by Edith Layton
All too soon, he drew back, but only his head, tilting it away from her as he considered her. Every move he made was languid, dreamlike, easy, as he seemed to be considering her in a new, strangely exciting way. His breath was as soft as hers was. There was a new tenseness in his body, a new consideration in his hooded eyes. They regarded each other for several moments. His was the first move—he slowly lowered his head and brushed her lips with his. She turned her mouth blindly to his, dreaming, not wanting to be awakened.
His mouth opened against her searching lips. It tasted of new, bittersweet liquors beyond those he’d obviously had to drink. She squirmed against him, trying to get closer, and opened her mouth to drink his strange, liquid fire so it could course through her veins, turning her heart upside down, tingling in all her dark, forbidden places, making her burn everywhere.
His hand came to her breast, and she gasped against his mouth. His other hand came behind her head to cup it and hold her closer for his searching kiss, and she sighed into his mouth. She dared to put her hand on his chest again and found his robe had opened. She felt the soft hair on the hard wall of his chest and gasped again, but found she had no more breath, and her heart was beating too fast for her to draw another. She had to drink all her air from his mouth—she found she could live without breathing, without thinking, without anything but this enormous delicious ache of wanting—wanting him and having him so close. She had not believed anything in the world could be so wonderful.
He drowned in the dark joy of her. He fumbled at his belt and tugged it apart to let his robe fall open so he could feel the fullness of her body against all of his burning skin. He pressed against her; he writhed against her so he could feel every part of her. Her hair was silk in his hand; her breast was a wonder. His hands traced warm, incredibly shaped contours; he couldn’t believe what he felt, so he stopped thinking and let himself feel only the heat and excitement and delight of it all. Her mouth was darkest wine, her neck sheer satin. The skin at her shoulder tasted sweet and cool and firm beneath his wandering mouth, the tip of her breast, beyond description. He had to pause for breath to go on. She was his entirely delicious Della.
…Della.
Nearly his sister.
Della—his former master’s daughter—with all that implied.
Della! he thought, remembering.
He released her. His hand left her breast as though burned and moved to cover his own heart. Then he hastily drew his robe closed. He took his other hand from her hair and began to rake his own in consternation.
“By God! I’m sorry, Della,” he said on a quick inhalation. “I’m sorry. The liquor—the lateness, the night—I don’t know what I was thinking of. I’m sorry. I never meant to… Forgive me.”
She swayed. Then she straightened herself and stood very still, because she couldn’t believe what had happened, or what was happening now. She felt as though he’d wrenched more than himself away from her—she felt incomplete. She put her hand to her mouth; it was still damp from his.
“Forgive me,” he said.
“For what?” she said—and prayed.
“For…”—he shrugged, confused and dismayed—”for…well,” he said, half laughing, “if you don’t know, then I suppose it’s just as well, isn’t it? I mean, if you…” He caught himself. His voice grew serious. “I won’t try to pass it off as a joke. I’m sorry. I drank too much. I’m half dead with lack of sleep. And you are—as I’ve just thoroughly discovered—quite a woman, even though you’re my little Della. I hadn’t realized. But the feel of you—I’m sorry I forgot my responsibility to you. I won’t say it’s because of what I was or what I’m not. It’s because I am a man. I’m sorry I lost my—sense of place. Do you understand?”
And what if she said no? she thought. What if she said I wanted you, too, and the only thing I understand is that I still want you? Would he ever be able to look her in the eye again? Could it have been only the liquor and the sleeplessness for him? Men were supposed to be different. She knew about the women he’d known in the past. Was it only that for him? A brushing of bodies—any body in the night—and too bad it was his “little” Della’s? Too much liquor and I’m sorry? What if she made him face it? Consider it? But what if it was only that? Could she face him in the morning? Morning was coming quickly.
She drew her robe around herself like a shroud.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I understand.” And the tragedy of it for her was that she did.
He walked her to the stairs and up them, then accompanied her down the corridor to her door. He seemed to want to say something important, but all he said was “Good night.” All she could do was nod. When the door closed, shutting out his somber face, she turned and lay her back against it for long minutes, trying to breathe trying to think, trying to ride the waves of burning shame and keep her head above them so she could plan what to do next.
Then she straightened. Quickly, quietly, so as not to wake her maid, sleeping in the trundle bed, she walked to the wardrobe. Then she went to the chest near her bed. She began to take out her belongings and neatly, rapidly, started to pack her traveling bags.
*
Jared paced away what was left of the night, his mental—and physical—excitation so painful that he couldn’t even lie down. As soon as dawn lightened the sky, he dressed and left the house at a run and awakened a sleepy stableboy to saddle a horse for him. He rode off into the growing morning light and stopped only when the sun was high above him and he felt the gelding falter beneath him; he realized he’d almost ridden him into the ground. He tethered the horse to a tree in a lush pasture as an apology, and then headed off down a nearby lane at a brisk clip. But he couldn’t walk fast enough to escape his thoughts.
It hadn’t been the liquor—or the night—or sleeplessness or confusion. It had been natural, undeniable, sure as the coming of the dawn. The moment he had touched her, his desire had flared, rampant. He still ached for her, as if no time at all had passed since he’d held her close. He’d never forget the way she fit into his arms, the scent and taste of her. He had known women before, but he’d never felt anything like he had last night. It hadn’t been just her skin and eyes and face and figure that stunned him. Those were heady enough, but it had been the fact that he’d never stopped knowing that it was Della he held and touched and tasted and yearned for more of. His Della!
But he was supposed to protect her! He groaned aloud. Could it be that the wretched little bond-boy that lurked in his dreams had become a monster, stepping out of his miserable past to prove that now that he was a nobleman, he could have everything? Or had it begun before that?
When had he first found jet hair and blue eyes so beguiling? When had he known that just the touch of that small hand would excite him more than the bodies of all the available females in this world or the new one? When had he begun to lust after her? Exactly when had he started to betray his master’s trust?
Maybe a long time ago. Maybe he’d never let himself know it because he’d never dared betray his master until he’d gained his own riches. Whenever it had begun, would he ever be able to look at her again without that longing? Should he? He burned for her. But what of his dream?
He walked on, unseeing, but he was seen. In time, he became aware of other people passing him on the road, on foot or in carts, and still others in the fields around him. He realized they were his people, workers on his estate, from the way they paused at whatever they were doing and bowed or touched their hats or foreheads when they saw him. He smiled back at them, not knowing whether he was supposed to wave or pause to talk. Justin would know, he thought bitterly. Justin was the lord here. He himself was just a curiosity, recognized because he looked so much like the earl of Alveston they’d always known.
“M’lord,” one man said, ducking his head in greeting as he trudged past Jared, going in the other direction. He wore a rumpled, floppy hat and a countryman’s smock and carried a hoe over one shoulder. A miniature of the man,
dressed in the same baggy, dun-colored clothing, clung to his other hand and stared up at Jared, wide-eyed.
“Good morning…Robert, is it?” Jared asked, thinking he remembered the fellow’s name from when he’d first toured the estate with Justin.
“Close enough, sir. ’Tis Richard, and this be me eldest boy, John. Make yer bow to the new lord, lad,” he said, prodding his son.
The boy made an awkward bow, Jared somehow summoned a smile, and tenants and earl walked on in their own direction.
Lucky man, Jared thought, looking after them. Lucky boy. They had a roof over their heads, employment, food in the larder, and each other—and freedom. They were tied to the land, with little hope of doing more than their ancestors had done here, but their ancestors had been little more than slaves, while they were free. That made all the difference. They had never felt the sting of a master’s whip or the shame of knowing they didn’t own even their own skins. They’d never known the terrible moment of considering death as the only way to cheat their master and failing to seek it because the soul cried out for life even though the mind rejected it. And unlike their new master, they knew where they belonged. Lucky people, Jared thought.
He strode on until he realized he’d come to a rise that overlooked the hall. He finally paused at the crest of the little hill and took a long, shuddering breath, realizing his life now was a thing from which he couldn’t ride or run or walk away.
He stared down at his heritage. The sight of it awed him as much now as it had the first time he’d seen it as a grown man. He saw the beauty and grace of the hall, the richness of it, the enormity of it—and saw it was more than he’d ever remembered it being. It was more than he’d remembered in those nights when, as a boy, he’d lain by himself, shivering and bleeding, consoling himself by conjuring up visions of his lost home, recalling it as a beautiful dream. Sometimes he’d thought it had been only that. Sometimes, in the depths of his misery, he’d started to believe he was mad to think he’d ever been an earl. Sometimes, he thought now, closing his eyes in pain, he still thought so.
He’d never really been happy, or allowed himself to be, since the night he’d left here. But he’d been a child then, a child who, to survive, couldn’t let himself grieve for his parents. Whatever else he’d felt, he’d never felt complete since. Even though his days with Alfred and Della had almost masked his unhappiness, even then he’d been working toward his goal of returning here. Now he was here. And so what? Where was the completion? Where was the joy?
Would he ever feel worthy of this place? Of what was supposed to be his place?
Fiona accepted him. She was a lady, the born consort of the true earl of Alveston. With her, his doubts would cease—surely they would. She’d never doubted him, not for a minute. But neither had Della—and Della had known him as a beaten boy; she’d watched her father buy him. Jared’s hands closed to fists, remembering it.
What was it he wanted? To be happy, of course, to be complete. To belong somewhere, certainly. To not hurt his brother anymore, definitely. To do the right thing for Della, of course—of course. And Fiona?
He lifted his face to the sky, but kept his eyes closed because he knew the answer would have to come from within. It would have to be the right one this time; he couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes.
In the dark, he finally saw that he had one chance for true happiness and that he was no saint, because he wanted that above all else. He thought long and hard. Then he stopped thinking and searched his heart, because it occurred to him that he’d done enough thinking; his heart would show him the rest of the way.
It seemed to him, at the last, that he couldn’t be false to himself, that Shakespeare was right: if he was true to himself, he couldn’t be false to others. If he had the courage to do something worthwhile, and not just for himself, it was just possible that he might feel worthwhile himself. That would be the best thing for everyone, in the long run. Yes, he thought, opening his eyes. Yes.
Jared walked back to his horse and then began the long ride back to the hall. He had left in a flurry, but he rode back slowly. There was no need to hurry anymore.
*
“Something happened,” Justin said as he strode into the library, where Della sat waiting for Jared. Bright sunlight illuminated the room and cast stark shadows on the truths she’d been thinking of as she’d waited.
“You weren’t at breakfast or at lunch,” Justin said, frowning. “I finally decided to stop waiting and hunt you down. You’re spending the day alone here. Why? Something has happened, hasn’t it?”
She didn’t bother to deny it, but she kept her head down, as though she were studying her nails. “Where’s Jared?” she asked.
“Riding all day, since dawn. He’ll bring back that horse an inch shorter if he keeps it up. What happened?” he persisted.
She brushed away the question as though it were a gnat in front of her face and shook her head, not trusting her voice.
“Something between you and Jared?” he asked. “A dispute? Did it have anything to do with me?”
“You men,” she said on a sob of a laugh. “You all think the world moves around you, don’t you? Well, I guess it does. But no it was not about you. Not me, either. It’s not important, that’s what’s important about it—oh, pay no mind to me. I’m deathly tired and not making any sense.”
“Too much sense, I think,” he said, coming to stand beside her chair. “Della?”
She looked into his strong, handsome face, so like his brother’s, so unlike it, then looked away before he saw more in her own face.
He saw enough. She wore blue, and it was too apt a color for her today. Her black curls emphasized how ashen her skin was, and her blue eyes were shadowed. Her shapely lips, made for smiles, were held in a quavering line. She was always laughing, vivacious, vivid. Today, she didn’t look her best, yet it added a new dimension to her, making her less beautiful and more lovely. She looked so tragically lost she broke his heart.
“I don’t know what’s happened,” he said carefully, “and you obviously don’t want to tell me. But at least…is it…Lord! Have they announced their engagement already?”
He didn’t say whom he was talking about, but he didn’t have to. Obviously they thought only of the same two people. She felt a surge of sympathy for him, as well as for herself. They were like two shadows thrown by others. What would he do if he knew she wasn’t grieving because Jared had announced his engagement to another, but because he’d had too much to drink and had begun to make love to her? And not even because of that, but because he’d stopped making love to her—and then recoiled. It was even more terrible to think about Justin’s reaction to that than her own sorrow. But it woke her up. She was right. She couldn’t swim in such deep waters. She had to leave this place, and fast.
“No,” she said, “nothing like that.”
“If you won’t tell me, at least tell me if there is anything I can do.”
“No,” she said and managed a smile. “Really. Nothing, thank you. It’s all done. I—I sent word to my father up north. I’m leaving to join him now.”
“You’re joining him?” Justin echoed. “But I thought you didn’t want to visit his family.”
“No, I don’t, and I won’t. I’m meeting him in London. I’m going home.”
He stared. Then he shook his head. “No,” he said, “that I did not expect. Well, but who says life has to be what I expected?” he murmured as if to himself. “Especially since nothing has been as expected in the past weeks—nothing. You two arrived, and nothing’s been the same since, has it? Della,” he said, suddenly decisive, “we have to talk.”
“I thought we were.”
“No,” he said with a lopsided smile so like Jared’s that she wanted to look away even as she gazed at it hopelessly. “I came to offer comfort. I’m staying to offer more. Look, Della, this is a thing I’ve hinted at and promised to say sometime in the future, but the future has a way of arriving quickly th
ese days. At any rate, it was a thing I’d hoped to say after weeks had flown by—after taking you to dances and dinners and parties and festivals, after quiet evenings and long afternoons. But the New World spins faster than the old—you colonials all move faster than we do.
“Here it is: don’t leave. It’s not so bad here. In fact, I think you could come to love it, and perhaps more than that. Stay here, Della—with me, as my wife.”
She blinked, and he laughed, but not merrily. “I don’t think you’re that surprised, if you think about it,” he said. “You had to know what I was getting at.”
“I thought you were being kind,” she said slowly. Then she gave him a free, warm, friendly smile. “I still think so. Thank you, Justin. But I do have a life of my own at home. And we don’t move so fast—even there. Faster than here, that’s true,” she said, her head to the side as she thought about it, “but we don’t normally leap into marriage after a few weeks, either, and we never do it as a favor. I guess that’s just for English noblemen.”
“Not even for them,” he said, pacing toward the window and staring out distractedly. “I ask for your hand—for you, not for your sake. I know most men make proposals on their knees, gazing into their beloved’s eyes. But it’s not that way for us, so I can’t pretend it. But it could be,” he said urgently, turning to her again. She couldn’t see his expression now, because he stood in front of the window and was outlined by light. It made him a dark figure with dazzling edges, and he spoke to her out of that blur of gold.
“We have something in common, Della. We both wanted what we couldn’t have—and what we really didn’t know. But we do know each other, and we like each other, and I believe it could be much, much more. I begin to think it already is, for me. I will strive to make it so for you, too. You are bright and beautiful, and for what it’s worth, I think my brother will hate himself one day.”