They had said their goodbyes tonight because his carriage would arrive at dawn. After such a late night it wouldn’t be right to call on the family before the sun came up, and even if he did, that wouldn’t guarantee him enough privacy with Hope to tell her all the things he should have told her before now. Closely guarded, intensely private and personal secrets which he would have to tell her in a fortnight upon his return rather than trust her with now, as she deserved.
He stared at the open door again, trying to talk himself out of the inappropriate solution which had popped into his head, then winced as he considered her likely and justifiable overreaction.
It couldn’t be helped.
He had urgent things he needed to tell her that wouldn’t wait two weeks. Before he thought better of it, he threw one leg over the railings, then quickly straddled the three-foot gap which separated his niggling conscience from his best friend who deserved nothing less than his complete and utter trust.
‘Hope...’ He inched her door open gradually and poked his head inside, trying to spare her from the understandable terror she would inevitably experience at having an intruder break into her bedchamber while she slept in it, and spare himself from any hard projectiles she aimed at him as a result. ‘Hope...wake up.’
Still nothing.
As his eyes adjusted, he could just about make out the Hope-shaped lump in the bed, clearly sound asleep if her deep breathing was any gauge. ‘Hope!’ As he was half inside, he made sure he was louder this time and was rewarded by the sound of a belligerent moan a split second before the lump shot bolt upright.
‘Argh!’
‘Shh...’ He rushed forward, his finger to his lips. ‘Don’t scream. It’s only me.’
‘Luke?’ He could see the startled whites of her eyes now as they focused beneath the tangled curtain of hair. Her bleached knuckles clutching the bedcovers to her chin for dear life. ‘Luke! What the hell do you think you are doing?’
‘I climbed over the railings.’
‘I worked that part out, cretin!’
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘What? Now?’ She shuffled backwards towards the headboard where the moonlight hit to see him better, unaware it allowed him to see her face completely and her expression of startled concern rather than fear. ‘And it couldn’t wait?’
‘Not two weeks it couldn’t.’ He bounced awkwardly from foot to foot, supremely aware that he could have handled this all so much better, if only he had been thinking straight and wasn’t always so blasted guarded about his life. ‘Can you spare me a few minutes?’ Because something inside, something different was germinating and if he was going to allow it to grow as he suspected he wanted to, he needed to let her in.
She frowned and stared at him as if he had lost his wits, which he supposed, given the circumstances, was entirely fair. ‘Do I have a choice?’
‘You see, the thing is...’ It was probably best to get it over with. ‘I haven’t been entirely honest with you and after going on and on about trust and friendship earlier, I realised that I have failed you on both counts.’ Because standing felt too awkward, he went to sit on the bed only to have her swat him hard on the arm.
‘Stay well away from me, if you please.’ She reached out and grabbed the brass candlestick on her nightstand and wielded it in front of her like a weapon.
‘I’ve not come to ravish you.’
‘And I’ll not be accountable for my actions if you are within arm’s reach and be in no doubt I will bludgeon you to pulp if you come any closer.’ Knowing her legendary temper, Luke didn’t doubt it for a second. ‘Just say what you need to say and get out!’
‘I am not fearless, Hope. Not even slightly.’ His wary heart was hammering against his ribs at that admission. ‘In fact, I spend a good deal of my life worried sick and the rest contemplating the inevitability of the next betrayal or catastrophe. If I seem to effortlessly jump over hurdles, it’s only because I am in a hurry to get over them before I slam into the next one which will defeat me, and I do know what failure feels like as it is my constant companion and I am fairly certain I shall have to live with that awful, helpless feeling for the rest of my life no matter how hard I try to succeed.’ His knees seemed to give way then, but thankfully she didn’t carry out her threat to bludgeon him as he sank slumped and dejected on to the furthest end of her mattress. ‘I wanted you to know...thought you should know...that my mother is ill and despite my very best efforts, I’ve failed miserably for a quarter of a century to cure her.’
‘Oh, Luke... I am so sorry.’ The mattress shifted as she brushed his shoulder. ‘Is it...is her condition...fatal?’
‘It’s not that sort of illness, more’s the pity. Not that I wish her dead, of course, I love her to distraction...but if there were visible physical symptoms her malaise would be easier to understand and treat. But it’s here.’ He tapped his temple, feeling strangely emotional to be admitting it aloud because he feared her reaction so very much. ‘Her mind is...fragile. And sometimes she’s...’ Because there was a strange knot in his throat threatening to choke him he huffed it out. ‘Well, to be frank, to a layman I am sure that sometimes she would seem to be as mad as a hatter.’
She blinked back at him in the darkness, the sliver of moonlight rendering some of the copper strands in her hair silver. It was completely loose, he now realised, tumbling wildly over her shoulders and down her back and thanks to the ribbon ties of her nightgown being undone and the neckline all awry, one of those shoulders was practically bare.
‘Is she always...?’
He shook his head. ‘It comes and goes. Sometimes it lasts hours, other times days, but thankfully nowadays it doesn’t last months.’ Or years and years. Of staring tearfully out at nothing and keeping him at arm’s length. ‘It’s the reason my father shipped her off to Cornwall to be treated out of the sight of the precious and judgemental ton he put such great stock in. He considered her illness a distinct character weakness and very poor form, as if it were all her fault. A self-indulgence which was an entirely unacceptable trait in a wife.’ He paused, trying to gauge the full extent of her horror and when he saw only concern for him, instantly felt better.
‘It’s also the reason my brother and I hated one another. Cassius couldn’t see the point in continuing to pay for the physicians once my father died. So instead, and even though she was perfectly well, had her locked in a filthy and inhumane lunatic asylum where he doubtless prayed she would catch something nasty and die out of sight and out of mind before I could legally get her out.’
‘Legally?’
‘You have to be over the age of majority to take over the care of a dependant. I was only eighteen when dear old Papa snuffed it. Cassius arranged it all behind my back while I was with him at the funeral.’ Bitterness at that cruelty spoken aloud made the bile rise and burn his throat. ‘By the time I got home it was too late. She was gone and I couldn’t defend her.’ That single failing, although not his fault, ate away at him like a cancer. ‘And as she was a tidy and regular income for them, Mill House was never going to make her better when it was in their interests for her to be at her absolute worst.’
Hope’s hand had covered her mouth. ‘He left her there for three years.’
Luke nodded, the guilt choking him. ‘He also did all in his power to prevent me from visiting. You should have seen the state of her when I finally got her out, Hope.’ He baulked at the memory. ‘Emaciated, terrified, nonsensical, addicted to the laudanum they’d pumped into her to keep her quiet. You wouldn’t keep a dog in such conditions. It took a year to nurse it out of her, and another year after that to get her on the road back to the way she was before they crushed her spirit.’
Then, like an erupting volcano, it all spewed out. Everything he knew about his mother’s illness but had never confided in anyone before.
The first months of her marriage when th
e melancholy had started after she had been separated from her family and her homeland, then had been forbidden to attend to her dying mother in Spain or return to her funeral. Her isolation and eventual banishment to Cornwall. The early years of his childhood when his father engaged all manner of quack cures from afar in the vain hope one might work but which all only served to make it all worse. The water therapies. The blood-letting. The hours spun at speed in the rotary chair until she was so dizzy she was sick for days afterwards. All designed to wrench the badness out of her as if she had been inhabited by some parasite which could be physically removed.
Then, when nothing alleviated her symptoms, they were abandoned again, although this time for the best. It was during those quiet years she eventually emerged from the fog thanks to a friendly local physician who prescribed gentle herbal tisanes, fresh air, exercise and calmness. He taught Luke to read and as soon as he could, encouraged him to read to her. It had been then that he had finally got to know his mother and come to realise that she could be witty and clever, thoughtful and reasoned as they had finally bonded over a shared love of books, blissfully forgotten and ignored at last by his father who had washed his hands of it all.
Hope held his hand as the story turned more sinister after his neglectful sire had passed, and Cassius had wreaked havoc on their lives, and he recounted the inhuman treatments Mill House deemed appropriate. There, punishment disguised itself as care. Restraints, beatings, purgatives, isolation and starvation. The exact opposite of all the things which had allowed her to flourish. When her mind faltered under the brutality of it all, and unbeknownst to Luke who had been twice arrested and banned from setting foot on their lands again by that time, they drugged her until the drug became her master and she had no clue who he was when he was finally able to liberate her. And only then because Cassius refused to pay another shilling to her gaolers from the day Luke reached his majority.
At his wits’ end, working his fingers to the bone cutting slate and with every available penny at his disposal, Luke had then put her in the hands of the pioneering Quaker physician, Dr Edward Long Fox, at his newly established and humane asylum, Brislington House, in Bristol. Where, in the lush, tranquil grounds and in the comfort of her own private room, his mother’s healing finally recommenced, taking a further three years of toing and froing before she was well enough for him to be able to bring her back under his care and home to Cornwall permanently.
Finally, his voice hoarse and with the faint promise of dawn whispering on the horizon, he confessed his fears for now and the reasons why he was risking that recovery to fetch her to Bloomsbury.
‘She’s been so well now for so long, I am terrified my prolonged absence from Tregally and the enforced separation will send her backwards. She needs me, Hope. I’ve already been away too long yet I still have so much to do here, so many fresh burdens and responsibilities to decide what to do with, I cannot spare the time to be in Cornwall. I am so torn, Hope, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. I just pray I am doing the right thing in bringing her. Or that I am not too late and fresh damage hasn’t already been done while I wasn’t there to stop it.’
She squeezed his hand as she stroked his hair, drawing his eyes to their tightly intertwined fingers, reminding him that at some point during his confessional, he had been so desperate for the contact that he had laid his head on her shoulder while he poured out his entire heart.
Everything.
And most definitely far more than he had originally intended. Leaving him feeling raw and exposed and decidedly off-kilter.
The awkwardness of baring all his soul so out of the blue and irrationally now threatened to suffocate him, so he extricated his fingers and he stood before the tears ominously prickling his eyes actually fell and he disgraced himself completely.
‘Anyway... I just wanted to trust you with my darkest secret seeing as you entrusted me with your book. Fair’s fair and all that...’ He backed towards the door, hating the fact he had put tears in her lovely eyes too with his depressing, uninvited tale of woe. ‘It’s wonderful by the way...the book.’ He forced a smile, hoping it would lighten the sombre mood and leave her with a more familiar memory of him before he left. ‘I am only two chapters in, but I am already hooked. I cannot wait to dive into the rest of it...but...but obviously, if you’d rather I didn’t because I did rather bully you into handing it over, I can give it back.’
Clearly stunned at the bizarreness of it all, Hope blinked up at him from the crumpled pile of covers on the bed and then she shook her head.
‘Oh, Luke...’
Then all at once, she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him for all she was worth.
Apparently, it was just what he needed and he clung back, gratefully absorbing her strength as he buried his face in her hair.
He had no earthly clue how long they stood there. All he knew without any doubt was that he didn’t want to let go and she seemed in no hurry to make him. He could feel her nakedness beneath the diaphanous layer of her nightgown, the womanly curve of her hips where his palms rested on them, the soft imprint of her full breasts pressed against his chest, and though his body revelled in those things, the embrace wasn’t carnal. It was tender and honest. Cathartic. She seemed to sense he was undone and gave him all the time and the affection he needed to repair himself.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock struck five, the chimes dragging him to the present and forcing him to step away. ‘The Thundersley carriage will be here at six.’ And soon her house and the outside would wake, and he would be discovered or seen and ruin more than her night’s sleep if he didn’t make haste. ‘I should go.’
‘You should.’ She smiled in the doorway as he backed on to the balcony. ‘Unless you really do want my father to shoot you.’ She had apparently forgotten she was only in her nightgown, and despite the yards of delicate fabric which had gone into making it, the weak light of the predawn was enough to render parts of it translucent. The silhouette of her lush shape was his parting gift, reminding him of what it felt like to desire without warning. It hit him like a punch in the gut and stole his breath.
All curves.
Unrestrained full breasts round and heavy, the peaks of her nipples clearly defined in the drape of the material, the dusky shape of them trying to tempt his eyes from her lovely face. Fiery hair a tousled silken curtain his fingers suddenly itched to touch. The sultry narrowing of her waist. The seductive voluptuousness of her bottom. Things he should have been aware of when he had held her in his arms, but hadn’t, but that he was supremely aware of now.
He smiled back and meant it, feeling strangely lighter and younger than he had for months. ‘Thank you...for listening and for not bludgeoning me to pulp.’
‘You are very welcome.’ A little self-consciously, but too late to reverse the effect her womanly body was having on his, she folded her arms and leaned on the doorframe. ‘Safe travels, Lord Trouble.’
‘I should be back in two weeks.’ Or less if he could manage it now that two weeks was too long. ‘Keep an eye on the house for me.’ And now he was procrastinating, lingering and indecisive.
‘I will.’
She watched him throw both legs over the railings, but a second before he bridged the short but perilous distance between their two balconies, she called him back and as he turned, gripping the rail for all he was worth, she pressed her mouth to his, her kiss poignant, heartfelt but much too short before she jumped back and blushed scarlet.
Stunned, he touched his lips. ‘What did that mean?’ Because he desperately needed to know.
‘Nothing...’ Still blushing she strapped on her dismissive mask. Only it appeared more defensive than dismissive. ‘At least, beyond a friendly farewell.’
‘It didn’t feel like nothing.’ Because it certainly felt like something. Something huge and daunting and, frankly, wonderful. ‘Or friendly
.’
‘You are tired and upset and overawed and clearly reading more into it than it warrants.’ And she was flustered. ‘Don’t you dare confuse a friendly gesture with anything else.’ Gloriously flustered.
‘Why not? Would it be so terrible? I mean, we voluntarily spend all our spare time together, get on like a house on fire, trust one another implicitly and there is a palpable...something between us which surely even you cannot deny. To all intents and purposes, we are practically courting already...’
His heart was racing at the admission, though bizarrely not with panic. If he had to hazard a guess at what was going on inside him, it was excitement, which was astonishing when he had just put himself through an emotional mangle and didn’t think he had the capacity to experience any more emotion, let alone such an uplifting one. He had assumed that his life would always be much too complicated to consider tossing any thoughts of a permanent romance into the mix. That he didn’t need any more responsibilities and burdens as he had quite enough already. Yet it all suddenly felt reassuringly right as Hope was neither of these things. In fact, right now, she was the balm which eased them. The one thing he needed to fix all his current problems and ills in one fell swoop.
‘We most definitely are not courting!’ She had passed the point of flustered and replaced it with outraged panic. He decided to take that as a very good sign because she had lost the wherewithal to don her trusty mask of indifference which was her most constant companion.
‘Perhaps not in the traditional sense with bouquets and love poetry and flowery declarations, but when do we ever do anything in the proper way, Hope?’ The more the idea took root, the more it appealed.
Him and her.
Her and him.
It just worked.
Harlequin Historical July 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 Page 13