“Not return to England? But Charles, it’s your home. Your family is there. Everything –”
“I like the life I’m living here. I don’t think I’m suited for the regimented routine my father wants for me.”
She sat back and looked at him for a long moment, her gaze probing. “I think I can understand that, and I respect you for it,” she said after a moment.
He shook his head. “I don’t think you can. No matter what you say, you scarcely know me.”
She leaned forward once again and covered his hand with her own. “I know I love you. Sometimes, that’s enough.”
He made himself turn from the tender look in her eyes. Shoving out of his chair, he walked to the sideboard and poured another whiskey, as if distance and drink could break the hold she had on him. But her presence filled the room: the scent of her lingered in the air and the feel of her skin still burned against his hand. And her words — her words reverberated in his skull like the peal of funeral bells. He could not quite believe they were true, but they were words he’d heard rarely enough in his life to make them valuable.
She waited at the table, head bent, outwardly passive, but he had no doubt were he to look in her eyes they would blaze with feeling.
The clock in the hallway struck half past the hour, its gonging the only sound in the stillness. Cecily raised her head and pulled her plate toward her once more. “Come finish your dinner, Charles,” she said in a strained voice. “I promise to talk only of trivialities.”
“I’ve had enough, thank you.” He drained his whiskey glass and returned it to the tray, thinking he ought to apologize for his boorish behavior, but not knowing how. “I promised Hollister I’d meet with him this evening to discuss plans for expansion. Please excuse me.”
She nodded, continuing to eat as if nothing awkward had passed between them. But the hand that gripped her fork was white-knuckled, and the bones of her shoulders stood out sharply, as if braced for a blow.
He had to pass by her chair on his way out of the room. He paused behind her, hand outstretched, wanting to touch her, to comfort her and beg forgiveness for the distress he’d caused her. But he dared not. He let his hand drop to his side and moved on. This new Cecily was more dangerous to him than the demure young miss he’d left behind in England. This mature, mercurial woman had the power to seduce not only his body, but his mind as well.
Chapter Eight
All her mother’s lectures about the dangers of impulsiveness came rushing back to Cecily as she climbed the stairs to her room after supper. Why, oh why, had she declared her love for Charles so openly? All his protests had warned her it was too soon to reveal her feelings, yet she had not had sense enough to curb her wayward tongue. Her words had clearly thrown him into a panic.
She could hardly blame him. How could he believe the love she felt for him, when she scarcely understood it herself? It was true she did not know him well. They had spent few hours alone, spent less time in conversation. But in other ways, she knew so much about him. She had grown up next door, knew the same people and countryside he knew, was familiar with all his family’s stories. A close observer of him for years, she knew his favorite foods, his habits and tendencies. She knew things he probably didn’t realize. For instance, she knew that he was really a very private person. More than once, she’d watched him retreat to a quiet corner of the family estate to read and contemplate. Even here in Texas he often went riding alone. While to the public and all but his closest confidants, he was a lively, sociable friend-to-all, Cecily knew his well-known charm actually served to keep people at a distance.
In her room, she lit a lamp and began to undress, unwilling to summon Alice and endure the questions the maid would be sure to ask. As the gauzy dress drifted to the floor around her feet, she thought ruefully of her plans for an evening of seduction. “I suppose I’m not meant to be a temptress,” she murmured, picking the dress up off the floor and draping it over a chair.
Fifi and Estelle meant well, but, while the too-brief kisses she and Charles had shared had kindled physical desire, she really craved a union that went beyond the physical: a union of two hearts.
She slipped on a dressing gown and went to the window and opened it. A chill breeze, scented with sage, drifted in from the prairie, a perfume she would ever associate with Texas. She stared up at the sky. No towering buildings or even tall trees obscured the view of the expanse of velvet darkness, glittering with a thousand diamond-bright stars. The stars here were brighter than any she’d known in England.
Her mother once told her stars were souls waiting to be born. Some people thought there were soul mates. Was Charles her soul mate? Was that why, as long as she could remember, she had loved him? First with a schoolgirl adoration, later with the blush of first love. Now she loved him in yet a different way, with a woman’s abiding love that wouldn’t let go even in the face of his rejection.
What could she call what happened tonight but rejection? She’d told him she loved him and he had said. . . nothing.
A knock on the door startled her from these morose thoughts. “Who is it?”
“It’s me, m’lady,” said Alice.
Maybe company was what she needed right now, to pull her out of the mire of self-pity into which she was rapidly sinking. She closed the window and turned toward the door. “Come in.”
The door opened to admit the maid. Instead of her usual severe black dress, she wore a frilled white shirtwaist and lavender skirt, and her normally tightly-coiled hair looked as if it had been pinned up in haste. “I came to see if you needed anything else before you retire.” Alice hurried to the dresser and picked up a silver-backed brush. “Let me brush your hair out for you, m’lady.”
“Yes, that would feel good.” She sat at the dressing table and Alice removed the pins from her hair and began to brush the thick locks. Cecily closed her eyes and surrendered to the soothing feel of the bristles against her scalp. Alice moved with a steady rhythm, the brush making whispering noises as it swept through Cecily’s hair, lulling her into a doze.
Alice sniffed, breaking the rhythm and making Cecily open her eyes. She looked into the dressing table mirror in time to see Alice reach up and wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. “Alice, have you been crying?” she asked, alarmed.
“Of course not, m’lady.” But even as she spoke, fresh tears welling in her green eyes betrayed her.
Cecily turned on the dressing stool to face her maid. “Alice, what’s wrong? What has upset you so?”
Alice stood, head down, clutching the brush with both hands. “It’s Nick, m’lady. Though I can’t fathom why I’d be thinking the likes of him are worth crying over.”
“What has he done to upset you?” Cecily reached out and gently pried the brush from Alice’s hand, then patted her arm. “Would you like me to talk to him?”
Alice jerked her head up, eyes wide. “Oh no, m’lady. Please don’t say a word. I’d be mortified.”
Cecily moved from the dressing stool to the edge of the bed, and motioned for Alice to sit beside her. “Tell me what happened.”
Alice sank onto the bed and buried her face in her hands. “I’m so ashamed, m’lady. I couldn’t say.”
Cecily slipped her arm around the maid. “You can tell me, Alice. After all, we English women must stick together.”
Alice sniffed, then nodded. “I suppose you’re right, m’lady.” She sniffed again, and scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “I was thinking about what Estelle and Fifi said. Some of it was cruel and uncalled for, but it’s true I fancy Nick.” She ducked her head, but not before Cecily glimpsed the flush of red blooming on her cheeks. “That’s to say, I’d like him to like me better. I don’t mean to be snippy with him, but he does love to tease so.”
“Sometimes teasing can be a true sign of affection,” Cecily said.
Alice took a deep breath. “That’s as may be, but I learned the hard way to be careful of myself. At my first position, I was very
young and pretty.” She glanced at Cecily. “You might not think it to look at me now, but I was very popular with the young men. I loved the attention and all. Then the young man of the house, he took an interest. I was right flattered, I tell you, but of course I was just being foolish. He never meant nothing serious by me. Then one day the mistress caught us kissing in the pantry. I thought I was done for, but instead she took me aside and let me know in no uncertain terms that I’d be out on the street if I didn’t straighten up my behavior.”
Cecily put a comforting hand on Alice’s shoulder. She could imagine the pretty young woman, so lovely and innocent and trusting. She ached for the loss of that trust. “Is that when you started pulling your hair back so severely and dressing so somberly, like a much older woman?”
She nodded. “I didn’t want to attract that kind of attention again. I guess after a while it grew to be habit.”
Cecily surveyed the frilly blouse and lavender skirt, beginning to understand what must have happened. “But tonight, you decided to try something different?”
“I thought long and hard about what Fifi and Estelle said, and saw how I must seem to Nick. I thought tonight I’d try to show him different — that I was interested in him, like. So after dinner, I asked him to come out to the stables with me and take a look at a trunk of yours that needed mending. At first he didn’t want to go, but I pleaded nice as I could and he agreed. I told him I’d meet him there, then I went and fixed my hair a different way and put on this shirtwaist and skirt.”
“They’re very pretty.”
“I thought so. I bought them on a whim, a long while back, and was saving them. For what, I don’t know. I thought Nick – well I thought he might like me better in them than my usual black.”
Cecily covered Alice’s hand with her own. “What happened?”
Alice frowned. “First thing, when I got there he was with two cowboys. They were talking about horses and saddles and all that folderol. One of them whistled when I came up and started making jokes about they didn’t know Nick had an assignation and such. Nick turned the color of poppies and denied any such thing, but the cowboys wouldn’t let up. I just stood there, red as flannel, not even able to say a word, and Nick didn’t say one thing to defend me, either, the cad!” Her shoulders slumped. “After a while though, they left us alone. Nick turns to me, all gruff-like, and asks where this trunk is. I showed him. It weren’t much damaged, just a broken strap on one side. Nick said he could fix it and I thanked him proper and said as how it was a pretty night, hoping he’d take the hint to ask me to go walking, but he didn’t.
“So I tried touching him and looking into his eyes, like Fifi and Estelle said, but he just looked at me like I’d lost my mind. ‘Go on, Alice,’ he said, pushing me away. ‘You trying to get me sacked?’ He was looking around all nervous-like. Then I realized he was worried those cowboys would see us. I couldn’t help it, m’lady. I lit into him. I told him he cared more about horses and cowboys than he ever could a woman and I didn’t know what I’d seen in him in the first place. Then I started crying and ran out of there.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and sniffed. “Men! How do women ever put up with them?”
Cecily patted her shoulder. She’d asked her own variation of that question more times than she could count since coming to Texas. “I don’t know, Alice, but somehow we do.”
“I saw Lord Silsbee take off riding a while ago, m’lady.” Alice composed herself and turned to Cecily. “Did you have a nice supper?”
Cecily shook her head. “Not especially, no.” She looked down at her folded hands.
“I’m sorry to hear that, m’lady. I’ve always thought Lord Silsbee to be a fine man.”
“He is a fine man, Alice. But I’m not sure he wants to marry me anymore.” The words hurt to say, like glass in her throat. But she couldn’t run away from that truth any longer. She’d mistakenly thought coming to Texas would change what he had so clearly communicated in his letters to her, but tonight’s conversation left no more room for doubt.
Alice looked stern. “Maybe it’s Texas. All this drabness and wide open spaces plays tricks with a man’s mind, makes him think he’s bigger than he is, not needing a woman.”
“Or maybe Texas is playing tricks on us,” Cecily said. “Making us think we’re big enough to change a man’s mind when it’s made up.”
“What are you going to do, m’lady? You come all this way to marry Lord Silsbee. Will you go home in disgrace?” She sounded close to tears again.
But Cecily refused to give in to weeping. “If I go home, it will be with my head held high.” She stared down at the ring on the third finger of her left hand. The sapphire surrounded by pearls in a setting of pure gold had belonged to Charles’s grandmother. He’d presented it to her the evening their engagement was formally announced. That night, she’d floated on a cloud of happiness, sure nothing could ever take away the perfection of that moment, the realization of her life’s dream.
Her dream had not changed, even if the fairy-tale bliss of that night had faded. “I won’t go home just yet,” she said firmly. “I’m still Charles’s fiancé, until he says otherwise.”
“That you are, m’lady.”
She turned once more to Alice and took her hand. “Let’s make a pact.”
Alice looked uncomfortable. “What kind of pact, m’lady?”
“We won’t give up on our stubborn men until we know we’ve done everything in our power to make them see the error of their ways.”
Alice looked doubtful. “If Fifi and Estelle’s way didn’t work, what else can we do?”
“We can approach this like any clever English woman — with beauty, and charm, and the quality we excel at — diplomacy.”
“What’s diplomacy, m’lady?”
“Diplomacy is what allows an English woman to give a tea for a hundred guests, half of whom are not speaking to each other, and have the whole thing declared an unqualified success. Diplomacy enables an Englishwoman to manage a household with a dozen servants and half a dozen family members while simultaneously chairing the ladies society orphans fund drive and entertaining her husband’s parents for three weeks. Diplomacy can persuade a man to pay for a hat he detests and to attend a dinner with two other couples who bore him, and diplomacy will convince him to like both the hat and the other couples by the end of the evening.”
Alice’s eyes widened. “You can do all that with diplomacy?”
She smiled. “I can. And I will. And you will too. Charles and Nick won’t know what hit them.”
* * *
“I’d like you to take Lady Cecily into town for me this morning, Gordon.” Charles knotted his necktie and studied his reflection in the dresser mirror.
“Begging your pardon, m’lord, but I don’t believe that would be a good idea.”
“Why not?” He turned from the mirror and faced his valet.
Gordon fixed his attention on the boots he was blacking. “If I drive into town with Lady Thorndale at my side, there might be talk.”
“What kind of talk?” He frowned. He didn’t have time for debate. He wanted to be out of the house long before Cecily was up and about.
Gordon scowled at a scuff on the toe of one boot and rubbed in more polish. “People might think there was some improper relationship between us.”
“Improper relationship?” Charles shrugged into his jacket. “And just why would they think that?”
Gordon went right on rubbing in polish as if he’d said nothing the least bit shocking. “You know these Texans, m’lord. Rank and position mean nothing to them. If they saw Lady Thorndale and myself together in town, they would wonder why you weren’t escorting her yourself. Then they would likely jump to the conclusion — in error, of course — that I had replaced you in the lady’s affections.”
“Of all the preposterous ideas!” Not that he meant to insult Gordon, but he was a valet. An earl’s daughter wouldn’t even consider an alliance with anything less
than a viscount.
Would she?
“I’m sure it would be best for all concerned if you would escort Lady Thorndale this morning,” Gordon said without a change of expression.
Best for everyone but me, Charles thought ruefully. He turned back to the mirror and ran a comb through his hair. He would rather have faced a firing squad than Cecily’s accusing eyes this morning. “The truth, Gordon, is that I’m a coward.”
“A coward, sir? I should think not.” Gordon set aside the boot and stared at him in the mirror.
“Lady Cecily and I had words at supper last night. I’m afraid I did not act in the most gentlemanly manner toward her.” He’d lain awake long into the night, rehashing the conversation they’d had. By the time gray dawn lightened the room, he’d reached the conclusion that he’d behaved abominably. Cecily had poured out her heart to him and he’d rebuffed her, a cad returning an unwanted gift.
“I can’t think you would have done anything so terrible that Lady Thorndale could not find it in her heart to forgive you.” Gordon picked up the boot and his polishing cloth once more. “Most women seem accepting of the fact that men will behave badly at times. I think they even expect it of us.”
“Lady Cecily is not most women, Gordon. She has no brothers or close male cousins. Her experience with men is rather limited.”
“Of course, m’lord.” Gordon regarded the polished boot and gave a nod of satisfaction, then picked up the unpolished mate. “Still, women talk amongst themselves. You may find that she is willing to forget last night’s mistakes and move on from there.”
Either that, or she’ll cut me dead and demand a ticket on the next train out of town. True, he’d wanted her to return home, but not with this hurt between them. Laying aside the comb, he straightened his shoulders. “Better take my punishment like a man.”
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