Slightly Tempted

by Mary Balogh

  “I daresay he did suffer,” he said. “Even if he never had doubts, he would have suffered. But how could he not have had doubts? I suppose he got caught in a trap of his own making, and pride—or the conviction that he must have done the right thing—kept him snared in it for the rest of his life. Rest in peace . . . Papa.”

  There were unshed tears in his eyes when he turned to Morgan and tried to smile.

  “Are you satisfied, chérie?” he asked her, mockery in his voice.

  She stepped against him and wrapped her arms about his waist. His arms came tightly about her, and he lowered his head and kissed her.

  What was it about death, she wondered, that impelled the living into a passionate embrace of life and one another? She moved her hands to spread over his back and opened her mouth to the hot invasion of his tongue. She leaned into him, feeling the hard masculinity of his body, the moist intimacy of his kiss.

  But what she felt was not passion—not at least the blind, urgent sexual need that she felt was driving him. It was more a tenderness—a deep, knee-weakening, heart-stopping tenderness. She remained fully aware of everything, including the fact that this particular corner of the churchyard was out of sight from the street behind two ancient yew trees.

  She was aware of who he was and what he had done to her, and what she intended to do to him in retaliation. But for the moment none of that mattered. This was different, as outside the normal course of life and events as her visit to his rooms in Brussels had been after she discovered the truth about Alleyne.

  He lifted his head after a couple of minutes and smiled down at her with heavy-lidded eyes.

  “If this is your way of making me fall even more deeply in love with you, chérie,” he said, “it is a devilishly clever plan. But I have time. There is a week to go before the ball. A week in which to make you fall in love with me. As well as the rest of the summer after that.”

  She stepped back from him and brushed at the skirt of her dress beneath her pelisse.

  “This wind has chilled me to the bone,” she said. “It is time to go back to the vicarage.”

  He chuckled softly.

  THERE WERE TWO DAYS OF SHOWERS AFTER THAT and a continuation of the chilly, blustery weather. They occupied themselves mostly indoors, playing billiards and cards and charades and on one afternoon a lengthy, noisy game of hide-and-seek with the children in which no part of the house was out of bounds. They read and they conversed.

  Gervase managed to spend some of the time with his steward, though he did not neglect his guests. Inevitably the question of the schoolhouse roof came up again. The repairs should be done now, before winter came on again, Gervase had decided. His steward was very deferential and very tactful, but nevertheless the gist of his opinion was that such major capital expenses had always been cautiously undertaken by his lordship’s father with at least a year’s careful consideration before any decision was made.

  Gervase looked squarely at him.

  “I am Rosthorn now,” he said. “My understanding of this year’s profits balanced against expenses and the risk that the summer crops may not be as abundant as they promise to be is that I will not be beggared if the repairs are done. And from my own observations of the roof as it is now, I would conclude that the job has been needed for far longer than one cautionary year. You will make the arrangements if you please.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the man agreed with what appeared to be considerable respect. “I will see to it without delay.”

  Perhaps after all, Gervase thought, he would be able to settle to this new life and lay the ghost of his father.

  Summer returned after the two days were over, with clear blue skies and sunshine and heat. They were all able to resume outdoor activities—morning rides, afternoon walks or visits, even an evening swim, during which he discovered that all the Bedwyns swam like fish and enjoyed themselves with noisy enthusiasm. But then so did his sisters and brothers-in-law.

  But on one afternoon when an excursion to a nearby castle had been suggested and organized by Cecile and Monique, Morgan announced her intention of remaining at Windrush.

  “I need some quiet time,” she told everyone at breakfast. “I need to be alone. I need to paint. Gervase gave me all those lovely supplies as a betrothal gift, and I have had no chance to use them.”

  There was a chorus of protest and suggestions of where they might go instead if Morgan did not fancy the castle, but Aidan spoke up in his sister’s defense.

  “Morgan is different from the rest of us mortals,” he said, “who need company and activity every moment of every day. She always did need time and space for herself before becoming sociable again.”

  “Where will you paint, Morgan? At the lake?” Cecile asked.

  “Perhaps at the summerhouse,” she replied. “I have not decided yet.”

  The excursion would proceed without her, then, it was decided. Gervase waited until they had all left the breakfast parlor and he could have a private moment with her.

  “You would like the grotto, I believe, chérie,” he said. “I will show you how to get there. But it is some distance away and you will need someone to carry your easel and other supplies. May I be your servant?”

  “I can manage,” she told him.

  “And may I sit there with you,” he asked, “if I promise not to speak or otherwise disturb you?”

  “Oh, very well,” she said after considering for a few moments. She smiled beguilingly at him and set one hand on his arm. “How could I not want my betrothed with me, after all? Is it a very picturesque spot? I shall endeavor to look my most picturesque self too and perhaps make a swooning swain of you after all.”

  He grinned at her. This was how he liked her best, fighting him, keeping him guessing. And she certainly knew how to do that. For a while after that afternoon when they had visited the churchyard, her manner had softened toward him and he had wondered if she had forgiven him and was prepared to accept his courtship. But she had not so easily capitulated. Last evening while they swam, she had frolicked merrily with him, sputtering and shrieking when he swam beneath her and bobbed up right in front of her, jumping on him from behind when he was not looking and dragging him downward all the way to the bottom of the lake. She had let him kiss her on the way up and smiled dazzlingly when they broke the surface together. But afterward she had walked back to the house with one arm linked through Joshua’s and one through Aidan’s, chattering merrily all the way, as if he did not even exist.

  He no longer wondered if he was in love with her.

  He knew.

  He was.

  They set out after waving everyone else off on their expedition. The park suddenly seemed very quiet and peaceful. Gervase carried the easel, some canvases, and a sketch pad, Morgan her paints and brushes and charcoal. She looked very fetching indeed in a wide-brimmed straw hat he had not seen before and a loose painting smock—also a part of his gift—worn over her sprigged muslin dress.

  The wilderness walk had been wrongly named as it was in fact always carefully cultivated and tended. It wound among the trees and rolling hills to the east of the house, sometimes dim and secluded and fragrant with the smells of greenery and rhododendrons, sometimes coming out unexpectedly into the open to afford a pleasing prospect over the park and surrounding countryside. There were follies and rustic benches for the convenience of the casual stroller, but he continued on past them all. The walk ended at one such folly, a small temple with a stone seat inside. But hidden from view and reached by a short scramble among the trees and up over the hill was the grotto, always his favorite part of the park, his private haven as a boy.

  The stone grotto had been built into the wooded bank and made a splendid cave for youthful pirates or highwaymen or spies. But its surroundings were what made the area special. The river flowed a few yards from the bank. A weeping willow hung over the water beside the grotto and a stone cherub balanced a stone jug on its head with one chubby stone arm and held it tilted so
that its contents arced endlessly out into the river. Large mossy stones and lavish clumps of low-growing wildflowers surrounded cherub and tree. The bank before the grotto was level and grassy.

  He had not been here since his return. He was glad to see that it was still carefully tended here.

  “Oh, how lovely!” Morgan exclaimed.

  He smiled at her as he put down his burdens and set up her easel. He had known she would appreciate it.

  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

  “Ah, but there is more here besides just visual beauty,” she said, opening her eyes. “Listen to the sound of the water, Gervase. But it is not just the sound either. It is sight and sound and smell and—ah, something that strikes one here.” She touched one hand to her heart. “Do you feel it?”

  “It is the place I always liked to come to when my spirits needed restoring,” he told her.

  “Yes.” She turned her head to smile at him beneath the broad-brimmed straw hat. “To restore your spirits. There are some places particularly suited to that, are there not? Places where one feels closer to . . . to what? To peace? To ultimate meaning? To God?”

  “This is the first time I have been back here,” he told her. “But, chérie, you needed to be alone. You needed to paint. You must do so. I am going to sit here with my back against the grotto wall and consider the state of my soul. I may even put myself to sleep doing it, though I will try not to snore. You must ignore me.”

  “Very well,” she said. “I had a governess whom I loved dearly—I still miss her—but whenever I painted she would insist upon constantly looking over my shoulder and instructing me on how I ought to be doing it. She drove me close to insanity. Poor Miss Cowper.”

  He settled himself on the grass, his back against the wall, and drew his hat lower over his brow. In addition, he looked away from her, toward the stone cherub, so that she would not feel self-conscious. She was not a mere dabbler, she had told him, and he believed her. He was beginning to realize that there were enormous depths to the character of his betrothed, young as she was.

  She did not immediately paint, he noticed. She set out everything in readiness and then she sat on the grass close to the river and clasped her arms about her knees. As soon as he realized she had become unaware of his presence he watched her. Anyone coming upon them at that moment might have supposed she was idle, seduced away from her intended painting by the heat of the day. He knew differently. He knew that she was not merely looking for a pretty subject for her painting but was waiting for her surroundings to speak to her artistic soul.

  Morgan is different from the rest of us mortals, who need company and activity every moment of every day.

  It was what Aidan had said about her at breakfast.

  . . . the rest of us mortals, who need company and activity every moment of every day.

  That described him exactly, Gervase thought, or the person he had made himself into during the past nine years anyway. Once he had understood the enormity of his predicament, he had been afraid to stay in one place too long, afraid to be alone, afraid to stay away from places where there were crowds, afraid not to flirt with every pretty woman he saw and to sleep with as many of them as could be persuaded to fill his nights with as much activity as he filled his days.

  What exactly had he been afraid of? Himself? The silence?

  It was silent now. Oh, it was not without sound, as she had just pointed out. If he concentrated, he could hear that the silence was loud with the sounds of nature. But it was a silence in which his soul could rest.

  His soul had not rested for years and years.

  He had busily buried it deep, deep so that he would not recognize the emptiness of his existence.

  She got to her feet then and arranged a canvas on the easel, whose direction she adjusted. She prepared her brushes and paints and palette and proceeded to paint with as much absorption as she had displayed while sitting. He guessed that she truly had forgotten his presence and was very careful not to move in any way that would distract her.

  A picturesque setting with a picturesque female artist and a swooning, lovelorn swain.

  Ah, yes, indeed.

  Would she punish him to the bitter end? She was strong-minded enough to do it.

  How the devil could he talk her out of it?

  CHAPTER XIX

  SHE WAS INSIDE THE WATER OF THE RIVER. SHE knew that water was a thing in itself with properties of its own that made it different from anything else. But it was not independent of everything else. It needed the sun and the sky to renew itself. It gave itself to the grass and the willow tree that leaned over it. It was colorless in and of itself. Yet it picked up color from its surroundings—gray and brown from the stony, gravelly bed, blue from the sky, green from the willow tree, sparkle from the sunlight. And later today, tonight, tomorrow, next week, next winter, it would look quite different.

  There was no river, no grass, no willow tree—nothing at least in any permanent form to be understood by the mind or captured with paint on canvas. That was the marvelous challenge of painting—to catch a joy as it flies, as the poet William Blake had phrased it. She wondered if Gervase had read his poetry. She must ask him.

  It was the challenge of life too, was it not? People could never be fully understood. They were ever changing, different people at different times and under different circumstances and influences. And always growing, always creating themselves anew.

  How impossible it was to know another human being.

  How impossible to know even oneself.

  Finally her painting was done, and Morgan stood back and looked at it, almost as if she were seeing it for the first time. Miss Cowper would be horrified, she thought. This was no smooth, picturesque rendition of the river and the willow tree.

  She remembered suddenly that Gervase was with her and turned her head to see that he was still sitting with his back to the stone wall outside the grotto, his hat tipped forward over his eyes, one leg stretched out before him on the grass, the other bent at the knee, his booted foot braced against the ground. He looked relaxed and contented. He was looking at her through squinted eyes.

  “How long have we been here?” she asked him.

  “One hour? Two?” He shrugged. “It does not matter, chérie. Did I snore very loudly?”

  “I thought it was a hoarse cricket.” She smiled at him. “I do not believe you have been sleeping at all.”

  “I have been enjoying my role as lovelorn swain,” he told her, “though no one has been paying me any attention. May I see the painting?”

  “I am not sure it is fit for human eyes,” she said, looking dubiously at it again. “But yes, if you wish.”

  He got to his feet and crossed the distance between them. He set an arm casually about her shoulders as he turned to look at her canvas. He said nothing for a long while.

  “If it were Miss Cowper looking,” she said, “she would be asking why I had not included the cherub and the flowers since they would add color and decorative interest to the canvas. She would tell me that a painting with only water and a willow tree is far too uninteresting.”

  “Miss Cowper must have been an idiot,” he said.

  She bit her lip, half delighted, half guilty for allowing ridicule to be poured upon her former governess.

  “Why do I have the feeling,” he asked her, “that I am under the water and inside the very roots of the tree?”

  Oh! No one—not even Aidan—had ever understood. Her siblings were all tolerant of her need to paint and proud of her strange, eccentric style, but none of them understood. Miss Cowper had despaired of ever teaching her correct technique and correct observational skills.

  “It is the brushstrokes,” she said. “I have not smoothed them out.”

  “And everything blends into everything else,” he said, “if blends is the right word. There is sunlight in the water and willow branches in the sky and water in the tree roots. Everything is connected.”

  “And
I am there too, painting it from the inside,” she said, “and you, observing it. All, all connected.”

  She felt a little foolish then, for she had spoken with the breathless enthusiasm of a girl. But he continued to stand and gaze at the painting, his eyes slightly squinted, his hand still draped about her shoulders.

  “Chérie,” he asked her, “may I keep this painting?”

  “You really want it?” she asked him.

  “I will hang it in my bedchamber,” he told her, “so that I may see it every day. After you have broken my heart and left me, I will remember that we are always and ever connected.”

  She turned away from him then and busied herself with cleaning her brushes and palette and removing her smock, now slightly smeared with paint. She moved a short distance away and sat down on the level grass, drawing up her knees so that she could wrap her arms about them. The sun was bright and warm on her arms. She could smell flowers and water and greenery. She could hear birds singing and insects whirring. A white-winged butterfly fluttered past on its way to raid the flowers.

  Gervase came to join her. He sprawled out on one side, tossed his hat to the grass behind him, and propped himself on one elbow. He plucked a blade of grass and tickled the side of her face with it. She batted it away with one hand and turned her head to laugh at him.

  “You are going to have permanent wrinkles at the corners of your eyes soon,” she told him, “if you keep on smiling with them all the time the way you do.”

  “Better that than a permanent frown line between my brows, chérie,” he said.

  It was usually a mocking smile, she thought. But perhaps he was right. Bitter and unhappy as he had been—and still was in some ways—he had somehow learned to laugh at the world and himself rather than frowning in embittered hatred.

  She had been staring at him, she realized when he dropped the blade of grass and lifted his hand to cup her cheek. He ran his thumb across her lips.

  She ought to have got to her feet then and there and picked up her things to return to the house. But she did not want to leave. Not yet. Besides, she had promised to torment him, had she not?