Elisabeth Fairchild (23 page)

Despite the strained feelings, perhaps in part because of them, Aurora felt desires that were new to her, desires that involved the interplay between a man and a woman: glancing, talking, touching, laughing and--dare she acknowledge the thought again--kissing. She could not stop imagining Miles meant to bend his head to hers again, to seek out her lips with his own. She watched and wondered and tried to concentrate her thoughts and desires on Walsh. She failed miserably in the endeavor. She could not untangle the image of Miles’s mouth from her imaginings.

Walsh had not the effect on her that Miles did. And yet she remained resolute in her intention to continue her pursuit of him. Such course made sense to logic and intellect, if none at all to emotions and sensibilities.

Miles Fletcher refrained from pressing himself upon her in any way improper or suggestive, though he had ample opportunity. They practiced dancing--as close as a man and a woman could decently be, their bodies gliding together and apart in growing harmony, their rhythms matched. On occasion his breath whispered across her cheek or along her neck. The clasp of his hand at her waist heated almost to the burning point and his gaze fastened on her lips time and again, but he did not kiss her, nor did he say anything in any way suggestive or leading.

Aurora tried to concentrate on the need to sell her sheep, on her need to secure Walsh’s interest before her brother’s folly became common knowledge. She tried to think of the future, but her mind perversely focused on nothing more than the moment, this moment she spent in Miles Fletcher’s arms.

She wanted him to kiss her again. She forgot all troubles whilst kissing. She could believe herself loved when her mouth yielded to Miles Fletcher’s. She found herself thinking of little else, other than the placement of her feet, and the movement of his shoulder beneath the palm of her too warmly gloved hand. She did at one point test his resolve by ever so nonchalantly swinging her head toward his as they danced. For a spellbound moment their mouths were temptingly close. Surely he would kiss her now.

But with an insouciant smile and a strange sadness in his eyes, he merely gazed at her a moment, their breaths intermingling, so proximate were their noses, before he said mildly, “Is it not time for the mating, Miss Ramsay?”

For an instant what he said made no sense to her. Mating? What intimacy was he suggesting? Then, gaze flying to the case clock that ticked away time in the corner of the room, she broke away from him.

“I am late!”

Before she could race from the room he held out his arm to her. “Come,” he beckoned. “I will escort you to the barn.”

To the barn they went--a silent, rather awkward walk until they encountered Tom Coke, also on his way to the covering of Lord Walsh’s prize mare.

“Interested in the breeding, are you?” he asked them openly.

Miles nodded. “Tell me, sir--for I consider you our resident expert--what, in your opinion, constitutes sound breeding practice? Suppose for example you had a mare who could run like the wind and knew one end of a turnip from the other.”

“We are talking horses here?” Coke laughed.

“Hypothetical horses,” Miles assured him. “Now, would you put that hypothetical horse with an animal who also understood turnips, or with a stallion who danced well, dressed impeccably and recognized at a glance the difference between Greek and Etruscan pottery?”

Aurora blushed furiously.

“Very interesting horses you’re breeding here.” Coke was gentleman enough to studiously avoid looking in her direction.

“Hypothetically interesting horses,” Miles agreed.

“Have these horses equal pedigree?”

“Let’s assume they have.”

“Well then, sir, I would breed the two that have different strengths.”

“I see,” Miles held the barn door open to Aurora and his host. His blue eyes sparkled mischievously as she passed.

After such pointed hypothesizing Aurora was rather relieved to part company with Miles. Once inside the barn she went immediately to Lord Walsh’s side.

“There you are.” He was pleased to see her, but undeniably distracted. “I had begun to think you might not come. I hope you do not mind my not standing here with you, but I must oversee the arrival of the mare.”

Before she could assure him she was quite all right on her own, he was away, his focus on the horse. Aurora positioned herself so that she might best observe the proceedings. In so doing, she realized that she was the only female present. Having seen many a mating before, her singularity in this respect would not have bothered her, had someone been there to stand beside her. Alone, as she was, there was an uneasiness in the men around her whom she acknowledged with eye contact or a tip of the head. A circle of space widened around her like a buffer. Aurora began to feel both uneasy and alone.

She marked Miles Fletcher and Tom Coke standing just opposite her position, and as was so often the case of late, the instant her gaze touched upon Fletcher he turned t look directly into her eyes.

The stallion was brought in then, huffing and snorting, tail high--drawing all eyes, except Fletcher’s. Aurora looked away and then back again. Still he stared at her.

There came a mental turning point for Aurora in the uneasy silence into which the observers fell as the mating ensued with a grunt from the stallion and a squeal of the mare. There was inherent in this urgent, almost violent coming together of animal teeth, hooves and flesh, the essence of the union she herself meant to accomplish in linking herself to Lord Walsh and his land. This thrusting covering of one beast with another brought flying through her consciousness the image of a pregnant ewe, gone glassy-eyed beneath the stroking hands of her sheerer. She was reminded of the suggestive paintings in Tom Coke’s attic and the rather tragic story connected to the painting of Coke that had been given to him by a lovelorn princess.

The rhythm of this mating echoed the rhythm of Miles Fletcher’s tongue as it had thrust between her lips in kissing her with such passion her knees had turned to water. This was the unnerving part of marital expectations she hid away in the back of her mind. She would bear her husband’s children. She was to serve as the vessel for his lust. That thought, in connection with the cold-blooded connection she intended to consummate with Lord Walsh sent a wave of nausea coursing through Aurora. She stared into the panicked eyes of the mare and panicked herself.

Turning her back on the mating, and the men who stood observing it, she strode from the barn, head high. The air was too close, the press of men and the animal smell too strong. She had to get away.

Stampeded by doubt, she plunged out of a doorway straight into her brother.

“Hallo! What’s the matter?” Rue’s face was a picture of concern. “You have not been talking to Grace, have you?”

“Grace?” He was looking at her far too intently. She wanted to lay her head upon his shoulder so that his arms would encircle her with a feeling of security and affection. She wanted him to tell her their troubles were over, not that there was some new calamity to overcome. “Is there more bad news?”

He stopped his staring. In fact, she thought he avoided her gaze. “She was looking for you. Said something about doing magic on your hair.”

Aurora sighed in relief. “Is that all? I was so afraid you meant to tell me more bad news.”

He frowned at his crutch. “Bad news? No, no--” He seemed for a moment uncertain just what it was he meant to say. “Quite to the contrary. You’ll be pleased to hear I’ve located a fellow who will have our pigs.”

Aurora smiled and straightened her shoulders. “That is good news. I’m ashamed to say I’ve nothing along those lines to report, favorable or otherwise.”

“No matter,” he said decisively, lines of worry still digging furrows in his forehead. “I intend to line up a buyer for the cattle and your sheep ere the ball begins.”

Aurora reached out to touch his hand and was surprised that he flinched, so unexpected was the contact. She had never seen him so driven. His fervor was moving. “You ease my mind, Rue. Now, where did you leave Miss Fletcher? I must give her plenty of time to work magic with my hair.”

“We--she was in the pleasure garden when last I saw her.” He avoided her eyes so assiduously in mentioning the place, that Aurora wondered what pleasures her brother and Miss Fletcher had been enjoying in the garden.

Aurora investigated the place thoroughly: the boathouse, the grottos, pavilion and hermitage. Graces no longer to be found in the gardens.

Still seeking her whereabouts, Aurora went inside. She got no further in her search than the State Bedchamber Apartment. There she sat and gazed at the painting of the young Tom Coke dressed in silver and salmon satin and tried to find answers to the questions that the breeding of a pair of horses had raised--that and a sense of peace. She understood this painting today as she had never understood it before.

She stared at the statue of a lovelorn Ariadne, at the shattered architectural bits that represented the broken dreams of a princess. She understood completely the reason why this painting had been commissioned. Her own dreams seemed shattered today.

Miles Fletcher, the letter from her brother and the mating in the barn had her rattled. The trend of her thoughts was confused. So focused were her thoughts on the painting and how it mirrored her own life that she started with surprise when Grace Fletcher placed a comforting hand upon her shoulder and sat down beside her.

“It is a sad painting,” she said softly. The look in her eyes would seem to ask again of Aurora is she was all right.

Aurora sighed. “Yes, quite tragic.”

 “What would you have done, had you been in her shoes?”

Aurora was uncomfortable with such a question. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Well, if you were promised to a titled and moneyed gentleman twice your age for whom you felt little respect and no love at all--would you marry him, or run away with a younger man, without future, whom you loved despite his lack of prospects? Would you choose security, which would be sure to satisfy your family’s desires or passion and possible poverty to satisfy your own?”

The question too closely mirrored the dilemma Aurora herself debated. “What would you do?” She sought safety in turning the question.

Grace smiled a knowing smile and responded with such a lack of hesitation that Aurora was convinced she must have given the question prior consideration. “I would, without a doubt, run away with love,” she responded. “I would risk censure, disdain, public outcry and potential poverty. There is no question in my mind that true love, and thus true happiness, is worth the risk. Would you not agree?”

Grace turned from her examination of the painting to study Aurora. Aurora continued to study the painting, rather than meet her searching look.

“Answer me this then, if you have no opinion. Are you still interested in the watercolor? Would you care to have it, Miss Ramsay?”

Aurora could no longer avoid eye contact. “Yes, but I thought your brother--” she began and could not continue.

“He is in love with you, you know,” Grace said matter-of-factly. “He cannot bear to look at my watercolor. He tells me it pains him now that it is finished. He has quite wounded my ego in saying so, as you may well imagine.”

Aurora frowned. She made every effort to keep her voice from sounding too forlorn. “You warned me against your brother’s charm. Those words have rescued me on more than one occasion. You were right, you know. Miles is so charming I have at times come very close to forgetting myself.” She gave Grace’s hand a pat. “But as you suggested, I have carefully guarded my heart. It remains safely intact.”

Grace stared at Aurora open-mouthed. “Dear God! Is it my doing that you hold him aloof? How stupid of me. You see, I was wrong, dreadfully wrong. I have done my brother an injustice in assuming he would never lose his heart.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I knew he would fall in love with you. Miles falls in love with anything beautiful and he declared you sublimely so the very first time he laid eyes on you. But, this is different. I have never seen him caught in Cupid’s clutches before. He has promised--vowed--to make you happy, no matter how miserable it leaves him. He will marry you to Walsh, you know, if Walsh will have you, though it breaks his heart to do so--and for no other reason than that he would see you happy, no matter the cost to his own happiness. Do you feel nothing for him?”

It was Aurora’s turn to frown. “I am not sure. At present, my emotions are a tangle.”

Grace passed a hand over her stomach with a strangely knowing smile. “Love can knot one up inside,” she admitted.

Aurora laughed harshly. As Grace regarded her with narrowed eyes and puzzled brow she said, “To love or love not. That is the real love knot, is it not?”

Grace focused on her work dressing Aurora’s hair and subtle application of make-up as if she were painting a watercolor. “A dusting of powder,” she patted Aurora’s nose and forehead with her hare’s foot, “the barest hint of perfume. . .” she ran the crystal stopper of her perfume bottle along Aurora’s neck.