by Sophia James
Winter waited until the butler had left before moving in further. The room had a smell of mustiness and sickness, a carbolic astringent scent laid on top as if even with all the cleaning in the world the underlying malady could not be erased.
‘I do not have many visitors these days and was wondering...’
The words faded off as the man got a good look at him.
‘You? Is it you? My God, I have seen your face for all of the days since we met, every night in the darkness, every moment as I eat.’ He had stood up now, though his right hand was still anchored to the solidness of the chair, as if on letting go he might fall unstopped to the floor. Sweat poured down the old Earl’s forehead and beaded on his top lip. ‘You are not dead and buried all these years, but alive?’
Winter could not quite decipher his tone. Albany sounded shocked and shaky, his hands trembling. He had expected fury and he was being met with stupor and distress instead.
‘I have come to apologise for taking your daughter, my lord. It was a mistake which I have regretted immensely ever since.’
‘A mistake?’ Now the older man sat on the bed again, quite abruptly. His mouth worked up and down without sound as he swallowed.
‘My cousin had asked me to bring his...paramour up from London. She was to be dressed in red and standing on the corner of Mount Street at the hour of five o’clock. She was blonde and I was warned would be feisty, but it was for her own good that he wanted her out of London so my orders were to insist until she came.’
‘My God.’ Anger seemed more apparent now and Winter’s eyes flicked to the cabinet there with its two small drawers.
‘I did not know about the scandal that ensued. I have been away in the Americas for years and came back to England only a few months ago. If I had known...’ He stopped. What would he have done? Confronted the Earl so soon after he had almost been killed by him? Returned from the Americas? He was glad he had not had to make that choice.
‘Have you seen my daughter? Have you seen Flora?’
‘Yes.’
‘And she knew you?’
‘She did, Lord Albany. Though I had trouble knowing her. She was dressed as a lad. An artist, Frederick Rutherford.’
He nodded. ‘Maria has told me of it.’
‘I want to make things right with your family. I have come down to see if I might have your blessing in asking your daughter for her hand in marriage.’
‘My blessing?’
‘I want to protect Florentia. I want to make sure that she is always safe. I am wealthy now and have a large property in Herefordshire as well as extensive land in the Americas. I will see she never goes without and is always happy. I would swear it to you on my life, my lord.’
There was silence and then Winter noticed the tears that were falling down the older man’s cheeks. Breathing in deeply, he tried to take charge of the situation.
‘I am sorry for all the harm I have caused you and your family, Lord Albany. It was unprincipled and unacceptable and if you feel my presence here is too much for you to bear then of course I will leave.’
But Albany shook his head. ‘I am not crying with sadness, Winterton. These are tears of happiness. Instead of the horror of killing someone in my mind every and each minute, now I can be free.’
‘Free?’
‘To live again. To feel again. Repentance has given way to absolution and sorrow to joy. I am unfettered from the guilt of taking a young life for here you are standing before me.’
Of all the things Winter had imagined of this meeting this was not one of them. ‘And your daughter?’
‘It is up to Florentia to decide if she wants you. She has been lonely for so many years, but she has also found a great gift in her painting.’
‘Of course.’
‘May I ask you something before you leave? Something personal?’ He waited for a nod. ‘Your throat was ripped to threads and there was so much blood at the inn. How did you survive?’
‘With luck and determination. Your daughter tried to help me as I fell and I wanted to give her my apology in person.’
‘And have you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you have my blessing to try and see your way to right such a travesty, Lord Winterton.’
* * *
Florentia was sitting in the garden at the Warrenden town house watching the sparrows playing in the blossoms of an apple tree. She had been out here for a good while now, trying to decide in the quiet of nature just exactly what she should do about Winter.
She had thought to send a letter, but had decided not to. What could she say after all? You kissed me and I was wondering if you might do so again? Please.
She smiled, but a welling unhappiness stuck in her throat, making her feel sad and furious at exactly the same time.
Winterton had left London according to Roy. Did that mean he had left for good or would he be back? Timothy Calderwood had offered her marriage as had a dozen other men of the ton. They had trooped in to see Roy at every hour of the day and she had ceased to even answer her brother-in-law when he had called her to his study after each departure and asked her if she had any interest in pursuing the latest request.
She had not been able to paint or sleep or eat wondering what might happen to her now that Winter was gone. He had ruined her reputation last time, but this time it was even worse. This time it was her heart that lay in tatters at his feet.
The sound of voices inside the house took her attention. It would be Maria probably returned from her afternoon tea or Roy from his men’s club where he went most afternoons to read the paper and meet friends. The normal everyday noises of a marriage and a house that reflected the happiness of Lord and Lady Warrenden. Her sister was more content than she had ever seen her and her own uncertainty was magnified because of it.
The door opened to the garden and the butler came forward with a card.
‘Viscount Winterton has called upon you, Lady Florentia. Shall I ask him to come into the garden?’
Shock ran through her, but she waited perfectly still as his footsteps came closer. She did not wish to look up and find something in his face that would shatter her. She did not wish to see a return to tepid friendship or the more sombre shades of some awful truth she could not cope with.
‘Thank you for seeing me. I know that you are here alone and I hope it is a good time to speak freely.’ His voice was deep and husky; the voice her father had left him with.
At that she did look up and saw his eyes were full of trepidation. That alone frightened her more than anything else could have for he had always been so sure every time she had met him. She decided to get in first.
‘If you are here to apologise for the kiss we shared, Lord Winterton, I do not want to hear it.’
‘Pardon?’ Now he looked perplexed.
‘At Lackington’s.’
‘Why should I apologise?’
‘You shouldn’t and I am most certainly not sorry for it.’
‘You aren’t?’
‘I liked it a lot.’
When he laughed she thought she might begin to cry, but he stepped forward and took her hands, drawing her up before him and then falling on to one knee.
What on earth was he doing? Could he possibly be...?
‘Will you marry me, Florentia? I know I have been instrumental in many of your family’s problems, but I swear to make it up to you, all of it, for every day of my life.’
‘Why would you want to?’ This time she heard other things beneath his words. Desperation. Anguish. Worry.
‘I have always been alone, but lately I have become lonely because of you. Talking with you, dancing with you, seeing you smile, watching you paint. I can’t imagine my life any more without you in it.’
She could not believe hi
s words. Was she simply imagining this happening out of hope? ‘You are asking me to be your wife, but this time because of love?’ She whispered it. To say it out loud might take the truth away.
‘I am if you will have me.’
‘Yes.’ The word came unbidden in a cry of sheer joy, disbelief making her shake. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears and feel the shallow quickness of breath. Then his mouth covered hers and she understood magic as he showed her without words his troth was indeed honest, the same swell of desire beaching across her.
‘I love you, Winter. More than life itself.’ She said this as he finished the kiss, his hands cradling her face.
‘I don’t want to wait, Florentia. I can’t. We can be wed quickly by special licence if you would wish it.’
‘I would.’
‘I don’t deserve you, God knows that, but I will never give you up. Not for anyone or anything. Yes is for ever by me, Florentia. Know that.’
‘My father...?’
‘I went there to Albany to ask him for his blessing. I needed this to have everything right because the last times...’ He didn’t finish.
‘It was all so very wrong.’
She could feel the smile on his lips as she pressed against him.
‘I have dreamed of this moment every night since I first saw you.’
‘Good, for so have I.’
When he kissed her again it was different. This time as the warmth of his breath touched her skin she looked at him and saw things there that were now unhidden. The heat in him shocked her.
‘I want you.’ Her words came slowly and with feeling. She felt dampness on her skin and the running whorls of want inside like living things, dancing to a tune she had not heard before.
Everything was brought into focus. The clear green of his eyes. The streaks in his hair pale from sunshine. The stubble on his chin that showed her he had not shaved since early dawn. He smelt of the outside, of exercise and horses, of leather, sweat and hard riding.
His hands were not those of an idle lord either, the palm toughened in a way that spoke of work and toil and labour. Such a hard and lean masculinity made her smile. When his thumb ran over the fullness of her lips she marvelled at the way she responded to him.
‘I never forgot you for all of those years.’ His words, broken with hope. ‘I remembered you every single day.’
Tears came, brimming in her eyes. ‘What a waste,’ she answered, but he shook his head.
‘Not that, Florentia. For me it was an apprenticeship in love.’ He held her hair and tipped her chin up, his tongue touching where his thumb had just been. ‘I did not know what it was like to lose your heart to someone until I saw you again. Even as the lad Rutherford, I loved you.’
The intensity of his eyes drew her in, the sheer longing and veracity.
‘Because without each other it was so hard to exist?’ She thought of her empty days and nights, of the long and lonely years and of the painting in the back of her wardrobe that crouched in truth. Her fingers came up and touched a living breathing cheek in the same way she had caressed her canvas. He leaned into her.
‘I have missed you.’ Her words, fractured with conviction.
Closeness. Certainty. Desire and faith. They melded into an emotion that made her shake until his mouth came down and he allowed her to know just what she meant to him, nothing at all held back.
She answered his desperation with her own, opening wider and threading her fingers through the length of his hair.
Here she was. Her. Florentia Hale-Burton. It was staggering and astounding. The colour of scarlet and blood and fire. The hue of daring and determination and power and courage. Her. Risen in flames from the ashes. Regenerated and reborn. No longer hiding and afraid and ruined.
And then she could no longer think at all.
* * *
She was all ripeness and softness and woman, her curves sweet and full, the plump flesh of her breasts, the long line of her throat, the creamy smooth of her skin. Breaking off the kiss before it went so far he would not be able to stop going further, he brought her into his arms and kept her there.
Florentia stripped him to the bone, his naked longing exposed and vulnerable. She was so very beautiful with her innocence and her honesty, all the shades of gold across his hand in her hair and her eyes reflections of a summer sky.
An eddy of wind blew around them, lifting the fabric of her skirt and further afield he could hear the sound of horses and voices as the everyday reality of London broke again into their paradise.
With remorse he let go of her and stepped back, back to where he could only watch her, the dappled sun on her hair, the joy on her face.
‘I cannot wait long, Florentia. For you.’
Then her sister was there, stopping as she saw him, her face expressing worry as well as anger.
‘I hope everything is well with you, Flora?’ The query hung in the air. ‘I did not know visitors were expected.’
‘I have come to ask your sister if she would do me the honour of becoming my wife, Lady Warrenden.’
‘Your wife. Your wife?’ Now there was only amazement in her visage. ‘Oh, my goodness.’
Florentia took up the conversation. ‘I have said yes, Maria. We are to be wed as soon as we can. By a special licence.’
Maria Warrenden’s hands were stretched across her mouth, the same dimples her sister sported deep on each cheek. ‘Does Roy know?’
Florentia shook her head. ‘You are the first to hear our news although Winter has asked Father and he gave us his blessing.’
Now she simply shrieked as she rushed forward, enclosing her younger sister in her grasp, the blue in Maria’s gown complementing the yellow in Florentia’s.
* * *
Her parents came to London the following day for a stay in the Warrenden town house and for the first time in years her father looked happy. When he asked her to the library later in the evening she knew what it was he would want to speak to her about.
‘Lord Winterton came to see me, Flora. He is a good man. A moral man. He apologised sincerely for his mistake and tried to explain to me what had happened. When he asked for your hand in marriage I gave him my blessing.’
‘He told me, Papa.’
‘And the blinkers of my stupidity and shame through all those years simply fell away. I had not killed a man, which was a relief that was indescribable, and he had given me a second chance to get better and live again. Do you love him?’
‘I do, Papa.’
‘Roy said you have had many requests for your hand, but have barely glanced at any of your swains until Winterton. He implied James Waverley has been...fairly dissolute, I think is how he phrased it, but that he had turned over a new leaf and has eyes now only for you.’
‘He is a friend of Roy’s. From school.’
‘Yes, he told me that, too. There is one worry that niggles at my mind, however. In London all those years ago there were witnesses. If any should come forward and name him...’
‘I am not letting my one hope of happiness go on a chance, Papa. If that happens we will deal with it.’
‘Your mother said I was to fall on my knees and thank the Lord above that you are happy, my dear, so perhaps that is what I will do. The years of our hardship are over and even with Albany entailed it shall no longer be of any significance.’
‘Perhaps Bryson has been looking over us, Papa.’ This time when she mentioned her brother her father smiled.
‘Like our guardian angel. I like that thought.’
When he came forward to envelop her in his arms Florentia did not pull away.
* * *
The wedding had been small and quick.
It was a quiet ceremony at a chapel close to the Warrenden town house, a bunch of whi
te roses in an opaque green vase at the altar.
Fine spring weather had swept in from the south, the sun shining through a stained-glass window.
Flora wore a gown that she and her sister had found in a shop in town, and one that with only a slight alteration had fitted her perfectly.
It was of light blue silk and matched the colour of her eyes, the bodice trimmed in cream lace and ribbon. The skirt cascaded wide from the waistline and sleeves of organza were ruched at the shoulders and fell almost transparent to her wrists. In her hair she had flowers, the ivy pulled through her curls where they were caught in a cream band of more silk. Bryson’s ring hung about her neck in an ornate clasp of rose gold.
‘Do I look...enough?’ She turned to ask this of her sister as they stood in the small vestibule.
‘You look beautiful, Flora. But more than that you look happy.’
‘I love him, Maria.’
‘And he loves you back. Every time he looks at you I can see it.’
‘How was I so lucky?’ She barely liked to ask this.
‘You deserve it. You complete each other. Two halves who have been alone for a long time. Now come, I can hear the music and it is time.’
The wedding party was a very tiny one. Maria and Roy would be there, of course, and her parents and Roy’s elderly mother.
Winter had only invited Rafe and Arabella. Seven people.
‘So you have everything, Florentia. Something borrowed in the family garter. The old is taken care of in Bryson’s ring and something new and blue in the dress. Talismans have their detractors, but for the grand occasions I have always believed in them to protect one against the Evil Eye.’
Her mother had stated this before they had left for the chapel. ‘We do not want you rendered barren, my dear, so be sure to be mindful of the old rhyme.’
Barren. Flora blushed because tonight she would no longer be an innocent. Tonight she would go with Winter to his town house and she would know all the intimate delights that she had never had the measure of.
‘Love lights the marriage bed, a glorious pyre.’
She saw Lord Winterton as soon as she walked through the doors. He was dressed today in a navy blue jacket and beige trousers, the white tie at his neck arranged more formally than she had ever seen him wear one. When he turned to look at her the beauty of him took her breath away and her father at her side stopped to observe her.