Nicola Cornick - [Bluestocking Brides 01]

by The Notorious Lord

It was the strangest thing to find herself courted by the man she had been accustomed to think of as her dearest friend; stranger still to feel her resistance dissolving into something warm and exciting and intimate, that melted her heart and set her concerns at naught. Rachel was under siege and the seduction was so subtle, so gentle, that she was already halfway lost before she even noticed it.

  Cory brought her flowers, wild roses snatched from the bushes that ran rampant beside the Winter Race, and sprigs of yellow gorse that she grumbled pierced her fingers. He took her driving and persuaded her to go boating on the river. He escorted her to the Woodbridge assembly and danced with her three times. He made her laugh. He sat talking with her whilst the sun went down and the ducks whistled and called on the river and the shadows merged into dark.

  He did not kiss her once.

  Rachel knew that he wanted to. It was implicit in the way that he held her when they danced or when he helped her down from the curricle. Once, she had been talking about her reading of the texts about the Midwinter Treasure and had looked at his face, seen that his gaze was devouring her and had stopped abruptly. They had stared at one another and Rachel had seen the heated desire in his eyes and her smile had faltered as she felt the now-familiar weakness invade her senses.

  ‘You are not listening to me!’ she had said.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Cory had said charmingly. ‘You are quite right. I confess that I did not hear a word that you were saying.’

  Rachel had blushed and Cory had laughed and kissed her fingers, and she had known that he had wanted to do a great deal more than that.

  Friendship was special, Rachel realised, but love and friendship together was proving a deeper and more perfect experience than she had ever imagined. It threatened to steal her very soul. Yet at the back of her mind was one last thought. It whispered across her happiness when she least expected it, and cast a long shadow. For Cory Newlyn was the man everyone swore was wedded to his pursuit of antiquities, the adventurer, the traveller, always on the move, possessed of a restless spirit. And she…she wanted nothing more than the calm and peace of home, and these two opposites would never be compatible, not in a thousand years.

  Oddly, it was one small incident that happened at a dinner at Saltires that finally brought the whole matter to a head. The meal was over and the ladies had retired to the drawing room to take tea and play a few desultory rounds of cards whilst they waited for the gentlemen to join them. Rachel had been sitting out that hand of whist and had lost interest in following the progress of play. She got up to inspect Lady Sally’s bookcases instead, and was soon quite engrossed in a copy of The Faery Queen. Only the sound of Cory’s voice, as he re-entered the drawing room with Richard Kestrel and Sir Arthur, roused her attention.

  ‘I should be delighted to go up to London to discuss organising an exhibition of our finds at the British Museum, sir,’ Rachel heard him say. ‘It would be a great honour. Whilst I am up in town I need to make some arrangements for my forthcoming expedition to Scandinavia.’

  ‘Some marvellous finds at Uppsala,’ Sir Arthur enthused. ‘You must write to me and report on them.’

  Cory bowed. ‘I should be pleased to, sir. I hear that they have a boat burial of the type we hoped to find here at Midwinter. I shall be most interested to view it…’

  Rachel’s blood ran cold. For a moment it seemed that Lady Sally’s drawing room, the most warm and pleasant place imaginable, was as cold and barren as the Arctic wastes. Cory’s words repeated in her brain with the emphasis of hammer on metal: I need to make arrangements for my forthcoming expedition…

  Rachel pressed her hands together and stared blindly out of the diamond-paned windows into the dark gardens beyond. Cory had not mentioned this trip to her at all. In all their conversations over the past week he had not intimated that he would be going up to London, let alone embarking for more distant shores. Which meant that either he was intending to go alone or…

  Rachel paused. Over the past week she had become increasingly convinced of Cory’s honourable intentions towards her. He had assured her that his feelings were sincere and she did not doubt him. But the inevitable corollary of that was that he would expect her to travel with him. He would expect her to marry him and then to go with him wherever he chose. Through mountain and desert and flood and desolation, without home and security and respite…Cory’s lifetime’s pursuit was antiquities—what would be more natural than that he would expect her to accompany him in his work? It was, after all, the role of a wife. It was what she would be expected to do.

  She watched Cory as he took a seat beside Lady Odell. He had given Rachel one look across the room as he had come in, a look of tenderness that had promised that he would join her soon. Suddenly Rachel did not wish him to do so.

  She went across to her parents. ‘I am sorry, Mama,’ she said, ‘but I fear I have the headache. It is nothing,’ she said hastily, as Cory got up, an expression of concern on his face, ‘but I feel I require to go to my bed.’ She turned to Lady Sally, carefully avoiding looking at Cory again.

  ‘Please excuse me, ma’am,’ she said, and there was no need to manufacture the wobble in her voice. ‘I apologise for leaving the party so early…’

  Lady Sally was all that was gracious and soon the Odells were travelling down the drive away from Saltires on their way back to Midwinter Royal. Rachel sat in the corner of the coach and rested her now genuinely aching head on her hand. She tried not to think too much about what she had heard that evening, but in the privacy of her room she lay awake for hours, staring at the canopy on her bed and weighing all the things that mattered in her life. By the morning, though, she had come to no conclusion.

  ‘I think that it will rain soon,’ Olivia Marney said, gazing at a horizon that was the same dull silver as a used sixpence. ‘Maybe not today, nor even tomorrow, but a storm will come some time within the week. I can feel it brewing.’

  Rachel and Olivia were sitting on a picnic blanket beneath the pine trees at the edge of Kestrel Beach. It was the day that Deborah had arranged for them all to go to the seaside, and because life had been so full of late, Rachel had completely forgotten about the trip until the Marneys’ barouche had rolled up the drive to collect her.

  She had almost been tempted to cry off.

  During the morning they had explored the ruined castle that overlooked the beach, Rachel making sure that she was in company with either Deborah or Olivia or a combination of the others. She had even tolerated Helena Lang’s girlish squeals and high-pitched enthusiasm as a defence against being alone with Cory. Yet it had not enabled her to ignore him. She was conscious of his presence the whole time, and whenever she glanced in his direction—which was frequently—it was to see him watching her with a quizzical look that made her heart skip a beat. She knew that look. It told her that she might be able to avoid him for the present, but that he was biding his time and she would not be able to escape for long.

  After a picnic luncheon, Olivia had decided that she would like to rest in the shade and Rachel had elected to join her whilst the others strolled down to the water’s edge. She could see them now. Helena Lang was pouncing on seashells, exclaiming in glee over each new find, careless of the fact that her skirts were wet from the incoming tide. Deborah and Ross were walking arm in arm, chatting animatedly. Behind them, Richard Kestrel and Cory Newlyn were walking, deep in conversation. As Rachel watched, Cory glanced up and looked directly at her. Rachel blushed and looked away, drawing circles in the hot sand with her fingers.

  The heat was becoming oppressive now, trapping them all under a sky like a furnace.

  Beyond the shelter of the trees the sun beat down on Kestrel Beach. The shore was wide and sandy, with windblown dunes at one end where the beach turned to pebble. It shimmered in a heat haze.

  ‘I think that a thunderstorm is just what we need to clear the air,’ Rachel said. ‘This constant heat gives me the headache.’

  ‘The storms here are tremendous,�
� Olivia said. ‘They roll in off the sea and the air is ripped by the lightning and the whole landscape shudders. Then I find it very easy to believe in the ghosts of dead warriors walking!’ She looked around and shuddered slightly. ‘At night, when the owls are calling and the moon is up, I could quite easily believe in six sorts of nonsense before supper!’

  Rachel laughed. ‘Would you prefer to live in town?’ she asked.

  Olivia shook her head slowly. She was watching the shore, where Deborah was clutching Ross’s arm and shrieking with laughter as she ran back to avoid the waves.

  ‘No. I love the country.’ Olivia said. She turned her head suddenly and Rachel was shocked to see the tears in her eyes. ‘What I would like,’ she added fiercely, ‘is to be married to a man who wants to be married to me!’

  Rachel put out an impulsive hand and touched Olivia’s own. ‘Olivia, I am so sorry.’

  ‘Do not be,’ Olivia said, giving her hand a brief, hard squeeze. ‘Forgive me, I should not have said such a thing.’ She scrubbed her eyes with a scrap of cambric handkerchief and gave Rachel an embarrassed smile. ‘I am the one who should be sorry, Rachel.’

  Rachel shook her head slightly. She watched Deborah and Ross strolling along Kestrel Beach, a little ahead of the others in the group. Rachel sighed. She wondered that Deborah, so kind in other ways, could be so blind to her sister’s misery.

  Olivia picked up her copy of The Enchantress, which she had discarded in the sandy grass beside them. She flicked a few pages over, then sighed. ‘I think I shall ask Lady Sally if we may read something a little more astringent next time,’ she said. ‘I find that romance accords ill with my mood at present!’

  Rachel laughed. ‘I believe I shall add my voice to yours,’ she said ruefully.

  ‘Lord Newlyn?’ Olivia asked, with an expressive glance. ‘I have seen the way that you are studiously avoiding him. Has something happened?’

  Rachel blushed. ‘I had not thought it was so evident to everyone.’

  Olivia smiled at her. ‘I am sorry to put you to the blush. I had not intended it. It was simply that I had noticed you did not wish to be left alone—and that Lord Newlyn is waiting for the exact moment when you are.’

  Rachel felt a flare of alarm. She knew that sooner or later she would have to speak to Cory and ask him about his plans but she felt a certain reluctance to do so. In fact, she was afraid. ‘Do you think that he will approach me?’ she asked.

  Olivia laughed. ‘I believe that is what Ross would call a racing certainty, Rachel. Lord Newlyn is a most determined gentleman, by my guess. If you do not give him an opportunity, he will engineer one for himself. He has been watching you all day.’

  Olivia stood up and shook the sand from her skirts. ‘In fact, I see that Lord Newlyn has lost his patience and is coming to find you. I think I shall go to join the others down by the water. Miss Lang had some scheme to go sea bathing, but I cannot say that it appeals to me.’

  Rachel craned her neck. Cory was taking his leave of Richard Kestrel with a brief word and an upraised hand, and was coming towards them across the sand. She scrambled to her feet. ‘I will come with you.’

  ‘I should be delighted, of course,’ Olivia said, smiling, ‘but I do not think that Lord Newlyn would be.’

  Cory’s shadow fell across them. He bowed politely to Olivia, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. ‘Good afternoon, Lady Marney. Your sister wondered whether you would care to join her?’

  Olivia smiled broadly. ‘I sensed that Deb was asking for me,’ she said. ‘I will join her directly.’ She put up her parasol and walked slowly away.

  Rachel and Cory looked at each other.

  ‘I thought that you would never give me a chance,’ he said.

  Rachel’s heart beat a little faster. ‘I was not aware that I had,’ she said wryly.

  Cory laughed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am indebted to Lady Marney for her perception. I would like to talk to you, Rae.’

  He took her arm and drew her deeper into the relative privacy of the trees. When they were sheltered beneath the dense cover of the forest he turned to her and allowed his gaze to travel over her slowly, consideringly.

  Rachel trembled slightly. ‘What is it, Cory?’

  ‘I want to know why you are avoiding me,’ Cory said bluntly. He rested one hand against the sturdy trunk of the nearest pine. ‘Last night, and again today, you have been very careful to make sure that we are never alone together. I would like to know why.’ He took her hand. ‘What has changed between us, Rae?’

  Rachel evaded his gaze. It was so difficult when they knew each other so well. She felt as though she had nowhere to hide, no place to keep secrets. He knew her thoughts and he knew her mind. Every reaction was exposed to him and there could be no concealment.

  She paid him the compliment of being as blunt as he.

  ‘I hear that you are to go away,’ she said.

  She saw his face ease, as though he had expected some far more difficult problem. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘It is true that I shall be leaving for London shortly, but I do not plan to go for a week or so yet. I am sorry that you had to hear it by a roundabout route.’

  There was a hollow feeling growing within Rachel. ‘And your trip to Scandinavia?’ she said. ‘Is that also something that you wish to tell me about?’

  This time the silence was longer.

  ‘This was not how I wished to do this,’ Cory said, at length. His gaze held hers. Rachel could feel the tension in him tight as a coiled spring.

  ‘I want you to marry me, Rae,’ he said. ‘When…if I go away, I wish you to come with me. You cannot have misunderstood my feelings or my intentions, I hope. It is my most ardent desire that you will accept my proposal.’

  Rachel stared at him. She felt breathless, as though she was on the edge of something too huge to be contemplated. Cory looked quite calm, but then she saw the faintest hint of uncertainty in his face, the way that he squared his shoulders as though expecting a rejection. The moment of vulnerability from such a strong man sent a wave of love through her that was so acute that she trembled.

  ‘I do not know…’ The words were wrenched from her. ‘There is much to consider, Cory. I need time.’

  ‘Time,’ Cory said, with a ghost of a smile. ‘Yes, I understand that, Rae.’

  Rachel felt her fears and doubts press in on her. ‘It sounds foolish when I have known you so long,’ she said, ‘but I have not yet become accustomed to our situation.’

  Cory nodded. ‘I am not a patient man, Rae…’ he pulled her close to him ‘…but if you can give me hope then I can give you at least a little time.’

  His mouth brushed hers in a tantalising shadow of a kiss that set Rachel’s pulse racing. It was the lightest, most teasing of contacts, and yet it sent flickers of desire burning through her. Barely aware of her own reactions, she leaned into the kiss, feeling the rough material of Cory’s shirt under her fingers and the hard muscle beneath that. In his arms it was all too easy to forget her misgivings, her fears of the future. The kiss changed, became heated and fierce, and Rachel felt herself turn hot all over, her skin prickling with desire and awareness. She knew that she had no defences against Cory’s undeniable expertise. He kissed her with a concentrated passion that made her shiver down to her toes.

  ‘Damn it, Rae,’ he said, against her mouth, ‘do not keep me waiting too long.’ He let her go and she could see the conflict in his face before he smoothed the expression away. ‘I must take you back,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Until I can claim you as my future wife I must not do anything further to endanger your reputation.’

  He drew her hand through his arm and led her out of the shade and on to the beach. No one seemed to have noticed their disappearance. Deb and Olivia, Ross and Richard Kestrel were still wandering along the water’s edge. Helena Lang and James Kestrel were nowhere to be seen.

  Rachel tilted her hat to shield her face from the sun and from Cory’s perceptive gaze. Her m
ind was in a turmoil.

  Until I can claim you as my future wife… There seemed no doubt in Cory’s mind that she would accept. Rachel wished that she had his confidence. For although the physical attraction between them threatened to sweep all sanity away, she knew that it required more than that to make a life together.

  They rejoined the rest of the party and soon Helena Lang and James Kestrel appeared along the beach and it was generally agreed to return home. The others seemed to be in good spirits and Rachel smiled until her face ached. It was only later that she sat on the edge of her bed and thought about Cory and about what he wanted from life.

  She knew now that Cory’s intentions were honourable, but she was also aware that there was a very great problem indeed in marrying him. She knew that she loved him—he was the man that she wanted as her husband, just as Olivia had suggested to her all those weeks ago.

  But she did not love his way of life.

  Just thinking about it made her come out in a cold sweat of fear and depression. When she had come to Midwinter, she had allowed herself to think that her travelling days might be over for good. For years she had traipsed around the world in her parents’ wake like a small rowing boat bobbing helplessly behind two purposeful galleons. She had craved a settled home and a stable life—the chance to carve out something of her own—and from that point of view, Cory Newlyn was the worst possible choice for a husband.

  She thought of Cory then; of his fervour for life, and his enthusiasms and the spark of excitement about him that she had always condemned as recklessness, but now saw was the essence of the man himself. She had a dreadful feeling that that spark would be extinguished if he were to marry a woman who did not share his passions in life, or, worse still, a woman who followed him reluctantly and could not disguise her unwillingness. It made her feel quite sick to think of it.

  She turned her face against her pillow and felt the hot tears sink silently into its cool surface. For the kissing had to stop now and so did any idea of marriage, and she was rather afraid that the friendship would be lost too.