‘Just say, I love you.’ Cora closed her eyes, her feelings almost overwhelming her. ‘Please.’
‘I love you.’ To hear those words in Ashcroft’s voice—James Ashcroft, her James Ashcroft—was wonderful beyond imagining. ‘I love you, Cora Seabrooke. I love you, and I’m sorry, and I love you.’
They held one another for a long, sunlit moment, the path alive with the gentle breeze that came with the dawn. Cora kept her grip tight around Ashcroft, a small part of her still convinced that none of it was real.
‘I believe you. If I had known, I would have always believed you.’ She murmured the words, resting her head on his chest. ‘Lady Chiltern told me last night. Apparently Amelia Benson’s mother—’
‘You have known for a night, and didn’t come to me? Come now. You are so much braver than I—you should have come as soon as you knew. In the dead of night. No—no, you shouldn’t put yourself in danger, but—damn it, Cora, you should have sent someone. Sent a messenger, or a faithful hound or—or—oh, Lord, listen to me.’ Ashcroft’s face crumpled into a weary, disbelieving smile. ‘I… we spent another night without one another. I never want to do that again.’
‘And I don’t want to either. But I imagine Lady Chiltern might have something to say if I simply never return. As will Daisy and Iris.’ Cora smiled, imagining the delight on the girls’ faces. ‘But… but we have this morning. And a morning can feel like a lifetime, in the right company.’
‘Good.’ Ashcroft kissed her. ‘Then I’m carrying you to bed.’
‘Carrying sounds wonderful.’ Cora reached up, kissing the corner of his mouth. ‘But… I would prefer to be carried somewhere else.’
The old kitchen shone with early-morning light, the wood glowing with the burnished gold of a church. Cora couldn’t help but laugh as Ashcroft carried her through the door, her feet brushing against the door-frame, placing her on the kitchen table with great ceremony.
‘Fresh table linens, we have in abundance.’ He pulled an enormous basket of snowy-white, neatly folded cloth to rest in front of Cora. ‘The range was cleaned yesterday, and—yes. There’s also this.’ He pointed to a small loaf tin, covered in greaseproof paper. ‘A lemon cake. Made some days ago, but it will have kept.’
‘Tablecloths, a clean fireplace, and an old cake.’ Cora laughed, her tone deliberately teasing. ‘Are you really suggesting that you can make a romantic scene from such poor materials?’
‘You gave me more difficult challenges long ago, when we were young.’ Ashcroft raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you really think I’ll fail?’
‘No, James Ashcroft.’ Cora smiled. ‘I don’t ever think you’ll fail.’
Ashcroft leaned forward, kissing her forehead. ‘With you beside me… I can’t.’
It shouldn’t have worked—but then, they should never have been apart. Cora reflected on this as the large, clean fireplace became a comfortable if makeshift bed, full of gently perfumed linens that were as soft as they were sparkling clean.
She lay in Ashcroft’s arms, the fireplace easily big enough to accommodate the both of them, her peace so profound it approached rapture. Satisfaction flowed through every nerve, her body still, her mind floating free as she rested her head against his broad chest. All she wished to do was kiss; small, butterfly kisses on his skin, soft and constant, until Ashcroft brought her head up to his with a growl.
‘I know I’m not as young as I was, but I’m hardly an old man.’ He kissed her deeply, his teeth gently grazing her bottom lip. ‘If you keep doing that, I’m going to respond in kind. And as strong as you are, my sweet, I don’t think you’re ready.’
‘I was ready yesterday. But if you insist, give me something more interesting to do.’ Cora laughed. ‘A list of verbs to conjugate, or a recipe for that lemon drizzle cake…’
She watched, frowning, as Ashcroft disentangled himself from the tablecloths. Reaching over to the parcel of lemon cake, he broke off a piece with a smile.
‘Eat.’ He gently slipped a fragment of cake in-between Cora’s parted lips, kissing a crumb away as it fell on her chin. ‘Lie in my arms, dear one, and eat sweet things.’
‘I warn you—I am most disinclined to move. I worry I would eat the entire cake if it were fed to me in such a fashion.’ Cora laughed, turning her head to the side as Ashcroft proffered another piece. ‘I am meant to be reducing.’
‘And do you wish to?’
‘... No.’ Absolutely not.’ Cora turned back, closing her lips around the fragment of cake in Ashcroft’s fingers as she swallowed. ‘Not at all.’
‘Good.’ Ashcroft’s voice sounded a little strained as he removed his fingers. ‘Because as much as I hate to be selfish… the look on your face when you eat something you find delicious leaves me feeling quite unreasonable.’ He took Cora’s hand, leading it down to his hardening cock. ‘So I hope you do it as much as possible.’
‘Your Grace, we have a French lesson in a matter of hours. Unless you have more pressing reasons to remain here, I will insist we behave like civilised people.’ Cora stroked her hand over the bulge in Ashcroft’s breeches, laughing at his growl of annoyance. ‘This, attractive as it is, is not urgent. You cannot convince me of that.’
‘Damn you, woman. I am powerless against your good sense.’ Ashcroft reached into his waistcoat pocket. ‘Now seems as good a time as any to tell you why I kept this for so many years.’
He pulled out the bracelet Cora had given back to him. Cora looked at the gold, shining in the morning light, suddenly aware that his next words were going to be important.
‘I kept this, Cora, because—because even then, as a callow youth with a misspent adolescence waiting in front of me, I knew that you were mine, and I was yours.’ Ashcroft looked at her, his gaze lingering on her lips as lovingly as a touch. ‘I knew it. Even as I grew further from you, I knew it—and now that I am with you again, I know it all the more.’ He took Cora’s palm, letting the bracelet drop into it. ‘You are my certainty, Cora Seabrooke. Never forget it.Because as foolish and destructive as I became… I never did.’
Cora closed her fingers over the bracelet, holding it tight. Then, with a dreamy sigh, she pulled Ashcroft back down into the tablecloths.
‘Oh, Miss Seabrooke.’ Ashcroft’s laughter tickled her neck as he kissed her. ‘Did that count as pressing enough?’
‘Just kiss me.’ Cora pulled the linens over their heads with a laugh. ‘Kiss me, and kiss me, and kiss me again… and perhaps, next year, Daisy and Iris will have their second French lesson.’
THE END
A Spoonful of Sin
by Felicia Greene
‘Iris, we are going to be caught in the storm if you don’t stop lolly-gagging.’ Daisy Chiltern looked sternly at her sister, who sighed as she attempted to pick up her pace. ‘Come now. We insisted on walking here instead of sending Edith—we can hardly beg a carter for a ride back without losing our dignity.’
‘Before lunchtime, Daisy. Mother needs the ribbons before lunchtime, and it’s only half-past eleven. The storm will break this afternoon, not before. We have plenty of time.’ Iris dreamily sketched a pattern in the muddy track with her toe. ‘And besides, if we hurry now we’ll be at tomorrow’s spring dance before we know it. Do you want to be at tomorrow’s spring dance?’
‘We have to be at the spring dance. My wants have very little to do with anything, as do yours.’ Daisy neatly avoided a passing goose, lifting her hem of her gown as she walked. ‘And besides, I thought you were mad for dances.’
‘I am not mad for dances, Daisy.’ Iris looked narrowly at Daisy, who shrugged. ‘I am only mad for things that are considerably grander.’
As the sisters continued their weary walk through Chiltern village, searching for their mother’s favourite ribbon-seller, Iris let her mind turn to more spectacular events than a village dance. For a girl of nineteen who read more often than she spoke, there were ever-so-many events that fell into such a classification… alas, most of them would never occu
r outside of her own imagination.
Still—what a gift a good imagination was. It had sustained her as a child through the great tragedy of her young life; the death of her father, who had been a secure if distant presence in her world. Now that she and her sister were older, one spectacularly failed Season trailing at their heels, her imagination was a daily way of sweetening the many small bitternesses in a young woman’s life; boredom, a titled name matched with an emptier purse than preferred, and a complete lack of suitors with the Gothic sensibility she had learned to adore from a voracious reading of novels.
‘I think that’s the ribbon-seller Mother likes. She always leaves her stall up a little later than the rest of the market sellers.’ Daisy stared at Iris, her gaze torn between love and annoyance. ‘Am I going to have to drag you there by your curls, or will I be saving both our moods if I leave you in a spot to dream?’
‘A spot to dream, please.’ Iris smiled, thankful her sister was forgiving as well as practical. ‘As payment, I will refrain from laughing openly at your ferocious treatment of all the poor young men who come to the manor.’
‘Much appreciated. Although some of them really deserve to be laughed at openly.’ Daisy smiled at Iris, an irrepressible expression of mischief filling her face. ‘And if you must choose something to dream about, dream about poor Lord Hatton’s face when he surfaced in his own duck pond.’
Iris covered her mouth with her hand as Daisy walked away, stifling a peal of laughter. Yes, it had been something of a mistake to push Lord Hatton into the duck pond—but then, Lord Hatton had been most mistaken to assume her heart could be won with jokes and smiles, rather than anguished looks and a low, broken voice. It had cost her the Season, but saved her a life of dullness—and Iris, for all her earnest attempts to be good, was rather glad about that.
She half-turned, distracted, almost sure she saw a face in the crowd that she recognised. She sighed as the figure drew closer; it wasn’t the woman she knew, only someone who resembled her…
‘Oh!’ She cried out in shock as two men jostled roughly past her. Whether they were intent on fighting, drinking, or were simply too impolite to notice her, Iris was caught completely off-balance. Arms wheeling, the ground too muddy to gain any leverage at all, she began falling into the road with all the grace of a drunken sailor—and cried out again, as her ribs hit the boards of a cart with a winded thump.
At some point in the next few confusing seconds, the cart was suddenly in motion. Iris lay stunned as the grey, heavy sky spun above her, wondering why the whole world suddenly smelled of flowers, before the brisk trot of horses’ hooves startled her into sudden, panicked awareness.
‘Help?’ She said it tentatively at first, trying to sit up until a bump in the road left her flat on her back once more. ‘I—help! Driver!’
She twisted her neck until the hunched figure of the driver came into view, a cloth cap shoved firmly onto his head. He was too far away to tug at his coat without risking a dangerous fall—and apparently deaf, if her unexpected arrival had caused no change in her behaviour whatsoever. Heaving herself up onto her elbows again, looking at the rapidly vanishing houses of Chiltern village with an increasing sense of unreality, Iris wondered who on earth she could call out to in the absence of Daisy.
Everything still smelled strongly of flowers. Risking a quick look downwards, Iris blinked as she saw the bottom of the cart was scattered with petals; rose petals, from palest pink to deepest blush. A flower-cart, then; a flower-cart stacked high with sacks of roses… but still a cart driven by a man who couldn’t hear her, taking her goodness-knew how long from the only place she really knew well.
Throwing all feminine modesty to the wind, she began to shout. ‘Daisy! Help! Daisy!’
When Daisy returned from the ribbon-seller to find no trace of her sister, she gave little more than an irritated sigh. Iris had always been something of a dandelion-seed, floating hither and thither instead of remaining comfortably rooted. No doubt she was chasing a kitten down an alleyway, or buying a length of muslin for a flower-jam she’d invented on a whim, or any number of delightful bits of nonsense that attracted her sister like a moth to a flame.
As the minutes passed, her irritation turned to worry. As the rush of villagers kept her where she stood, she craned her neck in vain to catch a glimpse of her sister. More minutes, more anonymous faces, more panic slowly rising…
She turned her head as a high, faint sound caught her attention. Perhaps a yowling cat, or a far-off hawk—but as Daisy narrowed her eyes, looking at the carts and carriages trundling away from Chiltern village, the sound crystallised into terrifying clarity.
Daisy! Daisy!
Daisy started forward, staring in complete shock as Iris’s familiar head of curls popped up from what looked like a fast-moving vegetable cart. Too far away to run towards, and she would never make her way through the mass of people busily buying and selling… how on earth had she fallen into such a ludicrous situation?
She have to at least try to run to her. Elbowing a young gentleman out of the way with very little ceremony, she sprinted into the road—and stopped, holding a hand to her chest, as a loud crack of thunder split the sky.
Rain. So much rain, an open heaven’s worth of rain, and all of it cascading onto Chiltern village with no regard to those caught outside. Daisy kept trying to push her way through the panicked throng, ready to shout for assistance, until a fresh peal of thunder put paid to any hope of rescue. Ducking under a thoughtfully-placed pub balcony, crossing her arms as water poured from the sky, she carefully considered her options.
She would gain nothing at all from running after the cart apart from a muddy hem—and in all the rush and commotion caused by the rain, no-one was going to notice or care about a young woman rambling half-crazed things about her sister vanishing into a vegetable cart. Yes, she could impetuously rush after Iris with nothing but her bonnet to protect her, or throw her purse into a carriage driver’s hands with desperate instructions to follow the cart. Her surname could protect her in such circumstances… or it could very well lead her into much greater danger. Her mother was going to be anxious enough with one missing daughter—Daisy really couldn’t imagine her faced with the sudden disappearance of both.
Squaring her shoulders, she sent a brief scowl in the direction of the carriage. Call it a gift, or a curse—perhaps it was simply a knack, like knowing how to braid one’s hair—but Iris was always more likely to finish in these predicaments. It had to be their names; an iris was a graceful, poetic flower, slim and strange, while a daisy was a much more commonplace thing.
‘Well.’ She grumbled to herself as she held up a useless hand against the rain, waiting for the first opportunity to begin a trudging trot back to Chiltern Manor. ‘This daisy, once again, has to rescue our special little iris.’
From the sweetly-scented chaos of the flower cart, Iris watched the distant figure of her sister turning in the direction of their home. Ducking under the narrow ledge behind the driver’s seat, sending a last piteous glance at the hunched shoulders of the oblivious man in charge of the horses, she attempted to create a makeshift pillow out of sackcloth as the rain began soaking the flowers.
At least the air is beautifully perfumed, she told herself, managing to make the depressing circumstances a little more pleasant through sheer force of will. If she close her eyes and concentrated, it was almost as if she were lying in a bower of roses… a damp, hard bower, but a bower all the same.
Anyone who had purchased this many roses couldn’t be a monster. They would have to belong to a household of both taste and sensibility—and they wouldn’t live more than a day’s ride away, given the flowers would need to arrive fresh. Perhaps they lived in Bath… it could be a gentleman’s house; a grave, black-haired gentleman bachelor. Or better yet, a widower.
Relaxing a little, she let her fantasies overcome her reason. Yes, imagination really did have its benefits—even if under the soft pink cloud she had conjured u
p in her mind’s eye, there lay a deepening pool of fear. Fear, damp, deep uncertainty—but above all, fear.
Some hours later, in the luxurious if sterile environs of the second-largest house in the Royal Crescent, Simon Harker stared in confusion at his valet. Greenford was normally so unflappable—if anything, that was the reason he had hired the man—but what he was saying made absolutely no sense at all.
‘A girl.’ He put down his hairbrush, resigning himself to a later bedtime than previously assumed. ‘A girl, thrown into my flower cart.’
‘More of a young lady, sir.’ Greenford cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Jessop—well, you know Jessop’s almost completely deaf. By the time he was off, with the rain being what it was, he didn’t hear a thing. He’s terribly upset about it. Afraid to come to you and make his apologies, sir.’
‘What on earth does he need to apologise for? He was expecting to transport flowers, not some half-mad maid who ended up knee-deep in my ball decorations.’ Simon knew he sounded grim, but couldn’t summon up enough cheerfulness to use a pleasant tone. ‘So what awaits me now? A weeping girl with wet hair who’ll develop a chill within the hour? At least the fires are lit.’
‘She managed to shelter herself with some success, sir. Matilde offered her one of her dresses, but she refused—and I understand her position. She’s in a strange house, after all, and probably doesn’t want to borrow a dress from a scullery maid. I don’t think we have any need to fear chills. But…’ Greenford shifted uncomfortably. ‘She seems irritated, sir.’
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