Elisabeth Fairchild (22 page)

“Can you really hold onto land, Miss Ramsay? Can you curl up to it at night?” With leashed passion he dropped the quirt and drew her into his arms. “This land you crave cannot caress your cheek.” The tip of his finger traced the edge of her cheek so gently she closed her eyes.

He drew her closer. Her fingers were still clenched around the dirt he had pressed into her hand, but it slipped away, no matter how tightly she clutched. His eyes, his arms, his voice would not allow her to slip away so easily. “Land cannot kiss you.”

He could, and did.

She did not pull away. In fact, she opened both her hands and her mouth to him. The dirt she had been clutching fell unheeded onto the toe of his boot.

And yet as abruptly as she succumbed to his arms she thrust herself out of them, her hand to her mouth, as if to stop its yearning. “Damn,” she swore. “How dare you?”

“I dare,” his voice caught, “because I have fallen in love with you. Surely you must have noticed?”

Panic overwhelmed Aurora. How compelling, quite invigorating in fact, to be told one was loved! Miles Fletcher was in love with her! Could it be true? The words knocked her back a step. She was unprepared for love. Love would make a mess of things. Was this love? Was love what she wanted and needed? She had to admit a certain tenderness for Miles. He made her pulse race whenever he was near, and her lips were constantly preoccupied with the promise of his kisses.

The hand she lifted to her mouth dropped to her breast. The corner of the unopened letter crackled beneath her hand. The letter, yet unread, with all its implications, held them apart. She must remain strong. She must remain true to her purpose. Her family was faced with ruin. Her future was uncertain unless she acted decisively and with haste. Aurora saw no other way to save herself, no other way to rescue her family than in Walsh. Surely it was dangerous to change direction this late in her race against time.

Thus, with a weak laugh that had nothing to do with being amused, she denied the love he claimed to feel for her, protesting, “You must not say such a thing when you know I mean to marry Walsh.”

He closed his eyes, as if to shut out her rejection before opening them again with a wry laugh, saying, “If I could return to you your land and rid your family of all obligation of debt, would you be interested in marrying me, Miss Ramsay?”

“Such a question does not merit an answer,” she snapped.

“Does it not?”

The question hung heavily between them.

Aurora swallowed, uneasy with his insistence. Would it make a difference? Should it? It should not, but it did, and she was not one to pretend otherwise. She tried to lighten the tension of the moment with humor. “My dear Mr. Fletcher, could you transact such a miracle I would marry you in a trice. But, you cannot, can you?”

He made no such admission, merely looked at her with such a piercing gaze she thought he must see within her to the source of her every thought and motivation.

“Come along,” Miles said with a smile that did not in any way reach his eyes.

“Come along where?”

His face had a closed look about it, a sadness that worried her, though she did not like to admit it, even to herself. The polished veneer she had noted the first time she had met Miles Fletcher, had slipped. She was not sure exactly what emotion she read, but that he felt something powerful was not to be denied as he strode to the shady spot where his horse grazed, throwing over his shoulder as if it were the most natural course of action, “If you spoke in all seriousness you must come and marry me. We shall hie to Gretna Green before the dew is dried.”

He mounted the animal and sat staring down at her, eyes dark and brooding, his veneer of light humor almost back in place. “If you spoke in jest and still mean to snare Walsh,” his eyebrows rose comically, “we must work on your dance steps and then get you to a mating.”

Aurora frowned as she climbed into the saddle without any assistance offered. She was depressed and confused by Fletcher’s hollow proposal, by his ready acquiescence once again to help her to capture Walsh’s attention. Surely if a man loved her, as Miles Fletcher claimed to love her, if he meant to marry her, as he also suggested, he would not so readily move on to dance steps with which she might impress another!

Was the man an unconscionable flirt, a sarcastic wit and nothing more? Was his mention of the mating of the mare meant to serve as insult? He ran hot and cold with her. She should have expected as much. His own sister had warned her against him. What was it she had said? “He is a dangerous fellow where hearts are concerned. You must not take anything he says too much to heart--else you will suffer as much as any other female who has mistakenly believed my brother might love her for more than a moment.”

How foolish she was to have offered her lips to a man who offered in return no more than pretty words and a few heady moments of passion. Despite the wisdom of caution, Aurora was troubled by a feeling of emptiness. The strange sensation that something vital and rare was slipping away, perhaps forever.

By the same path taken earlier, they returned to Holkham Hall. Once again a stop was made at the temple in the woods.

“I mean to share this letter with my brother,” Aurora said.

With a cool nod that acknowledged her words for the dismissal she intended them to be, Miles let her go. He was disappointed and angry--with Aurora--with himself. He had meant to tell her all. He had started to explain. What stopped him now but his own bruised pride?

“Do things go well with your goddess sublime, Miles?” Grace asked when he reined in his horse near her easel.

“They do not,” Miles grimly studied his sister’s painting.

“Do you not like it?” Grace asked.

“No, I do not.”

“What a pity. I think it is one of my better works.” She sounded offended.

Miles shook off his sour mood. “It is not your painting makes me frown, pet.”

“I am relieved you should say so.” She studied him pensively, as if awaiting some other response.

Miles’s eyes widened. There was no mistaking the moment caught here in translucent color. Two figures sitting in the shady portico of the Doric temple, one with red hair and a fan in her hand, the other a dark-haired fellow who leaned toward her, as if to kiss her. These two looked remarkably familiar.

“I say! What’s this?” Miles muttered sliding from the saddle. Just how much had Gracie seen of the kisses he had lavished on Miss Ramsay?

His sister feigned innocence. “A watercolor, Miles. Surely you have seen one before?”

“You know what I mean. This looks very much like me and that can be none other than Aurora Ramsay.” He stabbed his finger at the painting.

“Watch it,” she slapped at him with her paintbrush. “That bit is still damp.”

“Do you mean to toy with me, Gracie? Would you start vicious rumors?”

“Rumors? Not at all! I do but hope to capture a bit of truth in my poor paintings.”

“Truth? What truth is this, then?”

She wagged her paintbrush at him. “The truth is you have fallen in love with our Miss Ramsay and she with you. Why do you not ask her to marry you and be done with this farcical pursuit of poor Walsh?”

“I have asked her.”

She blinked in disbelief, her paintbrush falling from her fingers. “But this is wonderful!”

He interrupted before she could embarrass him further. “Is it? She thought I toyed with her, so do not toy with me as well, Gracie. I shall have this painting when you arene with it.”

Frowning, Grace bent to retrieve her paintbrush. As she rose she gave him a measuring look. “I am sorry Miles. I have promised it.”

“To whom?”

“To Miss Ramsay. She spoke to me of it only this morning when she and Walsh rode by.”

Walsh! He thought in disgust. Was Walsh to have both this painting and its subject? His gaze sought out Aurora, beneath the trees as she bent her head to talk to Rue.

“Miss Ramsay wants the painting does she? Can she afford such a thing?” He bit the words off.

Grace, had he but noticed, took unusual interest in his remark. “We did not speak of price,” she said. “Is there something wrong with the Ramsay finances?”

“Deeply wrong,” he said. “As wrong as anything else connected with a Ramsay. And a great deal of it is Uncle Lester’s doing.”

“Uncle Lester? Whatever do you mean?”

Another letter is come!

Aurora said no words to that effect, merely withdrew the missive from her pocket and fanned her face with it as though suffering from the heat. Rupert was beside her in an instant, withdrawing from the company of his new friends and limping to a secluded spot where they might be private.

“What does it say?” he asked with the same sort of dread she had felt in first receiving the letter.

“I don’t know. I waited to open it with you beside me,” she said softly. “But you must not show either concern or anger no matter how much you may feel it.” Aurora cracked the wax seal and unfolded the page. “This is too public a place to reveal our feelings. I would not have it said that any hint of this latest fiasco in our lives might be construed from our behavior here.”

Rue chuckled nervously as he hung his head over her shoulder to read along. “Then you must stop chasing after Walsh, now, eh?”

Aurora did not know whether to laugh or to throttle him. Rue’s snide remark on top of Miles Fletcher’s hints to the same effect, were the least of her troubles. She still felt undone by the wounding proposal from Fletcher.

“Oh, I say! What nerve Jack has!” Rue growled as they deciphered what was written, “He makes the mess and we are to clean it up. Dashed insolence! How can he think to ask us to find buyers for the sheep and cattle while we are here?”

“Jack does not think. He just does, Rue. Leaps first and then looks to see what damage he leaves behind. The man is a mountain goat.”

“Dear God! Only listen to this bleating madness and see if it does not make you furious.”

Aurora read.

“It appears the wheezing old gaffer who won our house, lands and living, cocked up his toes no more than two days after beating me. I am living high on the hope that his heirs are not yet aware of the old gent’s winnings. With luck they never will be.”

“Well?” Rue asked expectantly. “Are you as shamed as I am? Our mountain goat would skip out on his debts.”

Aurora exhaled heavily, eyes burning with unshed tears. “Is Jack truly so devoid of honor? How can he shirk all responsibility, all obligation so completely? I do not understand the turnings of his mind, though he is my own flesh and blood.”

Rue nodded. “I know. He would have us rely on deceit and wishful thinking. Even for Jack this sinks to a new low.”

Aurora handed him the letter, mind, heart, her very soul gone numb. It would appear she had less time thashe had imagined before they were paupered. She shook herself. Time worked against her. To waste it was an indulgence. “Is there anyone among your new acquaintances who is looking for cattle or sheep?”

“Gad!” Rupert swore softly.

“What?”

He gazed at her with earnest, open admiration. “You would have made a marvelous soldier, Aurora.”

From Rupert there could be no higher praise. She smiled grimly, confidence returning. “We are reconnoitering buyers then. I do not mean to go down without a fight.”

“Buyers. Yes.” He squinted at the gathering beneath the trees. “How about Fletcher? Did you not tell me he had recently come into a patch of land? He would seem the most likely prospect.”

Aurora sighed. Her chest hurt when she thought of asking Fletcher. “I hate to beg favors of him,” she murmured.

“But why? I think he would leap at the chance to curry favor. He has as much as told me so.”

Aurora passed a hand over her lips and thought of bitter words concerning love and land. “It is precisely for that reason that I am loath to ask the man.”

Aurora began her second dancing lesson with Miles Fletcher with trepidation. This gentleman boldly claimed he loved her, had gone so far as to ask her to marry him! Now he seemed eager to help her win the interest of Lord Walsh--a rival. Aurora tried to find some method to this madness. Did Miles mean to seduce her this afternoon? There was no denying the heightened tension between them. That she had additional pressures from the letter just received--that he seemed angry with her and a trifle cold, only increased that tension. She would have liked to ask him if he were interested in buying her livestock, but found she could not. Tension loomed like a wall between them.