She looked down to discover that at some point he’d taken hold of them in his own.
He cleared his throat. ‘At least the fire is beginning to put out a little heat now, along with the smoke.’
Harriet could not believe her ears. He’d led her to believe he was about to propose, but now all he could talk about was the smoking fire.
‘I...we...that is...’ He took a deep breath. And she suddenly perceived he was as nervous as she was. ‘Hang it, you know we should not really be alone like this.’
‘No.’ She looked up at him shyly. ‘It is highly improper.’
Whatever he saw in her face must have reassured him, for he grinned.
‘What I am about to do next is even more improper,’ he said. ‘At least, people would say so, if they ever found out, but you were the one to point out that it was something I should have done already.’
She could tell from the burning look in his eyes that he was going to kiss her. That was what he meant. She supposed a properly brought-up young lady should have protested. Laid her hand upon his chest as he loomed closer, as though to prevent him having his way.
But Harriet hadn’t been ‘properly’ brought up. So she clung on to his hands very tightly and lifted her face to make it easier for him to gain access to her lips.
She’d expected him to kiss her the way he’d kissed her in the park, since he’d told her he wanted to find out if it really had been as splendid as he’d thought. But instead, he gently touched his lips to hers, with what felt almost like reverence.
And yet that scarcely-there brush of his mouth sent rivers of pleasure cascading through her body all the same. And made her utter a little hum of pleasure.
‘Zeus was right, wasn’t he?’ he said, breaking off to gaze down into her face. ‘You are softening towards me.’
‘If I wasn’t, I’d have reached for the poker long before this,’ she said, looping her arms round his neck. ‘And brained you with it.’
His breath hitched. He leaned in and kissed her again, this time with more confidence, and for considerably longer. By the time he broke off, they were both breathing heavily and Harriet’s heart was pounding thickly, making her blood course hotly through her veins.
‘I have been longing to do that ever since that morning in the park. I have dreamed of your lips. Your hair,’ he said, reaching up one hand to stroke an errant strand that had come untucked from its pins. ‘The feel of you...’ he breathed, sliding one arm round her waist and pulling her closer.
‘It wasn’t just the park, though, was it? Or the blow to the head, or—’
He stopped her mouth with another kiss. Pulled her tight to his body, so that they were melded together from breast to knee.
‘It was you, Harriet...’ he breathed. ‘The magic all came from you. How did I get to be so lucky?’ He gazed down at her as though he’d never seen anything quite so lovely.
‘You mean, if you hadn’t fallen off that horse at my feet...’
‘No. That was just how we met. I meant that I cannot believe I have been lucky enough to be here, with you in my arms like this, after doing everything wrong. I should have courted you, instead of teasing and tormenting you. Only...’
‘Only what?’
‘It was too important, that was what it was,’ he said reflectively. ‘If you hadn’t liked me as much as I liked you, to start with, then it would have hurt. Very much.’
‘Much safer to test the waters, first?’
‘Something like that. God, what a coward I am.’
‘No. Not you,’ she said, twirling a strand of his hair between her fingers. ‘You are just...a bit like me, I think. And that is why I understand the way you’ve behaved, better than another woman would. You have never had anyone love you very much, have you? Which has left you feeling as if perhaps you are not very lovable.’
He started. ‘You feel the same way?’
She pressed her lips together in a rueful way. ‘Most girls, I have observed, seem to find it easy to let men know when advances would be welcome. They have the confidence to believe that it is worthwhile giving their favourite a hint, you see. Only I always thought that if I did something like that, I would just be making a fool of myself...’
‘We are a matched pair, are we not?’ He gripped her hands again, as though what he was about to say was really important. ‘I felt that, you know, right from the start. As though I recognised you, somehow. Does that sound very foolish?’
She shook her head. Nothing he was saying sounded foolish to her eager ears.
‘I sometimes felt as though you saw me as well. The real me. The one who hides beneath all the layers of artifice and jocularity. The only other person who has ever appeared to see anything of value in me has been Zeus. It is largely because he believed in me at a time when I was at my most vulnerable that I forgive him so much else... Lord, listen to me! These are not exactly words of courtship, are they?’
‘Actually, I feel as though they are,’ she said. ‘Because you are allowing me to see your very deepest self. The part of you that you conceal from everyone else.’
‘I never want to be anything but totally honest with you, Harriet. I wish I had been from the start. That I’d laid my feelings bare and courted you properly.’
‘I probably wouldn’t have believed you were in earnest, anyway. I’m not exactly the kind of girl men fall in love with at first sight, am I?’
‘Who has made you feel like that,’ he said indignantly. ‘Your aunt?’
She shook her head.
‘Your uncle? Hauling you out of the drawing room in front of everyone the way he did and locking you in your room...’
‘No, no, I don’t care what he thinks of me.’
‘Hmmph,’ he said. ‘So if it wasn’t them, then who was it? Your mother? That’s it, isn’t it? I have often wondered why she isn’t the one bringing you out.’
‘It isn’t because she thinks I’m not marriageable. It’s more because—oh, dear, this isn’t very easy to explain. Especially as for years and years I thought she simply didn’t care about me at all.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Well, she has some very...er...modern ideas about educating females, apparently. But also, well, to be perfectly frank, she is one of the most self-absorbed people you are ever likely to meet. And Papa is a dear, but...’
‘But?’
‘Well, I’m not a boy.’
‘I had noticed,’ he said with a wicked grin. ‘And I thank God for it.’
She blushed, but persisted. ‘Yes, but you see, Papa has always had to spend a lot of time with my oldest brother, Charles.’
‘His heir,’ he said, with a tinge of bitterness.
‘Yes, his heir.’
‘And they spend all day, riding round the estates. So that he can teach him all about the land he will one day have to manage.’
‘Yes. That’s only natural.’ She looked up into his face with concern.
‘Oh, yes, it’s natural, right enough. One day Charles will have to fill your father’s shoes. And should something happen to him, he still has the magnificent George ready to take up the reins.’
‘And also, there is William. He takes after Mama in his mania for the natural sciences. Papa is proud of him for being so intrepid—he’s off in South America, hunting for plants. And Mama dotes on him, too, because of all the fascinating things he writes to her about from his travels.’
‘Ah. Your father has some pride in his youngest son, does he?’
‘Did not yours?’ she asked, finally understanding the source of his bitterness as they were discussing her older brothers.
‘No. I told you, did I not, that I was always regarded as the runt of the litter.’
‘At least I was just...merely a girl,’ said Harriet wi
th feeling. ‘And an afterthought. I always thought nobody quite knew what to do with me, but they never made me feel...’
‘Oh, I think they did, though, didn’t they? That is why, at bottom, we understand each other so well.’
‘Oh, oh...’ She pulled up short. ‘I cannot keep calling you Lord Becconsall. And I absolutely will not call you Ulysses.’
He grinned. ‘My name is Jack. When we are making love, you can call me that.’
‘Oh, Jack.’ She sighed, raising her face hopefully.
And, since he wasn’t a stupid man, he did exactly as she hoped. He kissed her, long and thoroughly.
And somehow, whilst doing so, he managed to direct both of them to the sofa and get them both sitting down. And then almost lying down, with him half over her. And her hands found their way under his waistcoat. And his hands traced the shape of her legs through her thin cotton gown.
‘We should stop this,’ said Jack, rearing back and sucking in a ragged breath.
‘Must we? I have never felt like this before. Never so good.’
‘Yes, I know, but we shouldn’t. Not before we are married.’
‘Oh. Are we going to be married then?’
‘Yes. Definitely.’
‘But I thought you didn’t want to get married.’
‘I didn’t. Not until I met you, anyway,’ he growled.
‘Don’t you think you should ask me, then?’
‘No. If I’m going to do the thing correctly, the person I should ask is your father.’
She thumped him.
He laughed.
And then he kissed her some more.
‘Mmm...no...’ he breathed. ‘Really must stop. I was about to say something important when you distracted me.’
‘I distracted you? I didn’t do anything!’
‘Yes, you did. You looked at me all dewy-eyed and breathed my name as though it was a prayer.’
It had felt like one.
‘No, now, don’t start looking at me like that again,’ he said. ‘I have remembered, I was going to make all sorts of promises, about mending my ways and such.’
‘Oh. Do you have to?’ She ran one finger round his top waistcoat button. Pushed at it, experimentally. And smiled when it popped through the buttonhole.
‘Yes, I do,’ he said, catching hold of her hand. ‘And it isn’t going to help if you start undressing me.’
‘Oh, very well,’ she said, lying back and raising both arms above her head, as though in surrender.
‘You...’ His eyes flicked down over her body, to where their legs were tangled together in a muddle of holland covers. ‘Now, see here, Harriet, I mean to do better with my life than I have done of late. I told you about my father not sparing me a thought, didn’t I? Well, what I didn’t tell you was that he wept when he knew it was I who would take his title and not one of my far more magnificent brothers.’
‘Oh, Jack!’ She stopped trying to be seductive. Reached up and laid one palm against his cheek. ‘How horrid for you.’
‘Yes, well...’ He shifted position slightly. So that she could sit up. Which she did.
‘And how very stupid of him,’ she continued.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, for heaven’s sake, you’d been a major in the army. There is a huge amount of work to do, running a brigade. Or so George is always saying. Mountains of paperwork, as well as handling the men under your command. And Papa is always telling him that there’s hardly any better training for running a large estate.’
‘No wonder I love you,’ he breathed. ‘But,’ he said, his expression turning serious, ‘it wasn’t just him. The others, the trustees and so forth, advised me to come to Town and find a wife. As if they thought all I was good for was passing on the name to the next generation.’
‘Then—oh! That’s why you behaved so badly that even Aunt Susan warned me that you weren’t good marriage material.’
‘Did she? And yet you still lit up like a candle whenever I walked into the room.’
‘Well,’ she said, darting him a look from under her eyelashes, ‘you’d already kissed me, hadn’t you? So nothing anyone could say could influence the way you made me feel.’
His face fell again. ‘Are you hinting that I should not have been influenced by what the trustees said? That I should have stayed in Shropshire and made everyone take me seriously, rather than coming to London and living down to their expectations of me?’
‘No, of course not, I never meant—’
‘It wasn’t just that, you know. It was the memories that leapt out at me from behind every bush, every damn locked door...’ He hung his head, his eyes briefly closed. ‘I felt like a small, scared boy too often for my peace of mind.’
‘Do you want to stay in London then, after we’re married?’
He lifted his head, a grin spreading slowly across his face.
‘I haven’t asked you yet, you forward wench.’
‘Yes, but you will do. Eventually,’ she said drily. ‘So, if you want to carry on living in London, living down to everyone’s expectations, I shan’t mind,’ she said stoically.
‘That’s very noble of you, but, no. That is what I have been trying to tell you. It is high time I went and claimed my estates. Started running them the way I wish. Unless...do you prefer to stay in Town?’ She could see him struggling to be generous as he made the offer. ‘I know a lot of ladies like all the social whirl. The balls and picnics and such.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I thought I would love all that sort of thing. Aunt Susan and Kitty made it sound so exciting. But I wasn’t here long before I discovered that I much prefer the country, Jack. Which you know, really, deep down, don’t you? Else why would I have been galloping about the park, at dawn, when it isn’t the done thing?’
He smiled at her with evident relief.
‘And while we are talking about going to your estates, and laying claim to them, may I make a suggestion?’
‘Of course!’ His eyes flew wide as though surprised. ‘I don’t want you to feel you have to tiptoe round me.’
She smiled. He clearly wasn’t going to be the kind of husband who would stop her saying, or doing, whatever she wished.
‘Well, when you eventually get round to going to visit my father and asking permission to pay your addresses to me...’
He chuckled.
‘...why don’t you ask him to visit your estates with you and give his advice? He lives and breathes land management. And...actually, he is very well respected in certain farming circles.’
‘So...if I were to get him on my side, you mean, then I won’t have any more trouble with my steward?’
She nodded, hoping he wouldn’t take offence at her suggestion.
He looked thoughtful. ‘Do you think he would be willing to do that? And...if he did, would he cut up rough if I were to ignore everything he said and did it my own way?’
‘I think he would be delighted to have a son-in-law who had a mind of his own. He copes splendidly with Mama, after all, who very rarely agrees with anyone. But, seriously, he would also love to go exploring round someone else’s estates and give them the benefit of his own opinion. He does it all the time. The only thing is...’
‘Mmm?’
‘Well, if he enjoys himself too much, we might never get rid of him. I have been the one to keep Stone Court running smoothly, you see, because Mama is simply not interested.’
‘So he does value you, then?’
‘He certainly values my housekeeping skills. But the moment Charles marries and brings another woman in to take over my duties, he will be perfectly happy to never see me again.’
Jack frowned and looked as though he was about to say something derogatory about her father. But then he bit it
back. ‘Then I fervently hope Charles marries very soon, so that I may have you, and your excellent housewifely skills, all to myself.’
‘That was exactly the right thing to say,’ she said. ‘You clever, clever man.’
‘And do I deserve a reward?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. And took his dear face between her hands and kissed him, just to prove she could understand what he wanted of her as cleverly as he’d just understood her need for him not to criticise Papa.
She was just starting to gently subside beneath the pressure of his answering kiss when the door flew open, causing them to spring guiltily apart. In the doorway stood her mother, the strings of her bonnet untied and half the buttons of her coat undone.
‘Harriet,’ she said. ‘Do you know where my set of Napier’s bones may be? I know I had them in my trunk when I came to Town, but in the move from your Aunt Susan’s house they seem to have gone astray.’
At her side, Jack sat frozen, as though, if he kept still enough, his presence might go unnoticed.
‘And I must have them,’ Mama was complaining. ‘The calculations Mr Swann put up on the blackboard tonight made no sense whatever. I need to go over them again, myself.’
‘I placed them in the top drawer of your desk when I unpacked, Mama,’ said Harriet, surreptitiously encouraging her skirts, which seemed to have risen up her legs, back to their proper place.
‘Whatever did you put them there for?’
‘Well, I thought you might need them.’
‘Then you should have placed them on top of my desk, not hidden them away in a drawer. Honestly, Harriet, I despair of you sometimes, I really do.’ Then she turned and flounced out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Jack made a low growling noise. ‘Did she even notice that I was here?’
‘Probably not. She has just come in from some talk or other that clearly has her all fired up.’
‘I couldn’t really believe it when you said they wouldn’t miss you, but that...’ he pointed to the door through which Mama had just gone. ‘...that does it. Even if I hadn’t decided to make an honest woman of you, I’d have to marry you now.’
‘Because my mother found us together in a compromising position?’
The Major Meets His Match Page 22