Hadrian (10 page)

She wrenched her hand from his, though—mercy and disappointment, both—she did not resume caressing his cock.

“I’m not some virgin martyr, Hadrian Bothwell. I’m a grown woman, with the same bodily urges you allude to, but alone of all God’s creatures, I’m not supposed to acknowledge them, not ever.”

Society’s fictions to the contrary, women did experience lust. Hadrian had presided over enough hasty weddings and christenings of “early” babies to know this truth.

“You’re lonely,” he suggested, then winced, as her fingers glossed over his falls again, once.

“Lonely. Right.”

They sat side by side, Hadrian wishing for and dreading another adventurous touch from her, when Avis seemed to come to some decision.

“We should be getting back.”

Bloody damned sensible of her. “We should.”

“Shall I leave you here to compose yourself?” She was trying not to smile, but Hadrian had to like her for her sense of humor, among other things.

He rose and offered his arm. “I am sufficiently composed that I should be presentable, provided we discuss only sheep, wool, and the quarry pond as we approach civilization, but I want you know something.”

“Yes?”

“I haven’t kissed anybody else like that, Avie Portmaine, not my wife, not my passing fancies at university, not my horse.”

“If that’s a warning, it isn’t having the intended effect.”

Must she sound so amused?
“You are the last woman I want to disrespect.”

She faced him squarely amid beds of roses about to bloom. “I’ve learned a painful lesson, Hadrian. One I hope no other woman has to learn as I did.” He had no idea what was coming, but she had taken his hand and the amusement had fled her eyes. “I’ve learned that passion can be used to express the depths of disrespect, to degrade, and violate and hurt, intimately.”

“It can,” he agreed, heart breaking for her.

“I want to believe it can be used for the opposite as well, to express caring, and tenderness, to cherish and savor, not destroy.”

He drew her to him, feeling such a wave of protectiveness that words were difficult.

“It should be,” he said finally. “Even a casual encounter should convey some hint of those finer sentiments.”

“So you meant no disrespect by your kiss, nor I with mine.”

He kissed her cheek, absolved by her words, because she had the right of it. Still, offering her his arm and returning her to the safety of the crowd took effort, when he wanted to remain in the garden shadows, holding her close and cherishing her with yet more kisses.

“Dance with me, Avie love.” Fenwick’s voice crooned low in Avis’s ear, startling her with his proximity.

“How many times have I asked you to not to sneak up on me like that, Ashton Fenwick?”

“I wasn’t sneaking,” he said, looking genuinely contrite. “You were so distracted watching yonder vicar prancing about with Miss Primness, you didn’t hear me.”

“They are a handsome couple.” Both Lily and Hadrian sported the blond, blue-eyed coloring and lean grace of the British aristocrat.

“You and I are a handsome couple too, and Bothwell’s back is shot, so he’s moving poorly.”

“Your back is in fine fettle?”

Fenwick bowed with a flourish. “With you in my arms, I have the back of a mere lad.” He tugged her onto the dance floor when the music ended, while Hadrian accompanied Lily to the punch bowl.

The Almighty was punishing her for kissing Hadrian, surely. “Had I known it was a waltz, Fen, I would have fled to York.”

“Had I known it was a waltz,”—Fenwick positioned her in his arms—“I would have bribed old Sully to make it a half hour long.”

“You’ll be asleep on your feet before too much longer.” God willing.

She and Fenwick had never danced the waltz before. He was surprisingly graceful and had the knack of being a secure partner without hauling her around the floor like a sack of wheat.

“You hush, Avie Portmaine.” He drew her closer, to within an inch of what propriety forbid. “Let me lead for once and just enjoy yourself.”

Having small-talked herself out for the evening, Avis did as he suggested, enjoying the music and her partner’s skill. Fen smelled good, of something meadowy and fresh, and he exuded a bodily competence borne of both his size and his strength.

And yet, he wasn’t Hadrian.

When Hadrian had tucked his jacket around her, she’d had an abrupt, intense sense of
déjà vu
. Once before, his citrus and clove scent had enveloped her. Once before he’d offered his coat warm from his body to keep the chill away. Once before his voice had found her when she’d been trapped in her own thoughts.

Hadrian was kind, and he was braver than most, for all his manners and warnings.

“You’ve gone away,” Fenwick observed as the music slowed. “I feel like I’m holding air, Avie.”

“You told me to enjoy myself. The silence was lovely.”

“I saw you giving old Bothwell back his jacket.” Fenwick kept his voice down.

“I suppose Lily will lecture me on that tomorrow at breakfast, and Hadrian might be no older than you, Ashton.”

“Bugger Lily,” Fenwick muttered. “You listen to me, Avie. If Bothwell casts lures, and you’re inclined, you give the man a chance.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Bothwell is a thoroughgoing gentleman. I know you consider him a friend, but Bothwell is both gentleman and man.”

“The two are often found in conjunction.”

“No, my lady, they are not,” Fenwick replied too softly to be overheard. “You’ve rusticated for too long here at Blessings without any flirting or courting, and it’s time you rejoined the living.”

“You’re presuming a great deal here, Mr. Fenwick,” Avis said, her tone as chilly as she could make it, but predictably, her scold had no effect on her steward.

“I know all about your unfortunate past, Avie. That was twelve years ago, and you’re too lovely a woman to go to waste here when there’s a worthy fellow whom you could put to the plough with a little effort.”

“Put to the
plough?
”

“I can be more graphic. I am not a gentleman.” A circumstance Fen delighted in. “What would Vim and Benjamin think of you for encouraging me to further ruin?” Avis asked in an outraged whisper.

“Vim and Ben would double my salary were I to report that you’d discreetly allowed Bothwell some liberties. Me, Bothwell, Young Deal, just about anybody you took a fancy to, and they’d be happy for you.”

“
You
?”

“You’ve spent too much time around Miss Prejudice,” Fenwick said as he led Avis through a slow turn. “Of course
me
, though I know you’d never trifle with the help.”

“Now you’re the help?”

“I can be whatever you need me to be, my lady, but the sparks aren’t there between us, and you know it.”

“Ashton, when did you become so ungallantly blunt?” Though when Hadrian had been blunt, she’d liked him for it.

“When did you become blind to the way a handsome man looks at you?”

“You consider yourself handsome?”

“In the eyes of some, yes,” he countered with an odd gravity. “I was referring to Bothwell, Avie. Bothwell, who stole you off to the gardens for a protracted stroll; Bothwell, whose jacket appeared around your shoulders that he might show off his manly physique in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves. Bothwell, who’s probably cozening your secrets out of Lily Prunish even as we speak.”

“Prunish?”

“I knew I could get you to smile.”

He was worse than both of her brothers put together. “You can, though my situation is complicated, Ashton, and while I know you mean well, there are facets of it you can’t understand.”

“I understand being lonely, Avie, and having needs that go unmet for too long and for no good reason.”

The music came to a close, so Avis stopped casting around for a flippant reply, went up on her toes, and kissed Fen’s cheek. “You are a good friend, Ashton Fenwick.”

“And a better steward,” he rejoined, leading her off the dance floor. “You’ll think about what I said?”

“Not the prunish part,” she said airily, “but the rest of it…”

“Hadrian Bothwell is good folk, Avie, and he’ll treat you well.”

Hadrian Bothwell kissed divinely. “He’d castigate you sorely for attempting to cause this mischief.”

“For form’s sake, he might,” Fenwick allowed as Gran Carruthers bore down on him. “But only for form’s sake.”

“One forgets the blessed quiet in the wake of shearing,” Lily remarked at breakfast.

“I get so I don’t even hearing the bleating,” Avis replied, passing the teapot down the table. “After handling all the lambs, at least one’s hands are soft.”

“And reeking.” Lily—who had handled not one single lamb—wrinkled her nose.

“At least we don’t have to wrestle the grown beasts about. I’m not sure Sully will be willing to heft the shears next year.”

Lily poured herself a cup of tea rather than reply, and Avis knew the same sinking sensation she felt every time she casually offended her companion’s sensibilities. The situation would have been unbearable, except Lily was devoted to smoothing off Avis’s rough edges, and incorrigible in her hope that Avis’s past could someday be overcome.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Avis said on a sigh. “But Sully dropped like a stone when he was kicked in the—when he was kicked, and for once, the other fellows weren’t laughing.”

“You shouldn’t have seen that.” Lily set her tea cup down silently. “You should have been with the other ladies, dandling their babies, asking after their daughters, and pouring cold tea.”

Lily hadn’t dandled any babies. Avis kept that observation to herself, just as she didn’t point out that many of the ladies could deliver a social blow as stout as what Sully had endured.

“I did not remark what happened to Sully anywhere, save at my own breakfast table, but you’re right. The subject is indelicate. Will you join me when the mercer comes by later today?”

Lily gamely launched into a monologue about the fabrics best suited to drapery in the dower house. Her sermon regarding velvet’s tendency to fade was interrupted by a footman bearing a salver with a very small folded document on it.

“Good morning, my lady, miss. A birdie has come, but the note is addressed to Master Hay—to Mr. Bothwell, over to Landover.”

“Thank you, Denver. We’ll see he gets it.” Avis took the note and slipped it into a pocket. “I’ll tend to this message, Lily, and join you in the dower house by eleven.”

Avis left the manor house with a sense of relief. The milestones in the agricultural year—lambing, shearing, planting, haying, grain harvest, apple harvest and so on—left her exhausted and pleased, but cast down as well. The earth was fruitful, the horses, geese, cows, and goats, and God knew the sheep were fruitful.

But not Avis Portmaine.

Each season, each accomplishment for the estate of Blessings, was a reminder that Avis was denied children, and a family, and the life she’d been raised to want.

“Bad thoughts,” she muttered to herself. “No more bad thoughts, Avis, my girl.” The morning was lovely, and Hadrian would be pleased to have word from Harold.

Assuming this was word from Harold.

Avis waved off the grooms and climbed aboard her horse. The message might be from Benjamin or Vim, or some mercantile connection they’d made. Both men took a goodly number of birds off with them when they departed Blessings after periodic visits.

Forty-five minutes later, Avis was shown into the Landover library, a masculine preserve saved from somberness by a row of tall windows, and by paintings of gamboling puppies and wide-eyed foals.

Everywhere, new life, but not for Avis Portmaine.

Another bad thought.

“Lady Avis.” Hadrian rose from his desk, shirt-sleeves turned back. “A very great pleasure and a lovely start to my otherwise boring day.” He didn’t merely bow, he kissed her cheek, which had Avis’s insides lifting happily.

“I hope I come bearing good news. Fenwick worked you nigh to death, didn’t he?”

“I worked myself.” He seemed happy about that. “Shall I ring for tea?”

“Please.” She pulled off her gloves and withdrew the message from her pocket. “This came for you this morning.”

He took the paper from her, carefully, as if it might bite him. “Do you mind if I read it?”

“Of course not.” She busied herself at the door, requesting tea and some sustenance from a footman, and when she turned back to Hadrian, he was already refolding the message.

“Harold took on some cargo in Calais, dropped off some last-minute passengers in Amsterdam, and is probably making landfall at Copenhagen as we speak.”

“Isn’t that like him? A recitation of facts, but no real information.”

“He says the sailing is wonderful, and he can’t recall when he enjoyed himself so much.”

“Then your sacrifice is worthwhile?”

Hadrian’s answer mattered, because nothing stood in the way of him hiring a senior steward and taking himself off to London or back to Yorkshire, or even to Copenhagen, for that matter.

In which case Avis would miss him. All over again, worse than ever, she’d miss him. She excelled at missing people she cared for.