by Jane Feather
Finally, Sylvester could endure it no longer. He tossed his napkin onto the table and rose to his feet. "Forgive me, Lady Belmont, but I'm afraid we're all going to suffer from indigestion if Theo doesn't unburden herself soon." He strode round the table to where Theo sat, staring at a strawberry on her plate as if she'd never seen such a thing before.
"Come along, cousin." He pulled back her chair. "Let's get this over with."
"Get what over with?" She looked up at him over her shoulder, startled out of her absorption.
"I'm hoping you're going to tell me," he said dryly, taking her elbow and drawing her to her feet. "Excuse us, ma'am."
"Certainly," Elinor said with relief.
A footman jumped to open the door for them, and Sylvester hustled Theo out into the hall.
"Now, shall we have this discussion in the library, or would you prefer to go for a walk?"
"There's nothing to discuss." The words tumbled free. "I can't marry you, Stoneridge, that's all."
"It seems to me we have a great deal to discuss," he said coolly. "Or do you consider it sufficient simply to make such a statement out of the blue? A woman's prerogative to change her mind… is that it?"
Theo flushed. She'd expected him to put her in the wrong, and God knows, he was entitled to, but it was horrible to see herself in such a light. "You don't understand -"
"No, I don't," he said curtly. "But you're going to explain it to me. Now, do you wish to go into the library, or shall we go for a walk?" If the stakes hadn't been so high, he would have felt compassion for her. Her eyes were stricken, and she pushed a hand distractedly through the wispy fringe on her forehead. But he couldn't afford sympathy. She was at a disadvantage, and he was going to exploit that to its limit.
"Which is it to be?"
Theo felt stifled. His eyes were devoid of understanding, his mouth a taut line, and she felt as if a great stone was pressing down on her.
"Outside," she said, turning on her heel and almost running out the front door.
Sylvester followed in more leisurely fashion as she made off down the lawn toward the stone bridge at the bottom of the hill. She stopped on the bridge and leaned against the low parapet, gazing down into the clear brown stream flowing sluggishly beneath. Two swallows dived among the clouds of midges hovering over the surface of the water.
Sylvester stepped onto the bridge, his feet loud in the stillness. He leaned against the stonework beside her. Theo said nothing, but he felt the little tremor run through her as his arm brushed hers.
"I trust you're not being missish, gypsy," he commented.
"Of course I'm not!" She turned angrily toward him. No one had ever accused her of such a thing before.
"Then what the hell's the matter with you?"
"I'm frightened!" she cried with the same anger. She hadn't meant to tell him, but the words had spoken themselves.
Whatever he'd been expecting, it hadn't been that. "Frightened? My dear girl, of what?"
"You!" The admission was a ferocious whisper.
"Me?" Sylvester was astounded. "What have I done to warrant your fear?"
Theo picked at a piece of loose stone on the parapet and tossed it into the stream.
"It's not so much what you've done, as what I'm afraid you'll do," she said in a low voice.
Sylvester frowned. "What do you think I'm going to do to you, you silly goose?"
"I am not a silly goose," she said, recovering some of her sangfroid. "I'm afraid you'll swallow me up… take over."
"I still don't understand." He searched now for patience. This was obviously a much more complex issue than he'd thought.
"I'm afraid I'll lose myself if I marry you," she said. "You'll take control and I'll be swept up." She stared straight ahead of her across the river, aware that her cheeks were hot, knowing that she was failing lamentably to express herself, but it was so damnably embarrassing to explain.
"Let's move out of sight of the house," Sylvester said abruptly, conscious of the manor's sparkling windows like so many shining eyes looking down at them from the top of the hill. Taking her arm, he chivied her across the bridge and a few yards along the bank toward the stand of oak trees from where he'd first laid eyes on his cousin.
"Now… I'll see what I can do to calm your fears." He was smiling as he stood her against an oak tree, his eyes somewhat amused. He thought he understood. "Perhaps this will help…"
It was no good. The minute his lips touched hers, Theo was lost. There was nothing her mind could do to control her responses. Her hands slid inside his coat, on their own voyage of exploration, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath his shirt, the ripple of muscle down his back, and then the hard, muscled tautness of his buttocks.
Her teeth nipped at his lower lip as their tongues plunged and warred, and her legs twined and twisted around his, her loins pressing urgently against his. She moved a hand round his body to mold the hard shaft of flesh straining against the skintight knit of his pantaloons, and as she felt the flesh jumping against her caressing hand, she was filled with a wild exultation, knowing that he was as lost in lust as she was.
She went down to the grass beneath the urgent pressure of his hand on her shoulder and fell back, the grass beneath her damp with early-evening dew. Lifting her against him for a brief moment, he unfastened the hooks at the back of her dress, then let her fall back onto the grass. She twisted and lifted her body to help him as he pulled the dress away from her. He unbuttoned her chemise, baring her breasts to the cool air, and his tongue flickered over the rosy crowns, one finger delicately stroking the satin swell.
Theo felt herself to be a burning brand of desire. She had no modesty, no ability to restrain her movements as her thighs opened, exposing the aching cleft of her body to the hand that moved downward, slipped into the waist of her drawers, and flattened over her belly. Fretfully, she scrabbled at her undergarments, pushing them away from her body, kicking them off her feet.
Her hips arched as she reached for him to pull him down to her, her own hands trying to find a way to touch his skin, to reach the turgid flesh that her body knew in its every crevice would bring her ultimate joy.
And then suddenly, with a harsh exclamation, Sylvester pulled back from her. He looked down at the half-naked girl, lying open and expectant, her eyes wild with passion, her arms still raised as if waiting for him to return to their embrace.
"God in heaven!" he whispered, running a hand through his hair, fighting for control. He took a deep, shuddering breath and reached for her discarded drawers. "Put these back on."
It was taking Theo longer to return to sanity. "Why?" she drawled, her eyes narrowing. "Come back."
Sylvester bent, caught her inviting hands, and hauled her to her feet. Lust was well under control now, and he was torn between laughter and exasperation as he held up her undergarment. "Lift up your foot."
"But why?"
"Because, my passionate baggage, I have no intention of siring an heir before my wedding night. Now, lift up." He slapped her calf in emphatic punctuation.
Theo obeyed, but her heated blood was taking a long time to cool. She fumbled with the buttons of her chemise as he pulled up her drawers with a businesslike efficiency. Then she said in a low voice, "Now do you understand what I'm frightened of? You swallow me up… I lose myself. I don't know what I'm doing."
He stroked her disheveled hair away from her face. "Tell me the truth, now. Are you frightened or disappointed at the moment?"
Theo thought. "Disappointed," she said finally, a rueful smile hovering on her own lips.
Sylvester laughed. "So am I." Then he spoke gravely. "There's nothing to be afraid of. I feel what you feel. If you lose yourself in me, so will I lose myself in you. Lovemaking is the ultimate partnership. It's not a weakness, little gypsy. Not something to be taken advantage of. I promise you that never, never will I take advantage of your passion. Do you understand that?"
Never again, he amended silently, squashing a surge
of self-disgust.
Slowly, Theo nodded. But she was still frightened by the power of those feelings, by the wild surgings of her body. It would be the most potent weapon if anyone chose to use it. She bent to pick up her dress, slipping it over her head.
Sylvester leaned back against a tree, arms folded, watching her with a half smile. "So am I going to be obliged to send another notice to the Gazette, or does our engagement still stand?"
"I suppose so," she said, accepting defeat. "You want my knowledge of the estate. I want the estate. We both get something that we want out of it."
"That's certainly one way of putting it," he said wryly, pushing himself off the tree. "Come, let's go back to the house and put everyone's mind at rest."
Elinor went to bed that night a peaceful woman for the first time since her father-in-law's death. Her daughters were now provided for; even Rosie would be assured of a respectable dowry when the time came; and her most troubled and troublesome child was consigned to the care of a man Elinor was willing to wager would make Theo the only kind of husband who would suit her. She wasn't entirely sure she could describe the kind of a man that was, but some maternal instinct told her that Theo would discover it soon enough.
Sylvester rode into Dorchester the following day on an important errand, unaware that his betrothed was also out and about on a matrimonial errand of her own.
Theo rode through Lulworth village and turned off toward Castle Corfe. Just before the castle ruins, she stopped at a small cottage, more an outhouse than a proper dwelling. Dulcie had been here before and grazed contentedly on the grass verge at the end of her tether as Theo disappeared into the gloom of the low thatched-roof cottage.
"I give you good day, Dame Merriweather." She set a cloth-wrapped parcel on the table without comment.
"Aye, good day to ye, girlie." An old woman – so old it seemed hard to imagine that life spurted beneath the wrinkled skin hanging on her like an overlarge cloak – sat on a three-legged stool by the hearth. But the old eyes were sharp as they noted the parcel that she knew contained meat and cheese from the manor kitchens, and there'd be a few coins too. Enough to eke out the livelihood she made as herbalist to the village folk in the Dorsetshire countryside.
She turned her gaze on her visitor, whom she'd known from Theo's childhood, when on one of her country rambles the ten-year-old girl had stumbled upon the cottage, weeping with fury, carrying a rabbit, its foot severed by a trap, her own knee bleeding from a deep gash where she'd knelt on a razor sharp stone as she'd struggled to free the wounded animal.
The old dame had bound up the gash, given the child a drink of rose-hip syrup and a piece of lardy cake, and sent her on her way, promising to care for the rabbit.
The rabbit had gone in the pot that night, and the dame had lived off it for a week, but when the child returned, she told her that it had hopped off on its three legs, perfectly able to survive in the wild.
Since then Theo had visited regularly, always bringing something with her, even if it was only half a loaf from the breakfast table. Once she'd grown into adulthood, the gifts had been more substantial and always carefully chosen. Meat and cheese were in short supply on the old herbalist's table.
"So what can us do for ye, girlie?" The dame knew this was no purely social visit. There was a tension in the slender frame that told its own story.
"You've ways of preventing a woman conceiving a child," Theo said directly, leaning against the rickery table.
"Aye, and ways of stopping a birth, if that's what ye need." The dame heaved herself to her feet. "A sup of elderberry wine, m'dear?" She took a bottle from a shelf beside the hearth, unstoppered it, and poured a generous measure into a tin cup.
"My thanks, dame." Theo took the welcoming cup and drank, handing it back to her hostess, who refilled it and drank for herself.
"So which is it ye want, girlie?" The old herbalist turned back to her shelves.
"I've no desire to conceive as yet," Theo said.
"That's easily seen to." A wrinkled claw scrabbled among the bottles and pouches on the shelf. "This'll do it for ye."
She pulled out the stopper and sniffed at the contents, her nose wrinkling like a pig's searching out truffles.
"A lover, 'ave ye, girlie?"
"No," Theo said. "Not precisely. But a husband in a few weeks."
"Ah." The dame nodded. "Best to look after the lovin' before ye starts breedin', m'dear. If ye don't get it right afore, it'll never come right after, mark my words."
"That's rather what I thought," Theo said. "How should I take this?"
She received precise instructions and was on her way five minutes later. When the time came to give the Gilbraith an heir, it would be of her own choosing.
Sylvester entered the drawing room before dinner that evening with a smile in his eyes. He was feeling immensely pleased with himself, and his smile broadened when he saw that Theo had made an effort with her appearance and was wearing a relatively fashionable gown of dark-blue silk that matched her eyes, and her hair, instead of hanging down her back in its uncompromising rope, was looped in two braids over her ears, the fringe a soft wisp on her broad forehead.
"Ma'am." He bowed to Lady Belmont. "Cousins. I trust you spent a pleasant day."
"Not really," Rosie said. "I lost a dragonfly that I was trying to catch and tore my net on a tree branch."
"I'm sorry to hear it, Rosie," he said. The child was not usually in evidence in the evening, but since she was dressed in a crisp muslin gown with a broad sash, her hair demurely confined in a velvet ribbon, and her hands and face seemed unusually clean, he assumed she was to join them at the dinner table.
"It's very exasperating," Rosie said, sipping lemonade. "What did you do today?"
"Ah, well, I did some interesting shopping." He drew from his pocket a small square box.
"Cousin." He approached Theo, taking her left hand in his. "Permit me."
Theo stared at her finger, at the delicate circle of diamonds and seed pearls slipping over it. It was exquisitely simple. The man who had chosen it for her must know more about her tastes than she'd given him credit for.
Her eyes lifted to meet his. There was a question in the earl's, a touch of hesitancy. He wanted her to be pleased with his choice.
"It's lovely," she said, and his smile crinkled the skin around his eyes.
Raising her hand, he kissed her fingers, and then, when she looked completely astonished at such a reverent salute, he kissed the tip of her nose.
"The banns will be read for the next three Sundays, gypsy; and we'll be married the following Monday."
Chapter Nine
The Spanish sun was a brass-taloned eagle clawing at the baked earth of the Zaragoza desert. Edward Fairfax wiped his brow with a grimy handkerchief as he ducked into the welcome dimness of the stone house that served as battalion headquarters.
"It's hot as Hades out there," he observed redundantly to the men sprawling, scarlet tunics and collars open, on the various chairs and benches furnishing the building's single room. "The pickets are liable to get heat stroke, poor buggers."
"Change 'em every two hours, lieutenant," a gravelly voice spoke from the darkest corner of the room.
"Yes, sir." Edward nodded in the direction of his colonel as he loosened his tunic and unfastened his collar before lifting a copper jug to his lips. The clear, cold stream of water coated his parched throat, washing away the desert dust on his tongue.
"Mail cart came in earlier," a bearded man said, indolently gesturing toward the table where a pile of letters and newspapers lay. His hand dropped again into his lap as if the simple movement in the heat had exhausted him.
Edward riffled through the pile, extracting a letter from his mother. He'd been hoping for one from Emily, or better still, one from Theo. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy his betrothed's letters – they were warm and sweet and loving; but Theo's were full of the kind of information that he hungered for, about the land and the people they
both knew, and they were always funny. She seemed to know that humor was in short supply in Wellington's Army of the Peninsular, sweltering through yet another Spanish summer.
His mother's letter, however, contained startling information. "Good God," he said.
"Not bad news, I trust?"
"I don't know what you'd call it." He frowned, rereading the relevant paragraph. "My fiancee's younger sister has just become betrothed to the new Earl of Stoneridge. Somewhat suddenly, as far as I can gather."
"Stoneridge?" A burly captain stood up, buttoning his tunic.
"Didn't Gilbraith come into that title?" He tightened his belt buckle.
"Sylvester Gilbraith… wasn't he the center of that scandal at Vimiera?" the colonel inquired.
"What was that, sir?" Edward looked attentively toward his superior.
The colonel frowned. "Damn murky business. Gilbraith lost the colors. He was badly wounded and apparently surrendered. Spent a year in a Froggie jail until he was exchanged. Court-martial acquitted him of cowardice, but it was damn murky, nevertheless. He resigned his commission. They say if the Peer hadn't stood up for him, he'd have faced a firing squad. But Wellington would have it that he knew the man and he was no coward, however it looked."
"And how did it look, sir?" asked Edward.
The colonel stretched an arm for the water jug, taking a gulp. "Murky… damn murky. Reinforcements were on the way, and he knew it, but they say he surrendered without a whimper."
Edward frowned. "But if he was wounded…?"
The colonel shook his head. "Seems he yielded the colors and surrendered before he was wounded. Some bloody Froggie bayoneted him for the fun of it. By the time the reinforcements came up, it was all over."
"What about the men of his company?"
"Those who survived said the French were advancing for the umpteenth time, and he ordered them to surrender without firing a shot. Shocking business."