by Lara Archer
He had come so close. So damn close.
And then he’d ruined everything.
He’d said the wrong words maybe, told her he needed to fuck her, though heaven knows that was only the truth. Those were the only words that would come to him with the blood pounding through his head and through his cock. But what he’d meant was so much more. He meant he needed her. Had to become part of her. Bring their bodies so close together they could never truly be parted again.
If only he’d been able to let the demands of honor slip a few seconds longer, and just done what they both wanted without speaking of marriage.
Good God, what did honor matter in this case? He needed her, with every ounce of his being. And if he’d fucked her…no, made love to her as fully as he longed to do, she’d have seen that, too. She couldn’t have walked away from him again after that.
They’d have been bound together, and even her stubborn pride couldn’t argue against it.
Damn it all, though.
She had walked away.
Sane and sensible and stiff-spined as ever.
Why was she so proof against him, when everything in him was falling apart?
He went through the rest of the day like an automaton, wound up and mindless. When the time came for the May Pole dance, he found himself on Birchford Green without intentionally choosing to go there. Surely Mary would come—a more civilized Mary, granted, with her stays and petticoats on and her hair tightly bound, but still Mary.
He took his place among the dancers, scanning the crowd for her, hoping she’d just kept herself out of view until then. But no matter how many times he went round the May Pole, she did not appear. Girl after girl passed, all in their brightest springtime clothes, with bouncing curls shining in the sun, but nowhere, nowhere amongst them was the plain little wren-like creature he truly longed to see.
His heart gave an aching pulse. Mary really was refusing him.
Other eyes met his: Rosamund Lawton, Lucinda Lawton, Vanessa Lawton…and of course, Annabel Lawton herself, flushed and giggling and full of flirtatious looks. Wearing her blue dress just as promised. She also wore a bonnet sporting one of those hideous stuffed finches, and as the dancers wound closer and closer, he became ever more horribly conscious of the blade-like little beak and disturbing tiny black glass bead eyes.
Miss Lawton, for her part, seemed to assume she was charming him. She angled her body toward his as she passed, dipping at the waist to display her full bosom, eventually daring to bump her hip against his, to brush his forearm with her breasts. After the May Pole dance was done, she hovered near him, asking him to bring her lemonade from the tables set up under a spreading oak tree.
It would be insufferably rude to refuse.
Miss Lawton fluttered her lashes at him as he handed her the glass. “It’s wonderful, Lord Parkhurst,” she told him silkily, “to have you back here where you belong. The strength of a rural society like ours depends on the full participation of its best men. We cannot thrive without your good example.”
He took a long draught from his own drink, trying to think of a polite way to respond. She’d lobbed him a puff-ball of silly flattery, and he could think of nothing duller than batting it back to her.
Not that she seemed particularly interested in his deeper thoughts. As she swirled to a seat on a bench by a stand of lilacs, with her graceful posture displaying her figure to advantage and her soft smile reassuring him of his own illustrious importance, the true point she wished to make was obvious enough: a viscount needed to take his place in the world, and for that he needed an elegant wife.
Clearly, Miss Lawton was more than ready to fill the position—to clasp the Parkhurst rubies about her throat, to choose tasteful menus for visiting dukes, to domineer over the housekeeper and debate with his mother over whether flocked wallpaper or watered silk would do best for the morning room. No doubt she believed human society would be better for her taking on that role.
And she wasn’t the only one who thought so. Townspeople and farmers alike were glancing over at the two of them knowingly, giving indulgent smiles.
Lord, this was a difficult tangle. No gentleman could be outright discourteous to Miss Lawton, but he couldn’t bear the thought of marrying her either, and he didn’t want to lead her on.
Unfortunately, she seemed to need no encouragement from him. “Life here in Birchford will improve greatly now,” she said, her bright eyes shining at him, “with you in residence.”
He raised an eyebrow in surprise. Perhaps, after all, he had underestimated her. Perhaps she did wish to do some good for the local people as their viscountess.
Did she have an interest in improving the school, or founding a decent hospital?
“In what way?” he asked.
“Now that Parkhurst Hall is actively your country seat again, we shall have proper visitors here,” she said. “Peers of the realm, I mean. My father often speaks of the house parties your father used to give, how dozens would come at a time when the Season ended, straight from London. He says Birchford seems a backwater now, compared to what it was then.”
Oh. So, no, he had not underestimated her. She wasn’t concerned about the poor, she was concerned about the qualities of the local entertainments.
“Of course,” she added coyly, “no one could expect you to host in quite your father’s style while you are still a bachelor.” And she smiled at him meaningfully.
Well, that was bold as brass. He had to take another swallow of his drink, or choke.
“In the meantime, my lord,” she said, flicking a fallen lilac petal from her skirts with a look of slight irritation at its intrusion on the unsmirched perfection of her clothes, “you should avail yourself more fully of my father’s hospitality. You know he would welcome your for supper any night of the week.”
Bolder and bolder. Miss Lawton wanted her proposal of marriage, and she wanted it soon.
He felt rather sick. Was this really how people of the haut ton arranged their lives? With such bloodless interest in luxury? Aligning themselves with partners for whom they felt nothing so they might amplify their riches, and hold their chins up higher than other people’s?
It was madness, when the world held such magic as he’d felt with Mary in the woods that morning.
Something had changed in him, very definitely, since he and Mary had gotten tangled in those blackberries. He wanted more from life than he’d wanted before—he wanted passion, and he wanted...connection.
Yes. That was it. It was what he’d felt that morning, the moment he’d kissed Mary—kissed her mouth for the first time—that the connection between them was far more than just physical desire. From the time they were very young, there had always been something between them that made it easy to wander the woods together for hours, laughing and exploring and egging one another on with dares. It had been so effortless, he’d always taken it for granted.
But he could see more clearly now: the person he was with Mary, that was the person he wanted to be, all the time. He wanted to talk with her and laugh with her and find a meaningful place in the world with her, not with anyone else. He didn’t want to trade that for anything—not even for the rules of honor that said he must keep a promise made to his father.
Couldn’t Miss Lawton find something like that for herself, with a man who could truly love her? What good would it do her, to gain the title she wanted, but no true marriage?
He set down his glass on the bench beside her, and bent his head to look her forthrightly in the eye. “Will you be quite honest with me, Miss Lawton, if I ask you a difficult question?”
His tone was that of a philosopher, not a lover, and Miss Lawton’s comfortable expression faltered. “Of course,” she said, but she sounded wary.
“Have you ever thought of leading a different sort of life? Of ignoring what everyone else expects, and deciding for yourself what you truly want to be?”
The question clearly caught her by surprise. Her mouth dropped
open. And, for just a moment, something sparked in her eyes that he’d never seen in them before—a sharpness, an intelligence, and a flash of emotion that might have been fear, or perhaps even yearning.
For that one moment he thought they might be on the verge of actually understanding one another.
But the moment was over as quickly as it came.
Miss Lawton seemed to catch hold of herself. Her lips closed back into a perfect Cupid’s bow, and her countenance went smooth and impenetrable as porcelain again. “Why should I want a different sort of life?” she said, her tone perfectly complacent. “I should think people like you and I are the luckiest people on the earth. My father always says so.”
Her father always says so. “Of course,” John said, and tried to keep the disappointment from his voice.
Miss Lawton stood, confident as a queen once more, and laid her fingers on his forearm. “So will you call on us soon?” she asked, and her eyes were so placid he could scarcely believe he’d seen that brief moment of honest feeling in them. “You know you need no invitation to visit us at the Grange.”
“Your father is very kind,” he said. He bowed over her hand as politely as he could manage and watched her walk away, his heart full of dread.
There really was not question in his mind any longer: he couldn’t marry Annabel Lawton. He just couldn’t.
He felt nothing for her. She felt nothing for him.
If they were to marry, they’d do it to please their fathers, to combine their family fortunes, to do what Society told them to do. And they’d both end up miserable. In this case at least, Society and Nature were entirely at odds—and Nature’s urgings seemed vastly more likely to lead to happiness, for everyone concerned.
But how on earth was a man of honor supposed to put an end to their presumed engagement?
It didn’t matter. He had to find a way. Mary would never so much as consider his proposal while she believed he was bound to a Society marriage. And the longer he let things go on, the worse the harm he’d do to the Lawtons.
And so, a few hours later, he found himself riding through the woods on the way to Lawton Grange. The day was warm and lazy, and it seemed more than a few of the local inhabitants still held to the pagan customs of May Day—sultry, drunken laughter sounded from the shrubberies here and there, and at one point a naked man dashed across the trail not fifteen feet ahead, buttocks flashing as he ran. One of his tenant farmers, John was fairly sure, doing his part to ensure the vegetative growth for the coming year.
John rode on quickly to avoid making the acquaintance of whatever equally-naked farmwife might be in hot pursuit.
Coming up over a rise of red crag, he had a sudden view down into a slanting hollow left where a heavy length of sandstone had sheered off some years ago. And, glancing down through a veil of pine branches into the rubble that was left, he caught sight of none other than Mr. Bassett and Mrs. Trumbull.
Mrs. Trumbull was bent forward over a sandstone boulder, her bodice down to her waist and her skirts pushed up, while Mr. Bassett held her wrists tight behind her back. With his trousers down to his thighs, he was taking her roughly from behind. They both made loud sounds of pleasure. After a moment, Mr. Bassett spun his lover around and lifted her under the hips to set her arse on the rock. She lay down on her back, like a sacrifice on a pagan altar, her breasts bare, staring into the sky. Mr. Bassett pulled her knees up over his shoulders, and went back to thrusting enthusiastically while Mrs. Trumbull threw her head back in ecstasy.
Good Lord. With all the time the pair spent fornicating, it was a wonder Mrs. Trumbull managed to run a pub and Mr. Bassett managed the keeping of the church grounds. Well, if the ancient Greeks and the Britons had been right, at least the crops should grow vigorously this year.
A sudden vision of Mary filled his mind: Mary stretched out like that, the sunlight gleaming on her bared flesh, her hair spread over the sandstone, her legs spread for him.
Flames of desire speared through him, and the heat seemed to clarify his mind. That was what he wanted. That was what would bring him life. Only that was real, and all the minutiae of civilization was a thin veneer laid overtop—a distraction from what truly mattered.
He spurred his horse faster along the trail.
With those thoughts of Mary distracting him, by the time he arrived at Lawton Grange, he was almost surprised to find the footmen and the parlor maids fully clothed. The perfection of the foyer seemed absurdly chill and artificial, with the black and white squares of the marble floor, the smooth mirrors in their gilt frames. Even the sculpture of a half-naked nymph at the base of the staircase seemed cold and sexless—bone white, eyes blank, with no nipples, no tempting triangle of brandy-colored curls between her legs.
No, a life focused on this superficial polish was not a life he wanted.
The Lawtons, however, made a very different assumption about his purpose in coming. The moment his presence was announced, he felt the household ripple with anticipation as servants scurried off in every direction. Within moments, Lord Lawton greeted him, ushering him into the sitting room with the self-satisfied pomp of a grandee about to sit down to a feast. Three of the Lawton girls came in in a rush a few minutes later, clearly shepherded from upstairs, where they had no doubt been resting up for the evening festivities. All three were blonde and pink and very pretty. Lucinda, the sister third in age, to her credit looked terrified by his presence. The youngest, Vanessa, was a smaller but perfect copy of Annabel, though she lacked the smug expression her eldest sister wore as Annabel swirled to a seat on the settee nearest him. Clearly, as the eldest, Annabel was ready to stake her claim.
The missing girl, Rosamund, the second sister in age, was herded in shortly afterwards by a grim-faced parlor maid. Judging by a streak of gold pollen on her skirts, Rosamund had been in the gardens. She had something hidden behind her back that she stashed guiltily under a cushion as she sat. Was it a book?
God forbid a gentleman should catch one of the Lawton girls reading.
Or thinking.
He tried to smile.
Another maidservant brought tea, and Annabel quite naturally did the pouring. Her graces were on full display—every gesture polished, her hands flawless and smooth as the porcelain she handled, the cups and saucers making not the slightest rattle, the tea not the least slosh. Did the girl have no nerves at all?
She cast a self-satisfied glance at him as if for assurance that he saw the superb hostess he was about to procure. “Cream and no sugar for you, Lord Parkhurst, isn’t that so?” she asked.
“Oh—yes. Please.” Lord, she’d been studying him.
As she passed the cup, she leaned towards him slightly more than was necessary, displaying the white bounty of her bosom. An impressive bosom to be sure, one he’d admired in the past, but somehow it seemed excessive to him now, lacking in subtlety. The pale gold of her hair seemed insipid. She was just…all wrong for him.
Her inviting smile made his stomach churn. Did she genuinely have no idea what he was thinking and feeling? Had she not read his hesitation this morning, and his distress? Or had she read them perfectly, but dismissed them as quite irrelevant to her wishes?
Though he could remember none of the content of it later, he managed to engage the family in polite conversation for the requisite fifteen minutes, during which the girls did much simpering and giggling and a sharp pain grew steadily in his temple. At last, he could bear it no longer. “Lord Lawton,” he said far too abruptly. “Might I have some private words with you in your study?”
A sort of jolt went through the line of pretty girls. It was obvious what they all assumed: that he’d been overcome with passion for Annabel and could not refrain from asking for her hand as soon as possible.
Well, there was no helping it. Let them assume what they wanted to assume.
He followed Lord Lawton out of the room with all the enthusiasm of a man heading for the gallows. How exactly was he to tell his late father’s lifelong
best friend that he was rejecting all four of his daughters?
They settled into leather armchairs, and Lord Lawton—no doubt attributing his tongue-tied discomfort to a smitten suitor’s bashfulness—poured them each a snifter of brandy.
“Here,” Lord Lawton said. “Drink up, lad.”
The brandy was no doubt superb, but just at the moment, it was as welcome as glass of vinegar. John choked down a sip.
Lord Lawton smiled at him indulgently, laying a hand on his own embroidered waistcoat over his swelling patriarch’s belly. “Come now—you’ve always been like a son to me, you must know that. I daresay I rejoiced nearly as much as your father did on the day you were born.” The smile took on an edge of sentimental melancholy. “Parkhurst was the finest of men, and his loss has never gone from my heart. It never shall. But you’ve grown to be his spitting image. He would be so proud to see you now.”
A lump of lead seemed to form in John’s throat. This really couldn’t be much worse.
Mary. He had to focus his mind on her, and he could get through this.
Lord Lawton seemed to think a broader hint was in order. “You and my Annabel have seen quite a lot of each other lately.”
“Yes, yes.” John seemed to have forgotten how to sit in a chair without shifting his weight about. “It’s been a privilege to get reacquainted with all your daughters.”
“Annabel especially?”
“Well, of course. She’s—she’s a lovely young woman.”
“No one more lovely in all the county, if a proud father may be forgiven for saying so.”
“Indeed.”
Lord Lawton gave him an odd, considering look. Surely he had begun to notice the lack of enthusiasm in John’s tone. “And perhaps,” Lawton added, a bit more forcefully, “I can also be forgiven for mentioning that many suitors have come to persuade me to allow them to court her.”
“Naturally. Naturally.” Oh, Lord, he was making a hash of this.
But perhaps Lord Lawton himself had just given him the opening he needed.