by Deborah Hale
When he moved to claim a kiss, Felicity drew back. “There is still the matter of children, my dear. Don’t pretend you can shrug that one off so easily.”
“No, I cannot.” Thorn hadn’t consciously weighed his decision, but the problem had brooded in his heart. Now he knew what he must do. “I won’t deny wanting a family of my own, very much. I believe I have it in me to be a good father.”
Was that part of what made him care so much—the need to be the kind of father he had lacked?
“Yet, weighed against the prospect of losing you from my life…I fear even that falls short.”
Felicity stared at him, her eyes blinking furiously to dispel a faint but persistent mist in them. “W-what are you saying, Thorn?”
What else could he say? “I know these aren’t the only things that stand in the way of a future for us. But if we weigh each one as I have done, I believe the scale will always fall in our favor.”
He dropped to one knee. “Don’t let us part, Felicity…ever. Please say you’ll marry me.”
As the silence between them swelled like the heavy hush before a storm, Thorn watched fondness and faith war with doubt and distrust for possession of Felicity’s heart.
Why had he blurted it out like that—so bald and colorless? What self-respecting woman would accept such a proposal, let alone a woman who had reason to doubt the sincerity of any marriage offer?
At that moment, Thorn would have sold his birthright to borrow Weston St. Just’s glib tongue for five minutes. Just long enough to ask the most important question of his life with persuasive eloquence.
As he steeled his spirit in vain against the anguish of her rejection, Felicity gave him her answer.
The second most beautiful word in the English language.
“Perhaps.”
Chapter Fourteen
Perhaps.
A soft, seductive echo of her answer to Thorn’s unexpected proposal whispered through Felicity. Not just in her thoughts, but in her heart and along her veins, it made a kind of bewitching music.
Perhaps he had bewitched her.
She hadn’t meant to give him false encouragement. She’d intended to reply with a firm, unswayable no. But his words had sounded so reasonable, his voice so sincere. The glow of passion in his eyes and the tender ardor of his touch had worked an innocent magic over her. One that had proven too potent to resist.
If she had not exercised the waning strength of her will at the last moment, the answer that passed her lips might have been a thoroughly impossible yes.
The look on Thorn’s face was enough to prevent her from dashing his hopes.
“I’ll be content with perhaps.” He spoke softly and without haste, all the while making a determined effort to curb his smile. As if he feared any show of eagerness might change her mind.
Yet he could not keep himself from adding, “For now.”
He would kiss her, Felicity knew, if she gave him even a crumb of encouragement. Once he began, she might never summon up the resolve to stop him.
“The tea!” she cried. “We should have some before it grows cold.”
Thorn glanced toward the well-laden tray. “We haven’t exactly been taking regular nourishment since we left Bath, have we?”
“We must compensate for that.” Felicity tugged him toward the settee.
The familiar rituals of pouring and serving might give her a welcome opportunity to regather her tattered composure. It would be futile to discuss matters of consequence between bites of dainty sandwiches and sips of tea, when a weighty remark might be countered with an offer of cake or a query about how many lumps of sugar Thorn preferred.
Felicity craved the sanctuary of polite, meaningless table talk, during which she might sort out her new, uncertain feelings. She reached for the teapot as if it were a lifeline, and she were atoss in a stormy sea.
Her hand trembled a little as she poured the steaming amber liquid. “Cream or lemon?”
“I never took anything but cream for the longest time.” Thorn spoke with an intensity that scarcely befit such a commonplace remark.
Curiosity prompted Felicity to lift her gaze from the tea tray and meet the compelling look he focused upon her. He was talking about something more than the tea….
“Lately, I find the piquancy of lemon much more to my taste.”
A peculiar sensation crinkled along Felicity’s shoulders and up her neck.
“Lemon.” The flesh of her mouth tingled as if she had just bitten into that tart fruit. Employing a pair of tiny silver tongs, she lifted a slice from the bowl and deposited it in Thorn’s tea.
“Sugar or honey?” she asked. “We keep our own bees at Trentwell.”
“Trentwell honey?” Thorn seemed to savor a drop of it on his tongue. “That sounds too sweet to resist.”
Just like every word out of this man’s mouth, Felicity mused as she drizzled a measure of thick golden syrup into his cup. Whether remarking about the refreshments, beguiling her with stories of his family or urging her to make a permanent place for him in her life, Thorn Greenwood appealed to her in a way no other man ever had.
Their fingers brushed as he took the delicate cup and saucer she offered him.
How ridiculous to feel a tremor of suppressed excitement over a chaste, casual touch, when she’d taken the man into her bed on a regular basis for many weeks. But there it went, all the same—unbidden. Overpowering her carefully cultivated self-control in a way that both roused and frightened her.
An odd but potent fancy rose in her mind. Of she and Thorn sitting in this very room taking tea thirty years hence, with a large family gathered around them. The kind of family Felicity had never known but for which she’d secretly yearned her whole life.
She could almost hear their laughter and good-natured quarreling. It did not take much imagination to picture Thorn’s hair thinner on top and liberally frosted with silver. Nor the deeply etched lines that would fan out from the corners of his eyes whenever he smiled. She imagined herself a bit stouter with a wrinkle and a white hair to match every one of her husband’s.
Two things did not change in her wishful glimpse of the future. One was the steady glow of affection in Thorn’s eyes, and the other was the giddy spark of desire that leapt within her whenever they touched.
Was not the promise of such a future worth braving whatever obstacles might rear up between now and then? Like Trentwell honey and Thorn’s fond assurances, the notion was too sweet for Felicity to resist.
“Eat up.” She held a plate piled with tea sandwiches. “Then I’ll take you for a look around the rest of the house. We can discuss what we’ll say to Oliver and your sister when they return.”
What would she say to her nephew, Felicity wondered? In good conscience, could she advise him to resist the powerful lure of love, when she was on the verge of surrendering her own heart?
Thorn nodded toward the window where fat raindrops beat a muted tattoo against the glass, driven by a brisk southwest wind.
“I suppose the first thing we’ll say is, ‘Go change out of those wet clothes, the pair of you.”’ He glanced at Felicity. “I expected they’d be back long before this. Hadn’t we ought to send someone out to find them and fetch them home?”
Her thoughts had already turned in that direction. Before Thorn had finished speaking, she pulled on the bell cord to summon a footman from the servants’ hall.
If Oliver and Ivy looked suitably contrite and sufficiently in love, Felicity decided, she might intervene on their behalf. If Thorn agreed to let them undertake a proper courtship, away from tattling tongues in Bath, the young lovers might well be relieved to abandon this elopement nonsense in favor of a family wedding in a few months time.
A double wedding…perhaps?
He was going to have the devil’s own time looking properly severe when he reproved his scapegrace little sister and her beau, Thorn decided some time later while Felicity conducted him on a tour of the great house.
If not for the necessity of chasing down the young runaways, he and Felicity would now be going about their separate lives in Bath. He, nursing a broken heart and trying without success to forget her, wrongly convinced that she’d never cared twopence for him.
In one elegant salon, he caught sight of his reflection in a looking glass framed with gold filigree. Thorn scarcely recognized the fellow staring back at him with a daft-looking grin on his face.
“Don’t tell me you’re growing vain, Mr. Greenwood.” Felicity’s face appeared in the mirror with Thorn’s.
For an instant he gazed at the image of them together and savored the wonder of it. Felicity’s reflection cast him a flirtatious little smile.
“Like something out of a French fairy tale, isn’t it?” She nodded toward the ornate looking glass. “Do you suppose if we ask it who’s the fairest in the land, it will tell us?”
Thorn wrapped his arms around her and bestowed a kiss on the base of her neck. “It’s already showing me the fairest one.”
“I might accuse you of flattery.” She inclined her head toward his, nuzzling his hair with her cheek. “But I’ve never known you to exaggerate the truth.”
“Nor am I now.” He’d have been perfectly content to stand there for hours, sating his senses on the sight, sound, touch, scent and taste of her. In a state of complete…felicity.
No doubt about it, the woman was aptly named.
“Wasn’t there another magic mirror?” Felicity mused, raising her hand to rest against his cheek in a proprietary caress. “One that showed a person their heart’s dearest desire?”
“A remarkable object, this glass of yours.” Thorn gazed into it and beheld his heart’s dearest desire—the two of them, together. “It scores on both counts.”
Even better, he decided, for this was no magical illusion.
“Would you like to see the library next?” Felicity asked in a high, breathless tone that roused Thorn from his modest flight of fancy.
He steered his lips toward her ear, watching her face and his own as he whispered, “Is there any way I might persuade you to conduct me on a tour of…the bedchambers? A magnificent house like this must have some very fine ones.”
A delicious blush rose from her bosom, gathering intensity as it climbed toward her brow. “Mr. Greenwood, I see I have had a most devilish influence upon you.”
“Are you sorry?”
The lush sparkle of her eyes mocked the absurdity of his question. “Not in the least. There is nothing I like half so well as a dash of mischief in a respectable man. I only hope you do not repent it.”
“Never!” Thorn quite liked the look of himself hovering behind her in the glass, one eyebrow cocked at a roguish angle. For the first time in his life, he thought his unremarkable features almost handsome. “Now, about that inspection of the bedchambers…”
Before Felicity could answer, the sound of hurrying footsteps made them both start and draw a decorous distance apart.
“Excuse the intrusion, ma’am.” A sodden footman hung back in the doorway, clearly reluctant to drip water on the elaborate parquet floor.
Felicity beckoned him in. “You have something to report, I take it. Have Master Oliver and Miss Greenwood been fetched home?”
The servant shook his head. “Not a sign of ’em anywhere on the grounds, ma’am. We’ve searched high and low.”
“Everywhere?” Felicity demanded. “Are you certain? What about the dovecote?”
“First place we checked, ma’am.”
“The shell grotto? Lady Elizabeth’s pagoda?”
At the mention of each place, the footman nodded. “Master Oliver and the young lady weren’t at any of them, ma’am. Not the west tower, neither. Nor the dairy.”
“They must be somewhere. Did anyone see them come back to the house?”
“Dunstan thought of that, ma’am. Had the maids take a look about in their rooms when they laid the fires.”
“And…?”
“Neither of them was about, ma’am. But their bags was gone.”
Felicity looked ready to curse. “I left orders that Master Oliver was not to be given a horse.”
“He wasn’t, ma’am,” the footman assured her. “Nobody at the stables seen hide nor hair of ’em—just Master Rupert. He took a gig into the village a while ago.”
Thorn didn’t like the sound of that. “It’s not a very pleasant evening for a drive. Do you suppose Norbury helped Oliver and Ivy give us the slip?”
Felicity pondered the suggestion, then shook her head. “I can’t think why he would. He and Oliver have never had much use for one another.”
“The fellow was obviously lying about his injuries.” Thorn cursed himself for not getting to the bottom of that when he’d had the chance. “Perhaps that has something to do with it.”
“So it might.” Felicity caught her lower lip between her teeth, her brow furrowed.
After a moment’s consideration, she turned back to the footman, who’d been patiently awaiting her orders. “Go make some inquiries in the village. Find out if anyone’s seen Master Oliver and Miss Greenwood, then report back to me at once. If you find them, do what you can to detain them while you send word back here.”
“Very good, ma’am.” The footman headed off.
Thorn opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get the words out, Felicity called after the young man, “Make sure you change into dry clothes before you go anywhere.”
The lad glanced back, acknowledging his mistress’s order with a self-conscious nod before continuing on his way.
Felicity made a wry face as she caught Thorn’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. “If I’m not careful, you’ll soon have me coddling all my servants.”
“It seems we’ve each been having our own influence upon the other.”
“Perhaps so.” Her teasing look turned earnest. “Only, don’t expect to change me altogether, my dear. I’m a selfish creature at heart, and I mean to keep it that way.”
Thorn considered reminding her that there was a difference between selfish and self-protective, but decided against it. He remembered how angry she’d become the last time he’d shown a particular insight into her character.
It was enough for him to recognize the difference and act upon it. Once Felicity understood that she could always depend upon him to guard her happiness, she would be able to relax her own vigilance. Then she’d become the warm, winning woman he had so often glimpsed behind her defences.
He shrugged. “Neither must you believe you can turn me into a charming rogue.”
“Why would I want to commit any such folly?”
Though she spoke in a jesting tone, Felicity’s voice also carried a sweet ring of sincerity. The transparent affection in her gaze made him feel as if he’d suddenly grown several inches in stature.
Could it be that in his modest, responsible way, he was the perfect partner for her?
Thorn and Felicity had just finished the second course of their dinner when the footman returned from the village. The look on the lad’s face told Felicity he had no good news to report.
“Out with it, man. They’ve gone, haven’t they?” Frustration sharpened her voice. She’d been looking forward to a pleasant interlude at Trentwell with Thorn, once they’d chastened Oliver and Ivy.
The footman gave a reluctant nod. “They had been at the Fox and Crow, ma’am. I only missed ’em by an hour. The innkeeper said they arrived on foot, then a while later Master Rupert called to collect them.”
Thorn bolted the last mouthful of wine from the bottom of his cup. “Did the innkeeper know which way they were headed?”
“No, sir. He thought Master Rupert might be fetching them back to Trentwell.”
Under her breath, Felicity muttered, “Heaven forbid that young scoundrel should ever do anything to oblige me.”
“Pardon, ma’am?”
She waved him away. “That will be all, thank you.”
As the footman with
drew, Felicity turned to Thorn. “A slippery pair of fish, aren’t they? I should have sent the servants out to round them up the moment we arrived. It never occurred to me they might steal off to the village on foot, and I didn’t—”
When she hesitated, Thorn shot her a questioning glance.
Felicity stared down at her lap as she folded and unfolded her napkin. “I didn’t…want to part from you any sooner than I had to.”
When she finally gathered the courage to look Thorn in the face, she saw pleasure and chagrin vying for control of his features. “That makes two of us. I could have searched the grounds for Ivy as soon as I found out she and Armitage were here. Should have, obviously.”
If, in the years to come, Ivy suffered any regrets about her elopement, Thorn would hold himself responsible, because he’d followed his own inclinations rather than his brotherly duty. Felicity had no doubt of it.
“What shall we do now?” she motioned for the serving maid to remove their plates.
Thorn held his tongue until the maid had replaced their empty dishes with a fresh course and gone below stairs again.
“What else can we do but take up the chase? The circumstances between you and I may be altered, but that does not make this elopement of Ivy and Oliver’s any less a mistake.”
He was right, of course, Felicity realized as she nibbled at her fillet of turbot with a greatly reduced appetite. Their errand had lost some of its urgency for her, since she’d almost made up her mind to accept Thorn’s proposal.
Still, she must not forget her nephew’s future happiness.
“If you’d rather stay here at Trentwell,” Thorn offered, “while I carry on the chase…?”
His suggestion tempted Felicity.
Sleeping in her own bed. Taking regular meals from her own good kitchen. Not cooped up inside a bumping, rattling carriage…
…with Thorn.
Somehow, that consideration made all the bother seem positively attractive.
Besides, if she stayed behind at Trentwell, filled to the rafters with reminders of how her first marriage had gone wrong, her usual wariness might reassert itself. She might fall prey to all manner of doubts she didn’t want to entertain.