Hadrian (11 page)

“I’m no longer convinced it’s a sacrifice,” Hadrian said. “The weather is turning beautiful, the company is delightful, and the work gratifying.”

“Is that why your hands look like Gran Carruthers’s this morning?” Avis had watched his hands as he’d folded the note. They were heavily blistered across his palms, the right worse than the left.

Hadrian frowned at his paws as if he hadn’t a clue what had befallen them. “Using the shears is so repetitive, one blisters even through the gloves.”

“Does one? And yet, here you are, without gloves, probably scratching away at some correspondence rather than giving your hands a chance to heal.”

Hadrian stuffed his hands into his pockets, like a schoolboy. “I neglected my ledgers and letters while I played at shearing.”

He’d worked as hard as Fen, which was very hard. “Are you pleased to hear from Harold?” Avis asked.

“Am I over my pout, do you mean?” His tone confirmed he wasn’t quite, but his smile suggested progress.

“You judge yourself too harshly, Hadrian. Harold is sailing the waves, and you’re here,”—she took his hands—“ignoring your blisters.”

He led her to a long comfortably worn sofa that faced a set of sparkling windows. “Do you know how long it has been since I’ve had blisters?”

Did he know how long it had been since Avis had taken a man’s hands in hers? “I do not.”

“When I was a boy, learning to ride,” he said, seating her in the middle and coming down beside her. “I acquired those calluses caused by contact with the reins. I was proud of them.”

“These.” Avis touched his hand with her index finger, gliding over the calluses he referred to.

“You have them too,” Hadrian observed, tracing the side of her fourth finger and leaving tendrils of pleasure in his wake.

So wicked of her. “Calluses are only one of my many infractions against the code of ladylike behavior.”

He drew back, and Avis waited for the moment to degenerate into awkwardness, but Hadrian simply rose and admitted two footmen, each bearing a tray.

“First, tea, then we see to your hands, Hadrian.”

He gave the appropriate direction to his staff and submitted with good grace, seeming to welcome both the company and the chance to take a break from his desk work. Avis forced a pair of buttered scones on him, and then set her teacup aside.

“Rue used to scold me for forgetting to eat,” Hadrian said as Avis unscrewed a jar of comfrey salve. “I’d get to toiling away on a sermon, or looking up this or that text, and next thing I knew, she’d be standing over me, demanding my presence in the kitchen.”

“You miss her.” Avis put his left hand on her thigh, the better to wrap a strip of linen around an abused index finger.

“I miss the company, but there are times, too, when I can’t clearly recall her features.”

He sounded bewildered by that, by not knowing whether to be grateful or upset by the fading of memory.

“Forgetting can be a mercy,” Avis said, smoothing unguent over his palm. “Though you need somebody to scold you if this is how you treat yourself. I imagine Fenwick is in the same condition.”

“Probably not quite as bad. He had less to prove than I did.”

Avis spread salve over his knuckles. “You were being men.”

“Guilty as charged,” Hadrian said, sounding smug. “Though on that topic, I am particularly glad to see you.”

“Other hand,” Avis said, giving back the left and reaching for the right.

“I am glad to see you,” Hadrian said, his voice dropping into a register that had Avis’s insides fluttering happily again. “Because I wanted very much to be assured that my conduct in the garden did not, upon sober reflection, offend you.”

She went to work on his right hand, taking particular care, for he’d wrecked it thoroughly. “Offend me?”

“I took liberties, Avie.”

“Then I took them too,” she replied over the butterfly wings beating in her belly. “I threw myself at a sober, upright man, a man good enough for the church, one who couldn’t possibly withstand the wicked advances of a woman like me.”

“You’re so wicked.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“I am laughing at your perceptions of our respective wickedness,” Hadrian said, his hand still curled in hers. “Do you know, Avis, I am on a first-name basis with at least three soiled doves in the city of York?”

“You’re a man.”

“A grown man, and you’re a grown woman. I kissed you, Avis. You didn’t jump out of the bushes, beat me over the head, and then have your wicked way with me as I lay half-insensate among the flowers.”

She liked that image, of having her wicked way with him among the bobbing tulips. Roses would be a bit tricky, but oh, the fragrance.

“It’s different for women. You didn’t get to know those ladies in York while Rue was alive.”

“I did not. Nor did I engage in any great, salacious adventure, Avis. It was simple pleasure, offered for simple coin. At university, I consumed such pleasure on at least four occasions that I can recall.”

How did he hold the two parts of himself, the human and saintly, in such easy balance? “We should not discuss this.”

“Shouldn’t a useless concept when we’re already discussing it. One of them was Mavis, another Elfrida, and the third—”

“So we’ll change the subject,” she suggested, but at some point, Hadrian had started rubbing his thumb over her palm, a slow, sweet slide made more sensuous by the salve and the fresh, grassy scent of comfrey.

He kissed her cheek, lingering for a moment, his nose near her temple. “There was only the one. I forget her name. I think she had red hair, or possibly a mousy brown. She called me Henry.”

Avis didn’t know whether to strike him or kiss him back. “Wretch. What was that kiss for?”

His smile was crooked when he drew away. “Courage, I suppose. I am glad to see you, Avie, and I’ll not be going back to York.”

He wasn’t ashamed of that trip to York, but it had proved whatever he’d needed it to prove.

Henry, indeed
.

“I’m glad you’ve heard from Harold,” she said, slipping her fingers from his. “I must leave you, though. I’ve an appointment with the mercer in the dower house, and Lily will be disappointed if I am late.”

“You’re truly set on removing from the manor proper?”

“It’s time,” she said, rising. Hadrian was on his feet as well, putting her hand on his arm as he escorted her to the door.

“Has somebody signed a writ of ejectment, that you must remove from the only home you’ve known?”

“Benjamin needs to take a bride,” Avis said. “His countess will have an easier time settling in if I’m not underfoot, ordering the servants about, reviewing menus, and getting in the way.”

“Oh, right. Leave the poor dear to stumble around, with Benjamin’s tender guidance to see her through—Benjamin, who forgets that butter goes with scones, if I recall aright. You’re running away from home, Avis.”

There it was, the pity Avis detested more than she detested the scorn that had come her way—though Hadrian served up pity with an edge of challenge.

“I’m running to a home, or as close to my own home as I’m likely to find in this life. Besides, Lily and I are having great fun refurbishing the place.”

Lily was having great fun.

“You look like a lady anticipating great fun,” Hadrian countered dryly. “About like I’d look, if you told me we had five more days of shearing.”

“It will be fun,” Avis said as they arrived to the front door.

Hadrian glanced around, though his staff was nowhere in evidence.

“This is fun.” He kissed her on the mouth, lingeringly, his fingers trailing over her cheek, but not the lavish undertaking of the previous night.

“Shame on you.” Avis stepped back—when she was sure he had finished.

“You have the right of it, Avis. Shame on me, not on you. I kissed you—again.”

“So you did.” She couldn’t help but smile.

“And I enjoyed it again,” he whispered, leaning closer, “and I will enjoy it next time too, and the time after that, and the time after that, and the time after—”

“Good-bye, Henry.”

She swept out the door, knowing that however much fun it might be to select drapery fabric with Lily and the mercer, flirting with Hadrian had been more fun still.

Much more fun.

“Read this.”

Harold passed Hadrian’s first letter to Finch, then handed over his reading spectacles. He and Finch lounged on deck chairs at their berth in the Copenhagen harbor, and though they were on the lee side of the yacht, a cool breeze stirred the air.

Finch squinted against the brilliant sunshine bouncing off the water. “Your vicar brother misses you. This surprises you?”

“It does not. Now read this.” Harold passed along the second letter, for both had been waiting for him when they’d docked.

Finch scanned the letter, his eyebrows—blonder than they’d been upon leaving England—rising.

“You introduced me to this Lady Avis. She was pretty, quick, and going to waste in the wilds of Cumberland every bit as much as you were.”

“She has an unfortunate past.” A pair of gulls wheeled overhead, the sun sparkled on the water, and old scandals in Cumberland seemed lifetimes away.

“A failed elopement? A child out of wedlock?”

“A rape,” Harold said flatly. “She was engaged to Hart Collins, but at the point of breaking things off, and Collins decided if he forced matters, crying off would be removed from consideration, for no one else would have her.”

Finch stretched out long legs encased in the loose white trousers sailors favored. His feet were bare, and for the twentieth time, Harold fell in love with the look of him, lounging in the Danish sun.

“Rape isn’t something anybody forgets,” Finch said. “Would the malefactor be the Baron Collins?”

“One and the same.”

“Hence your inquiries in Amsterdam and Calais. This misbehavior had to be some time ago. The man hasn’t set foot in England for years.”

Finch was a treasure trove of gossip, one of his many endearing traits.

“Collins slips in, harasses his solicitors for money, then slips out. Vim and Ben promised him a slow, painful death if they caught him underfoot.” As had Harold.

“Why not provide him a quick, painful death over pistols or swords?”

Finch also had a protective streak Harold quite simply adored.

“Avis begged them not to make a greater scandal.” Harold fell silent a moment as the gulls rose higher on the brisk shore breeze. “Her brothers felt guilty enough without putting her through the ordeal of a duel.”

Finch propped his bare feet on the railing, the way Harold often propped his feet on the corner of his desk. “There’s another daughter, isn’t there?”

“You do keep up, don’t you?”

“Not any more, love.”

“The younger sister, Lady Alexandra, was riding with Avis when Collins and his merry men accosted them. Alex won free and jumped on the first horse she could reach. She wasn’t used to riding astride, her feet didn’t quite reach the stirrups, and she was dumped, dragged, and nearly lost the ability to walk.”

“The brothers didn’t tie Collins behind a horse for similar treatment?”

Harold resisted the urge to kiss Finch’s imaginative cheek. “Collins decamped post-haste when I paid a call on him the same day.” The gulls flew directly toward the sun, forcing Harold to drop his gaze.

“I hope you at least beat him within an inch of his life.”

Harold remained silent. He’d beat Collins within half an inch of his life, and it hadn’t been enough.

“You did, didn’t you?”

“Something like it. The young ladies were at Landover, with no one but Hadrian to see to them, so I couldn’t protract the exercise as much as circumstances deserved.”

“Hadrian took the ladies in hand? He had to be just a stripling.”

“He was eighteen and every bit as tall as he is now, though not as muscled. He was the one who came upon Avis first, and for a week at least, she wouldn’t let him out of her sight.” How awkward that had been, and how proud Harold had been of Hadrian for his patience with young and distraught Lady Avis.

Finch tapped the letter against slightly sunburned lips. “I’ll bet that caused some talk.”

“Not as much as you’d think. Landover’s staff is both loyal and discreet.”

“That they are,” Finch agreed, lashes lowering, “thank ye gods. But what eighteen-year-old is equipped to deal with a woman who’s been through that kind of ordeal?”

“I was ready to pounce,” Harold said. “Ready to step in and start giving orders, though what I would have ordered, besides tea and sympathy, I know not.”

Hadrian had known what to do, though, had known when to remain silent, when to tease, when to hug.

“Hadrian was unbelievably patient with her.” Harold gently removed the spectacles from Finch’s patrician nose, which was also unfashionably sunburned. “They went for long walks, he read to her, they planted flowers, he found her a flute and some lesson books. I’m not sure what all they got up to, but gradually, Avis came back to us.”

“You’re not sure what all they got up to?” Finch lifted a perfectly arched blond eyebrow. “He wasn’t a vicar at eighteen, Hal. Nobody is.”

“She was hurt. Hadrian would not have taken advantage.”

Finch passed the second letter back over. “Not then, but what about now?”

Harold folded the letter. “Now, it’s twelve years later, and Hay is damaged goods too, as we all are, after a time.”

Though Harold was feeling his own damage less and less.

“I dearly hope our Hadrian hasn’t been raped.”

Hadrian would faint at the least to know Finch considered him “our Hadrian.” “Hay was taken advantage of by that woman he married, though he won’t admit it.”

“Many people would say I took advantage of Louise,” Finch said quietly. “They wouldn’t be wrong.”

“You gave her a lifetime of security, three wonderful children, and a choice, Andy.” They would go over this ground as often as necessary, for Andy and Louise had been married by parental arrangement, and she’d loved another even while reciting her vows. “She chose her freedom, and you chose me.”

“I did. I have no regrets, and Louise assured me she hadn’t any, either, but I think you do.”