He frowned, his expression so dark that she wasn’t sure if he’d heard or not. “This isn’t quarreling.”
She sighed, not wanting to upset him. “Very well, then,” she said. “We’re not quarreling.”
“Not at all,” he said, and she was startled by the depth of sadness in those words. “I thought today would be easier. I thought that once I had the smaller splint, my leg would feel more like it used to. And it doesn’t. Not at all.”
“But this is only the first day, Harry,” she said gently, once again taking his hand. “You were grievously hurt, and healing takes time. It will not be easy, no, but if you are as determined as you were today, then you will succeed.”
He raised her hand to his lips and lightly kissed the back of it, as if in gratitude. “My cousin desires me to return to London with him.”
“But Sir Randolph forbids it,” she said quickly. “I heard him say so.”
“Sheffield has reluctantly agreed to abide by Sir Randolph’s orders, yes,” Harry said. “But his reasons for wishing me to leave here had more to do with you than with the woeful state of my leg.”
Gus’s heart sank. “I’d guessed as much from his manner. He does not care for me, does he? He finds me lacking.”
“Quite the contrary,” he said. “He cares for you a great deal. He reminded me of your station, that you are an unmarried lady with an immaculate reputation. He said that for your sake, it’s not right for me to remain here as your guest at Wetherby Abbey.”
“It’s not,” Gus agreed wistfully. “Especially not with us alone together except for the servants. If you’d been able to travel, you would have been gone from here ages ago.”
Harry sighed his impatience. “Don’t be willfully blind,” he said gruffly. “You’ve given me every reason in the world to stay.”
She tried to pull her hand from him, but he held it fast.
“Listen to me, Gus,” he said, his gaze so intense that she couldn’t look away. “All my life, everything has been exactly as I’ve wanted. For better or worse, it’s part of who I am, what I was raised to be. I’ve never been denied or refused in any significant way. Until now, and this infernal leg. Now nothing is right, and it has been . . . humbling. Nothing is how I wish it to be. Except for you, Gus. Except for you.”
“Please, Harry,” she whispered, her heart beating wildly. “You shouldn’t be saying such things to me. Please.”
“I know I shouldn’t,” he said, his voice low and harsh with urgency. “I won’t dishonor you, Gus, and I won’t disgrace you. I’ve sworn that to Sheffield, and more important, I owe that to you. Besides, in my present state, I’m not exactly worthy of your regard in return.”
“That’s not true,” she protested. She left her chair to sit on the edge of the bed, needing to be closer to him. “I’ve never once thought that, let alone spoken it to you.”
“You don’t have to,” he said. “That little demonstration of my infirmity earlier was sufficient to put an end to even my misguided optimism.”
“You’re wrong,” she said firmly. “What you see as weakness, I saw only as strength and courage.”
He shifted restlessly against the pillow. “Now you are the one who is exaggerating, Gus.”
“No, I am not,” she insisted. “Exaggeration is not in my nature, Harry. I should have thought by now you would see that I am hopelessly practical. Next week you will leave this bed, and you’ll dress like a civilized gentleman, exactly as you said. That alone will make you feel better. The more you work your leg, the stronger it will become, and the stronger you will become. I won’t pretend your recovery will be easy, for it won’t, but I shall be there with you for encouragement, if you wish it.”
“Of course I wish it,” he said, apparently indignant that she’d even suggest otherwise. “You were there from the beginning. I expect you to see it through to the end.”
She drew back. “Goodness, Harry. Is that more of you being noble and expecting to have whatever you want?”
He sighed, chagrined. “I suppose it is,” he said. “But I cannot imagine this recovery without you at my side. May I have the honor of your presence, Miss Augusta, as I swear and stagger my way through these next weeks?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said succinctly. “I do not quit in the middle of a task, and I don’t believe you do, either.”
“Ever the optimist.” He smiled wearily. “All of which is exactly why you have become so important to me. Dear Gus! What’s to be done with us, eh? Where are we bound?”
She looked down at her hand clasped in his, wanting to choose her words with care without the distraction of his blue eyes watching her. She had never been half of an “us,” especially not one as complicated as this, and she’d never been faced with the choice that now stood unavoidably before her.
She could consider her reputation and her virtue, and put an end to this nebulous “us” before the rest of the world began whispering about it, too. Harry might not be able to leave with his cousin, but she could certainly ask His Grace for a place for herself in his carriage to London. There she could take refuge in her aunt’s house with her father’s protection until Harry was sufficiently recovered to leave Wetherby Abbey. Then he could return to his old life, and she to hers, and that would be a tidy end to that.
Or she could remain here with Harry.
She could stay, and be completely reckless and irresponsible for the first, and perhaps the only, time in her life. She could relish this time with Harry, likely the only man she’d ever know who possessed this devastating degree of charm, handsomeness, and pure manly manliness. She knew that wasn’t a very elegant turn of phrase, but that was how she thought of it in her head: Harry’s manly manliness, and how it could reduce her to blithering, incoherent bliss. It was part of the reason that her feelings of friendship had already slipped halfway to being in love with him. She’d only to look up at him now to be reminded of it, and the power of his kisses and whatever other wonderful wickedness might come from them.
Most of all, staying here with Harry was a two-headed gamble. First, she’d gamble on herself, that as the plain second daughter of a viscount, no one in London would bother to gossip about her. And second, she’d gamble on Harry himself: that all his talk of what she meant to him might actually promise something lasting between them, that being halfway in love could blossom into a glorious entirety.
She understood now why her eyes had filled when he’d been able to bend his knee. It meant he was on his way to being healed, on his way to not needing her, on his way to leaving forever.
It was all part of the gamble. A gamble, yes, but one that in the end she was willing to take.
“I’m no sibyl, Harry, able to see into the future,” she said slowly, “and I cannot begin to guess what will happen with us. But I will venture that perhaps we are worrying overmuch about what is proper and what is not, what is friendship, or—or a different regard.”
“‘A different regard,’” he repeated ruefully. “I suppose that is the genteel way of saying I want nothing more than to pull you down beside me and kiss you senseless.”
She blushed, imagining him doing exactly that. “Perhaps instead we should concentrate on making your leg—your infernal leg—better, and simply accept each day as it comes to us, and let it lead us where it may.”
His dark brows came together. “Meaning exactly what?”
“Meaning that I will stay here with you, and you with me,” she said, “and that whatever else happens between us will simply . . . happen.”
He smiled with obvious relief, raising her hand to kiss it again.
“How did you come to be so wise, tucked away here in the backwaters of Norfolk?” he teased. “No wonder I’ve become so deuced fond of you.”
She smiled, willing to tease him back. “It’s because I’ve always lived in Norfolk, not in spite of it. If I had been reared in London, I’d be as great a fool as everyone else there.”
“Meaning me, of cours
e.” He chuckled, reaching up to thread his fingers into her hair. “Then if you are wise, and I am not, would you explain to me why after all my resolutions to be entirely honorable where you are concerned, I still can think of little beyond kissing you.”
“Even a simpleton can answer that,” she said, letting him draw her down. “Because kissing can be honorable, and—and I wish to kiss you, too.”
“Most excellent wisdom,” he murmured, feathering small kisses along her jaw. “You know, I do believe kissing will help my leg improve as well.”
She chuckled softly, with pleasure and anticipation.
“Then I suppose you must kiss me as often as you please,” she whispered. “Because I intend to see you dance under the stars, exactly as you promised.”
Sheffield left the next morning, alone, and although Harry was sorry to see him go, he was also pleased to once again have Gus to himself. But while he’d hoped that, now his recovery had fairly begun, it would progress with ease, he swiftly learned how wrong that hope was, even with Gus at his side.
The next weeks were every bit the challenge that everyone had predicted, and more, too, since those doing the predicting weren’t the ones suffering through it. Each day seemed to bring both a small accomplishment, yet with it a fresh reminder of how far he’d still to go.
He’d eagerly anticipated being finally freed from his bed and his nightshirt, to be permitted to dress like a regular gentleman and sit in a chair. But even with Tewkes and a sturdy footman to help him, the once-simple process of dressing had become painfully complicated.
Tewkes had already thoughtfully enlarged the cuff in a pair of his breeches to allow for his splint, but the opening still wasn’t large enough. The seam had had to be entirely split, with the two halves left trailing open in a disreputable fashion. Even so, wrestling the breeches up over the ungainly splint had been so lengthy an exercise that he’d been nearly exhausted by the time it was done.
There had been even more surprises from the rest of his clothes. Harry had always prided himself on having his clothes perfectly tailored to his body. His coats and jackets were cut to display his broad shoulders and chest and fit precisely around his well-muscled arms, and he liked to wear his breeches so shamelessly close that he often caught even the haughtiest of ladies stealing a look, to his considerable amusement.
But now his very clothes seemed determined to betray him. He hadn’t realized how much flesh and muscle he’d lost while he’d been ill, not until Tewkes had fastened the long row of buttons up the front of his favorite embroidered waistcoat. The silk no longer fit snugly across his chest the way it once had. Instead it sagged forward, pulling away from his diminished body by the weight of the silk embroidery. The coat was even worse. Not only did it hang loosely from his shoulders, but because he’d lost so much of the muscles in his arms from inactivity, the sleeves were too long, falling over his hands. It all made him feel like a frail old man in borrowed clothes.
“No matter, my lord, no matter,” Tewkes had said loyally, trying to pull and smooth the too-big clothes into place. “I’ll send for Mr. Venable to come directly. A tuck here, a stitch there, and he’ll have you looking handsome as ever, my lord.”
Before the week was over, the tailor had come down from London and altered his clothes to fit. It had been gratifying, if predictable, that Mr. Venable had also made a fuss about how the adjustments were not permanent. They could be reversed as soon as “his lordship is back to his old self.”
His old self: Not an hour passed that Harry wondered if such a creature had even existed. At least the tailor’s pinning and stitching had been familiar, fragments of his former life. He could not say the same about the man who brought his newly ordered crutches. While Sir Randolph had taken Harry’s measurements, the crutch maker had brought the finished products to Wetherby Hall himself, not only to trim them if necessary, but to instruct Harry in their use.
Harry had scoffed at such instruction. How hard could it be to master a pair of wooden sticks? Yet he’d learned soon enough that the answer was very hard, very hard indeed. The crutches made him feel like a baby learning to walk all over again, and his clumsy, tripod self lurched unsteadily along the abbey’s galleries and halls with a rhythmic thump that he came to loathe. In the beginning, he’d shamefully required a pair of footmen to catch him if he lost his balance and collapsed like an ill-built house of cards, but with practice he became more adept, albeit no more graceful.
He was encouraged to straighten his still-splinted leg, and to put as much weight as he could bear upon it, which to his chagrin was pitifully little. Sir Randolph assured him that no matter what he accomplished, any exercise could only help the healing. With no other course to follow, Harry persevered with the crutches each day as long as he could, pushing himself until his good leg shook and his shoulders ached, and suffered through the torturous stretching that the recovering leg required. But each day, too, he could last a little longer, and go a little farther, as his strength gradually began to return.
He swallowed his pride and let himself be helped down the stairs, so that he could make his way through the gardens and down the long drive and back. As clumsy as the crutches were, they gave him independence, and though he remained a cripple, at least he was no longer a rebarbative invalid.
It was, he thought cynically, simply one more example of degrees and rank.
He had never worked so hard at anything as he had learning to maneuver on the crutches, but then he’d never had such a grand goal before him, either. What he’d tell anyone who asked was that he wished to dance once again beneath the stars at Vauxhall Gardens. This had been his first goal, and because it made others smile, he fell into offering it so often that it became pat, an amusing and convenient response to a difficult question.
But he kept his real goal to himself, buried deep within somewhere near to his heart, and he shared this goal with no one—not even the one person for whom it was intended.
He wanted to be worthy of Gus.
For her, he wanted to be whole, without flaw, for that was what she deserved. The fact that she accepted him as he was, as damaged goods, was unbearable to him. He wanted to be able to take her hand and proudly lead her into a room. He wanted to help her into his carriage, and give her lovely bottom a surreptitious pat as he did. He wanted to chase after her laughing through the garden, and climb the steps to the little temple beyond the roses and hide away with her there until they missed dinner, and supper, too, if they pleased. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her to his bed, and make passionate, perfect love to her, until she cried out his name with joy and promised to love him forever.
That was what he wanted.
What he did not want was to be her burden, her inconvenience, the halting, shambling man whose needs must always be considered. When they went out to the opera or the playhouse, he wanted people to marvel at her, as she deserved, and not crane their necks for a glimpse of the unfortunate crippled Earl of Hargreave. He wanted the world to know that he loved her for who she was and not because she was the only one who’d have him.
And he did love Gus. He wasn’t exactly sure when that had happened, but it had, and he now understood what his father had always told him about love changing everything. It did. He felt a little jolt in his chest each time he looked at her. The time he spent in her company flew by, and the hours they were apart dragged like an anchor in sand. The oddest part was how he felt her to be another part of himself that he’d never realized was missing, a charming addition of wry humor and practicality and kindness. Just as the poets claimed, she made him feel complete.
What made him feel like an utter fool, of course, was that he’d spent so much time and effort settling on the perfect bride, and had decided upon Julia, who would have been a complete disaster of a wife. Meanwhile, he hadn’t considered Gus at all—hell, he hadn’t even realized she existed—and yet here he was, ridiculously in love with her and determined to claim her as his wife.
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br /> It was difficult, keeping such a goal to himself. They were together every day, and well into every night, too. She dined with him, and read to him, and walked beside him as he lumbered along on his crutches. She helped him each morning with the exercises to stretch his leg and keep the muscles limber while the bones healed. For this, she’d replaced Tewkes, who’d been too afraid of hurting him. Gus wasn’t, and seemed to sense exactly how far she could push him for his own good, ignoring his oaths in the process.
She laughed with him, but never at him, not even the time when Patch had tangled around his good foot and nearly sent him crashing into the carp pond. She wrapped the heads of his crutches with lambs’ wool to cushion them, and knitted a special giant sock of scarlet wool to fit over his foot and splint. It was the first thing that anyone had made specifically for him as a gift, and as peculiar as it was, he cherished it because it had come from her.
But the most difficult part of each day came at the end of it, after they’d dined together, when they sat together to listen to the music played just for them, exactly as it was now.
Nine weeks had passed since he’d broken his leg, nine weeks that he’d been here at Wetherby. He had improved; even he couldn’t deny it, and Venable had been summoned twice to let out his clothes, exactly as he’d predicted. While Peterson still cautiously kept a splint in place on his leg, it was now more of a light brace for support than to hold the broken bones together. Each day he managed to put a bit more weight on it through his hobbling gait, but at least now he could wear a stocking and shoe on the foot like a gentleman. He’d also grown strong enough to rely on a single crutch, which did feel like progress.
Summer was in full flower, with the warmth of the long, bright days lingering past sunset. With the windows in his corner bedchamber thrown open, the evening air was filled with things that never entered a London night: the sounds of crickets and nightingales, the luminous silvery light of a full moon, the honey-sweet fragrance of the woodbine. In sympathy, the Signor Vilotti chose pieces by Scarlatti, Vivaldi, and Corelli that combined both the sweetness and the sensual indolence of summer, music that sang seductively through the summer night.
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