be taking her customary walks for at least a few days, if not longer.

  “Can you drive more slowly?” she asked after one of the wheels went over a dip in the road and her foot bumped the floorboards, sending pain shooting up her leg.

  He reined in the horses and continued at a snail’s pace.

  “I’m sorry about what I said to you the other day,” he commented after a moment. He kept his eyes fixed on the road.

  “Are you?”

  “I was trying to impress my friend. He wagered that I couldn’t get you to notice me.”

  She rolled her eyes. Men and their wagers. “Well, I definitely noticed you.”

  “Only to give me a set down,” he pointed out.

  “You deserved a set down.”

  “I probably did,” he replied glumly.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t really think you looked that small,” she said after a moment.

  He brightened considerably. “Indeed?” Some men were truly the simplest of creatures.

  “Indeed,” she said. Truthfully, she hadn’t been paying much attention to what the man had under his breeches, but she didn’t want to damage his fragile ego.

  “That’s very nice of you,” he said.

  She felt an urge to laugh. To an outside observer, she might look like a young woman going on an innocent carriage ride with a suitor. But if anyone could actually hear their conversation, they would be horrified.

  No matter what she felt for the man, she had to give him credit. He remained the perfect gentlemen throughout the ride, not once making an advance. They even talked about the weather, which was probably the most dull and proper of subjects available. Perhaps it really had been his friend’s bad influence that had caused him to act the way he had.

  She still didn’t like him much, though. He had, after all, caused her injury in a moment of spite.

  After they reached Blakewood Hall, he hovered in the entrance foyer as one of the footmen guided her up the stairs. He didn’t leave until Mrs. Davis told him, in her kind but firm sort of way, that Miss Forsythe was in good hands and there was no reason for him to stay.

  “Thank you for getting rid of him,” Julia told her.

  “You’re welcome,” she replied. “Now what in the world happened?”

  Julia explained, while Mrs. Davis shook her head like an exasperated mother. Then Mrs. Davis knelt down and examined the ankle, prodding as gently as she could.

  “It’s a sprain,” she announced. “My brothers had them often enough when they were younger, and some of theirs were worse. I can make a poultice for it. Or I can send for the surgeon, if you desire.”

  “I don’t think a surgeon is necessary,” Julia said. “Could you open the window? If I’m to be trapped in my sitting room all day, I’d at least like a little fresh air.”

  …

  Julia was sitting in an armchair by the open window, her injured leg propped up on a small footstool because Mrs. Davis had told her it would help the sprain heal faster—though Julia had no idea why that should be so—when there was a light knock at her chamber door.

  She rested her book on her lap. “Yes?”

  Adam opened the door and shut it quickly behind him, and then he stood against the frame and gazed down at her intently. He was too large and masculine for the feminine room, she thought absently, but she was more focused on the look of concern etched across his features.

  “I heard there was an accident,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  She tried to ignore the fact that her pulse was racing at simply being face to face with him again. “I’m fine,” she said. “There was a little mishap on my walk to the village. But it’s only a sprain.” She attempted a smile. “You didn’t need to come up here. If anyone saw you—”

  “No one saw me,” he said. “I’m very stealthy.”

  She eyed his broad shoulders and tall form. “Are you?” she asked skeptically.

  “Aye,” he said. “Like a cat.”

  “I find that difficult to believe.” This time she didn’t have to attempt a smile.

  “Believe it,” he said.

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Do you jump from rooftops and land on your feet?”

  “Always.”

  She laughed, warmth flooding her chest at his delightful silliness. Most of the men she knew in London didn’t like to appear silly—they were either too self-absorbed or too self-conscious. Adam was neither of those things.

  She placed her hands over her book as she watched him.

  It was strange. She’d been dreading this moment. Dreading seeing him after last night. But now that he was here, she didn’t want him to leave.

  “Will you sit down a moment?” she asked. “A little company would be nice.”

  He lowered himself onto the settee, and it groaned under his weight. She hoped the delicate furniture wouldn’t collapse.

  He leaned back with his long muscular legs stretched out casually, as though he’d been born to occupy her sitting room. There was a moment, as their eyes met, that something dark and heated went through her, and the imprint of his hand on her chest burned like fire.

  “I’ve been thinking of our poem,” he said, seemingly unaware of the havoc he was wreaking on her senses. “About Prudence.”

  “I’d nearly forgotten. What have you come up with?”

  “Only the first two lines. ‘Prudence was pale, prim, and proper. / Then she received an ungentlemanly offer.’”

  Julia clapped her hands together. “That’s a very good start.” She tilted her head and recited slowly. “‘Prudence was pale, prim and proper. / Then she received an ungentlemanly offer…he asked…’ What shall he ask for? And should we be more specific than ‘he?’”

/>   Adam thought about it. “You can’t be too specific. The lines need to be short.”

  She nodded. “So he asked for…”

  “A kiss?” he suggested.

  She frowned. “A kiss?” she repeated incredulously. “This is supposed to be scandalous. Kisses aren’t that scandalous,” she pointed out.

  His eyebrows lifted. “I would think that would depend on the kiss.”

  He was gazing at her so steadily, and his words were repeating in her mind so seductively, that she felt herself flush. It was entirely unacceptable. The images his words concocted were entirely unacceptable. She was imagining kisses—scandalous kisses—deep and passionate and breathy and raw. On the mouth. Then she was imagining kisses on places other than the mouth.

  Oh, good God. Now the flush was heating up every inch of her body. What was it about Adam that made her feel so flustered? She ducked her head, pretending to study the book on her lap.

  “Not a kiss,” she said, a little too forcefully. “How about a tumble?”

  Oddly enough, that seemed like a safer choice of words. Maybe because she couldn’t picture Adam tumbling a woman. The word conveyed something quick and meaningless. A grunting five-minute rut in a hay barn.

  That wouldn’t be Adam. She was certain of it. He would be thorough. He would be gentle. He would touch every part of her. Awaken every part—

  Damnation! She was drifting into perilous territory again. She absentmindedly pressed the back of her hand to her cheek and felt the warmth just under the surface of her skin. These thoughts, these images, were his fault. She hadn’t started thinking like this until he’d unbraided her hair. It was as if his touch had erased the wall she’d built in her mind—on one side was Adam, a friend, on the other side was Riverton, a lover.

  One side was for talking and laughing and silliness. The other side was for the physical.

  Now there were no sides. The wall was gone. Adam was both.

  But he wasn’t, she reminded herself harshly. Perhaps the possibility was there, but they hadn’t crossed that line. The places he’d touched were relatively innocent, on the whole. They hadn’t even kissed.

  And that mattered, very much, to her. The wall was down, but she hadn’t crossed the line.

  And she wouldn’t.

  She breathed deeply. She knew Adam was watching her with those too-perceptive dark eyes, so she focused on the task at hand. A bright, forced smile curved her lips. “So he asked for a tumble…what rhymes with tumble?”

  “Bumble?” he suggested.

  “Rumble?” she said.

  “Mumble?”

  She smiled slightly at the nonsensical words, and this time, the smile felt real.

  “Crumble?” he added.

  “I have it!” she exclaimed, almost immediately after he’d finished speaking. “He asked for a tumble, but mostly just fumbled.”

  “Is that allowed?” he asked. “It’s not an exact rhyme.”

  “It’s quite close. Can you think of anything better?” she asked archly.

  “Fumbled it is,” he allowed, grinning.

  She tapped her fingers against the leather surface of the book. “Hmm…the last line is tricky. ‘Offer’ is worse to rhyme than ‘tumble.’”

  She stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, chewing at her lower lip as she thought about what could possibly go in the last line.

  When she’d just about given up, Adam started speaking, slowly, cautiously at first, and then gaining momentum. “Until Prudence said, please sir, I’d rather not fill my coffer.”

  Julia sat in stunned silence, staring at him, and then a peal of laughter escaped her. She pressed her fingers to her lips to stifle the abrupt sound. “I cannot believe it!”

  “What? Is it that dreadful?”

  “It’s perfect!” she exclaimed, delighted. “Absolutely perfect. Write it down for me.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now,” she demanded. “You don’t want to forget it, do you?”

  He went over to her writing desk and wrote standing up, leaning over the surface. She watched the way his strong fingers gripped the delicate quill. His writing was slow and painstaking, rather like everything else he did—gardening, unbraiding her hair. A surge of tenderness filled her chest like warm melted honey, and she looked away.

  After a couple of minutes, he handed over the parchment. She noted that though his handwriting was small and neat, his spelling wasn’t quite as flawless. He’d left out the second ‘e’ in gentlemanly and an ‘f’ in coffer. A painful lump formed at the base of her throat at witnessing those small imperfections.

  She coughed once, to dislodge it, then read aloud. “Prudence was pale, prim, and proper. / Then she received an ungentlemanly offer. / He asked for a tumble, / but mostly just fumbled / Until Prudence said, please sir, I’d rather not fill my coffer.”

  Julia folded the parchment gently, treating it like something fragile and precious. “I’m not certain the syllables are correct, but other than that, I’m quite proud.” She smiled up at him teasingly. “It’s very wicked of you, Adam.”

  “I can be wicked, when I have the right inspiration.” His voice was low. Too low. Too intimate. It rumbled along her spine.

  She remembered, belatedly, her plan to stay out of arm’s reach of him. He was standing right by her chair. If he raised his arm even a little bit, he would touch her.

  She wanted him to touch her. She wanted to succumb to that hard, fast-burning desire he’d played with his fingertips like a skilled musician played the pianoforte. But the practical side of her, which was the side that always won out, told her nothing good could come of it.

  She drew in a deep breath.

  And jumped when someone rapped on the door.

  Her eyes widened. She and Adam stared at each other. Then he dove behind her chair, hitting the floor with a thud that shook the entire room.

  “Damn!” he swore.

  She bowed her head and started laughing. It was the kind of laughter she hadn’t experienced in a very long while. Not since she was a child and the world had seemed new. The full-bodied kind of laughter. It shook her shoulders and had her gasping for breath and clutching her stomach. She was still giggling when the door opened and Mrs. Davis stepped inside with a tea tray.

  “What in the world was that noise?” the other woman asked, frowning. “It sounded like an elephant.”

  “I think…it was…a cat!” Julia answered between gasps.

  “Are you having a fit?” Then Mrs. Davis froze. “There’s someone behind you!”

  “No,” Julia said. “No, there’s not.” She started laughing again.

  “I can see him!”

  Adam climbed to his feet awkwardly, using the back of Julia’s chair for purchase. “Mrs. Davis,” he greeted quietly.

  The woman’s grip on the tea tray tightened. Her face turned pale, then flushed. She moved to the center of the room and set the tray down abruptly, so abruptly the sugar cubes overturned. As she leaned down and rearranged them, she kept her face hidden.

  An uneasy feeling swept over Julia, leaving hollowness in its wake. “Mrs. Davis?”

  “There is your tea,” she said, wiping her unsteady hands on the front of her dress. “I’ll check on you later.”

  She left the room quickly.

  Julia stared at the space where the housekeeper had been. Her gut twisted, the laughter of only moments before completely forgotten. She prided herself on being able to read people. It was something that came with her profession. If she recognized a man’s emotions, she knew how to react to them, how to react to his needs.

  What she’d seen in Mrs. Davis’s flustered manner was awareness. Self-consciousness. Embarrassment. But the forthright woman wasn’t missish enough to be scandalized by finding a man in her room.

  It was that she’d found Adam there.

  With the same sensation of numbness that came from submerging in icy water, Julia glanced up at him.

  But he wasn’t l
ooking back at her—he was staring, his expression carefully blank, at the shut door.

  Chapter Eight

  Adam didn’t return to Julia’s bedchamber. When Mrs. Davis stopped in to check on her over the next few days, she was the same self-assured woman Julia had come to know. That agonizing moment when Mrs. Davis had seen Adam and hadn’t been able to hide her reaction was swept under the rug like untidy dust.

  But Julia couldn’t sweep it under the rug. She thought about it as she fell asleep, and in the moments before she was truly awake, and sometimes she thought about it in the time between, when she was holed up in her room with her foot elevated. Books and watercolors and the gossip rags could only distract a person for so long.

  If she had to make a logical guess, she would say that Adam and Mrs. Davis had been lovers once, or were still lovers.

  And why shouldn’t they be? They lived on the same estate. Both were unattached, both were physically healthy, and neither of them were particularly hard to look at.

  Julia flung her paintbrush onto the floor, unworried about whether it would stain the carpet or not. Something heavy and anguished writhed in her chest, and a clear diamond-perfect vision grabbed hold of her mind and refused to let go—Adam moving over the other woman, finding his pleasure inside her, thrusting hard as he found his release. As she brought him to release.

  It was dreadful, all pale limbs and sweaty bodies and the guttural, messy, lustful reality of sexual intercourse.

  Then, as Julia reached down to pick up the paintbrush, she halted, her arm stretched in midair, as another far, far sharper image took the place of the first one. This time, instead of moving over Mrs. Davis and claiming her mindlessly, Adam was curled against her bare back, cradling her, stroking his hand along the curves of her body in a caress that was almost reverent.

  Julia’s hand closed into a fist, her fingernails biting deep. What if he loved her?

  Julia’s throat felt thick. It ached, and it stung. That image would haunt her, day and night. She would never know a moment’s peace. It was utter foolishness—Adam wasn’t hers. She didn’t even want him.

  But, then, why did the image of him loving another woman—not just rutting, but truly loving her with his body—threaten to crack open her heart, like a frozen lake on a too-warm day?