Obscured in a patch of lavender flowers, the two of them lay, Jonathan’s tiny arm draped around Miss Holden’s neck, Miss Holden’s chin resting on top of the boy’s head.
“Who would have thought slaying dragons could be so exhausting,” Bartram murmured.
Wesley smiled, enchanted by the view. Miss Holden turned to the side, her lavish hair spilling around her sun-kissed face and creating a perfect picture of innocence and beauty.
He gazed on, a rush of adoration washing over him and causing him to suck in his breath and turn away. No. He couldn’t start to feel anything more for this girl. Only resentment and antipathy. Yet, as hard as he tried, fondness, friendship, and an overpowering affection prevailed.
In his struggle to come to terms with this new insight, Bartram leaned down and picked up his son. The boy awoke, his drowsy gaze searching his surroundings until he realized where he was and why.
“I fell asleep,” he said.
His father chuckled and smoothed the boy’s hair from his long lashes. “Yes, you did.”
Jonathan had begun to nod off again when he saw Wesley standing there, his eyes widening and his head popping back up.
“Why don’t you have a spear?”
Wesley opened his mouth, but the oddity of the question struck him speechless. Slicing a glance toward Miss Holden, who still slept like an angel on a bed of wildflowers, he whispered to the boy, “Why do I need a spear?”
“To marry Miss Holden.”
Wesley canted his head, awestruck by the answer. He supposed the boy had been dreaming and still found himself in the middle of it awake.
“Is that so?”
He sent Wesley a vigorous nod. “Before her father marries her to an earl.”
With another deep breath, Jonathan descended upon his father’s shoulder, his eyes closing again in youthful sleep.
Bartram shrugged and stepped back across the field, leaving Wesley to the task of rousing Miss Holden. For several moments, he paced back and forth, trying to decipher the boy’s words, nothing remotely comprehensible jumping out at him.
So, he needed a spear to marry Miss Holden? Why on earth did he need such a weapon to marry anyone? Quite certain she had brought up the subject as a means of entertaining the boy, he thought to teach Miss Holden a lesson in heroes and champions.
He bent down and sprawled out beside her, content to first observe every delicate curve and supple swell of her resting form.
He leaned closer, inhaling the light, sweet scent of vanilla on her skin. Her gentle breath, feathery and quiet, caressed his face and stirred in him a gentle and undeniable passion.
He longed to hold her like this, naked, in his bed, both sated from a long night of lovemaking.
She sighed against him, as if her dreams possessed the same wanting. His heart reeled and his body tightened, lost for a moment of how it might come true.
She stirred further, her long sooty lashes fluttering against her now rouged cheeks. He found some disappointment in her not wearing a bonnet or hat to shield the sun. Now, he’d not be able to tell if he’d embarrassed her or if her mind strayed to some incorrigible thought or feeling toward him.
In the distance, the sky grumbled. He glanced up, surprised at how ominous the horizon had turned in the little time he’d lay there. Despite the need to jiggle her awake, he reached back and plucked a long-stemmed flower, mischief outweighing sensibility.
“Miss Holden,” he whispered, bringing the flower to stroke down the length of her petite nose.
She crinkled her face and swatted at the air, her eyes only flickering half open.
“Miss Holden,” he said a little louder using the tickling instrument to trace an invisible line from her earlobe to the base of her throat.
She moaned and turned her head away, a pleasurable smile playing across her parted lips. He drew back, knowing the dangerous game he played, with her and with himself.
“What am I doing?” he murmured after a contemplative moment, shaking his head and throwing the stem to his feet. He’d begun to pick himself up when he glanced down to find Miss Holden’s large eyes blinking awake.
“Hello,” he said from beside her, unsure if she’d come to her senses and realized what he’d been doing to her, a hard slap sure to follow.
Miss Holden sprang into a sitting position, her eyes wide and searching. “Jonathan, where…where is he?”
Wesley placed a calming hand upon her shoulder. “He’s fine. His father has already taken him back to the house.”
Only half listening, she stood and began to pace, two feet in each direction. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Oh, this is awful. I should truly make a terrible governess.”
Wesley shot up, his form stepping into her path and preventing her from moving another inch. “Repeat what you just said.”
Miss Holden’s head jerked upward, her face paling from a truth she didn’t mean to reveal. When she attempted to step by him, he stepped before her, blocking her path. “In the little time I’ve known you, not once have I considered you to be a lady so lost for words.”
“Let me go by.” She tried to move one way and then the other, but it was a fruitless effort.
“I will not, not until you tell me why you think yourself worthy of only a servant position.”
“Why is it so important for you to care anything about my life?”
His gaze raked over her questioning features. If he had an answer, he would have voiced it. No matter how wanting of an explanation, he stood there, his mind unable to separate from his heart. If he had the courage to think more about it, he would have tried, to be honest with her and with him. Instead, he rubbed at the throbbing pain at his shoulder, reminded of everything he had to lose if he didn’t keep to his original plans. Cursed by a legacy he could not change, he intended to erase what she meant to him.
“Like you said before, Miss Holden, you are a pawn. You’re not worth much to me if you insist on being less than a gentleman’s daughter.”
He’d said the words purposely, but her reaction to them gave him little satisfaction. Her face puffed out with indignation and he had to block one of her hands to keep it from landing straight across his cheek.
“You, my lord, have a dragon’s heart, cold and empty, yet full of ire and disregard. You care not who you wound or inflict with it. If they lay in your path, they will be trampled on or destroyed, left battered and beaten—”
God. Had she not described his father? Wesley could take no more of what she thought of him. Although he painted the portrait, he no longer wished for her to see it. Both anguished and wounded, he hauled her against him, capturing her mouth to drown out her words and smother the truth.
Her struggle was weak as her lips parted under his coaxing, deliciously ripe and eagerly searching. Hesitant at first, his tongue sought entry into the sweet recess of her mouth. Still holding the hand she’d raised to strike him, he unbuttoned his waistcoat with the other and tugged at his starched linen shirt.
He guided her palm up, her timid fingers gliding across his flesh like a windblown feather. His blood raced through his veins, and his heart pounded against the satiny smoothness of her trembling hand. Breathless, her breasts rose, quick and shallow. He flattened her palm against his chest and held it there.
He broke away from her mouth to whisper, “Does this feel cold and empty to you?”
Her breath shallow and fast, she said nothing, choosing only to lean into him, her body warm and supple, soft wisps of her lavender-scented hair tickling his chin. Yes, he wanted her. More than he’d wanted anything in his life.
With an eagerness he could not control, he bent his mouth to hers again. He expected her to push him away and finish through with the slap she’d initiated a few minutes ago. Instead, she lifted to accept more of what he offered, parting her lips on a breathless sigh.
“God, help me,” he rasped, lowering her to the ground. She clung to him, innocent, trembling, and trusting, with her one hand still
pressed against his heart. What he’d meant to do to her almost a week ago, what he wanted to do to her now, made him glance down into her alluring and rapturous face. Her emerald eyes stared at him.
“Kate?”
Her free hand lifted to touch his face. His soul wanted her to know the truth about why he’d lured her to Penndrake. Before he’d even met her, before he’d known every minute detail about her life, he’d despised her existence. She’d been the one thing that had stood between him and Penndrake.
At this moment, she was the only thing he cared for more than Penndrake.
He had a choice, and he would choose to preserve her innocence and her future, because he knew without a doubt, she was innocent and pure and everything a man could hope to find in a woman, in a wife. No matter her station, she deserved to marry the earl in her and Jonathan’s conversation.
“I must get you back to the house.” The words sounded like he’d ripped them from his chest. She nibbled on her lips, already swollen and tinted crimson from his kiss.
He lifted her and offered his hand. She shook her head and stood, the shame of what they’d almost done showing more prominently than the tint from the sun. She started to step away when he reached far into his jacket to withdraw the items she’d sought from him.
“I cannot hold you any longer,” he said, the words hurried and resolute. She twisted back toward him, her gaze wide and her eyes glittering. “As soon as we return to the rectory, I will arrange a carriage to take you to Penndrake. From there, you will return home.”
He expected her to seize her things as if he’d change his mind at any moment. However, she chose to stand with her mouth agape and her hands fisted at her sides.
“I…I don’t understand.”
Her hesitation only caused his temper to rise. “What? Was I not clear?”
She recoiled at his brusque tone but recovered and slipped a little closer to him. “You were.” Yet she made no effort to regain her possessions.
“Then why am I still holding the letters and your comb?”
Her gaze dropped to her palm, the same one he’d used to disprove his beastly side. As she made a tight fist around it, he held his breath, a capricious thought of her smiling and professing an ardent affection with an unwillingness to go anywhere. So unpredictable; however, she reached out and grasped what he offered.
In that instant, the heavens emitted a mighty rumble. “Oh, why, Miss Holden, do I find myself rescuing you from these things?” he said, clasping her free hand, and pulling her into a run behind him.
They sprinted for a quarter of a mile to the redbrick Georgian house, discovering Bartram inside the doorway waiting for them.
Wesley sliced Bartram a warning glance not to say something about them getting lost or taking so much time to find the house. He knew it sat on the end of the holy man’s tongue.
“Yes, well…I’ve put the supplies in the stables for the rest of the repairs, my lord.”
Wesley nodded and stepped to the back of the house, determined to have Miss Holden away before the rain became too heavy to travel. He wanted her gone, as well, before his affection for her increased beyond an irreparable amount.
“Surely, you’re not going to check on them now,” Bartram said, rushing after him. “Hicks has prepared a wonderful supper for you and Miss Holden. Since Mr. Darlington had agreed to escort Miss Deidra back to Penndrake, you must stay and eat.”
The man planted himself in the dining room, all the while ignoring Wesley’s commanding stare. After a few moments, Wesley inhaled and shifted his gaze to Miss Holden. “She will not be staying.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Kate glanced back at his lordship, his stance unyielding, his features severe. If only she had not said such terrible things to him earlier. If only he had not provoked her into saying them. Even now, her body trembled, not from her dampened clothes but from remembering how he glided her hand over the corded muscles of his stomach and the velvety smoothness of his chest.
By doing the unimaginable, an act she doubted some married couples in England ever, themselves, explored, he’d awakened in her an aching wish to discover more of what he offered. Both his body and his soul.
She now realized, with him willing to give back her items, that whatever Edward possessed of Lord Wesley’s, it no longer meant more to him than her. And surely, whatever Edward’s cause for not trusting his lordship, Kate reasoned, must exist as some falsity caused by either envy or ignorance.
Further, she supposed if Lord Wesley had indeed lured her into his home for corrupt motives, something made him change course. She’d concluded on their way back to the house, he’d come to care for her. Only, his obstinate decree to send her away proved he had no intention of continuing any relationship, scandalous or otherwise.
She tried to rejoice in his latest resolve. After all, was she not, less than a week ago, convinced her path lay as a governess, her heart forever shielded to the misfortunes of unacquainted love?
So why did her heart ache so? Why did every breath she took squeeze her chest like suffocating smoke? If the answer came to her, she wished not to explore it. He, a lord; her, a tradesman’s daughter. Such unions only existed in ridiculous fairy tales.
“Not staying? Nonsense. Of course she’s staying, my lord. She’s yet to see Mrs. Bartram or the babies, and Jonathan will be devastated to see her leave so soon. Please, Miss Holden, my wife is awaiting your visit as we speak. Hicks will show you the way.”
“I do not think Miss Holden wishes to stay, Bartram,” Lord Wesley said, causing Kate to gawk at him from where she stood. His chin lowered, eyebrows raised, she wondered if he waited for her to challenge his assertion.
However, how would it look if she did refute him? Impertinent? Insensible? Guilty? Able to read her soul better than anyone she knew, she believed if she insisted on staying, Bartram would see right through her growing, if not treacherous, affections for the marquess.
The tension in the room stretched tight as a bowstring, Kate waiting at any moment for it to snap. She wondered how no one else seemed to feel it, how Mr. Bartram continued on as if nothing derailing happened between her and Lord Wesley.
As the two men started to bicker about whether Kate was to stay or go, she turned, blinking a tear away so it dropped onto her cheek and slid down to dangle on her quivering chin. She dared not turn, ashamed of her weakness, deciding to follow Hicks to say goodbye to Mrs. Bartram.
“Miss Holden?”
Lord Wesley’s emphatic voice faltered her step. Afraid to speak, she said nothing.
“Look at me.”
She shook her head, managing to go the rest of the way without being summoned back in dreadful humiliation. Her steps away from his lordship were, of course, exceedingly long.
…
Wesley stood motionless, so aware of Miss Holden’s hushed crying, he thought of pulling her back down the stairs to persuade her to confess the cause.
There was no doubt he lay mostly, if not all, to blame. After all, he’d given Kate Holden, a lady of wit and common sense, pure beauty and determination, enough hints to piece together his immediate plans.
The irony twisted like a searing dagger into his chest, quite worse than the real thing. Perhaps, if he had considered more of Mr. Garrett’s proclamation of marriage to his cousin, Wesley would not be standing there feeling like the wretch she believed him to be.
Nonetheless, for at least placing the seed in her mind, he blamed Edward Garrett. For what reason did the man believe Wesley good enough to marry his cousin at one moment, then fervently warn her to stay away if he should show himself the next?
Perhaps, Edward had come to his senses and concluded Wesley did not deserve her. As well, maybe the man somehow recognized his own feelings and decided Miss Holden belonged to him.
Opposed to such an ending, at least without talking to her first, Wesley stalked toward the staircase until Bartram’s hand reached out and halted him.
“I don
’t know why I didn’t notice until now, but I beg of you, do not follow her. I am not so ignorant of the ways of the world that I do not see the desire burning between the two of you. Your lust—”
“Lust?” Wesley balked. “If only it were that simple.”
Bartram refused to let go. “I’m being most sincere. I can see the storm in your eyes, becoming fiercer the longer you look at her. Although she appears less fragile than most women of her station, you will do her an injustice if you pursue her any further.”
Wesley, always willing and able to listen to the vicar’s advice, narrowed his eyes and exhaled. “What if I wish to marry her?”
To hear such words sounded stranger to his ears than they felt tumbling from his lips. For so many reasons beyond Garrett’s objections, this was not even an option.
Bartram closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest. “Do not forget how well I know you. You have proven you will die before giving up Penndrake, and we both know to marry Miss Holden, as handsome and delightful as she is, will only leave you in dire straits.”
He tried to argue with his friend, if not with himself. “Penndrake is worth fifty thousand pounds a year in rent.”
“Yes, with every room restored and every cottage full, but that hasn’t been so in years, my lord. If you want to see Penndrake whole again, you must marry someone who can bring in a prosperous dowry, someone expecting a comfortable, if not prosperous life. This type of lady is the only one who can save you and the future of Penndrake, my lord.”
Forced to face the truth, Wesley brought in a deep breath before setting his future in stone. Miss Holden, in an effort to protect herself from ever hurting again, had given herself only one option in life. He knew she deserved better than what her cousin had chosen for her. Even if Edward somehow changed his mind, again, and allowed Wesley to keep Penndrake and marry his cousin, there would be no guarantee her future fared better than becoming a governess.
Wesley realized he had to reconcile with the idea of marrying Miss Darlington and winning Penndrake back the same way his father lost it. Somewhere in between these things, he’d have to clear his heart and mind of Miss Holden.
A Mistress for Penndrake Page 20