by Mary Balogh
She turned her head to smile at him as they left the house, her jacket back on and her hat at an even jauntier angle than before. “I would love to,” she said, “and will studiously resist all attempts to organize any other entertainment for that afternoon. I shall pray piously for good weather.”
“The usual time at the top of the hill?” he asked.
“Yes.” She laughed. “By the time I return to London for the Season, I shall be the fittest dancer in any ballroom. I shall smile in sympathy at the ladies and gentlemen wheezing all around me after the first set of country dances.”
He wished he could dance. He had always wished it, perhaps because he knew that he never could. He avoided ballrooms. Although he spent almost as much time in London during the year as most other gentlemen, he rarely accepted any of his invitations to the round of social activities that accompanied the Season. He was not very well known, especially by the ladies of the ton, despite his rank and fortune and eligible marital status.
“I wish I could be there to see it,” he said. They had ridden their horses out of the stable yard and turned in the direction of the gatehouse, a mile or so distant. “This lawn stretches all the way to the gatehouse. It is temptingly long and level, is it not? Do you enjoy taking your horse to a gallop?”
She looked at him and down to his right leg. She opened her mouth to ask if he was sure he ought to—he was certain that was what she was about to say. But she bit her lip instead, and when her eyes came back up to his, there was mischief dancing in them.
“I will race you,” she said, and she was off before he could recover from his surprise, her laughter almost a shriek.
He stayed half a length behind her, enjoying her excitement and her exuberance—and also her careful and excellent horsemanship. Another episode to commit to memory, he thought as he surged past her when they were only yards from the gatehouse. He turned his head to laugh at her chagrin.
“Unfair,” she said, her voice breathless. “Oh, unfair. Gabriel has given me a horse lame in all four legs.”
“That is an insulting fib for which you can expect to fry,” he said, looking over the splendid chestnut she rode. “The Earl of Thornhill keeps the best stables in these parts—or so I have heard. We did not agree on a wager.”
“Oh,” she said, pretending to the sullenness of defeat. “What do you suppose I owe you?”
“That is a delightful feather in your cap,” he said. “Literally, I mean.”
“My—” Her laughter was more of a giggle as she removed her hat. “I am not at all sure that it is detachable, and I would hate to have to give you the whole hat, sir. If there is anything more scandalous than riding about the countryside alone, it is doing so hatless. I would never live down the ignominy if someone were to see me. Ah, here it comes.”
And she handed him the curled green feather that had been circling her head and nestling against her ear and beneath her chin.
“Thank you.” He inclined his head and chuckled as she pinned the absurd hat back on her hair. “If anyone asks, you will have to say it blew away in the wind.”
He raised a hand in farewell as she rode off. He then placed the feather carefully in his right hand before taking up the reins with his left once more and turning back in the direction of home.
He wondered what she would think if she knew that the prize she had just awarded him would be treasured more than any of the costliest of his possessions for the rest of his life.
It was a good thing that one person could not see into another’s mind or heart, he thought. What a fool he would appear to her if she could see into his. And how horrified she would be.
Three days. How would he fill them? How would he stop himself from descending to the horribly immature measure of counting the hours?
THE DAY FINALLY CAME and the sun was shining. Still. It had not stopped shining all through every day since the afternoon of her visit to Highmoor Abbey. The law of averages said that it must rain soon, but she had hoped—foolishly, she had even prayed—that it would not be today.
She did not know why she valued Mr. Wade’s friendship so dearly. He was a man of very ordinary appearance, and she would guess that though he was a gentleman, he was poor. But then she was not looking at him as a possible suitor, so his appearance and his financial status were of no concern to her at all. That was why she valued him so much, she decided. She had always felt some physical attraction to all the gentlemen who made up her court—she was beginning to describe them to herself by that term, after hearing it from Gabriel so often. She could not have encouraged them and flirted with them and held them always at arm’s length if she had not.
She felt no attraction whatsoever to Mr. Wade. No revulsion, either, of course, despite the physical handicaps. Just—oh, just the warmth of friendship. She could not remember the person, man or woman, whose company she had more enjoyed and more yearned for when she was not with him. Even Jenny, she thought disloyally, had never been such a dear friend.
She hoped he would not have to go away soon. He had spoken of planning waterfalls north of the house. He had spoken of seeing the work at the lake started this year. Surely he stayed to oversee his plans brought to fruition when he was designing something new. Would he stay all summer?
But she would not be staying that long, she remembered with a jolt. She would be going to London for the Season. She always went to London for the Season. This would be her seventh—she would wince at the number, perhaps, if she were in search of a husband. Many young ladies considered it an unutterable humiliation to have to go back for a second Season unattached. Jenny and Gabriel were not planning to go this year. They did not always go, being far happier in the country romping with their children. And Jenny had told her in an unguarded moment—and been mortally embarrassed afterward—that they were trying for another.
Perhaps, Samantha thought, she would stay at Chalcote this year, too. But she dismissed the thought immediately. Kind and hospitable as they both were, Jenny and Gabriel needed to have their home to themselves for at least a part of the year. And she and Aunt Aggy had already been here for three months. Too long. Soon—as soon as she had control of her fortune—Samantha was going to set up for herself somewhere so that she would have a home of her own in which to spend those slack months when there was nothing much happening anywhere but in country homes.
No, she could not stay at Chalcote. Soon she and Aunt Aggy must return to London. But she tried to put the thought from her mind. There would be another few weeks first. Another few chances to explore Highmoor land with Mr. Wade. If he wanted to explore them with her, of course. If he did not tire of their friendship.
She did not really understand what the attraction of the friendship was. She did not try to understand it. She was too busy enjoying it.
But it was not to last much longer after all. She was sitting alone at the breakfast table, staring into space. Gabriel and Albert had gone off riding about some business somewhere, and Jenny was in the nursery with Mary, who had fallen out of bed during the night and bumped her head and was still feeling the need of her mother’s soothing words and arms.
Aunt Agatha came into the breakfast room, bringing with her the usual pile of letters from her friends in London. She kissed her niece, exchanged pleasantries with her, took toast and coffee, and settled to reading the latest news and gossip from town after Samantha had assured her that no, of course she did not mind if Aunt Agatha was unsociable for a few minutes.
“Oh, dear,” her aunt said after three of those minutes had passed. “Oh, dear, oh, dear. Poor Sophie.”
“Is Lady Sophia ill?” Samantha inquired politely.
“An oaf of a coachman ran her down when she was crossing the street,” her aunt said, still frowning down at her letter. “He even had the nerve to curse her and to ride off without stopping. She was carried home with a broken leg.”
“How nasty,” Samantha said, concerned. “I do hope she is not in too much discomfort.”
“She is,” Lady Brill said. “But worse than that, she is languishing for lack of company, poor Sophie. You know how visiting and exchanging news is the breath of life to her, Samantha, dear.”
“Yes.” Samantha could not quite suppress a smile. Being confined to her own home with a broken leg must be fairly killing her aunt’s closest friend.
But the smile was wiped away almost immediately. “I must go to her,” Lady Brill said decisively. “Poor, dear Sophie. And almost no one in town yet to pay her calls. The least I can do, dearest—the very least—is go to sit with her in her hour of need.”
Selfishly, the implications for Samantha herself were instantly apparent to her. But so were her obligations.
“When shall we leave?” she asked.
“Oh.” Lady Brill looked at her and her frown became worried. “I will be dragging you away from dear Jennifer and Lord Thornhill weeks earlier than we expected. But you cannot stay here, can you, dear? There will be no one with whom to travel back to town next month for the Season. You certainly could not travel alone. Will you mind very, very much? Poor Sophie, you know.”
Samantha leaned across the table to set a hand over her aunt’s. She minded very much indeed, but for a reason that was quite foolish from any rational consideration. “Of course I will not mind,” she said. “I think it very sweet of you to want to return to keep Lady Sophia company. And why should I mind being in town, even if the Season has not yet begun? There is always something to do there. Besides, I need a whole new wardrobe of clothes. I have simply nothing to wear that everyone has not already seen.”
“That is very sweet of you, dear,” Lady Brill said, looking relieved. “Very sweet indeed. And perhaps this will be the year when you will find the gentleman of your dreams. He will come along, mark my words, even though you keep insisting that you are not even in search of him. I have never heard such nonsense in my life.”
Samantha smiled. “When do you want to leave?” she asked. Please not today. Oh, please, not today.
“Tomorrow morning?” her aunt asked apologetically. “As early as possible. Will that be too much of a rush for you, dear?”
The door opened at that moment and Lady Thornhill came in. She assured them that Mary, who was not normally a clinging infant, had thoroughly enjoyed her moment of tragedy but could no longer resist the urge to play with Emily and Jane. Michael had gone with the men.
“Oh,” she said, looking genuinely dismayed when Lady Brill had given her news and told of their plans, “are we to lose you both so soon, then? I had counted on at least another two or three weeks.”
And yet, Samantha thought as she made her way upstairs soon after to give her maid instructions to begin packing for the next day’s journey, Jenny must feel some relief, too, to know that soon she was to have Gabriel and her children to herself again. Albert and Rosalie were to leave within the week.
In six years, Samantha had not envied her cousin’s married state. She had only pitied her, even though she had always been well aware that Jenny’s marriage had quickly developed from its disastrous beginning into a very deep love match. Today for the first time she felt—oh, not envy. No. Nor loneliness. Only—she could not put a word to what she felt.
But she did feel sorrow to know that this afternoon’s meeting with Mr. Wade was to be the last. It was very unlikely that she would ever see him again, even though it seemed that he had been to Highmoor several times. It would be just too unrealistic to expect that any future visit of his there would coincide with one of her own to Chalcote. And extremely unlikely that she would encounter him anywhere else.
This afternoon would be their final meeting, then. And she would not even be able to suggest that they correspond, despite the fact that they were friends. They were, after all, a single gentleman and a single lady, who had no ties of blood. They could not correspond. Some things were just too improper to be seriously considered.
She left early for her meeting with him. Yet she hurried toward her destination as if she were late. She hurried with eager footsteps and a heavy heart. She did not want the friendship to end. And she resented the fact that it must end just because social convention frowned heavily on any relationship between a man and a woman that did not lead them in due course to the altar.
It was very foolish.
She had no wish whatsoever to go to the altar with Mr. Wade.
But she had every wish in the world to have him as a friend.
She briefly wondered why.
She was very early at the meeting place. At least half an hour early, she estimated, though she had no watch with her. She was going to have a long wait. She did not want to wait. This afternoon was too precious. Their last together.
But as she approached the temple at the top of the hill, he stood up from the stone bench inside it and waited for her to come up to him. He was as unfashionable and as shabby as ever. He was smiling.
His smile warmed her more than the sun.
“You see?” she called gaily. “I have come all this distance and am hardly out of breath.”
“My heartiest congratulations,” he said.
5
SHE WAS ALL IN PINK, EXCEPT FOR HER STRAW BONNET, and as pretty as the proverbial picture. She was flushed and bright-eyed, and it was pleasant for a moment to imagine that she was a woman hurrying to meet her lover—him.
Pleasant and absurd.
“Since you are not at all breathless,” he said, “you will, of course, not need to rest here for a while. We will march onward to the rapids, shall we?”
“Ah,” she said, laughing. “How ungentlemanly you are. You have called my bluff.” She went past him and collapsed with exaggerated exhaustion onto the bench. “You are early.”
“And so are you,” he said. “Weather like this is not to be wasted, is it?” He sat down beside her, careful to leave a few inches of space between them.
“How long are you planning to be here at Highmoor?” she asked him. “Long? Or will you be leaving soon?”
She was beginning to feel the impropriety, he guessed. Perhaps she was finding it increasingly difficult to give reasonable excuses to her relatives for so many afternoon absences. She was hoping that he would leave soon so that she would not have to tell him their meetings must end. He felt infinitely sad.
“I will probably be staying for a while,” he said. “But—”
“I am leaving tomorrow,” she said hurriedly and breathlessly. Her face was turned toward the sky, but her eyes were tightly closed. “I have to return to London with my aunt. Her friend has been housebound by an accident; Aunt Aggy wants to be with her. We will be leaving early in the morning.”
He felt panic coil inside him. “The Season will be beginning soon enough,” he said. “I daresay you will be happy to be back in town.”
She had opened her eyes and was looking down the hill and across the fields and meadows below.
“Yes,” she said. “I have many friends there, and more will be arriving every week. And there is always something to do in town. Sir Albert and Lady Boyle will be leaving Chalcote within the week. Jenny and Gabriel will enjoy having their home to themselves again, though they would be far too polite to admit as much even to each other, I would think. Yes, it will be good to be back. I am looking forward to it.”
He was memorizing her profile—long-lashed blue eyes, straight little nose, sweetly curving lips, soft skin with a becoming blush of color on her cheeks, shining blond curls beneath the brim of her bonnet, the very feminine though not voluptuous curve of her bosom.
He wondered if he was being hopelessly fanciful, hopelessly romantic, to believe that he would always remember her, always love her.
She turned her head and smiled at him, and it pleased him to imagine that there was a certain bleakness in her eyes. “And you will be able to work without interruption when I am gone,” she said.
“Yes.” He dared not think of how he was going to feel after she had gone.
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�You really are no gentleman.” Her smile deepened. “You are supposed to assure me that I have been no bother at all and that you will miss me when I am gone.”
“You have been no bother at all,” he said. “I will miss you when you are gone.”
“And I will miss you,” she said. If there had been any wistfulness in her expression, it vanished instantly. “I have never met a landscape gardener before. I did not realize there were such people. I thought one merely sallied outdoors with a spade and a trowel and some flower seeds and set about creating one’s garden.”
He laughed.
“I thought follies grew up out of the soil—quite accidentally in the most picturesque places,” she said. “And in my naiveté, I thought that all lakes and waterfalls and views were created by nature. I did not know there were men who liked to follow in God’s footsteps, correcting his mistakes.”
He laughed again. “Is that what I am doing?” he asked her. “It sounds rather dangerous for my chances in the hereafter, does it not? Do you think God will be offended?”
She chuckled with him but failed to take her turn in the conversation. They were left, when the laughter ended, looking at each other, a mere few inches apart. For the first time there was an awkwardness between them, a need to fill the silence.
She filled it first. “Where are the rapids?” she asked.
He scrambled to his feet. “A good march away,” he said. “I hope your shoes are comfortable.” As well as dainty. She had abandoned her half boots today. Her unshod foot, he thought, would fit on the palm of his hand.
“If I get blisters,” she said, “I will have a few days of carriage travel in which to nurse them. What a horrid thought. I hate lengthy carriage journeys. One feels at the end of them that every bone in one’s body has been jostled into a different position. One is reluctant to peep into a looking glass for fear that one will be unrecognizable.” She laughed gaily.