A Summer to Remember (25 page)

His eyes moved down her slim, quite unvoluptuous, sexy body. He desired her every bit as much as he had ever desired a woman. Perhaps more. But she would not marry him. She did not want to. He must not . . . He had already endangered her once last night. He must not trap her into losing the freedom she clearly prized. He must not be that selfish, that undisciplined.

She moved her arm away from her eyes and turned her head to smile up at him.

“Kit,” she said, her lovely eyes warm and dreamy, “
this
is what I meant at Vauxhall. Just this, though I did not even know it myself at the time. This—the sunlight on my face. I have never allowed it there before—it might ruin my complexion. The sounds of water and birds and insects—thousands of them chirping and droning away. Sometimes I forget that the world is
alive
. Sometimes I think there are only humans here and maybe horses and cows and sheep. And the smell of water and grass and flowers. The
flowers,
Kit. They are
weeds
—daisies and clover and buttercups. But they are more lovely than anything else in the universe. And . . . and myself a part of it all. I have always been a spectator of life, you know, never a participant. Never. But now I am.
Today
I am, and I am awed and deliriously happy. This is the adventure I asked for, the adventure I am having. I will be forever grateful to you.”

He swallowed. He felt absurdly close to tears. He fought his arousal and hoped she had not noticed. She had spoken the simple truth. He could tell that just by looking into her eyes and seeing her as part of her surroundings. She
was
a part of it all, one with the sunshine and water, with the grass and flowers, with the birds and the chirping insects. Like a wood nymph or a water nymph. Like a sprite or a goddess.

He knew beyond all doubt that this was one of life’s precious moments and that it would remain with him for the rest of his life. It was one treasure that his memory would hoard for future comfort. He must do nothing to spoil it.

“Kit.” She reached up a hand and touched his cheek with light, cool fingertips. “Do what you did to me last night. I want it again. Just one more time, here among the flowers, under the summer sun. It would be lovely here, would it not? If you want to, that is. Perhaps you do not.”

He leaned over her and set his lips to hers. She tasted of cool lake water and warm summertime. She tasted of innocence and awakened womanhood. She tasted of the enchanted land beyond the treetops. He ought to remind her of reality—of the fact that women were frequently impregnated during the act of sex. That pregnant women must marry their seducers even if they loved elsewhere, even if they craved freedom.

But that enchanted land beckoned him too. Indeed, he was already immersed in it, in flower-dappled grass and clover fragrance and warm summer sunshine and bee-song. This was what she had meant. This was what she had yearned for. Just this fleeting, magic moment—to be grasped or to be lost forever. He raised his head an inch or two above hers and she smiled dreamily at him. He smiled back.

Last night had been for him. He had poured out all his deepest pain to her, telling her Syd’s story and his, and then he had reached out to her for physical comfort, which she had given generously, warmly, unstintingly, gifting him with her very self. This afternoon would be for her.

He loved her slowly with his hands and with his mouth, using all the expertise learned over the years with other women, but adapting it all just for her. She was not a woman of wild passion—not yet, at least. She was a woman who needed tenderness and gentleness. He gave her both as his hands and mouth roamed her body, feathering, stroking, lightly scratching and pinching, licking, sucking, gently biting—choosing the erotic spots that would give her most pleasure. Her hands roamed his shoulders, his back, his chest—gently, inexpertly. He was accustomed to women who knew unerringly how to heighten and satisfy his passion. Lauren knew not a single one of their many tricks. But her very inexpertness brought him to full-blown, almost painful arousal.

He loved her with almost desperate tenderness. He kissed her mouth with soft, deep kisses, licking warmly inside while the fingers of one of his hands explored the moist heat between her legs, parting folds, seeking, penetrating, feeling her muscles close about him. With his thumb he found the secret part of her womanhood and stroked her there until she whispered a surprised exhalation into his mouth and shuddered into a spasm of pleasure.

“Do you want me inside?” he murmured to her.

“Yes.” She circled him with her arms. “Oh, yes. Do it to me—like last night.”

“Not quite like last night.” The long grass and nodding flowers might give the appearance of a soft carpet, but they would make a hard mattress for a woman in the act of love. “Come.” He lifted her over him and parted her legs to straddle his own. “Kneel up on the grass. Trust me.”

“Yes.” She kneeled astride him and braced herself with her hands on either side of his head. She looked down at him and smiled, her eyes heavy with desire.

He raised his knees and set his feet flat. He positioned her carefully, nestling himself against her opening before bracing his hands over her hips and guiding her down onto him. He watched her eyes close as she first frowned and then relaxed. Her muscles tightened about him as he held deep in her for a few moments to allow her time to adjust. She was hot and wet and exquisitely feminine. He drew a few steadying breaths. He was unaccustomed to having to impose control on himself after making his mount. It was the point at which, after long minutes of vigorous foreplay, he usually gave himself up to a frenzied climax.

Except last night. But then last night had not really been about sex at all.

Neither was this afternoon. This was not sex—not as he knew sex, anyway. This was . . . what was it? A warm, intimate, tender sharing of—of what?

He raised her a little with his hands and began to pump slowly, smoothly, in and out of her. She held still, though her inner muscles picked up his rhythm, responded inexpertly at first, and then matched it. The sensation was delicious and painful both at once. He wanted to prolong the pleasure indefinitely. He wanted to give in and explode into her right now.

Most of all, he wanted to give her all the pleasure twenty-six years of living had denied her. He wanted this to be for her. Not for himself but for Lauren. He wanted to see her totally, utterly happy.

He stroked her with smooth, deep strokes for many minutes, not attempting to hasten the ending, as he might easily have done by touching her again in that small, secret place. He could see from her closed eyes and parted lips and look of concentration that all her attention was focused in the passage that he worked, and that she was greatly enjoying the sensations. Perhaps that was all she would experience, but he would not shatter it until he could sense that she was ready.

Then she frowned again and her eyes clenched more tightly shut and she drew her lower lip between her teeth. She lost rhythm and tightened hard about him. She opened her mouth and gasped.

“Relax now,” he told her. “Relax those muscles and let yourself go.” He tightened his hands over her hips and worked her with harder, faster thrusts. “Let it all come. Trust me.”

But there was no need for instruction, no need for him to coach her to climax. She cried out and shattered about him and collapsed her weight onto him. He wrapped both arms protectively about her. She was still pulsing and trembling.

“Let it all go,” he murmured against her ear. “Let it all come.”

He had never had to concern himself with feminine orgasms. He was usually too intent upon his own.

She finally lay still and hot and damp on him. Now, finally, he was free to complete his own pleasure. He moved his hands back to her hips and braced his feet more firmly against the ground—and paused a moment, gritting his teeth.

Then he lifted her off him and turned to set her gently on the towel beside him.

“Mmmm.” The sound was a satisfied purr from deep in her throat as she rolled onto her side and curled in against him and promptly fell asleep.

Kit lay back down and breathed deeply and evenly, clenching and unclenching his hand on the side farthest from her. Several minutes of sheer agony passed before his erection began to subside. He chuckled ruefully when the worst of it was over. In her innocence she doubtless was quite unaware that she was the only one who had completed the act.

As probably he had been last night.

He might well have impregnated her last night. Only time would tell. But if she had escaped during that encounter, then she was still safe today. She would still have choices left when the house party ended. She would still be free to leave him.

He set one arm over his eyes and sought and found her hand with his other. This must not happen again. They were not really betrothed—by her choice. And Lauren Edgeworth was not the sort of woman with whom one indulged in an illicit affair.

Last night she had given to him in his need.

This afternoon he had returned the favor.

That was all. It was completed, this unexpected physical bond forged of both their needs.

Yes, it was completed.

He drew in a slow lungful of clover-fragrant air and let it out on an almost audible sigh.

18

T
he following morning presented Lauren with an opportunity to talk privately with Sydnam Butler, something she had not accomplished before. He was not often visible during the day, and during the evenings he invariably sat in the drawing room window, his very posture discouraging company. She had no real wish to talk with him at all, but she had come here to help Kit be reconciled with his family. The deepest hurt of all, she had discovered two nights before, involved his younger brother.

A number of the men and boys had gone fishing with Kit, Lauren’s grandfather among them. Several of the ladies, including Gwen and Aunt Clara, had gone into the village to see the few shops and to view the Norman church. Lauren had stayed behind to wander among the flowerbeds and through the hothouses with the countess and help her make final plans for decorations for the birthday. When that task was completed she accompanied the dowager on her morning walk to the rose arbor and back.

Mr. Sydnam Butler was riding alone up the driveway, Lauren saw as they slowly climbed the steps on their return to the house. He appeared to do it very well considering the fact that he had only one arm. She felt very sorry for his disabilities, but she did not feel particularly kindly disposed to him. He had been unfair to Kit.

The dowager took the arm of her favorite footman, a stout, good-natured young man, for the climb up the stairs to her room. Lauren excused herself and went back outside. She hardly knew what she intended to do as she stood on the steps again, her eyes on the stables. Kit’s brother came walking out onto the terrace a few moments later. He limped ever so slightly, she noticed, perhaps as a result of stiffness from his ride. The limp disappeared after a few steps. He hesitated for a moment when he noticed her, and then came onward.

“Good morning, Miss Edgeworth,” he said when he was close enough. He touched the brim of his hat with his whip.

“Mr. Butler.”

She felt dislike—and guilt. But why feel guilt merely because he was maimed? She
did
dislike him. He had consigned Kit to a sort of permanent hell for no good reason. Yet Kit still loved him.

He smiled his crooked smile when he came to the foot of the steps and would have gone on past.

“Mr. Butler, will you walk with me?” Lauren asked.

He looked at her in evident surprise. He drew breath—to offer some excuse, she guessed. But he closed his mouth again, bowed, and turned to walk with her across the terrace and out onto the wide lawn on which the cricket match had been played the day before.

“The weather is not quite as lovely as yesterday,” he remarked.

“No, there are some clouds today.”

She almost lost her courage. But their bargain aside, she was concerned about Kit. She cared about him—she cared
for
him. Much too deeply for comfort. She clasped her arms behind her and drew breath.

“Mr. Butler,” she asked, “why will you not forgive him?” It did not occur to her that perhaps he would not know what she was talking about.

“Ah,” he said softly. “Is that what he has told you? Poor Kit.”

“Is he mistaken, then?” She frowned.

He said nothing for a while as they strolled diagonally in the direction of the trees. Then he sighed.

“It is far too complicated an issue,” he said at last. “You need not concern yourself with any of it, Miss Edgeworth. And you need not fear that I will be here indefinitely to blight your happiness and Kit’s. I will be leaving within the next month or so, I believe. I will be taking a post with the Duke of Bewcastle.”

“As a steward?” she asked. “That upsets Kit, you know. He tells me you were not made for such a life, that you were—
are
—an artist. He loves you. Do you not realize that?”

He stopped walking and gazed at the grass ahead of them before turning his head and looking directly at her. Lauren was shockingly aware of how very handsome he had been, of how terribly disfigured he now was. But her dislike of him had not waned.

“And you think I do not love him?” he asked her.

“I think you cannot,” she said, “or you would offer him some comfort. Do you believe he has not suffered just because he does not carry around your wounds?”

He was angry then. Furiously so, judging by the sudden hardness of his eye and tensing of his jaw and flaring of his nostrils. But he brought himself under control before he spoke again.

“Yes, I believe he has suffered,” he said curtly. He turned to look back at the house. “This walk was not a good idea, Miss Edgeworth. Not unless we agree to talk about the weather. I like you. Very much indeed, though I realize the feeling is not mutual. You are kindness and patience itself with my grandmother. You are gracious and amiable with everyone else. You have an obvious affection for my brother. I wish you happiness—both of you. But I must leave. I doubt you will see much of me once I have gone. It will be best for everyone that way. Shall we return?”

But she had heard more than his words alone conveyed. She had heard another sad and lonely soul, too far withdrawn into himself for happiness. Kit, for all his deep misery, had found an audience in her two evenings ago and some comfort. In whom did Sydnam Butler confide his deepest griefs? Was there anyone? He seemed such a very solitary figure.

“There is one thing I am good at,” she told him, ignoring his gesture back in the direction of the house. “I am good at listening.
Really
listening, instead of hearing only what I want or expect to hear. Tell me what happened. Tell me
your
version of what happened.”

Kit had told her facts. She did not believe he had lied or tried in any way to mislead her. But sometimes even facts did not tell the complete story. Sometimes there were unconscious omissions or shadings that could change the whole perspective on an event. Get three people to tell what had happened on some tumultuous occasion—her wedding at Newbury, for example—and the chances were that one would get three similar but essentially different stories.

He looked steadily into her eyes for a few moments
before turning to continue their stroll away from the
house.

“Yes, I was the artist,” he said, “the dreamer, the little brother who was small for his age until he shot up to a gangly height at the age of fifteen. I wonder if Kit has ever noticed that I grew taller than he. Jerome was the solid one, the responsible one, the one who would inherit and be earl one day. He was confident, active, strong. Kit was the mischief-maker, the daredevil, the one at the center of any trouble, the one most often summoned to our father’s library. He was the charismatic one, the bright, laughing one. My boyhood hero. I adored him.”

Lauren said nothing. A largish cloud had just moved off the face of the sun, and there was a flood of welcome brightness and warmth.

“I was everyone’s favorite,” he said. “Sweet little Syd, the gentle dreamer. The one to be protected against all danger, all potential enemies, all punishments.” He chuckled suddenly, and Lauren realized that he had almost forgotten her presence. “One time when I took the boat out and did not secure it properly on my return so that it drifted off into the middle of the lake—even taking it out unsupervised was strictly forbidden, you must understand—Kit confessed to the misdemeanor and was caned. Then after I had heard about it and insisted upon telling the truth and was feeling rather proud of my own stinging rear, Kit got caned again for
lying.
They both did it—Jerome and Kit. They were forever protecting me. But I was a dreamer, you see, not a weakling.”

“They were
over
protective?” Lauren asked.

“Yes.” They had reached the little stream that bubbled over its uneven stony bed on its way to join the river. They turned to walk beside it. “Because they loved me, of course. Love can be an infernal nuisance, Miss Edgeworth. Did you know that?”

It was a rhetorical question. She did not attempt to answer it.

“I wanted so desperately to be like Kit,” he said. “Self-knowledge is far more slowly learned than any of one’s other lessons. Indeed, some people never come close to learning it, and perhaps none of us fully succeeds. I suppose the boat episode must have been an attempt on my part to be as bold as he. My insistence upon becoming a military officer was another. It was utterly foolish. I was not, of course, cut out for such a life. But I had something to prove. To Kit and my family. Most of all to myself.”

“And it ended badly,” Lauren said. “I am very sorry about that. But it was not really Kit’s fault, was it? He did not insist that you purchase a commission. He actively tried to prevent you from joining him on that disastrous spying mission. And his promise to protect you was unrealistic.”

“Of
course
it was not his fault,” he said fiercely.

Lauren looked curiously at his perfect left profile. “Why then,” she asked him, “do you refuse to forgive him? There is not even anything to forgive, is there? He made the right decision. Didn’t he?”

He looked angry again. They walked onward while Lauren listened to the brook and looked across it to the path of the wilderness walk, just visible among the trees opposite.

“I owed obedience to officers of superior rank,” he said at last. “At that time I was a lieutenant while Kit was a major, two ranks above me. He was my superior. More than that, on that particular mission he was my commanding officer. Had he ordered me to stay and be captured, I would have obeyed him without question. He did
not
so order. I volunteered. Did he tell you that?”

“No,” she said after a brief, silent moment. “He did tell me that you were the one to spot the possibility of escape for one of you.”

“He
never
ordered me to do it,” Sydnam said. “I volunteered. He was horribly silent, wasting precious moments after I had suggested it, knowing very well as a loyal officer himself that there was no alternative. But he could not bring himself to give the order. I volunteered again. I insisted. And then I hugged him and I ordered
him
—a superior officer—to get out of there. I
chose
to stay. Even though he would have ordered me to do so eventually—because duty
must
come before a brother, you will understand—
I would not burden him with having to do it. I
volunteered
.”

“Then why . . .” Lauren frowned.
“Why?”

“Kit will have told you that I was tortured,” he said. “I will not horrify you with any of the details, Miss Edgeworth. I hope he has not. I will say only this. For days and days on end death seemed the most attractive, desirable gift ever dangled before my eyes. I could have grasped that gift at any moment for the price of a little information. I did not do so because I was an officer, because it was my duty to keep silent. I did not break because I was capable of
not
breaking. I surprised even myself, because hell could not possibly be worse than— Pardon me. Eventually I knew—beyond a certain point I
knew
that I would have the strength of will to die the hard way. I knew it and a part of me exulted in the knowledge. I was so very proud of myself.” He laughed softly. “And then Kit and a gang of partisans rescued me.”

Lauren understood suddenly. He did not need to complete his story. She understood. But having begun it, he needed to tell it. They had come to the junction of the stream and the river and had stopped walking. Lauren gazed off into the deer forest beyond and waited.

“Again I was poor Syd,” he said. “I went through amputation and other painful procedures. I went through the delirium of fever and the ordeal of the voyage home. And all the time I was poor Syd. I arrived home and Kit took all the blame on himself. I was just poor Syd, who should not have been allowed to go in the first place. I was poor Syd, whom my brother had failed to protect. Kit came very close to madness that summer—because he had sacrificed his young brother, because he could not take the wounds and the sufferings of poor Syd upon himself. Pardon me for being bitter. I could not make any of them understand. I gave up trying.”

“They would not simply rejoice with you?” Lauren asked quietly.

He looked at her sharply. “You
do
understand?”

She nodded, and her eyes filled with tears, something that seemed to be happening to her rather too often these days.

“Yes, I understand.” She set one hand tentatively on his arm and then stretched up to place one gentle kiss against his good cheek. She hesitated only a moment before kissing his withered, purple-skinned right cheek as well. “You were every bit as much a part of the success of that mission as Kit was. No, you were the greater part, because your role was so much more dangerous and painful and lonely. There is nothing sad or pathetic about you, Sydnam Butler. You are a great hero and I honor you.”

His grin was lopsided and rather sheepish.

“Yes indeed,” she said severely, “love can be an abomination when it insists upon wrapping the loved one in cotton wool, when it will not trust the strength of the one it loves. I am quite sure you have made yourself into the world’s most competent steward.”