by Diane Gaston
Edmund felt the flare of desire at her words, but he knew she had no idea her words were provocative. Besides, even if she were not dog-tired, she was not ready, not when she’d spent the last couple of days withdrawn in grief. He’d been grieved, too, but work had saved him.
‘An excellent idea,’ he responded. ‘I must rise early again tomorrow.’
She straightened in her chair. ‘I am rising early, too.’
‘Are you?’ For her to labour one day was more than anyone expected.
‘Of course I am,’ she responded in a wounded tone. ‘Everyone is working tomorrow, is that not correct?’
He gave her a direct look. ‘I am not suggesting you not work, Amelie. I am proud of you for what you’ve done this day. If you wish to do more, I will be prouder still.’
She quickly averted her gaze. ‘Thank you, Edmund,’ she murmured.
They walked up the mahogany stairs together, and he saw her to her bedchamber door. How he wished, even fatigued as he was, he could sleep with her in his arms like when she’d cried out from her nightmare.
Instead he placed his lips on her forehead. ‘Goodnight, Amelie.’
She leaned into him, and he put his arms around her.
‘Sleep well,’ he murmured.
When he withdrew his arms, she hurried into her room.
* * *
The next two days were filled with work, turning hay, stacking it as high as the workers’ cottages and covering the stacks with canvas tarps to keep out the rain.
Amelie did not mind any of it. The work, hard as it was, healed her spirits, and she felt happy for the first time since walking into the Duchess of Richmond’s ball.
What a far cry from Middlerock farm that night was!
She liked the women turning hay with her more than she’d liked those society women at the ball. She liked the men who cut the hay with their scythes. She liked working with them and accomplishing such a huge task.
She perceived their stay at this farm with fresh eyes. It no longer seemed like an exile or a withdrawal from life. It seemed like life itself, or what life ought to be.
Amelie felt ready to face the future, no matter what it threw at her.
For Amelie, it was not the end of the haymaking she celebrated; it was her new beginning. Everyone gathered in one of the farm buildings large enough to seat them all. Mrs Stagg and the farm wives prepared a feast and everyone ate together, drank ale together and sang and danced.
It was the best party Amelie had ever attended, better even than the Duchess of Richmond’s ball.
She glanced at Edmund, seated at the head of the table, laughing and lifting his tankard to his lips. He looked up and their eyes caught.
Her heart leaped into her throat. Edmund’s eyes warmed her more than the large stone fireplace, blazing with firewood.
He rose from his seat and made his way down the long table to where Amelie sat, stopping to acknowledge something said to him, a joke told, some cajolery or simply a handshake. He finally reached her and extended his hand.
She put hers in his, and he pulled her from her seat. ‘We’re to bed, I think,’ he said, and the room erupted in raucous shouts. Amelie felt her face turn red.
Why not, though? she thought. Why not behave as man and wife? Why not seize the pleasure it brought them both?
Sally, who sat with Mr Reid, asked her, ‘Shall I come with you?’
Amelie gestured for her to stay. ‘No, enjoy yourself. I’ll not need you tonight.’
‘Ohhhh!’ exclaimed one of the women, and laughter broke out among them again. The laughter followed Amelie and Edmund out of the building.
As they walked across the yard to the house, dark clouds swept across the moon.
‘Storm clouds?’ Amelie stopped to look up at the sky. ‘Will it storm tonight, just as Mr Reid said?’
Edmund threaded her arm though his. ‘Uncanny of him to predict the rain. I do not know if he realises how much knowledge he holds inside him.’
Their bodies bumped each other as they walked. Amelie liked feeling the strength of Edmund’s arm beneath her fingers. She remembered the power of that same arm swinging the scythe in a rhythmic and graceful arc. Or its gentleness when holding her in a naked embrace.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed days more than these,’ she said. ‘I shall miss haymaking.’
‘You impressed the farm workers.’ He smiled down at her. ‘One man told me he thought offcomers were all lazy and puffed up, but that you and I proved him wrong.’
‘Offcomers?’
‘Someone not from here.’
They reached the conservatory door and entered the house, which was nearly pitch-black inside.
‘We should have brought a candle,’ she said.
Edmund took her hand. ‘We’ll find our way.’
She could see nothing and it was only his hand that told her he was ahead of her. They climbed the stairs, and at the top, it felt as if the darkness enveloped them and shielded them from anything but each other.
He put his arms around her and kissed her.
The feel of his lips against hers, his tongue touching hers, the heat of his body and the scent of him ignited the passion in her that she’d pushed away. He pulled the scarf from her head and dug his fingers into her curls.
When his lips left hers, she murmured, ‘I am healed now, Edmund.’ In both body and mind.
He took her hand and opened the door to his bedchamber. Enough moonlight streamed through the windows so she could see his face, a face that now had become so familiar and so dear.
‘I have wanted you all these nights,’ he said, kissing her again. ‘I have missed you.’
Her body flared with sensation, a harbinger of the pleasure that was to come, made even more erotic by the darkness. The room was chilled, but the cold did not trouble her. It refreshed her and made her feel more alive.
‘Shall I make a fire?’ he asked between kisses that had travelled to her cheek, her neck, her ear.
‘We can warm each other,’ she murmured.
He stepped back and pulled off his boots and stripped off his coat, a mere shadow now that he was at a distance. She watched him, spellbound by the efficiency of his movements, his masculine grace.
He stood naked before her and extended his hand to her.
She clasped it and let him draw her near.
‘Your turn,’ he murmured, untying her apron and the laces of her dress.
He pulled the dress over her head, leaving her in her corset, shift and boots. She took his hand again and backed to the bed, climbing on top of it and presenting him with her booted foot. He pulled off her boots and peeled off her stockings. He climbed on the bed with her and unlaced and removed her corset. All that remained was her shift. She did not wait for him but pulled it over her head herself.
The undressing seemed like a ritual. So familiar. So much the same as that night in Brussels. And their wedding night.
So much like the first time...and the last.
A loud hum seemed to come from inside her, unsettling her, and a cloud crossed the moon. The room was plunged in darkness, leaving only the memories swirling through her mind, choking off the brightness of her mood, blocking her happiness. Cutting off the very air she needed to breathe.
Edmund touched her and she started to tremble. He rose over her and her heart pounded. She could not get air into her lungs.
‘No! No!’ She pushed him away.
He moved to her side and sat looking down at her. ‘What is it, Amelie? What happened?’
She wanted to run, to be as far away as her legs could carry her, to somewhere she could breathe.
‘I—I do not know,’ she managed, still trying to gulp air. This was how she had destroyed their baby. This
was how she had ruined his future. Her pleasure only brought pain. ‘I cannot do this, Edmund. I cannot.’
Was she never to recover completely? Would she ever find happiness?
She tried to scramble off the bed, but he held her shoulders and sat her in front of him.
‘We do not have to make love.’ He spoke in a quiet, calm voice. ‘But stay with me, Amelie. Sleep with me.’
It was all she could do not to fight him to free herself.
‘I can’t, Edmund,’ she cried. ‘I can’t.’
He released her, and she bolted off the bed and through the connecting doorway to her own room.
* * *
Sally walked across the yard with Mr Reid. The celebration had broken up, and the workers were headed for their cottages. She could have walked back with the other servants, but she lingered, listening to Mr Reid, who told her stories of other hay harvests, one he’d witnessed when he was a mere child when his whole family had worked feverishly in the fields to bring the hay in before the rain, but the rain had come, soaking the results of their labour and nearly ruining his father’s small hill farm.
Everything he said seemed interesting to her, and the way he said it, as well. His strange accent made her pay closer attention, and it seemed as though she heard more that way. Her own thoughts could not interfere.
Walking with him in the dark was different than talking in the building where the banquet was held. She’d met him outside in the dark twice since that first time. She’d told herself she just wanted some night air, but sometimes she wondered if she’d hoped he be there.
‘I have enjoyed your company tonight,’ he said.
They walked side by side, not touching.
‘And I yours,’ she admitted.
Not the way she’d enjoyed Calvin’s company, though. Calvin had been as familiar as her own image in a mirror, as comfortable as well-worn shoes. Mr Reid had strange ways, strange words for things, and it was exciting to be exposed to new things.
They reached the house, a servant’s door off the kitchen wing. As she reached for the door latch he stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
‘Wait a moment, lass,’ he said.
She drew back.
He shifted from one foot to the other before looking directly at her. ‘Since we enjoy each other’s company,’ he began, ‘I was wondering if I could—could court you.’
Her stomach dropped. ‘Court me?’
‘Aye, you’re a widow, I know, and not very long of it.’ She’d told him the lie her mistress had devised for her: that her husband had died at Waterloo. ‘If it is too soon, I’ll wait.’
She panicked. ‘You can’t—you can’t—you do not know—’
‘Know what?’ he asked.
‘You do not know me!’ she cried and moved around him to the door, opened it and ran inside.
Chapter Eighteen
The next morning Edmund woke alone in his bed. Rain beat against his window.
It most perfectly matched his mood.
He could not blame Amelie her panic. Sometimes memories came back to him, too, and he had to fight to push them away again.
She’d looked so beautiful the night before, so happy. He’d wanted it to last.
‘It is raining,’ he said aloud. ‘Raining in more ways than one.’
He dressed quickly and grabbed his caped greatcoat, the one that had seen him through the rain-filled night before Waterloo and wet marches through Spain, before walking down to the kitchen to get something to eat.
Mrs Stagg greeted him with a smile. ‘I did not expect you up so early on a day like this.’
No sense spreading the gloom he felt inside. He smiled at her. ‘Mr Reid was right about the rains, was he not?’
She nodded. ‘He’s a wise one, he is.’ She cut some bread and cheese. ‘And you’ll be looking for something to eat, I expect.’
‘This will do.’ He took a piece of bread and a wedge of cheese and started to eat. ‘Do you have some oilcloth? Something I can use to carry the ledger books from Reid’s office to the library?’
Her face turned solemn. ‘Oilcloth for the ledger books,’ she repeated without enthusiasm. ‘Wait a moment.’
By the time he finished his bread and cheese, she brought him some folded cloth.
‘Will this do?’ she asked. ‘I also brought some twine.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Stagg. This will do nicely.’ He took the items from her hands.
He had to keep busy or he’d go mad. As long as he was not idle, he could put one foot in front of the other.
Collecting his hat and donning his greatcoat, he opened the door and paused a moment before dashing out into the rain.
He ran the distance to the farm building where Reid had his office and knocked on the man’s door.
‘Come in,’ he heard Reid say.
‘Summerfield!’ Reid jumped to his feet. ‘I did not expect to see you out in the weather.’
Edmund’s greatcoat dripped water on the bare wooden floor.
‘I thought it a perfect day to look at the books.’ He did not move, confining the puddle to where he stood.
‘The books?’ Reid frowned.
‘The ledger books. Surely you knew I would want to examine them,’ Edmund said.
Reid rubbed his face. ‘I meant to show you more of the workings of the farm first. The entries might make no sense to you otherwise.’
‘I’ve seen my father’s ledgers,’ Edmund assured him. ‘And I will ask if there is something I do not understand.’
‘Very well.’
Reid moved slowly from around his desk to a locked cabinet. He took his time opening the cabinet, where several canvas-bound ledger books were stacked one on top of the other.
‘How far back do you wish to go?’ Reid asked.
Was that anxiety in his voice?
‘When did you start here?’
‘Five years back,’ Reid answered.
‘Then give me six years,’ Edmund said.
Reid’s brows lowered, but he pulled out six ledgers. ‘The ink will run if they get wet.’
Edmund lifted his hand. ‘I have an oilskin to wrap them in.’
It seemed as if all Reid’s wariness and suspicion of those first days had returned, and Edmund did not know why.
Edmund spread open the oilcloth onto a table, and Reid placed the books on top of it. He wrapped them carefully and tied them with twine so the cloth would not open accidentally.
He glanced over at Reid. ‘I do not expect to find anything amiss, Reid. I want you to know that.’
‘You won’t,’ Reid shot back, his tone defiant.
Edmund started for the door. ‘Nothing displeases me so far. The farm is run well. You should be proud of your work.’
Reid straightened. ‘I am.’
* * *
Amelie sat on her bed, gazing out the window at the rain, regretting the night before. She had no idea why she had gone into a panic with Edmund. It had suddenly seemed as if something terrible would happen if she allowed herself to indulge in that pleasure. It had come as a surprise attack.
She’d been dreadful to Edmund. One more thing guaranteed to displease him. The list was growing longer.
She heard a light tap on the door. Not Edmund. Edmund would have rapped with vigour.
‘Come in,’ she said.
Sally entered, her head bowed, her shoulders slumped. Amelie turned away from her own misery to attend to Sally’s. Perhaps she could help Sally, and at least one of them could be happy.
‘What is amiss, Sally?’ Amelie asked.
‘Nothing, ma’am,’ the maid responded in mournful tones.
‘Has someone been unkind to you?’ Of everyone, Sally had h
ad the lightest duties during the haymaking. Had the other servants complained?
‘Unkind? No, ma’am.’ She sounded as if she might cry. ‘Not unkind. Not at all.’
Amelie patted the bed. ‘Come sit with me.’
Sally joined her and Amelie put an arm around her. ‘Tell me what is amiss, no matter what it is.’
Sally turned away and shifted in her seat, but finally she stared at her feet and spoke. ‘It is Mr Reid—’
‘Mr Reid?’ She’d noticed him talking to Sally. He was not the sort to take advantage of her, was he?
Of course, how was Amelie to know a man’s true character if he decided to conceal it? She had once been dreadfully fooled herself.
‘He—he walked me back to the house last night...’ She paused as if it were difficult to go on.
Amelie blanched. Had she been wrong about Mr Reid? She’d been wrong before. ‘What did he do?’
Fat tears rolled down Sally’s cheeks. ‘He—he asked—he asked—to court me.’
Relief washed through Amelie. ‘To court you?’ If he was what he seemed to be, he was a fine man with a good position. ‘Would that be so disagreeable?’
‘No, not disagreeable at all!’ Sally cried. ‘I like him. I like him, and I feel like it is betraying Calvin, but worse, he doesn’t know about the baby. No one does, although I think Mrs Wood suspects. What will he think of me?’
Soon everyone would know.
Amelie kept her voice calm. ‘He will think you are a widow left with child.’
Sally turned to stare into her face. ‘But that is a lie, is it not? What would he think if he knew the truth of me? He would despise me.’
‘Do not tell him.’
‘And lie to him all my days?’ She looked horrified.
Amelie took her by the shoulders, the way Edmund had done to her the night before. ‘Then tell him. If he truly has a regard for you, he will not mind.’
Amelie was not as certain of this advice as she made out to be. What would a man like Fowler do with such a confession? Not every man was like Edmund. Edmund would do the right thing.
She rose from the bed. ‘Come. Help me dress. You must think about this and decide what to do.’