Like No Other Lover (29 page)

“Has everyone departed?” he asked a footman.

The blessedly bland face, in the blessedly familiar blue and gold livery his mother had spent a decent amount of his father’s fortune upon, said, “Yes sir.”

As though this was a reasonable question, and Miles Redmond hadn’t just behaved in an entirely unreasonable way.

“Have you seen Miss Cynthia Brightly?”

“I believe she went out to the garden, sir. The other young people decided to do so, anyway.”

She heard his footsteps behind her. Saw his shadow fall at her feet.

She didn’t turn just yet. She’d seen Miles shoot, and he did it as easily as he did everything else: it was Argosy who would most definitely die.

Oh, God. He’d knocked Argosy to the ground with one blow.

What had
happened
?

She looked up at him then. And he must have seen something terrible in her face, because he immediately sat next to her and said without preamble:

“I shan’t be aiming a pistol at anyone at dawn, nor will anyone be aiming a pistol in my direction. I, in fact, made a very impressive speech during which I buffed your reputation and character to a high luster and issued an apology for my behavior, which quite dented my pride, and I believe I have assured you of a proposal.”

They were silent together for a bit.

And then Cynthia slowly released the breath she’d been holding. And closed her eyes.

“Your pride, his jaw,” she mused after a moment.

Miles looked at her questioningly.

“Both dented,” she clarified.

He smiled faintly at this. “I think you’ll find his looks untarnished once the…well, once the swelling diminishes. He did rather go down like a matchstick, didn’t he? And doesn’t he already have something of a dent—in his chin?” He fingered his own.

“I believe it’s called a dimple.”

“Ah.” Miles nodded, appreciating the specificity.

Another silence.

“I’m…sorry,” he said. He sounded utterly bemused. As though he hadn’t the faintest idea what had come over him.

“Miles…” She hesitated to ask the question. “I assume the fact that you needed to buff my reputation to a high luster meant you were defending my honor when you…hit him in the face?”

“Defending your honor rather reflexively, as it turns out,” he confirmed ruefully.

This made her smile a little. “What did he say?”

“Among other things, he said something about you having kissed a half dozen or so men in the ton.”

“A half dozen?” She was appalled. “Who on earth would have said such a thing? I don’t think I’ve kissed more than two, or three at the most. I’ve only—”

“Cynthia. I’m not certain it’s necessary to enumerate,” he said dryly, quickly. “And I assure you, I have taken care of it. It’s as though your past never happened. I told him they were all lies.”

A small fat bird landed with a sudden splash in the birdbath near them and began to bathe exuberantly.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Half wondering.

Thoughtful silence ensued.

“That must be why you like him. The dimple. God knows it isn’t his intelligence.”

Was he was teasing her? If so, the attempt was woefully limp. His voice was distracted and hollow.

“The dimple?” She pretended to consider this. “Perhaps. Well, he has three altogether. The one in his chin, one on this side of his mouth, the other—”

“Cynthia?” Miles interjected with sudden strength and urgency.

He hadn’t been listening to her at all. His gaze was aimed gazebo-ward.

“Yes?” She turned, surprised. And her heart stepped livelier.

He said nothing for a moment. She knew him well enough by now to suspect it was because he was deciding precisely what to say. And that when he said it, it would be irrevocable.

“You…do like him?”

The question surprised her. “Argosy?” she replied stupidly, because of course this was whom he meant. “Yes,” she added. Then realizing this sounded rather pallid, she added stoutly, if not with complete fervor, “Of course.”

If Argosy was prepared to offer for her, she was prepared to be grateful to him for the rest of her days. She would like him for that alone. He would have her loyalty. She liked him enough to try to make him happy. But he was not…he was not…

“Because…” Miles stopped again. He pulled in a long breath. Sucking in courage from the Sussex air, it seemed; all the brio from his Saxon ancestors permeating Pennyroyal Green.

Then he exhaled and turned to her decisively.

“Because I cannot bear thinking you will spend the rest of your days with someone you do not…you do not at least
truly
like. Your happiness, quite simply, is my happiness.”

Cynthia slowly closed her eyes against the look in his.

Cannot bear
.

The words swelled in her chest. She let them sit there, let the meaning penetrate, and she gave a short, ironic laugh. Almost a moan. Oh, at last, the joke was on the two of them, wasn’t it? For a moment she couldn’t speak at all. She lowered her head when her eyes began to burn.

“I like him,” she told him gently at last. It hurt to speak; her throat seemed swollen; the words had jagged edges. She knew it was important for Miles to know it, even if she was uncertain. “Truly. Thank you. I…Thank you.”

The last words contained all of her heart, encompassed everything that had happened during this fortnight, and were barely audible.

They sat in a little pocket of silent surprise, these two people who’d been so certain love was unnecessary when they set out to get what they wanted. How peculiar it was that this moment of realization and total happiness should be indistinguishable from anguish.

Cynthia risked opening her eyes. The striped muslin covering her knees now swam before them. Bloody
tears
. She never wept. Weeping, over the years, had become a luxury. No one had ever been about to hear her do it, or to care. Ah, but now…but now…

How like tears to take gross advantage of the circumstance. Now that here was someone who cared, and who would do anything at all he could for her.

Through the moist blur she noticed a tiny pale green insect sitting on her knee. The sun had turned the minuscule wings it wore into miniature rainbows. Well, then. She held very still for it. Interesting that she could be a place of rest between bouts of flight in its brief life.

Bloody Miles Redmond. She was certain she would think of him for the rest of her life whenever she saw any crawling or flying thing, and of course crawling and flying things were simply everywhere. And then there was Spider the cat.

A tear splashed free of her eye. It surprised both Cynthia and the insect: its wee wings whirred invisibly and it was gone.

She dismally watched the tiny damp spot darken her knee. She half hoped it would stain; she wanted the reminder of the moment. She breathed in, and squared her shoulders.

So be it: this interlude in her life was to be as brief and brilliant as that little winged creature. She envied it the speed at which it had disappeared.

Still, she had never been one to flee. And she wouldn’t do it now.

Distantly, voices and laughter came to them. Violet, Argosy, Jonathan, she picked them out from the bright tangle of conversation, and the polite, amused tones of a gardener pressed into answering frivolous questions. The whole crowd of them would happen upon Miles and her and their little tableau of misery-edged bliss at any moment, as they were obscured only by that veritable vat of a birdbath, in which three birds were now hedonistically wallowing, and a robustly green, aggressively uniform hedgerow. Keeping Redmond house, and Miles, in his place.

She lifted her head, knowing her eyes were damp and ringed in red and that the tip of her nose was likely scarlet from efforts to suppress the tears. She had never been a graceful weeper. This was as stripped bare as Miles would ever see her; he might as well have a good look. She brushed a knuckle at one of her eyes almost defiantly, sending tears scattering like brilliant pinheads from her eyelashes.

He did look. And the
way
he looked…

It was as though he knew this moment would need to last him a lifetime.

And then he slowly turned away from her to look out over the Redmond parkland that unfurled nearly to the sea, and despite the fact that anyone could happen upon them at any minute, Miles slowly, purposefully, gently, defiantly, slid his fingers through hers until their hands were woven into a single knot.

Their entwined hands rested between them on the bench.

It was more shattering, in its way, than that moment of release. It was gratitude and apology; it was acknowledgment of all there was between them that would never be spoken. It was reassurance and farewell.

And given the voices coming upon them, it was a grave risk.

Cynthia clung to him. They didn’t look at each other. She fancied she could feel his heart pulsing in his palm, but more likely she was simply marshaling all of her senses to remember forever the feel of his skin against her, and the beat of her own heart echoing resoundingly through her veins. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine his hand was his body, his long fingers his limbs twined with hers, and this was what she did. For this was the very last time she would touch him, and her imagination was greedy.

Together they sat as though riveted by the scenery that spread in abandon ahead of them. Neither saw a thing.

Then Violet’s voice rose up, startlingly closer now.

Miles drew his hand away from hers, inexorably, until just the tips of his fingers touched hers. They lingered against hers for a brief second, like a kiss.

Then he stood, and with no bow or word, just a single, enigmatic glance back at her, gracefully made himself scarce in the hedgerow.

She stopped comically abruptly, dumbstruck at the sight of a red-eyed, red-nosed Cynthia sitting alone on the bench.

Violet mercifully and instantly misinterpreted the red eyes and nose and rushed to Cynthia, reaching for her hand. Cynthia almost snatched it away from her. She felt proprietary about that hand now. She’d wanted the warmth of Miles’s touch to linger.

But Violet wouldn’t release it. “Oh, Cynthia,” she whispered excitedly. “Dry your eyes, goose! All is well. Miles has apologized and Argosy is mostly unhurt and quite in love with you, and he intends to propose tomorrow! I do believe he meant to surprise you, but I thought I should tell you now.”

“Tomorrow?” Cynthia repeated numbly.

“Yes!” Violet repeated triumphantly. “Tomorrow! He shall ask you to go for a walk in the garden, and do it then.”

“But…why tomorrow?”

“Violet!” came a male voice from the distance, sounding faintly irritable.

Violet looked a bit puzzled by Cynthia’s response. She ignored the voice and lowered her own. “Well, he won’t do it today. He’s having a bit of trouble getting out his
s
’s and
f
’s, as his lip is rather large—Miles quite laid him out, didn’t he? I wonder what on earth got
into
him. He should see a doctor, I’m really quite concerned. Anyhow, Argosy is a trifle sensitive about it. He thought a day might be time enough for the swelling to recede, but if not, he needs time to phrase his proposal properly. The sentence, ‘Will you consent to be my wife?’ contains too many difficult consonants given his swollen lips. ‘I would be honored if you should spend the rest of your days with me’ is scarcely better. We’ve been trying to help him decide upon just the right one. ‘Will you be my mate?’ is easier, but it does sound like something Miles would produce.”

Cynthia was paralyzed by a wave of conflicting emotions. She was battered by hilarity and grief and relief. She couldn’t find a single word that encompassed any of those things.

A worried look settled over Violet’s face when Cynthia seemed unable to speak. “I thought I should tell you straight away, regardless. It was just that when I came upon you just now, I thought you looked so very…so very…
heartbroken
.” She sounded in awe of the word.

Cynthia took a deep, resigned breath. It felt portentous, that first breath taken in a world without Miles in it.

She would have to keep breathing, regardless of whom her future contained. She was fortunate, indeed, to have a future.

She longed for a handkerchief. She began to make do with patting gently at her eyes with her cool fingers when Violet produced one. Its spotlessness was startling; her initials, V.R., were stitched in blue near the hem. Cynthia took it and blotted the corners of her eyes. Then gave her nose a discreet little toot into it.

“My goodness! Cynthia! It is a lovely day for a stroll, isn’t it?” Violet suddenly all but bellowed.

Cynthia jumped, whirled on her in amazement.

Violet whispered, “It’s just that I’m certain you wouldn’t want Argosy to see you like this, and I know for a fact he wouldn’t want you to see his lip just yet. He hopes very much for the swelling to ease, as I do believe he might want to kiss you after you accept his proposal. ’Tis customary, you know,” she added sagely. As though she were in expert in such things. Cynthia had never asked Violet what sort of knowledge she might possess of such matters. How many proposals
had
she received?

No doubt she deflected them with her sheer Violetness.

Cynthia began to hand the handkerchief back to Violet, who waved at her to keep it.

On the far horizon, foamy clouds were forming. They would make their sluggish, woolly way across the sky and pour their contents down over Sussex toward the end of the day, most likely.

“You’ve a kind heart, Violet,” Cynthia said finally.

Violet, who had never been accused of such a thing before, looked at first taken aback, and then pleased. Cynthia watched her friend silently add it to her mental inventory of virtues.

Suddenly Violet glanced down. She froze; her expression went peculiarly alert. She bent over and swiftly plucked up something, examined it, frowned, then stopped the frown from forming.

Cynthia saw a glint of silver before whatever it was vanished into Violet’s apron pocket. A coin? Violet hardly wanted for spending money.

And then Violet returned her eyes to the clouds.

“Cynthia, was I wrong to tell you about Argosy’s proposal in advance?”

Lifting her lips was a Herculean effort, but Cynthia was reasonably certain what she produced could pass for a smile. She at last gently wormed her hand free from Violet’s grip.

“No. You did…absolutely the right thing, Violet. The very best thing you could have done.”