“No, you’ll need it,” she protested.
He pressed his forehead to hers and kissed the end of her nose. “Keep it. No arguments.”
They circled to the side of the abbey where they had left the carriage. At the sight of the dozing horse silhouetted against the twilight, Laurel came to an abrupt halt. The cold, stark beauty of the hills and the abbey and the emerging stars renewed her earlier impression of having stumbled into a fairy tale. It was an illusion that broke her heart.
“Leaving here will mean an end, you know.”
Would he understand? However much she might wish it, she could not continue as they had been. Her life was no fairy tale, nor was she a widow in control of her own fate. She was a single woman who had forgotten the vital importance of discretion . . . and of chastity. She had her sisters to think of, and Victoria . . . Victoria, whose trust she had betrayed simply by taking Aidan into her confidence, much less surrendering her body to him.
Could she convince the queen of his worthiness? Even if she could, Victoria would never condone Laurel’s actions these past two days, would never give her permission to take this relationship further.
Beneath her fingers, Aidan’s forearm tensed. He looked down at the ground and nodded. “We have been reckless, and I have been irresponsible.”
“No—”
“It’s true. I knew from the first that I should stay away from you, yet I used every excuse I could think of to be near you.” He rested his hands on her shoulders and drew her closer. “Laurel, my life is such that I cannot offer you more. Not now. And it would be selfish of me to ask you to wait, or ask you to accept what I could give you, which would fall miserably short of what a woman like you deserves.”
A contradiction sizzled on the end of her tongue but went no further. She had worried that Victoria would not approve of such a relationship, but she hadn’t stopped to consider that Aidan himself would deem it necessary—or perhaps desirable—to walk away.
However prettily he worded it, he obviously regarded her as an inconvenience . . . and as a temporary diversion in his life.
Why should that raise her resentment? She had as many reasons as he to end their affair, perhaps more. Better to do it now, before she lost her courage.
She stepped out his warm embrace, refusing to flinch at the cool slap of the breeze against her cheeks. “Let us be off, then.”
“Wait.” He came up behind her as she reached the carriage. “There is bitterness in your voice, Laurel. Must it be like that? Must we have ill feelings between us?”
“How else shall we part? As friends?” She spat the word with all the vehemence she could muster. She didn’t want his friendship or his protection, not unless his heart came in the bargain as well.
“I am not suggesting we never see each other again. There are still too many matters to be settled. Do you think I’d abandon you, knowing a fiend lay in wait to harm you?”
“I’ll take care of myself, thank you.”
His soft laughter infuriated her. How dare he find humor when all she wanted to do was bury her face in the nearest pillow and sob until her chest and throat and eyes ached more than her breaking heart?
It wasn’t his fault. He was correct in ending what should never have begun . . . but he seemed intent on making it as difficult and as painful as possible.
Especially now, as he took her in his arms and pressed her cheek to his chest, and the tears she hadn’t known were falling began to soak his shirtfront.
“I’m sorry,” she said between sobs. “I am not usually like this.”
“It’s been a long day. But before it ends, I have a request.”
She lifted her face and swiped her hands across her cheeks. “Yes?”
“A dance.”
“What? Here?”
“What more perfect place? You and I have danced beneath the stars before, Laurel. Don’t you hear the music now?”
“Don’t be silly. I hear only the breeze.” She paused to listen. “And the stream and crickets and a creaking branch . . .”
“Yes, and there is music in all of it.” His hand a warm and steady guide at her waist, he moved her away from the carriage and twirled her. Over the grassy terrain he swept her backward, forward, to the side, and back. At first she stumbled along, but by some miracle they fell into the graceful pattern of a three-count rhythm. He held her close and softly murmured the beats into her hair.
“Listen closely,” he whispered. “The strings, pianoforte, now the woodwinds. Let yourself hear it, feel it. Let it flow through you. . . .”
Suddenly the sensuous notes of a waltz drifted through her mind, enveloping her in sound, sensation, a thrilling sense that the world was hers—theirs—to command and shape. She felt alive, exhilarated . . . invincible.
“You hear it, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Now look up.”
As he whirled her in dizzying, glorious circles, she obeyed, lifting her face to the twinkling constellations and waiting for the next miracle.
“The stars, Laurel. They’re dancing. The bear, the wolf, the hunter. The virgin. Do you see them?”
Oh, they were, whirling and whirling in time to the music, to a beautiful waltz that only she and Aidan and the stars could hear.
And then the whirling stopped and all went still, the music coalescing into one long, beautiful, lingering note as Aidan bent his face over hers. At first she thought he would kiss her, but he only smiled into her eyes with longing and sadness and steely-edged resolve.
Her heart overflowed with all the love they would never share. “Why did you do that?”
“So that years from now it will be what you remember of this day. Not the disappointments or the heartache or my wretched failings, but the glory of commanding the earth to sing and the sky to dance. For you, Laurel. All for you.”
And she realized that though he might not be offering her a happily-ever-after, he had already given her more than she had ever imagined.
Chapter 21
They spent the night in separate rooms at the Crimson Fox in Billington. Aidan passed the hours tossing and turning until he finally threw off the bedclothes and went to sit by the window and stare up at the sky.
He would never look at the stars the same way again. In their patterns, he would always see Laurel’s beautiful face, the sparkle of her tears, the glow of her smile. Had he made the right decision in letting her go? His chest ached with the dismal prospect of a life without her, but if keeping her safe meant forfeiting his own happiness, he would do it gladly.
Then why did a clawing doubt scrape his gullet raw? Why that niggling sense that it hadn’t been noble sacrifice but cold, choking cowardice that prompted him to back away from the first woman who was capable of breaking through the walls he had erected around himself ever since . . . ?
Ever since he saw what love had done to his father.
A burst of fury sent his fist slamming against the wall beside the window. His decision concerning Laurel had nothing to do with his past. The only hold his mother’s illness and his father’s death had on him now came in the form of his obligation to prevent others from being preyed upon in similar ways. The Home Office needed him. England needed him.
And Laurel needed a man who was free to put her first.
Yet as he stared down at his bleeding knuckles, he once more felt a raw scrape of uncertainty inside him.
He arrived home to alarming news. After bringing Laurel to Abbey Green and extracting a promise that she would not venture out alone, Aidan had returned to the Royal Crescent. There he discovered a note from Mrs. Prewitt, Melinda’s housekeeper.
He was needed at Fenwick House immediately.
“Her ladyship did not wish me to alert you, milord,” the housekeeper said as she admitted him into the foyer. Taking his cloak, she handed it to a ready footman. Together she and Aidan started up the curving staircase. “She was adamant about it, but with her daughters so far away and you pract
ically being family, sir, it seemed prudent to disregard milady’s wishes this one time.”
“Yes, you did the right thing. Tell me what happened.”
“Her ladyship was attending a meeting of the Ladies’ Botanical Society this morning when she fell into a swoon, much as she did at the Pump Room.” Her hand poised on the banister, the woman paused on the steps and turned to him. “It isn’t like milady to take ill so often. She’s always been of such a hearty constitution.”
He regarded the worry lines dragging at Mrs. Prewitt’s eyes. “Do you mean to say the countess had been ill prior to the incident at the Pump Room?”
They continued up, and Mrs. Prewitt said, “She has been poorly several times since the New Year. And once or twice before that, sir. At first, she wouldn’t allow me to send for Dr. Bailey.”
“Mrs. Prewitt, you were correct when you said I was like family. You can trust me with the truth. Do you know what is ailing her?”
“No, sir. Her ladyship insists it’s nothing that a strong—”
“Cup of tea won’t cure. Yes, I know how the countess can be.” He released a breath and smoothed the concern from his face. They had reached the top of the stairs.
Framed by the brocade curtains of her canopied bed, Melinda greeted him with a moue of disapproval. Yet it was to her housekeeper that she expressed her dissatisfaction. “Prewitt, I distinctly remember telling you not to make a fuss.”
Undeterred, Aidan gestured for the housekeeper to leave them. He strolled into the room. “Since when do my visits make you snarl so, Melinda?”
“Since they became prompted by pity.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He stopped beside the bed. “Let me look at you.”
It was all he could do to prevent his dismay from showing. Every ounce of improvement Melinda had made since falling ill at the Pump Room seemed to have drained away, leaving her thin and wan, with perturbing smudges beneath her eyes and a downward tug at the corners of her mouth.
He pressed a hand to his chest. “As stunning as ever, still capable of breaking hearts.”
“Bah. I am no longer a beauty and I accept that. I suppose it’s high time I learned I can no longer flit about like a debutante.”
He sat at the edge of the mattress, noting how Melinda seemed to draw farther back against the pillows, as if to escape him—or his scrutiny. “You are about the age Mother would have been. . . .” Dread seeped through him at the thought, until he remembered that Melinda’s malady might be more easily explained. “I want you to promise me something.”
“How serious you look.”
“This is serious. Take no more of Rousseau’s elixir. It could very well be what is making you ill.”
“Or what restores me so swiftly after one of these spells of fatigue. Tell me, my boy, has anyone else who has tried the formula taken ill?”
He almost wished someone had, if only to gain enough evidence against Rousseau to expose him as a fraud and shut down his operation. But the truth was that, aside from a loss of control over certain impulses, no one else had experienced any detrimental side effects.
So far.
When Aidan failed to reply, Melinda regarded him with a triumphant arc of an eyebrow that fueled his frustrations. He tried several other arguments, including pointing out that if nothing else, the elixir had failed to alleviate her symptoms. Nothing he said could persuade her that Rousseau might be perpetrating a hoax, and that sent him from Fenwick House with a new resolve and a new plan.
He set out for Abbey Green.
At a soft knock, Laurel opened her door to Sally, the downstairs maid. “A gentleman to see you, ma’am. In the front parlor.”
Her breath caught with the hope that Aidan had returned—returned to renounce all those hurtful words he had said at Greys Abbey and swear to her that the stars would dance for them for the rest of their lives.
But no, they hadn’t said cruel words, merely rational ones, the only words that made sense for two people who hailed from such different worlds, and whose obligations would always send them in different directions. Isn’t that what he had meant when he said he could not offer her all that she deserved?
Or had he simply meant he didn’t love her, not enough?
Another equally quelling thought occurred to her. This morning she had received a note from George Fitzclarence conveying his considerable disappointment that she had failed to attend his soiree the night before last, along with his sincere hopes that she suffered from no indisposition that would continue to deprive him of her company.
Oh dear. Had he come to pay his respects?
“Did he give his name, Sally?” she asked.
“No, ma’am. But a right elegant young gentleman he is, to be sure, ma’am.”
Aidan.
Laurel stepped back from the threshold and brushed at the muslin day dress she had changed into upon arriving home that morning. “Do I look all right?”
“Pretty as a sprig of fresh flowers, ma’am.”
Laurel patted the braids she had coiled around the crown of her head. “My hair?”
“Lovely, too.” Sally bobbed a curtsy. “I’ll go and fetch tea for you and your visitor, ma’am.”
Clutching the banister, Laurel made her way down to the ground floor, where she leaned to peer through the doorway into the parlor. She hoped to have a glimpse of him first, to try to gauge his mood and discern his reason for coming.
He stood with his back to her, a hand raised to grip the mantel as he stared into the cold grate. From merely his stance and the set of his shoulders, she perceived an unease that raised her own apprehensions.
He glanced around and caught her peeking at him. “There you are. Come in and close the door, please.”
Her heart pattering, she complied.
“I need you,” he said without preamble.
The words echoed inside her and buoyed her spirits. Is this why he appeared so somber and anxious? Because he had come to do exactly as she had hoped? Then she would make it easy for him. Her hands extended, she hurried across the room to him.
“Yes, Aidan? What is it you need?” Ask me anything.
He took her hands in his. As though meeting him for the first time, she was struck anew by how strikingly handsome he was, how broad and tapering and masterfully sculpted. At that moment, she would have refused him nothing and yielded everything, oh, positively everything , to him.
“Laurel,” he said with urgency, “in three nights’ time Fitz is holding another affair at his home, a celebration of his sister’s birthday. I wouldn’t ask this of you if it were not of vital importance. But he is smitten with you, and I believe you have the power to distract him in the way that I require.”
“Distract him?” Oh. This was so far from what she had expected that at first his words failed to make sense. A rush of blood to her ears drowned out the rest of his explanation while a crushing disappointment sent her sinking into the nearest chair. It didn’t help that he followed and knelt in front of her, or that he reached to reclaim one of her hands. Like a proposal. Except that it wasn’t. Her fingers trembled against his. With a supreme effort of will she held them still.
“I wish to search for those documents you spoke of, and I’ll need Fitz occupied long enough so that he won’t notice my absence from among his guests. This was your idea, Laurel, remember?”
“Oh . . . yes. Of course.” It seemed an eternity since she had devised her plan to bring Aidan into her confidence and work with him as a team. But then she had been attacked . . . and so much, so very much, had occurred in the aftermath.
For her, perhaps, but apparently not for him. For him it was business as usual. He hadn’t come to give voice to the fanciful wishes of her heart. He spoke rationally, clearly, relying on plain, hard logic to guide his actions.
Through the incessant clamor in her ears, she only half listened to the part he wished her to play in his scheme, until something he said sliced through her wretchedness.
&nbs
p; “You wish me to flirt with him?”
“Only enough to give me time to go through the two rooms in the house, his study and bedchamber, where he would likely keep such papers.”
A bubble of laughter escaped her, a harsh, brittle note. It appeared she had come full circle, then, right back to the night of Victoria’s extraordinary request. Except that so much had changed since then. No longer was she the naive, sheltered girl she had been. Her time in Bath had dispelled notions of black and white, good and evil, and taught her that human beings were a complicated mingling of virtues and vulnerabilities and flaws. She had learned, too, that flirtation was neither an art nor a game, but an often cruel manipulation of feelings, including her own.
And now the person who embodied her most heart-felt hopes wished to toss her into an arena where she would be forced to raise and then dash the hopes of another man. Thus the game played round and round again, spinning her to the point of dizziness.
The irony of it made her turn her face aside as a torrent of emotion threatened to reduce her to uncontrollable laughter and unstoppable tears.
“If you do not wish to do this, I’ll understand.” His fingertips scorched the flesh beneath her chin. “But I believed you’d not only want to but would insist upon helping. You were sent here to investigate Fitz, and while I will not ask you for whom, I am willing to help you complete the task.”
Of course he wouldn’t ask. To do so would only prompt her to raise similar questions about him, and then he would be obligated to take her into his confidence and reveal the same sorts of details.
And that, it appeared, was something he was not prepared to do.
“I came here directly from Fenwick House,” he said. “Melinda is ill again and continues to put her faith in Rousseau’s elixir as a cure.”
At the mention of Melinda, Laurel blinked away an errant tear and turned back to him. “She is ill? I must go to her immediately.”
“You may. I’m sure she will be glad to see you. But you will better serve her by finding hard evidence against Rousseau. Even if it is not the elixir causing her illness, it may be preventing her from seeking an effective treatment. You know how she shuns Dr. Bailey.”
Most Eagerly Yours: Her Majesty's Secret Servants Page 26