The Companion

by Deborah Simmons

  “What is that foul smell?” she asked, wrinkling her nose, and Kit laughed, surprising himself with the odd, rusty sound.

  “That’s our very own medicinal spring,” he said. They had reached the glade where the hot waters rose up from the ground into a small pool, bubbling and foaming against the rocks. “It pops up at various points all over the Park,” he said.

  “How wonderful!” Chloe exclaimed, startling him with her enthusiasm. She halted her gelding and dismounted to gaze with rapt admiration at the site that he had long ignored. “Why, it is a natural bath! Have you made use of it? I am sure it would help your leg.”

  Kit was lowering himself to the ground when her words brought him up short, injecting a chill into the warmth of the day. “What do you mean?” he asked, fixing her with a hard glare.

  “When it is aching, bothering you especially, you ought to come out here and—”

  Kit cut her off. “And how do you know it bothers me?” he demanded.

  Chloe did not seem the least disturbed by his vehemence or his fierce expression. “I can tell by the set of your jaw. Oh, I see that it is well this morning, but when you’ve been walking a lot, I suspect it aggravates you,” she answered easily.

  Kit didn’t know what to say. He felt naked, caught out somehow, so he frowned silently.

  Chloe didn’t appear to notice. “I think your spring would do wonders for it,” she said. “My father always used to feel better after a trip to one of the spas, especially Bath! He suffered so from the gout.” She sighed softly, seeming lost in memory, and Kit realized that it was her father she was mourning. He felt a stab of fresh guilt for his churlish behavior, for being so sunk in his own sorrow that he had failed to recognize that she, too, was hurting.

  “You probably think I’m a selfish bastard,” he muttered. Forcing himself to face her, Kit fully expected the sort of disapprobation that he would likely receive from his grandmother. But Chloe only smiled, that slow, blossoming flash of white that revealed her crooked tooth, and something eased within his chest.

  “No,” she said, eyeing him calmly. “I see a man racked by pain and grief...and something else. What is it, Kit?”

  Her perception startled him, and he moved away, his throat suddenly thick. He had no intention of telling her, of course, and yet somehow the words came out in a stark mutter. “I’m alive and they are all dead, including Garrett. It’s not right.”

  “Perhaps,” Chloe answered, following behind him to stand at his back, not too close and not too far. “But who are you to say? Had you done anything differently, could you have changed the course of Waterloo? Could you have prevented the enormous British losses? If you had been here at home, could you have saved your brother?” She paused, but Kit said nothing. “I think when your mind is clear, you know the answer,” she added gently.

  Kit swallowed against a sudden pressure. “But why me?” he whispered, echoing the question that had haunted him for months, that no one, least of all himself, had deigned to answer.

  But answer him, Chloe did. “Perhaps because you are worthy in your own right,” she said. Startled, Kit turned to find her so close that he could reach out and touch her, if he dared. But he stood still, waiting, and she lifted those great brown eyes to his. Wisdom and mercy and something else shone there, drawing him to her...

  “Mourn your comrades and your brother, as I do my father, but do not squander your precious moments in senseless regret,” she said. “You are an intelligent man, still young and vital, with much to offer the world. Do not waste the life that was spared!”

  Her words sliced through him, abrading his open wounds so painfully that Kit nearly cried out in protest. Automatically he moved to protect them, and without a word he swung up on Raja and headed back through the woods, toward home, his unwanted companion following.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Despite his initial dismissal of her words, Kit thought long and hard about Chloe’s admonition, and after much consideration, his brain acknowledged she was right. However, the rest of him was not as quick to forgive himself for being alive when so many were not. Although Kit had never considered himself a creature of emotion, it seemed as though his feelings overcame his mind with a vengeance, urging him to lash out at Chloe, as well. How dare she advise him? She didn’t have any idea what he had been through. He wanted nothing more than to drive her away, as he had everyone else, and sink back into his pool of misery, logic be damned.

  But Chloe wouldn’t leave him alone. Silence that would have sent the most greedy and ardent of potential countesses fleeing had no effect whatsoever upon her. Indeed, though Kit had not spoken at all on the ride back to the stables, she hadn’t appeared to notice. Every once in a while, she commented on the weather or the countryside or the horses, seemingly oblivious to his lack of response.

  At dinner Kit tried to ignore her, but she consistently managed to gain his attention and draw him out. He told himself that he was desperate for conversation after hearing his grandmother’s one-sided rants, but he knew that there was more involved. He liked listening to her speech, the low, sultry sound of it, the comforting cadence, and to the words, as well, for Chloe held opinions on most everything and they were intelligent and well thought out.

  When Kit found himself watching her a bit too avidly, searching for a glimpse of that one front tooth as she spoke, he knew he was in trouble. That vague sense of danger came over him again, but instead of meeting it, he slunk back to his rooms, feeling suspiciously like a coward. He had faced Napoleon’s hordes without flinching, yet one slender female had him hiding away!

  Even safely ensconced behind locked doors, Kit half expected the preternaturally calm Chloe to come knocking at his private apartments with innocent yet bold intent. Perhaps he secretly even craved such a visit, so conflicted were his feelings about her, but the hours passed without any interruption.

  Kit ought to have been well pleased. However, the spacious rooms that had contented him since he had left the nursery seemed stifling, and he paced incessantly. He blamed his unusual restlessness on the lack of his evening walk, which often tired him to the point where he could at last get some rest. Now, he did not even attempt to sleep, and finally, when the whole house was abed and the moon high, he slipped out into the garden.

  Moonlight gave luster to the fading grass and the beds of late-blooming flowers as he made his way to the Grecian folly that stood amid a backdrop of tall oaks. It was little more than a roof and columns where his parents had once set summer chairs, but now it seemed bleak and empty, a fitting setting for his melancholy.

  Leaning his left shoulder against the cold stone, Kit looked out over the well-tended lawns and sought the semblance of peace that came from the natural world, but this night it eluded him. He considered walking, yet a new unease seemed to have settled over him, and he found himself scanning the countryside as if in search of something.

  And then he found it: a small dark figure hurried up the slope towards him, black cloak flying behind her. It couldn’t be, he told himself, and yet his heart lurched in his chest as he recognized Chloe running to meet him. But his momentary elation was soon displaced by other feelings, darker and more disturbing, and when she reached the small enclosure, Kit rounded upon her.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded, genuinely shocked by her appearance. Plainly, she had donned her clothing in haste, for one shoulder dipped, revealing a patch of silken skin where the cloak had fallen back. She hadn’t even attempted to dress her hair, and the thick mass fell over her shoulders like rich satin.

  Kit took in her dishevelment, and something erupted inside him. He felt cornered, angry at being followed, at being hovered over and watched, at being treated like a pathetic suicidal wretch instead of a man.

  “I need no nursemaid, no wet nurse!” he snapped.

  “Good, because I don’t see how we’ll find one at this hour,” Chloe answered with that maddening calm that was beginning to infuriate him. It
wasn’t the cool distance of Julia and her ilk, just a deceptively simple reasonableness. Except there was nothing reasonable about her being out here in the night with him.

  “Have you no sense of propriety?” he snarled, furious not only at her continual presence, but at her total disregard for her reputation, indeed, for her own skin. Or did she trust to his malfunctioning body to keep him a gentleman? Rage, irrational and consuming, welled up in him, seeking an outlet. “Or is it that despite your pose as a staid spinster, you crave a little danger to spice your dull days?” he taunted.

  Stepping forward, Kit stalked her until she backed up against a wide Grecian pillar, and he placed his left hand beside her head to box her in. Leaning slightly, he looked down into her upturned face, gilded by moonlight, and he paused, arrested by at the intensity of her beauty. “Or perhaps you crave something else entirely?” he whispered.

  She licked her lips, an innocent gesture, he was certain this time, yet the sight of her dainty tongue against that generous mouth set the spark between them alight. “I—” she began, but Kit didn’t let her finish. He bent his head and took her mouth with his own. Perhaps he couldn’t perform, but he could very well give her a kiss that might make her think twice about chasing after a man in the darkness of a deserted garden.

  Kit heard her low sound of surprise or protest, but he ignored it. Seizing the opportunity presented by her parted lips, he swept his tongue inside, running it over the tilt of her front tooth, and the sweet sensuality set his head to spinning. He deepened the contact, plundering her mouth even as he closed the space between them, pressing his body against hers.

  He expected another slap, some form of resistance at least from his sensible companion, but instead she met his ardor with her own, her untutored response more erotic than the most decadent courtesan’s. Kit’s heart slammed against his ribs, and he brought his hand to the column of her throat, groaning at the satin texture of her skin beneath his questing fingers, the brush of her silken hair against his knuckles.

  Her arms slipped around him, beneath his coat, and he wished that he had left off his waistcoat, his shirt, everything, so that she might truly touch him. She ran her hands up and down his back, and Kit felt as if he had come home at last. Here, finally, was the haven he had been searching for, where he could forget everything except the precious wonder of life he had let slip away from him. This was where he belonged, in the arms of this woman, against her, inside her...

  “Chloe.” Kit whispered her name in rapt adoration, his fingers sliding down her bodice to cup one round breast. She was so soft yet so real, so alive, that he wanted to weep for the pure joy of her. His lips followed the path of his hand as he pressed kisses to her throat. Her head fell back, and she made a low, husky sound so stirring that Kit nearly lost his balance. He gripped his cane in a white-knuckled clasp as he murmured his pleasure against the tender skin above her gown.

  He lifted her breast, encased in black crepe, to his mouth, wetting the material with his tongue even as he wanted to bare it to his gaze, his breath, his lips. She made that sultry sound again, arching her back, and one long, silky lock fell across his face. He kissed it, as well. Voracious hunger shot through him, unbridled and fiery, and without thinking, he lifted his right hand to pull her closer to his insistent body.

  His cane dropped to the ground, clattering loudly upon the stone, and the passionate woman in his arms stiffened suddenly. Gazing up at him with those wide dark eyes, still clouded with desire, she pulled away from him, wrapping her cloak about her with a shiver. In the heat of the moment, Kit had forgotten the chill in the evening air. Though the trees at their back provided some shelter from the wind, there was nothing before them except the long expanse of lawn lined with the remnants of the season’s flowers and shrubs.

  The sight made Kit flinch, for he realized that he had taken outrageous liberties here where anyone could see them, and he cursed the reckless frenzy that had seized him. Leaning one hand against the pillar, he bowed his head as he tried to catch his breath and gather his thoughts, but Chloe was already moving away, hurrying from the folly before he could reach for her.

  It was only when he bent to retrieve his cane, still panting and shaken, that Kit discovered he had been wrong about one thing, at least. Everything was in working order and painfully eager to prove it.

  * * *

  Kit lay awake most of the night, alternately cursing the abrupt return of his bodily functions and applauding it, hoping that at last he had managed to drive Chloe away and wishing that he had not. And all the while, he wondered what she would do. Certainly she had good reason to leave after his behavior, for she was an innocent. That much was evident from the freshness of her kiss, the low hum of wonder in her voice, the tentative touch of her soft hands...

  With a groan, Kit turned over, suddenly uncomfortable at the memory. The sooner he forgot about what had happened in the folly the better, for if Chloe remained here, he could not take advantage of her again or he would be living down to his grandmother’s expectations. And that was something he would never do.

  Nor would he purposely seduce any dependent, especially a relative, even one as misguided as Chloe seemed to be, at least where he was concerned. Kit wasn’t going to kill himself, so she was wasting her time. She would do better by everyone if she went away, he decided grimly, before drifting off to sleep at last.

  It wasn’t until morning that Kit realized that for once his thoughts had been consumed with something other than his grief and guilt and his dreams filled with something a deal more pleasant than war and death. His state of mind being what it was, Kit wasn’t sure whether to celebrate or decry the change. And although he hurried down to breakfast, he told himself it was only because his appetite seemed to have returned.

  Yet as he made his way to the dining room, Kit held his breath, uncertain, only to release it at the sight of Chloe’s still figure seated rather primly at the table. He felt a curious elation along with a sort of smug satisfaction. Prim, indeed. Although she looked the very picture of a quiet companion, Kit knew that he had the power to turn her from the staid spinster she pretended into a passionate woman. The knowledge affected him in a rather untimely manner, and he took his seat with necessary haste.

  She glanced up, and Kit thought he saw a faint blush steal across her cheeks, but she greeted him with her usual calm, steady gaze. In keeping with his current duality, he was both annoyed and grateful at her pretense that nothing was changed between them. He could prove to her that something had happened. Indeed, he could make it happen again, but no. Better to forget such things. She was remaining, and he must behave as the gentleman he once had been.

  So Kit said nothing of the incident and neither did Chloe during the leisurely meal or afterward, when she coaxed him into showing her the grounds. Kit knew he ought to retreat, that their association was pointless, but he wanted to take advantage of the fine weather that might end at any time. And he was not about to hide away in his apartments again or flee like a coward.

  Outside, they moved forward in silence, settling easily into step. But no matter how they might act as if all was the same between them, Kit, at least, felt a subtle difference, a certain warmth in the very air around them, manifest of the intimacy they had shared. And that was not all. The sight of a stray lock of Chloe’s dark hair reminded him of its silky feel. A chance sigh all too easily brought to mind the low sound of her delight at his touch. And the subtle scent of her, borne by a gentle breeze, roused the memory of how she had filled his senses. Indeed, the longer they walked, the more Kit recalled and the more annoyed he became. How could she appear so unaffected when all he wanted to do was to seize her in his arms again and begin where they had left off?

  Obviously, despite her momentary lapse, Chloe knew better. And he did, too, Kit thought with a frown. She was a gently bred female, as well as a relative, even if so distant as to make the connection faint. He reminded himself that she was a dependent here, and as such, u
nder his protection. To seize her or anything else would not be honorable. And his honor was one of the few things he had clung to in the last bleak months.

  At the thought, fresh guilt assailed him, forcing him to speak. “I regret if our meeting last night caused you any dismay. My behavior was uncalled for,” he muttered.

  “Apology accepted,” Chloe said with that maddening serenity of hers. “However, I do not think that such familiarity should be part of the healing process, nor the proper duties of a companion,” she added.

  “The healing process? Is that what you think you are doing, healing me?” Kit asked, torn between outrage and amusement at her words. The later won out as he decided he did not want Chloe administering her particular medical skills to anyone else. Out loud, he said, “Then I might have wished for your presence on the Continent when I could barely walk.” For one tantalizing moment, he pictured himself lying abed while Chloe applied kisses and more to his injured body.

  “That must have been a difficult time,” she said.

  Kit frowned as memories flooded back. “Yes, but I didn’t have the worst of it, there or upon the field of battle. I was one of the fortunate,” he said, though he had not really felt so before. He had long wished to change places with Garrett or his comrades, but now, selfishly, he was glad that he alone, among so many fallen, was here standing beside a beautiful, gentle woman with eyes like warm chocolate and a mouth that would make a man forget all else.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “What?” Kit asked in some surprise, his mind still upon the tantalizing curve of her lips.

  “About the war,” she prompted.

  “I can’t,” Kit said. Despite the rustle of leaves overhead and the crunch of grass beneath his feet, he felt tension cord his body, and he turned away.