by Merry Farmer
Elaine straightened from where she had nestled her father’s pipe in her trunk, though her eyes remained fixed on the contents. “I suppose that’s what Papa would have wanted.” She paused before adding, “It’s as though he’s being torn from me all over again.”
The sting of her grief hit Basil as hard as if it were his own. He glanced around, meeting Lawrence’s eyes and Marshal Pycroft’s as the young man entered the parlor from the kitchen. They nodded back in understanding. Basil rested a hand on the small of Elaine’s back. “Why don’t you come out to the garden for a moment to get some fresh air.”
Elaine sent him a sideways look, as if she knew exactly what he was up to. But she didn’t fight his efforts to get her away from her memories and out into the sunlight.
March had slipped into April with chills and showers, but the past two days had been sunny with a hint of the warmth to come. Elaine marched ahead of Basil, dragging her feet just a little as they walked to the old bench under a cherry tree that was just about to flower.
“I wish Mr. Sudbury would let me stay long enough to see this tree blossom,” she sighed, sitting heavily on the bench. Basil sat beside her, aching to reach for her, or at least to hold her hand. “It’ll be beautiful in less than a week, but it won’t be mine anymore,” she finished.
“You’ll be able to see the trees in back of Crimpley’s store bloom from the bedroom window of the bookshop’s flat,” he said, knowing it was no consolation.
She tried to smile anyhow, reaching over to pat his hand in thanks. He was half a second too slow to react, and before he could fold her hand into his, she pulled away, picking at the embroidery on the wide sash she wore with her medieval dress that day.
“I haven’t really felt alone in the world until now,” she went on. “As long as I’ve been in this house, I’ve felt as though Papa were still with me somehow. But from the first day we started packing things up, taking down old photographs, and boxing up Papa’s books, it’s been as though his spirit has finally flown on to whatever eternal rest we’re all granted in the end.”
Basil’s throat closed up, preventing him from assuring her she wasn’t alone, that he was there for her. But even if he had managed to get the words out, were they true? He hadn’t heard anything further from London, but that didn’t mean that Malcolm had given up. He could show up tomorrow, bringing the truth with him.
Almost as though she could read a piece of his thoughts, Elaine said, “I suppose if worst came to worst, London would be an answer.”
“Oh?” His pulse sped up. Did she already know something?
“My uncle, my sole remaining relative, lives there. In Mayfair or Marylebone or someplace beginning with an M, I think.” She tilted her head to the side. “Malvern?”
“Malvern is in Worcestershire,” Basil said.
“I could have sworn it was Malvern.” She shook her head as if it didn’t matter. “He’s my mother’s brother, and I’ve only met him a few times, and not since Mama’s funeral when I was eight. But I do receive letters from his wife now and then. Mostly when someone or another complains to them of my eccentricities.”
Basil clenched his jaw. So Crimpley and his lot hadn’t limited their efforts to subdue Elaine to Brynthwaite. They must have appealed to Elaine’s uncle to rein her in, possibly before setting their sights on him as a husband.
Elaine drew in a breath, squaring her shoulders, before he could give it much consideration. “There’s nothing for it,” she said. “I simply will not let this defeat me.”
“Of course, you won’t.” A ghost of a smile played on Basil’s lips.
She turned to him with a fond grin. “I shall go on, proudly and bravely.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“I shall make a new life at the bookshop. And who knows? Perhaps someday, when you wish to retire, you could hand it over to me. I think I’d rather like being a businesswoman. And if I ran the bookshop, I could read any book I liked, even the ones you continue to insist are off-limits.”
A flash of heat made Basil squirm. “Remind me to remove those books from the premises.”
“Ah-ha! So you haven’t yet.” For a moment, the light and mischief was back in her smile, giving Basil the sense that things might just work out the way she wanted them to after all.
“I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of said books,” he replied with mock solemnity.
“I shall find them, one way or another,” she continued, like a cat intent on finding the cream. “And if you do steal them away, I’ll simply order more. I’ll be able to do that when I run the shop. And who knows? Perhaps I’ll try my hand at writing books.”
“Scandalous books?” he asked, one eyebrow raised, not sure if the concept delighted or terrified him.
“Absolutely,” she said. “Could you see me writing any other kind?”
He chuckled. “No, I could not.” He let out a breath, then fixed her with a frank look. “You do realize, my dear, that you may not be able to have the freedom I know you long for.”
“And why shouldn’t I be allowed to have it?” she asked, crossing her arms.
Basil arched a brow, noting that she didn’t contradict him by insisting she could do whatever she wanted. “Society is filled with the likes of Crimpley and Sudbury,” he said, leaning against the back of the bench and crossing his arms with her. “They delight in keeping everyone in their place.”
Elaine sent him a curious, sidelong look. “Is that why you came to Brynthwaite?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, alarmed by the intensity in her eyes.
“From London. Two years ago,” she said. “You are from London, aren’t you? You’ve never said outright, but it’s fairly obvious.” She faced him more fully. “Is that why you left? Because someone, society, wouldn’t let you be who you wanted to be?”
Basil uncrossed his arms and cleared his throat. He adjusted his seat on the bench, unwilling to admit that he was squirming, or that she was skating so close to the truth.
Then again, the truth was probably going to come out within days anyhow, as soon as Malcolm appeared, like the devil he was. And if he had any hope of keeping Elaine in his life, any slight chance that she would take the truth well, forgive him, and, one could only hope, marry him like half the world seemed to want, it would serve him well to answer her honestly.
He relaxed, as though letting go of part of the secret he’d kept locked up so tightly. “I am from London,” he admitted. “And I left because of a woman.”
“Oh!” Elaine flinched, her cheeks flushing pink and her eyes going wide.
“I beg you not to get the wrong idea,” he said, raising his hands in defense. A moment later, he let out a breath. “Her name was Miss Elizabeth Grey. I believed myself to be in love with her,” he said, choosing his words carefully. The feelings he’d had for Elizabeth—and every other woman he’d dallied with in his checkered history—were nothing to what he felt for Elaine. “There were some…complications in our relationship. A misunderstanding. She chose to marry another man.”
“Oh, Mr. Wall.” Elaine’s whole demeanor shifted from alarmed to compassionate. She reached out to rest her hand on his leg. A jolt of longing shot through him. “Did you love her very much?” she asked, her eyes brimming with romance and, he was relieved to detect, a hint of jealousy.
“No, not very much.” He closed his hand over hers on his leg. “Though if you had asked me at the time, I might have said differently. I can see now, though, that what I suffered then was but infatuation. Even old men are subject to a bit of romantic ridiculousness now and then.”
“You’re not as old as all that,” Elaine insisted. Basil wanted to gloat at the relief that washed through her expression. “Why, you’re as energetic as a man half your age. You’re fitter too. I’ve seen men who I attended school with stumbling out of the pub in the middle of the day, half their teeth missing, paunchy, and pale, their faces worn either with care or the complete lack thereof. B
ut you are in fine form, your body is strong, and I’ve watched the way you lift heavy crates of books and….” She drifted to a stop, her cheeks flaring even pinker as she glanced sheepishly off to the side.
Basil hoped to God she was embarrassed because she realized she’d been admiring his physique. He couldn’t contain his triumphant grin at the thought that she found him attractive, in spite of the years between them. And his blood stirred with lust at the possibility that she might be awakening to carnal feelings of her own. For him. Even the hint that she might want him made it impossible to think.
Carefully, with as much control as he could muster, he took her hand in his, letting everything he felt for her radiate from him. It felt so strange and so alluring not to keep those emotions chained in his heart. He leaned closer to her, willing her to glance up and meet his eyes. He wouldn’t need to touch her, wouldn’t need to sweep her into a dramatic embrace, like a younger man might be tempted to do. He knew his heart, and he knew the power of attraction when it was let loose in a way that only experience could teach. If she didn’t already feel his longing for her, she would the moment she lifted her eyes to his. He held his breath and braced himself for the moment when everything between them would change irreversibly.
“Ah, I should have known I’d find you out here.”
Elaine did look up, but not at him. She jumped, sucking in a breath, as Mr. Sudbury rounded the corner of the house, striding carelessly across the grass toward them.
Basil could have murdered the man.
“Mr. Sudbury, what are you doing here?” Elaine demanded, hoarse and flushed.
Basil rose slowly to stand just behind her, glaring daggers at the man. He didn’t even care if the blackguard guessed what he had interrupted. Every emotion he possessed was so raw that Sudbury flinched when he glanced Basil’s way.
The bastard was quick to focus on Elaine, as if ignoring a threat in order to focus on his prey. “I came to make certain you will be out of my house by the end of the day,” he said in clipped tones.
“We’re doing the best we can,” To her credit, Elaine looked as though she would refuse to be cowed. She stood as stiff as a pike, looking down her nose at Sudbury, even though she was a good six inches shorter than him. “Packing up a lifetime in a fortnight is not as easy as you seem to think, sir.”
Sudbury frowned. “What packing could you possibly have to do? A few personal belongings, clothing and the like.”
Elaine balled her fists at her sides. “My father’s things,” she replied. “His furniture and his books. They can’t simply be folded up and tucked into a trunk.”
“Furniture and books?” Sudbury let out a pompous laugh. “I’m afraid, my dear, that the furnishings in this house also belong to me.”
“What?” Elaine balked, pressing a hand to her chest. Basil took a half step toward Sudbury, ready to beat the man senseless, but Elaine seemed determine to hold her own. “That is impossible. The furnishings are my father’s. His chair, his bureau, the dining set—”
“All came with the house,” Sudbury finished for her. “When your father first signed the lease, it was for a fully furnished and equipped house.”
“But that can’t be right.” Elaine frowned, blinking rapidly. Basil could see her running through more than twenty years of memories. He prayed that she would remember her father purchasing the items that she identified so closely with him, but painful realization creased her brow all too quickly. “Mama had just died,” she said in a distant voice. “Papa was inconsolable. He…he was pleased to have found a home for us that was ready-made.” Her shoulders dropped.
Basil stepped in. “What items does Miss Bond have a right to take and which things are owned by you,” he said, low and furious.
“Well, her clothing certainly belongs to her,” Sudbury said, sweeping her with a sneer. “Anything she can prove that she or her father purchased on their own can go as well. But I will require receipts.”
Elaine snapped her head up from whatever withering thoughts she’d been having. “I want none of it,” she said with sudden strength. “You can have it all.”
She launched into motion, marching past Basil and Sudbury and heading into the house. Basil shot after her, hovering just behind her as though she were a shell about to explode and he would need to gather the pieces to put her back together. But rather than flying off and shattering into a thousand pieces, an eerie calm had descended over Elaine.
“Stop what you’re doing,” she told the young men in the parlor who had come from Brynthwaite Municipal Orphanage to help pack her things. The three young men dropped everything to look up at her. “We’re leaving it all behind,” she said. She continued over to her trunk, slamming the lid, though it was only two-thirds filled. “My clothes and a few personal items have already been moved to the bookshop, and I would be loath to take anything else that Mr. Sudbury here believes belongs to him. I wouldn’t want to be accused of stealing, after all.”
She whipped around to face Sudbury with a look of such venom that the blackguard took a step back.
“There’s no need to behave like a wounded cat over the whole thing,” he said.
“Oh, I think there’s every need,” Elaine seethed. She took a step toward him, chin tilted up. “You may think you’ve won this round, Mr. Sudbury. You and your friends who tremble at the sight of a woman in control of her own destiny. You may think you can take everything from me and that I’ll fall into line out of despair. But you don’t have the first clue what a woman is capable of when you put her back to the wall.”
She stared at him, eyes full of such intensity that all color drained from Sudbury’s face. He glanced to Basil, as if appealing to some sort of male camaraderie or assumption that he wouldn’t approve of Elaine’s show of strength. But Basil couldn’t have approved more if he tried.
“Good day to you, sir,” he growled, narrowing his eyes. He turned to the young men watching from the parlor. “Please see that Miss Bond’s trunk is loaded onto the wagon and delivered to the bookshop as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” the boys answered in unison.
“Miss Bond, shall we?” Basil turned to Elaine, offering her his arm. His determination was only slightly softened by the look of adoration in her eyes.
“Thank you, Mr. Wall. I’m more than ready to go now.”
She slipped her hand into his arm, and he escorted her out the front door, down the garden path, and out to the lane.
“You can’t leave,” Sudbury called after them. “I have papers for you to sign.”
“I can go whenever I wish to go, Mr. Sudbury,” Elaine called back to him. “And you can’t stop me.”
Basil followed her statement with a glare that dared Sudbury to come after him. The man was wise enough to stay where he was.
They made it all the way to the bend in the road before a tiny sob escaped from Elaine. “My home,” she squeaked, raising a hand to her mouth. “They took my Papa’s home.”
Basil steered her instantly off the lane and over to a thick, fallen log a few yards away. “But they didn’t take your spirit,” he said as they sat.
No sooner were they settled, when Elaine twisted to him and threw her arms around his shoulders, burying her face against his neck. He closed his arms around her, resting his cheek against the top of her head.
“It will be all right,” he said, determined to make it so somehow.
“It’s not fair,” she insisted, her voice muffled against his jacket.
“No, it’s not.”
There was a pause, then Elaine pulled back enough to glance up at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her lashes damp. She sniffed, but already Basil could see she was fighting to take back her fire.
“I don’t know what I would do without you,” she said, bruised, but not be broken.
He didn’t think. Heart overflowing, he rested his hand against the heat of her cheek. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, slanting his mouth ove
r hers.
Two years of waiting and longing were over in a flash of brilliance. Her lips were as soft as velvet, with a taste of salt from her sweat and tears. He closed his eyes, sinking everything he had into the moment. He brushed his tongue against the seam of her lips, and when she gasped, he invaded with a tenderness born in the purest part of his soul. His body responded quickly, blood surging to all the best places, but it was his heart that burned and ached more than anything else.
She rested a hand against his chest, but not to push him away. Instead, she swayed almost imperceptibly into him. He was still in complete control of their kiss, but she didn’t pull away. She let him explore her with an intensity of passion that was threatening to drive him mad. He knew if he didn’t stop tasting her, molding her lips to his, and peeling back the boundaries between them, he’d do something rash, like dropping into the downy grass behind the log and introducing her to the pleasures of the flesh in broad daylight beside a well-traveled road.
With an exercise of will-power beyond what he thought he was capable of, he ended their kiss and leaned back. Elaine’s eyes remained closed and her mouth slack, lips a tempting shade of pink. Manners told Basil he should apologize for taking advantage of the moment, but he couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. He waited, watching, anxious for what he would see when she opened her eyes.
At last, her damp lashes parted. She gazed at him in wonder, as if looking on an exotic foreign shore for the first time. Her mouth remained open and soft, almost as though she were begging for another kiss. And Basil was tempted. Sorely tempted. Now that he’d kissed her, he wanted her so powerfully that it made the way he’d wanted her before seem like child’s play. Not only that, for better or for worse, he could see by the sparks dancing in Elaine’s eyes that it was only a matter of time before he would have her. And there was a fair chance she would be the one to start things.
As soon as the thought struck him, something in Elaine’s expression changed. The awakened, womanly desire collapsed suddenly into innocent fear. She wasn’t ready. Almost, but not quite. Not when she’d had her home and the memory of her father wrenched away from her so vilely just minutes before. She had to recover from one cataclysmic change before engaging in the next.