Since it was not yet eight o’clock, the servants had not arrived from the village. Inside, the house was taking shape, but it was the garden which concerned Kate most. Cornelius Wright, the head gardener at Castonbury Park, was a tyrant who would not tolerate temporary labour in the grounds, and though he had promised three days in a row to send two of his lads round to start cutting back the bushes, as yet he had failed to do so. Not even Giles had been able to persuade the stubborn old man to do as Kate asked. She suspected the gardener resented the implied criticism of having let the place go in the first place.
Cursing the man under her breath as she made her way through the house making notes on her list, Kate wondered if Aunt Wilhelmina was at the root of Wright’s claim that the orangery must take precedence. As she opened the French doors to take a closer look at the wilderness outside, it was the smell which she noticed at first. Wood shavings. Then the sound, the regular whack of an axe. Casting a glance to the right, she saw immediately that the best part of the overgrown bushes had been pruned ruthlessly. The side path was now clear. Giles’s quiet word with Wright must have done the trick, after all. Smiling broadly, Kate made her way through the stone archway which bordered the rose garden, and over to the small huddle of outbuildings in the far corner.
Virgil had his back to her. A broad back, covered by a white lawn shirt. His coat and waistcoat hung on the door handle of the wash house. His movements were graceful, perfectly synchronised, his whole body caught up in perfect rhythm as he hefted the axe above his head, then swung it down to the branch, cutting through it neatly, sending chips of wood flying, before shifting on the balls of his feet readying for the next blow as his arms swung the axe high again. His movements were precise and ruthless. Each cut was made in one movement. When he was done with one branch, he moved forward to the next in line.
Kate was mesmerised. By the way the soft leather of his buckskins clung lovingly to his form, knees slightly bent, strong thighs, tightly rounded buttocks. By the way sweat made his shirt stick to his back. By the bunching of his powerful shoulders, the flexing ripple of the muscles on his arms. His movements were fluid and lethal. Each blow of axe on wood seemed to emanate not from his shoulders but from much lower, powered from the taut band of his abdomen. She recalled the first time she’d seen him at Maer Hall, the way he’d moved down the long gallery like a predator. Watching him now, she shivered, excitement tinged with fear. He was beautifully lethal.
He stopped suddenly mid-blow, sensing her presence, though she was still some yards away and had not moved. He looked straight at her, but for a moment she felt as if he were looking straight through her. His expression was remote and quite blank, frighteningly so. The mask a man would wear when he would show nothing, behind which he suffered torments.
‘You don’t need to do this,’ Kate said, taking a few tentative steps forward. Despite the fact that he quite clearly wanted to be alone, she was impelled towards him, fascinated.
‘You said last night that you were worried the gardener—Wright?—wouldn’t turn up.’
A flash of his impossibly white teeth, but it wasn’t a smile. Kate took another few steps. His shirt was open, showing an expanse of chest. Smooth, save for a few woodchips which stuck to his skin. He had pushed the sleeves of the shirt up. Sweat gave his forearms a sheen. In the bright sunlight, his skin seemed darker. She wanted to touch him. ‘Did you tell Giles what you were planning on doing? Surely he discouraged you?’
Virgil shrugged. ‘I knew how much it meant to you, to have the house ready, not to give your aunt the opportunity to criticise your efforts.’
This time his smile, though fleeting, was real enough. Encouraged, Kate covered the last few yards which separated them. Virgil smelled of wood sap and salty sweat. Without his modish coat and waistcoat, he seemed bigger. Not so much less civilised as more powerful. She looked around the small yard at the stack of wood, smaller branches and clippings which Virgil had placed ready to burn. ‘You must have started very early.’
‘I never sleep past dawn. What are you doing here so betimes?’
‘I wanted to catch you before you disappeared off with Giles again. I want to show you my school today.’
‘Though that task list of yours is still pages long?’
‘I know, but I was afraid you would leave before I had the chance to take you there, and it’s what you came here for, after all.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose it is,’ Virgil said, though he had almost forgotten. It was Kate who kept him here when he should have continued on his planned journey north. The thought of Kate’s kisses and Kate’s touch. Passion, so long dormant, had refused to go back into hibernation. He dreamt of her, and knowing how impossible it was only served to legitimise his wanting.
Eleven years ago, he had surrendered wanting. Eleven years ago, he had ceded all rights to the comfort of affection, to the deeper dangers of love. But since he could never love Kate, he could want her. He could have her because they could never mean anything to each other. It was the kind of logic which made perfect sense when she was standing beside him. He longed to touch her and so he did. Just her hand, that was all. ‘I will be leaving before your new relative arrives,’ he said, to remind himself of that fact, to remind himself that they could measure the time left to them in hours, if they were so inclined.
She caught his hand between hers. His right hand. The brand was on the inside of his forearm, above the wrist, where the skin was most tender. It was covered, usually, by his sleeve. As her eyes fell on it, he tried to conceal it with his left hand, but she was too quick.
‘B. VA. What does that mean?’
‘Booth. Virginia.’ Virgil tried to snatch his hand away, but Kate would not let go.
‘Booth. Was that the name of the plantation?’
‘And the owner.’ It had been his name, too, before he was sold, though he had never claimed it.
Kate’s face was ashen. ‘I didn’t know they branded you.’
‘They didn’t unless you were inclined to run away.’ He hated the mark. It reminded him of his guilt and filled him with shame. The brand kept the memories of that place, that day, etched fresh. Virgil broke free of Kate’s hold, turning away from her to roll down his sleeve. He didn’t want her to look at it. He didn’t want her to see what it told of him.
He did not want his wounds touched, nor his past discussed, he’d made that quite clear, but this time Kate could not let it be. Horrified by the brand, she took his arm again, pushed up the sleeve and touched it. The letters were indented in his skin, the skin itself puckered, a darker colour than the rest. It would have been a long time healing. She traced the shape of the letters with her fingertip.
Virgil stood stock-still. She sensed him, bunched tight, ready to spring, flee, repulse her, but he didn’t. Wanting only to heal, she bent over his arm and kissed him. Her tongue traced the letters. The skin felt tight over them, stretched, as if it was struggling to contain the darkness underneath. She kissed the brand softly, then kissed it again and again, little sucking kisses, as if she could draw out the poison which was embedded in those three vicious letters.
Still Virgil did not move, but she could feel his chest rising and falling more quickly. She ached with tenderness for him. Hot tears dropped from her lashes onto his skin. She licked them away, the salt of her tears mingling with the salt of Virgil’s sweat on her tongue. She kissed her way up his forearm to the crease of his elbow. Then she was caught, yanked close, and Virgil’s mouth descended on hers in a kiss which stole her breath away.
Polly was right. Sweat. Muscle. Skin. There was something about that combination. Raw man, strength which could snap her but which was instead channelled into holding her, at the same time drinking from her, extracting the passion which she hadn’t known was pent-up there, and fanning its flames. Virgil’s arms were tight around her. She was pressed hard against his chest, bowed back in his arms, her mouth ravaged. He was kissing her as she had never been kissed before, h
is tongue first duelling with hers, then thrusting, claiming her mouth for his own.
He tasted feral, his touch was fierce, making her own equally so. She tore at his shirt, her hands feverish on his back, her fingers clawing the linen free from his buckskins so that she could feel the flesh of his stomach, his chest. Skin. Heated skin. His heart beat wildly under her palm. Their kisses were wild. Long and deep, then urgent and quick, then harder, more penetrating. His manhood was hard against her thigh. His hands were like hers, feverish on her back, her bottom, cupping her into him. She rubbed herself against him and he moaned. Her nipples thrust against her chemise, hard and aching, though they were enclosed in silk and satin.
She had no idea how they came to be inside the outbuilding. She did not recall moving, and was only vaguely aware of the door closing behind her before her back slammed against it. It was gloomy inside, for the one window was thick with dust, but Kate could see enough. Virgil’s hands on the buttons of her jacket. His eyes, blazing down at her. His face set, focused, concentrated, entirely on her, as if she was all there was.
When he cupped her breasts through her chemise, she thought she would faint from the sensations he aroused. There was nothing soothing or gentle about what his touch did to her. She recognised nothing of the past, none of the mildly pleasant feelings which had faded into mild disappointment with Anthony. Virgil made her wild. His kisses stripped her of everything but a craving for more. When his touch was not enough, she tugged at the ribbons of her chemise herself to give him skin, pulled his head towards her breasts, wanting him to taste her, unable to bear waiting any longer to feel his lips on her. Her corset was dark blue today, edged with black lace. He barely seemed to notice as he freed her breasts, and she forgot to care when he took her nipple in his mouth and sucked.
She cried out. Her knees would have buckled under her if he had not supported her with the weight of his body against the door. He sucked, and his hand grazed her other nipple, tugging sparks of heat, sending lightning shards of pleasure directly to her sex. Her belly clenched. He sucked again. She sank her fingers into the leather of his buckskins, clutching the hard mounds of his buttocks. A trickle of perspiration ran down her back. She felt anxious. Tense. Waiting. She knew it would be worth waiting for.
She moaned when Virgil lifted his mouth from her breast, but then he claimed her lips again, and she sank into his kiss with a hunger that made him jerk against her.
Kate ran her hands up Virgil’s back, over his shirt. Bunched muscles, damp with sweat. She wanted to see him. Touch his skin. Feel his muscles. Taste his sweat. Some of the woodchips which had stuck to him were sticking to her now. Together they smelt of resin and sweat and something else tangy, musky. She tugged at his shirt, but he stepped just out of her reach.
‘No. Not me. I want to see you,’ Virgil muttered, tucking his shirt back into his breeches. Her jacket was hanging open. Her breasts were quite bare. Her nipples were dark. And hard. He dropped his gaze. She wore a white thing, a shift, but it was silk not cotton, and the ribbons which tied the low neckline were satin. Over it she wore stays, but they were stays about as far from ladylike as any he could imagine. Dark blue silk, bordered with black lace. It made him wonder what she wore underneath. Boots? Or stockings?
He covered her breast with his hand. She shuddered, and his shaft tightened in response. He dipped his head to kiss her. Slowly this time, lingeringly. She tasted so sweet. He wanted to taste her. All of her.
Sweet Jesus, how he wanted her. It frightened him. He wanted her too much for it to be explained away by turning points or crossroads or wanting what you could never have. He wanted her with a pureness of need which scared the hell out of him.
He would have stopped, but he did not have to, for Kate pulled herself free quite suddenly. ‘I have work to do,’ she said.
A few days ago he would have happily accepted this, but perversely, though he had every reason to welcome her calling a halt, though it was what he should have done, Virgil was hurt by her having done so. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘The morning will have run away from me if I do not make haste.’ She looked shocked, almost dazed, as she turned her back on him to right her clothing.
‘Are you afraid someone will see us?’ Virgil asked.
Kate whirled around at this. ‘No, though I ought to have been. I am afraid of what you do to me, if you must have it,’ she said shakily. ‘It frightens me. I don’t know what to do with all these feelings. I don’t understand them. I’ve never felt—not like this.... It’s too much.’
‘Never?’ He remembered then, she’d said something similar in the Dower House that day. ‘Kate, you cannot possibly have thought that you’re incapable, cold?’
‘I don’t know what I think! I don’t want to talk about it. I thought it was all in the past. I thought I was over it, I thought I had dealt with it, don’t you see?’
‘No, I don’t see. You’re not making sense.’
‘I know,’ Kate exclaimed wretchedly. ‘None of this makes sense. For God’s sake, Virgil, you are not the only one who is scarred.’
‘What do you mean?’ Virgil snapped, immediately defensive.
‘You think I didn’t guess why you tucked your shirt back so hastily? They whipped you, did they not? Do you think I am so shallow as to find such marks repellent? The very first night we met, I guessed you could never have been anything other than a renegade slave. I did not know about the branding, but I am not so naive as to be unaware of the punishments meted out for disobedience. They whipped you and you don’t wish me to see your scars.’
She thought him vain. Or ashamed. For a terrible moment, he’d thought she’d somehow guessed at the scars he bore inside him, guessed the truth of what the physical ones represented. She had not, how could she have, but his relief was short-lived. ‘What did you mean, I am not the only one? Was it that man…?’
‘You can unclench your fists, you are five years too late. Besides, you are well off the mark. Anthony never beat me.’
Kate forced the last button through her jacket and squared her shoulders. She had not answered his question. He could see from that defiant glare that she would not. She was going. It was what he wanted, even though it was not how he wanted it. It hurt. He should have remembered that. Desire and pain went hand in hand, how could he have forgotten?
‘I appreciate the effort you’ve made with the garden,’ Kate said in clipped tones, ‘but it was not necessary. I’m sure Wright will turn up.’ She turned to go, but it was not in her nature to be so ungracious. ‘I do appreciate it,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘It was very kind of you, but there’s really no need to do any more.’
‘I’ll finish.’ Virgil summoned what most people would take as a smile. ‘It will be one less thing for you to worry about.’
* * *
Kate left him to his chopping. She felt defeated and angry. Her body, so strung out with anticipation, throbbed in protest at the anticlimax. She understood now what Polly had been whispering about. She wished she didn’t. She’d rather not have known what she was missing.
At least her frustration was understandable. Why was she so angry? For the rest of the morning, Kate worked frantically in an effort to regain her frayed temper, ticking off task after task from her list. The force of her feelings astonished her. It was not just their intensity, she realised as she supervised the village women in the final cleaning and disposition of furniture, it was the fact that they existed in the first place.
All these years she had thought herself cold, had accepted Anthony’s judgement of her, and by implication the world’s condemnation. She had come to believe herself lacking, and as such responsible, at least in part, for what had happened to her. For the past five years, she’d carried that burden of guilt unnecessarily. It was that, she thought as she discussed the ordering of supplies with the new cook, which rankled most. That, and the fact that her family, and in particular Aunt Wilhelmina, had acted as if she deserved her fate.
>
Five years. Five whole years! And now it turned out that she was not cold, and that realisation turned everything she thought she knew about herself on its head. She had been foolish, there was no question of that. She wished she had had the confidence to act on her instincts earlier. But that didn’t alter the fact that she had also been unfairly judged, and had unfairly judged herself.
Lord, but she was furious! Virgil had unlocked a passionate nature she hadn’t known she possessed, but he’d also unwittingly let loose a torrent of pent-up emotions. Until today, if anyone had asked her—though they never had—she’d have sworn she was over it. Over Anthony, over the guilt, over the shame. She’d have said that it all meant nothing to her now, save that she was determined not to repeat her mistakes. Virgil had seen that for the lie it was. Right from the start, when she’d told him the bare bones of her history with Anthony, he’d heard the anger in her voice. Why had not she? Why had it tumbled out this morning as it had? Was she scarred? She had thought herself healed.
For the next few hours as she worked and fumed, she was at the same time acutely aware of Virgil out there in the garden. When the women stopped for the lunch which Kate had sent over from the Castonbury kitchens, he lit a bonfire on the lawn. She watched, calmer now, from the window of the bedroom which had been prepared for the house’s new mistress, as one by one her helpers joined him. They sat, Virgil and the village women, eating game pie in the autumn sunshine warmed by the blaze of the fire. He seemed just as much at his ease as he had in the servants’ hall. She could hear the women’s laughter through the half-open window. She recognised in it the hint of admiration. She could see, from the way they looked at him, that they were as fascinated by Virgil as she. She felt excluded. She could not possibly be jealous! Kate turned on her heel and headed for the linen cupboard. There were sheets to count.
The Lady Who Broke the Rules Page 10