Back In My Arms Again

by Cora Lee

  She tried the card room next, hiding a grin behind her fan when she spied James seated at a table with Lord Whitby. Her grin faded in the next instant, however. The Earl of Grimsby was slouching in a chair at the next table, his cards clutched in one hand against his black tailcoat.

  “Ah, Grimsby!” Cecilia called, snapping her fan shut and waving it in his direction. “I’ve found you at last.”

  He started, straightening in his chair as his eyes widened for the briefest of moments. “Lady Cecilia, how nice to see you this evening. How might I be of service?”

  She flitted across the room and halted at Grimsby’s side, clasping her fan in both hands. “You’ve already done so much, finding that letter for me.”

  His brows rose a mere fraction of an inch. “Letter?”

  “The letter I’d written to my dear husband so many years ago.” She emphasized husband just a little, in case Grimsby hadn’t heard about her recent marriage. Cecilia’s man of business had forwarded a bank draft to the earl for the discharge of the loan against the Fitzsimmons farm. But she’d stood on principal and chosen not to give in to the blackmail and pay for the return of her letter.

  Grimsby’s brows rose to a loftier height, and Cecilia guessed that he hadn’t known of her marriage to James. What fun that she be the one to inform him his scheme had no power over her any longer!

  “Your husband?” Grimsby shook his head, then stood and gestured to the chair he had just vacated. “Why don’t you sit, and we can discuss this matter without disturbing the other card players.”

  Cecilia ignored his suggestion and made sure her voice carried across the room. “I don’t know how it could have gone missing—Mr. Fitzsimmons and I keep our private letters to each other in locked caskets—but I was enormously glad to receive your note detailing your possession of it.”

  Heads were turning throughout the card room, no doubt in response to her raised voice. But mouths opened and eyebrows were raised at her last statement. She could practically hear the other guests wondering how and why Grimsby had obtained a personal letter belonging to a lady not his wife.

  Grimsby shifted in his chair and started to speak but Cecilia cut him off, channeling her growing glee into her ruse. “I would also like to offer you a reward for your discretion, my lord. There are too many people in this world that would have used that letter to try to embarrass me or my family by threatening to make it public, but your only concern was making sure it was returned safely to me.”

  His expression froze in stony silence, and Cecilia couldn’t tell if he was angry, or mortified, or some combination of emotions he’d rather not name. Whatever his feelings, she was absolutely delighted. She’d both exposed and negated his nefarious intentions without accusing him of anything at all.

  “O-of course I cannot accept a reward,” he managed, clenching his teeth with an audible click. “I am honor bound as a gentleman to return your property to you, and that I shall do.”

  Cecilia suppressed—with much difficulty—the urge to laugh. There went any money he’d hoped to extort from her, too. He could certainly try another private threat, but it would be a threat with no teeth. By appearing at the ball together, the whole of Polite Society now knew that Cecilia and James had wed, so there would be little if any scandal from a love letter between them. And by Grimsby’s own admission to the entire card room, he had Cecilia’s letter in his possession. If he refused to return it, she could simply ask him for it the next time she saw him...preferably in public.

  “You are an honorable man, indeed, and I am grateful to you for keeping my letter safe.”

  His body seemed to deflate as he bowed to her. “I shall see to it first thing tomorrow.”

  She acknowledged his bow with a nod and turned, nodding to Lord Whitby and James. She’d intended to simply leave the room then, but James jumped to his feet and was at her side in three strides.

  “We’re both most appreciative, Lord Grimsby,” James said with such sincerity Cecilia almost believed him.

  Grimsby flashed a half-hearted smile, and when he declined to comment further, James offered Cecilia his arm. “Shall we, my dear? I believe the next dance belongs to me.”

  She slid her arm through his, drawing herself much closer to his side than was proper. “Yes, of course. My heart is so much lighter now with this business finally resolved.”

  She smiled broadly at her husband and allowed him to escort her out of the card room. When they’d cleared the door, James tugged her down the hall and into an open but empty room.

  “Nicely played,” he grinned, sliding his arms around her in a celebratory embrace.

  She reciprocated, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her cheek against his. “I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did.”

  “You could talk anyone into anything, wife of mine,” he murmured in her ear.

  Cecilia closed her eyes , tightening her hold on him. “Flatterer,” she whispered back with a smile. She held on for a moment longer, then loosened her grip on his shoulders. “Did you truly want to dance with me, or was that just an excuse to get away from Grimsby?”

  “What I’d really like to do is return home and sit before a warm fire with you for a little while,” he said, with a small smile. “We’ll have to be up early tomorrow if we’re going to make a good start toward the farm. I know you don’t sleep well in a moving carriage.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” she admitted. With her confrontation of her blackmailer concluded, she couldn’t think of a reason to stay. “Though we can’t leave until my letter arrives—Grimsby promised to send it first thing.”

  “Certainly not. We’ve gone to all this trouble to thwart the man, we may as well stay in Town long enough to see this matter concluded.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  He brushed his fingertips across her cheek and once again offered his arm. “To home, then, where we shall countdown the minutes until your letter arrives.”

  Chapter 9

  To Cecilia’s surprise, her letter actually did arrive mid-morning the day after the ball, delivered by a footman in Grimsby livery. She unfolded the paper carefully and scanned the words to be sure it was her letter, then re-folded it and found it a place in her reticule where she could guard it closely.

  By the time they reached the Fitzsimmons farm, though, she’d forgotten all about her letter. There was so much to take in: the main house that was larger than her cousin Philip’s home in the Cotswolds, the multitude of outbuildings, the adorable little lambs and foals, the friendliness of James’s parents.

  The biggest surprise, though, was a house tucked back in a corner of the property. Two stories high and built in red brick, it drew a grin from James that was so big Cecilia thought his face might split in two.

  “This one is mine,” he told her, throwing his arms wide. “The main house is where my parents lived when Father inherited this place, and where my sister and I spent our childhood. But when I came of age, I wanted something for my own.”

  “It’s like a dower house,” Cecilia replied with a wink, taking his offered hand as they circled the structure. “Except that the son of the family lives here rather than the dowager.”

  “Exactly. The property still officially belongs to my father, and this was a way for me to have some privacy and autonomy until the day comes when I inherit.”

  He escorted her through the interior, pointing out structural features he’d requested and the decorating he’d done himself, all with that wide grin.

  “It’s very cozy, James. And I don’t mean that as a euphemism for ‘small’ either—this house looks to be the same size as my home in Hanover Square. And every room feels like a place I’d enjoy spending time.” She squeezed his hand gently. “You clearly do.”

  “I do,” he echoed. “My parents keep talking about moving out of the main house and giving it over to me, but I keep telling them not to. I’m more than happy here.”

  They stopped before the entrance t
o an empty room on the ground floor, and Cecilia peered inside. “Why haven’t you furnished this room?”

  “I was saving it as a sitting room for my eventual wife.”

  His words were even in tone and volume, but his eyes locked onto hers as he spoke. All she could manage in response was, “Oh.” She released his hand and clasped hers together. “We probably ought to—”

  “James? Are you in here?” a female voice called from the front door.

  “Mother?”

  Cecilia followed her husband back through the house toward the door and discovered Mrs. Fitzsimmons standing in the entry.

  “There you are,” she smiled at her son. “Your steward is looking for you, and I was hoping to show Lady Cecilia some of the duties belonging to the lady of the manor.”

  Cecilia shared a look with James and gave him a small nod. Finding out how the farm worked was one of the reasons she’d wanted to make this trip. “That would be lovely, Mrs. Fitzsimmons. And you must call me Cecilia. I am family now, no matter how that came to be.”

  She felt warm pressure on her hand and James flashed her a smile. “I’ll leave you two, then.”

  Cecilia spent the rest of the afternoon shadowing her mother-in-law as she went about her daily routine. As James had told her at Orchard Lake, there was little difference between running a large farm and a small estate. The Fitzsimmons farm employed fewer servants inside the house than Alston did at any one of his country estates, but they’re number included the usual housekeeper and butler, along with a variety of maids and a few footmen. The kitchen garden was larger than Cecilia’s in Town and Mrs. Fitzsimmons was more involved with the care of hers than Cecilia, but that, too, was familiar.

  “All these years I thought being a farmer’s wife would be completely foreign to me,” Cecilia smiled after they’d gone over the dinner menu with the cook. “Yet, the things you’ve shown me here today are the things I do in my own home.”

  “It was different for James’s great-grandparents,” Mrs. Fitzsimmons responded. “The farm was smaller then, and so was the income it produced. They employed one maid-of-all-work and a few field hands, but that was all. When I married Mr. Fitzsimmons, I thought that’s what I was walking into, myself.”

  “Were you terrified?”

  Mrs. Fitzsimmons giggled. “I was. My mother-in-law had gone on to her reward before I came here, and Mr. Fitzsimmons’s grandmother was in ill health, so I had no one to show me what to do.”

  “I would have been overwhelmed,” Cecilia said softly.

  “Oh no,” Mrs. Fitzsimmons replied quickly. “I am a gentleman’s daughter and managed without too much trouble. You, having been raised in grander circumstances than I, would have made this house your own in short order.”

  “I suppose I would have.” She glanced around Mrs. Fitzsimmons’s sitting room with its oak escritoire and chairs upholstered in powder blue, thinking of that empty room in James’s house. Would she choose different fabric for her chairs? A different wood for her writing desk? Would James sit with her in the evenings and discuss the day’s business while she embroidered?

  “Thank you for taking me under your wing,” Cecilia smiled. “If there is nothing else for today, I believe I’ll lie down for a while before dinner. For all the traveling I do, I still haven’t managed to learn how to sleep well in the carriage.”

  “Of course. Do you remember the way?”

  “I can just follow the path, can’t I?”

  Mrs. Fitzsimmons’s eyes widened. “Yes, if you were going to James’s house. Your chamber is upstairs. We assumed that since yours was a marriage of convenience...”

  “I see. Well, then, upstairs I shall go.”

  There was an unexpected twist. After spending weeks upon weeks with James—including a few coaching inns with only one room available—she was to finally have her privacy back.

  But did she want it?

  ~*~

  James lay in bed that night and tried to sleep, but his eyes remained open and his mind alert. He thought that, between the fitful sleep he managed traveling from London and tramping all around the farm this afternoon, he’d be falling asleep in his supper. But here he was in his own bed at last, with the familiar sounds of his home around him, and he remained wide awake.

  “Well, if I’m not going to sleep, then I should do something useful,” he said aloud, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He found a pair of trousers to put on and grabbed a clean shirt from his clothespress, pulling it on as he moved through the moonlit house. A pair of thick stockings his mother had knitted for him completed his ensemble and warmed his icy feet.

  He decided to tackle the pile of correspondence that had piled up in his absence, taking out a fresh sheet of paper as he opened the topmost letter. Before he could read a word, he was startled by a noise at the front of the house.

  Was someone knocking?

  When he opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of his wife bundled in what his mother liked to call a wrapper, her bright hair hanging in a thick braid over her shoulder.

  “Cecilia? What are you doing here at this time of night?”

  “Perhaps we could discuss it inside? Spring may have come to England, but you’d never know it this night.”

  He shook himself and held the door wider for her. “Of course. I’m afraid the only fire laid is in my bedchamber, though. Do you mind talking there?”

  She smirked at him as she entered the house, twining her arm around his. “How scandalous, Mr. Fitzsimmons! Whatever will the neighbors think if they find out?”

  “Let us hope we never have to find out,” he replied with mock seriousness. “This way, my lady.”

  When she was seated before the fire and suitably comfortable, James tried again. “To what do I owe this pleasure, wife?”

  “Is it a pleasure, husband?” she asked softly.

  How was he supposed to answer that? “I have only spent two days with you that were not somehow pleasurable: the day you refused my proposal, and the day you proposed to me.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  The firelight was flickering over her face, illuminating it one moment and plunging it into shadow the next, making it difficult to read her expression. There was no other chair in the room for him to sit in, so he knelt before her and took her hands in his.

  “Yes.”

  She let out a breath as if she’d been holding it, awaiting his answer. “Do you think... Do you think we might have more pleasurable days together?”

  His mouth pulled into a wide grin. “I certainly hope so.” Her answering grin made his heart flutter in his chest.

  “Good. Because I believe we’ve been given a second chance, my love, and I am loath to squander it. Lying in bed tonight, it was all I could think about. Now that you’re back in your own home and the farm is safe, you don’t need me any longer. My letter is returned and my brother spared the stress of a scandal, so I don’t need you any longer, either.”

  James felt his face fall. Could she see his disappointment in the dark room? “I suppose not,” he replied, keeping his voice as neutral as he was able.

  She squeezed his hands and drew them into her lap. “But just because we are no longer dependent upon each other doesn’t mean this is the end of our relationship.”

  “Do you want this to be the end?” He couldn’t keep the emotion out of his voice now. Not when his future was being decided, when her chilly hands were warming his very heart.

  “No,” she said resolutely, releasing his hands and fished around in the pocket of her wrapper. When her hand emerged, it was holding a folded letter with her own faded handwriting. “But I don’t think we can have this again, either.”

  He took the letter when she offered it, sitting back on his heels as his eyes roaming over the old paper. It was a letter she’d written to him during their courtship, not long before he’d asked for her hand, filled with florid descriptions of her love and longing for him. He remembered penning similar le
tters to her, and how he ached for her when they were apart for more than a few moments.

  “I believe you’re right about this,” he said, gesturing with the letter. “This is not who we are anymore.”

  “Precisely. But my dearest James, we’ve already begun forging a new path—together—and I want very much to continue along it with you. Will you stay with me, and remain my husband?”

  “On one condition.”

  He heard her suck in a breath. “What?”

  “That you move into this house with me for the remainder of our stay here. We may no longer be young, but I still miss you when we’re apart.”

  She slid from her seat and caught him in a warm embrace. “I believe I can meet that condition.”

  She kissed him then, with such enthusiasm that the pair of them toppled over. James couldn’t stop the laughter, but wrapped his arms around his wife sprawled atop him and managed a few more kisses.

  “I love you, Cecilia Fitzsimmons. I have since the day I first laid eyes on you, and I always will.”

  She rubbed her nose against his, then claimed his lips once more. “And I love you, James Fitzsimmons. I have made some mistakes along the way, and we have had more than our share of heartbreak because of it. But I promise to keep loving you as best I can for as long as I live.”

  She bent to kiss him again and he rolled them over, propping himself up on one elbow as he looked down into her eyes. “I will hold you to that promise, wife of mine.”

  Cecilia’s answering smile shone almost brighter than the fire. She ran her fingers through his hair and massaged his neck. “You’d better.”

  Later, when they were cuddled up together in James’s bed, Cecilia planted a kiss on his shoulder. “How are we going to manage this?”

  “I thought we managed rather well,” he grinned back.