Blue Waltz (20 page)

It was Thursday when Belle spread a blanket out on the brown grass in the Public Gardens. As Stephen stood over her, slightly out of breath, his arms akimbo, his feet spread wide, she knew he was put out with her.

"Your note said there was an emergency!" His tone was short, clipped. "It doesn't look to me like there is an emergency, Mrs. Braxton."

"How else was I supposed to get you to come to my picnic?" she asked, as she smoothed nonexistent wrinkles out of the blanket.

He took a deep breath as if trying to calm himself

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before he glanced around. "A picnic, in the Public Gardens? It's not allowed."

"Who will know? Nobody's around."

"Nobody's around because it's too damn cold."

"Good heavens, I've never heard anyone complain so much in all my life. Too much walking, the play too loud, the day too cold. Does anything make you happy, Stevie?"

Stephen grumbled. "When you bother yourself to call me by my given name."

"How is it possible for such a seemingly intelligent man to be so priggish?" As soon as the words were out, Belle wished them back. Not because she didn't think they were true, but because she had promised herself this day, yes this day, she was going to be nice all day long. And the fact that no more than five minutes into their encounter she was already failing made her mad, mad at him. "You are the most exasperating man I have ever had the misfortune to meet."

"You're one to talk," he snapped, dropping to his knees and rummaging through the basket she had brought along. "You'd try the patience of a saint." He pulled something from the basket. "What's this?"

With pursed lips, Belle looked down at the item in question. "Custard pie."

"Did you make it?"

"No. Maeve did."

"Humh."

"And what does 'humh' mean?"

He met her gaze and smiled devilishly. "Humh means . . . humh."

Belle didn't know what to make of this change. One minute he was all but overtly disdainful, then the next, he was smiling and just possibly teasing her.

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"Well, are you just going to sit there," he said, pulling his coat tightly closed, stretching his long, booted legs out, and leaning back against the craggy trunk of a willow tree, "or are you going to serve up this picnic that you have dragged me to?"

With a burst of delighted laughter, Belle piled food onto a plate with pale yellow and blue flowers along the rim.

"That looks like fine china," he said as he took the fare.

She considered the plate. "You could be right," she said, then dropped a generous dollop of potato salad right in the middle.

Stephen shook his head then retrieved a chicken leg.

They ate their meal, both quiet, neither knowing what to say when they weren't at odds.

Belle finished first and set her plate aside. Lying back on the stiff blades of winter-browned grass, the muffler around her neck coming up to cover her lips, she stared up into the sky.

Stephen watched her as he leaned back against the willow tree, the chicken leg held in his ungloved hand.

After a moment, she glanced over at him. "Do you always eat and stare?"

His eyes widened, then narrowed mischievously. "Only when I have such a sight in front of me."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

He looked at her for a second without answering. "I don't know."

She rolled her head back and scoffed. "Typical Stephen." Moments later, she pointed into the sky. "A bull."

"What?"

"A bull. That cloud. It looks like a bull."

Stephen leaned forward and squinted up into the sky. "Looks like a cloud to me. Cumulonimbus, to be specific."

"Cummulo what?"

"Cumulonimbus. One of the three types of clouds. A new classification system."

Her snort of disdain was whisked off in the breeze. "Leave it to you, Stevie, to have no imagination at all."

"Seems like we've been over the imagination issue already. Perhaps we could move on to new territory."

"Then find a cloud and tell me what it looks like—other than cummubus."

"Cumulonimbus."

"Yeah, yeah. Just play along."

"You sound like Adam."

"Thank you."

"That definitely wasn't a compliment."

"It should have been. I think Adam's a grand sort."

"Yes, you've made that clear."

"Don't tell me we're back to being jealous again."

"I'm not jealous."

"Good, because as I told you, we're just friends."

"Yes, as he is with just about everyone around. Men, women, everyone likes Adam. I just wish he would stop acting like a boy."

"Then stop treating him like one."

"I treat him as he deserves to be treated."

"Open your eyes, Stephen. Adam is a man, not a boy. Give him the opportunity to prove it. Stop trying to run his life. Give him a chance."

"I've given him a chance! Hundreds of chances."

"And no doubt you've always expected him to fail."

"I never told him that."

"You didn't need to. It's clear that's how you feel, even to me, and I've only known you for a matter of

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weeks." She hesitated while she pushed up into a sitting position on the blanket. "He thinks the world of you, Stephen. He thinks you can do no wrong and no matter what he does he can do no right. Don't hurt him any more. Help him."

They sat scant inches apart, neither speaking, eyes locked, breaths mingling.

His gaze dropped to her lips. "I think I'm the one who's in need of help."

She inhaled sharply.

He only leaned closer. "Aren't you going to ask if I'm going to kiss you?" he asked; his voice deep and low.

"No," she whispered, repeating the words he had said to her. "I'd never be so forward."

A shadow of a smile flitted across his face, then it was gone and he leaned forward to kiss her.

She realized with a start through the myriad emotions she was feeling, that she had been waiting for this, waiting for him to touch her, waiting yet again for him to push the darkness away. The pie and the chicken had merely been an excuse. The realization filled her with fear. But then he pressed his lips to the tender spot beneath her ear and the realization along with the fear dissipated into the beautiful winter sky.

"Stephen," she murmured.

Gently, he pressed her back against the ground, her cape falling open. He stared at her. The same desperation that had flashed through his eyes only days before returned. And like a drowning man reaching out for a lifeline, he reached down and grasped her wrist lightly, the tips of his fingers pressed to her pulse. With breathtaking slowness he trailed his fingers up her arm until he grasped her shoulder.

And then he kissed her again, finally, desperately.

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She inhaled deeply, and when she did she felt his tongue, fleetingly, against her lips. The intimacy amazed her, as did the strange feeling that coursed through her body, making her want to press closer.

With infinite care, he moved over her. She could feel the steely ripple of muscle beneath the thick wool. As if sensing her frustration, he opened his coat and pulled her inside, until she could feel his heat, feel his heart beat heavily against hers—strong and steady, melding into hers, joined as if one. He cupped her breast, then caught her moan of pleasure deep in his mouth, sucking it in, then grasping her tongue with his own, as if he couldn't get enough.

"Belle," he groaned into her mouth, before lowering his head to nuzzle the taut bud of her breast beneath the velvet.

She gasped at the unfamiliar touch. "Stephen," she whispered again. "I don't know. I don't understand. I don't understand what I feel."

"When, love?" he asked, the words a murmur as he pushed the velvet aside.

She cried out when his tongue found her nipple, her back arching to his touch.

"When you kiss me. It feels so ... so wonderful. I've never felt such a feeling." She took a deep breath and smiled, tilting her head back. "Though I've also never been kissed before," she added with a tiny self-conscious laugh.

Stephen froze, then pulled back. He looked down at her, confusion warring with the desire in his eyes. She realized her mistake instantly.

"I mean, I've never been kissed like that before."

She rolled away and hated that she cared when he let her go.

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"You've never discussed your marriage," he stated flatly, pushing up into a sitting position.

"Surely I have. He was such a fine man," she said quickly, searching for the pleasant expression she had perfected in the mirror long ago. "He loved me a great deal," she added as she worked the fastenings of her gown. "Practically worshipped the ground I walked on."

She could feel him studying her. She wished he would look away.

"Then you must have been heartbroken when he died."

Her fingers stilled in their task and she stared at him, wide-eyed like a startled doe. Heartbroken? Her nostrils flared.

Suddenly, words tumbled toward her from years before. 'You're my wife!"

Her heart began to pound. But then the bells in the distance began to toll, deep and low, filling the skies. "Oh, heavens," she said, pushing up with effort. "The time. Got to go." And without bothering to gather the basket or the blanket or any of the picnic items, food and china alike, Belle hurried away, her gait awkward as she made her way along the path toward home.

Stephen was too stunned to follow. He simply watched her go, unable to make sense of his thoughts. Based on her clumsy attempts during their first kiss, and on the innocent delight she had shown today, he was inclined to believe she hadn't ever been kissed before. But that was impossible. She had been married, for God's sake. No one seemed to doubt that fact. Not Louisa or Adam or anyone else who gossiped about Belle. But still . . .

The thought trailed off, toppling into another. It didn't matter if she had been married or not. He had no

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business kissing her, or even having a picnic with her in the cold winter landscape. She had nothing to do with the kind of life that he was building for himself—had spent years building for himself. The kind of life of which his father would have been proud.

Unexpectedly, the image of his mother loomed in his mind. Laughing, caressing his cheek, her kind maternal eyes looking down into his. Eyes so very similar to Belle's, if not in looks, then in the emotions that danced so clearly in them.

He turned away from the image, not knowing what to make of it. He realized the memories of his mother were no longer so clear. And it was all Belle's doing, he realized. That combined with the memories Adam had of their mother which were so different from his own.

"Damn Adam, and damn Belle Braxton," he muttered to himself.

He glanced down at the blanket spread with half-eaten food and perfectly good china, and shook his head. Only Belle Braxton would leave such things behind. He started to smile, but stifled it with the iron-clad willpower that had been sorely lacking of late. Belle Braxton had nothing to do with the kind of life he wanted, he reiterated, though the inevitable but lurked in his mind. And that was the problem. Ever since he had met her, there were too many buts in his normally ordered life. He didn't like it now any more than he had that first evening he encountered her.

Grumbling, he pushed himself up from the ground. Damn her for too many buts. Damn her for making him lose control.

Damn her for making him feel like he had never felt before.

But his curses began to lose their force. He fought to maintain his anger, searched for steely resolve. Found instead the image of Belle.

Belle. Sweet Belle. Bursting with life. Bursting with passion.

And suddenly he wondered which would be worse—a life with Belle Braxton, or one without her.

CHAPTER 14

The missive arrived first thing the next morning. Handwritten. Delivered by Belle's maid.

Stephen stared at the invitation to a party that very day, before he crumpled it up angrily, then tossed it into the fireplace in his study. Sure enough, the woman was going to drive him mad.

"Why is she doing this?" he murmured aloud to the flickering flames. "Why has she set out to see me every day of the week, even though she insults me at every turn and barely seems to like me."

His words were instantly disproved when he remembered the intimacy they had shared. No, she didn't entirely dislike him. She liked his embrace well enough, though he couldn't imagine any woman spurning him one minute then desiring kisses the next. Which brought him right back to the plaguing question. Why was she continually seeking him out? And still he could provide no answer.

Though Belle Braxton could.

Before he could think better of it, Stephen pushed up from the leather chair. Prior to meeting Belle, he had always been a man of action. Sitting back and letting the vagaries of life toss him about at their whim had never been his way. He never would have survived had he done so. But since their first encounter, he had begun each day telling himself to avoid Belle Braxton, then falling in be-

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hind her like she was the Pied Piper, luring him into a world that he hadn't known existed.

An uneasy tremor raced down his spine. He didn't like being the moth to someone else's flame, and that was just what he had become since the night at the Bulfinch House when she had turned around and asked to share his bread.

His mind reeled at the memory. Her beauty had stunned him. He remembered that night as if it was only yesterday. And then she had fled. Oh, Belle, he thought without warning, what are you running from?

His hand fisted at his side. He didn't care what Belle Braxton was running from. He would not be lured into her crazy world.

He called for Wendell, who appeared in the doorway with a swiftness that said he had expected the summons.

"I'm going out," Stephen said.