The Baron Next Door (Prelude to a Kiss) (15 page)

In one smooth motion, he swooped down to capture her lips as his arms wrapped fully around her waist and tugged her against him, heedless of the railing between them. She gasped against his mouth, against the roar of nerves that exploded with sensation throughout her entire body. Hugh was kissing her!

More than kissing her. He was consuming her. She rose back onto her toes, her arms snaking around his neck to pull him even closer. His mouth was warm, coaxing but gentle. She breathed in his masculine scent, drowning in the pleasure consuming her every sense. It was the passion she had never experienced, but knew in her heart that it existed.

This
was why she had broken her engagement to Lord Raleigh.
This
was the reason she had risked her future for the hope of something she might never find. Hugh’s tongue touched the seam of her lips, and she immediately yielded to him. She didn’t know what to do, so she simply followed his lead. He tasted amazing, yet for the life of her she couldn’t have described it. It was like the smell of the air after a summer rainstorm, sweet and hot. She moaned as their tongues twined and danced, freely losing herself in his perfect kiss.

Not her first kiss, but the first one that mattered.

The first one to send molten heat licking through her veins and butterflies swirling in her belly. It was the kind of kiss that changed everything.

Before she was ready, he pulled away, his chest heaving as he drew in a lungful of air. Darkness had fallen fully around them, cocooning them in their own little world. He looked deep into her eyes, unflinching despite the closeness. “I feel great passion,” he rasped, his emotion filling his words. “Much more than I should. So much more than I deserve.”

He pulled back farther, allowing his hands to slide along her waist. “I wish I could share your passion, but I can’t. It’s just not possible.”

She was reeling. Clearly he possessed more passion than she could ever have imagined. So why was he denying it? Why was he setting up barriers between them? “Why not?” she asked, confusion coloring her words. It didn’t make sense. What was he not telling her? She trailed her hands down his chest and along his arms. Even as she covered his hands with her own and pressed them against her sides, she could feel him withdrawing from her.

“The same reason I should never have kissed you tonight. I’m not . . .” He trailed off, clearly struggling for the right word. His fingers tightened on her waist, and she closed her eyes against the fresh wave of desire that washed through her. Didn’t he feel it? The warmth of his skin beneath her palms was thrilling yet comforting at the same time.

Opening her eyes, she peered up at him, but his gaze was diverted toward the indigo sky. “You’re not what? You can tell me, Hugh.” Her voice was a near whisper in the darkness, barely louder than the pounding of her heart.

He shifted his gazed down to her. Uncertainty wavered in his deep green eyes. She curled her fingers around his hands, pressing her fingernails lightly against his palms. “I know something weighs heavy on your heart. Release it.”

He blew out a quiet breath. “This was a mistake. I never should have—”

“Kissed me?” she demanded, her frustration knotting in her stomach. How could he say what they had just shared was a mistake?

His eyes softened and he shook his head. “I can’t regret that. It—
you
are perfection. But I never should have let things get this far.”

He tried to pull his hands from her grasp, but she held tightly, boldly refusing to let him walk away. “Why not? Tell me what it is about me that makes you continually try to push me away.”

“It’s not you, Charity. It’s me,” he insisted, tugging his hands once more. This time she let him go, frustrated beyond words that he couldn’t just speak plainly to her.

“If that doesn’t sound like a load of horse apples, I don’t know what does. If I am so impossible to be with, just tell me and I swear to you, I won’t bother you ever again.” The words were bitter on her tongue, a stark contrast to the sweetness of his kiss only moments ago. Damn it all, she didn’t
want
to leave him alone, but if he was so blasted determined to push her away, then she wouldn’t force her company on him.

“It’s the truth, damn it. You are sweetness and light and sarcasm and wit. I, on the other hand.” He pressed his lips together for a moment before continuing. “I would never be able to offer anything worth having.”

God, did he really think that? She rubbed her hands over her arms, chilled by the hopelessness that dulled his eyes and roughened his voice. “That’s ridiculous. You have plenty to—”

“I don’t,” he insisted with such finality, her heart dropped.

She shook her head, at a loss of what to do. Why was he so determined to degrade his own worth? “Why would you say such a thing about yourself?”

He shoved both hands through his hair, dragging it back from his forehead. He stood there for a moment, waging some sort of inner battle as he stared at her in the darkness. She held her silence, openly accepting his scrutiny. Willing him to purge the darkness that tortured him from within.

Willing him to trust her.

At last he dropped his arms to the side and gave his head a little shake. “I’m broken, Charity. And I might never be whole again.”

C
hrist, he couldn’t believe he had actually said it.

While it was unspoken, it was possible to ignore it at times, to pretend that he could be normal and things would someday be all right. But now, to see the truth reflected in Charity’s eyes . . . it was worse than he had imagined. Now she would know how pathetic he truly was. He held his breath, waiting for the judgment, the laughter, or, worse, the pity. He was broken, and he would likely remain that way for the rest of his life.

Speaking the words made it that much more real. Yes, he’d recognized the extent of his injury, but admitting it to the woman he desired brought the hopelessness of his situation into sharp focus.

She blinked, confusion marking the normally smooth skin of her forehead with a deep
v
. “I don’t understand.”

He rubbed a hand to the back of his neck, wishing he’d kept his damn mouth shut. Hell, he wished he were still kissing her. Even now his whole body hummed with the pleasure of it. He wanted nothing more than to forget all that limited him and lose himself in her perfect kiss all over again. But it was not to be. Not now, not ever. “I’m not well. I haven’t been since Waterloo.”

“But you look—”

“Fine? Yes, I know. My horse was shot from beneath me, and I hit the ground headfirst. There were the visible injuries: Lacerated face.” He drew a finger across the scars marking his temple. “Narrow miss of the artery in my neck.” He pulled the edge of the cravat down to expose the jagged line at his throat.

“Then there were the more insidious ones. Compressed spinal cord of the cervical spine. Concussion. Internal bleeding. Broken clavicle.” He ticked off the injuries for her as his doctors once had for him. “I was lucky. If the battlefield hadn’t been such a muddy mess, the fall would have killed me.”

“But . . .” She shook her head, as though trying to shake loose the words she wanted to say. “Are they not healed? Your injuries, I mean. You seem perfectly fine.”

Exactly what everyone always thought. He looked fine, therefore he must be fine. He needed to just snap out of it, to move on and stop being so dramatic. Isn’t that what Ian had thought toward the end? Felicity had been more understanding, but Hugh’s brother had become more and more impatient with Hugh’s lingering illness. He’d never said as much, but every time they were together, Hugh had felt the weight of his brother’s silent judgment to pull himself together.

Not that Hugh blamed his brother. He himself was sick and tired of the way he was living—if one could call it living. He only wished he had heeded Felicity’s advice when Ian was alive.

“Do I?” He gave a humorless little laugh. “Good to know. It’s not something I wish for the world to see. My shoulder healed, as did the scars. But my injuries had consequences. The compressed spine and concussion created a breed of headache I had not known existed.” That first year was still something of a blur in his memory. Thank God; he had no desire to remember or relive those days.

“You suffer from megrims?”

There was the reaction he had been expecting. He could tell she was trying to hide her dubiousness, but he still caught it. Few could comprehend the devastation of one of his attacks. The utter, consuming pain of the sort that racked his whole being, making even the pain of the fractured clavicle seem trivial.

He swallowed and rubbed his neck again, trying to find the words to convey what he meant by broken. “These headaches are to megrims what a cannonball is to a bullet. The pain is indescribable. They last for hours or even days. Sometimes I lose my vision; sometimes I lose movement on my left side. The pounding is so fierce it is as though a blacksmith is using my brain for an anvil. The tiniest bit of light is like an explosion in my head; the smallest sound sheer torture.”

And that was where understanding dawned. He could see it in the sudden widening of her eyes, the sucking in of a sharp breath. “Music,” she breathed, a wealth of comprehension bundled in the single word.

He gave a single shallow nod. “Music.”

She closed her eyes and dropped her chin to her chest for a moment before raising her troubled gaze to his. “My God, Hugh. I didn’t know. I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t. No one does, save for my family. It’s not something to advertise.”

“If only I’d known. I feel a proper shrew now for playing despite your wish for me not to. It’s just unfathomable to me what it must be like for you. A life without music, I mean. Does it always bring you pain?”

Just talking about his headaches exhausted him. He leaned back against the exterior wall, soaking in the residual heat from the limestone. “Not always. But it is one of my triggers, so I tend to avoid it.”

“Triggers?”

“I never know when an attack will come, but some things are more likely to cause them than others. Music, particularly higher octaves, is one of the worst. Anything jarring, like riding or long carriage rides, can easily cause them. Sometimes it seems to happen just because I am alive.”

He’d never been so open about his constant struggle before. Instead of the shame he might have expected, it was surprisingly freeing. Validating.

“Does anything help?” She seemed genuinely interested, but not in a gawking way. He could see compassion in her eyes. Sorrow for his pain. That was different from pity. Nothing about her empathetic eyes or quiet questions made him feel less of a man.

“So far?” He shrugged, offering a small smile. “The Baths, actually. I’ve never known such relief. I don’t know if it is the magic properties some people seem to believe in or if it’s just the relief being weightless affords. The heat seems to help, too.”

She smiled back, easy and genuine. “I’m glad for it. Now, if only that pesky neighbor of yours would go away.”

If only she knew how much he had wanted that in the beginning. Now? He reached across the railing and slipped his fingers beneath her hand. Lifting it to his lips, he pressed a soft kiss to the hollow between her knuckles. “If only
your
arse of a neighbor would leave you be.”

She licked her lips, her eyes riveted on his. “I don’t want him to. He just doesn’t seem to believe me.”

Oh, what those words did to his heart. He laced his fingers with hers, even as he knew he should leave. “We couldn’t be a worse match, darling. I know your music means the world to you. Your heart was broken when the idiot committee prevented you from playing one night. You don’t need someone like me around, making things difficult for you.”

Her delectable lips curved down. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he definitely didn’t want her setting her heart on something that could never be. He pressed on, wanting to make his point while she was truly hearing him. “Whoever is meant to share your life is also meant to share your music. God gave you an amazing talent, one that clearly brings you incredible joy in life.
That
is why it was a mistake to let things get this far. It is selfish for me to kiss you when there can be no place for you in my life, and vice versa.”

The words were meant to convince her, but they were just as much for him. He needed to remind himself why he couldn’t do this. Why he had no business engaging her when he would inevitably have to leave. Why he had to ignore the desire to kiss the frown from her lips, and soothe the turmoil he saw in her gaze.

He gave her fingers a little squeeze before releasing them. Pushing away from the wall he said, “In the meantime, you may count on me being out of the house from two until four each afternoon so you may practice. Will that work?”

She bit her lip and nodded. “Yes, but I hate to put you out of your own home.”

“It will do me good. It is past time for me to rejoin society. That’s half the reason for me being here—as the new baron, I can no longer hide beneath a rock.”

He smiled, pushing away the emptiness that opened up within him whenever he thought of his new title. “Which reminds me, I shall be out for the rest of the evening, so feel free to play away. Good night, sweet Charity. I’m sorry for your terrible disappointment today. Perhaps something better will come along.”

Just as some
one
better would come along. He bowed and walked back inside, feeling strangely better and a hundred times worse all at once. He should never have returned her kiss—he knew that without a shadow of a doubt. No matter how much he’d reveled in their stolen moment, it just wasn’t fair to her.

But perhaps there was something he could do for her. Finger-combing his hair back into place, he headed for the door. He may not be able to enjoy Charity’s music, but he knew someone who did.

*   *   *

The familiar keys waited for her touch, their neatly ordered black-and-white pattern offering up comfort in Charity’s sudden disordered world. But for some reason, she couldn’t make herself put her fingers to them and play. It seemed oddly disrespectful.

She simply could not stop thinking of the starkness of Hugh’s features as he relayed the true extent of his troubles to her. Staring down at the long, narrow keys, for perhaps the first time in her life, she didn’t hear the music in her head.

Silence.

The concept of a life of silence was like the prospect of living without color. Impossible to imagine, dreadful to even conceive of.

But the worst part? Somehow, somewhere along the way, she had started to like the baron. She hadn’t realized how much, exactly, until the prospect of any exploration of a future with him was snatched away before it was even fully formed. Before it might have been an intriguing possibility to consider. Now? It was like being told not to think of a pink elephant. Suddenly, all she could think about was where that one precious kiss, that moment of tenderness between them, might have eventually led.

*   *   *

“The artless, crook-pated, milk-livered barnacles.”

Charity smiled wanly at May’s colorful insult, while Sophie’s tinkling laughter was the sole bit of joy in Lady Stanwix’s drab olive-painted music room. The colorless day beyond the window was no better, either.

Sophie put her hands to her flushed cheeks. “Oh, my word, you do have a talent for insults. Did your father teach you that? Although if he is even a little bit like your aunt, I can’t imagine that being the case.”

“Oh, he is nothing like her, thank heavens. But no. One simply picks those sorts of things up in the company of sailors. I shan’t burn your ears with the more colorful ones.” She gave a wink that made Sophie giggle again.

“Well, it describes the committee to perfection, if you ask me. Charity, you’re not letting those awful men get to you, are you?”

Charity’s mind snapped to attention. She hadn’t even realized it had been wandering. “No. Well, yes, actually, but I’m just generally out of sorts.”

She had been completely distracted since her conversation with Hugh yesterday. So much so, even the huge disappointment of the recital hadn’t bothered her as much as it should have. She had sat at the pianoforte for nearly two hours, unable to play a single note. All she could think of was the suffering he had been through, and how much of it she had been responsible for. There was no joy in that, and joy was where she found her music.

Last night, all she could feel was sorrow for all the pain that had burdened him for so long.

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, my aunt was quite relieved that they had turned us away. She’s been increasingly worried that my guzheng playing would somehow reflect badly on her. So there—we made one person’s day.” She rolled her eyes, not nearly as offended as Charity might have been if it had been her family member.

“Oddly enough,” Charity said, coming to her feet and marching to the pianoforte. “It only makes me want to practice. I don’t care if we aren’t going to be playing for the recital. I’d rather play alone in this room with the two of you than in front of a whole audience by myself.”

Sophie grinned broadly, and made a show of opening her case. “I concur wholeheartedly. After years of playing with my sister, I can honestly say I’ve never had more fun.”

“Excellent,” May said, giving a decisive nod. “I couldn’t agree more. Oh!” she exclaimed, snapping her fingers. “That reminds me. My aunt was in a particularly good mood, thanks to the committee, and has actually agreed to let me attend the theater this Saturday. Are you going?”

“I am!” Sophie said, looking up from adjusting her reed. “Mama is most eager for me to attend as many functions as possible. ‘Rule number one: One must be present if one wishes to make an impression.’”

Charity cocked her head at that particular idiom, and just happened to catch May’s lifted eyebrows. Biting back laughter, she said, “Um, yes. That one actually does sound reasonable.”

Waving a hand, Sophie said, “Oh, do feel free to laugh. Being obvious is my mother’s best-developed attribute. Now, will you be there, Charity?”

“I hadn’t planned to, but I’m certain we can work something out. Dering reminded my grandmother that he has a box, and we were to feel free to make use of it. I’ll have her send a note this afternoon.”

“Then it’s settled,” May said, plucking a few strings of her zither. “The two of you shall help to make certain that I don’t make a fool of myself in my second foray into society. And by that, I mean ‘Please come rescue me from my aunt so that she won’t drive me to do something I will regret.’”

They all laughed, knowing she was only partly teasing. Not that Charity blamed her—she’d go mad if she had to live with someone like Lady Stanwix. Never had she felt more grateful for her grandmother’s sweet support. It really did mean the world to her that Grandmama not only appreciated Charity’s playing, she seemed to truly understand how important it was to her.

As she turned back to the keys to begin their practice, she suddenly realized how right Hugh had been last night. To be with a person who couldn’t bear her music would be unbearable in itself. Even when she thought she could live without love, she knew she couldn’t be with a man who wouldn’t support her desire to play.

But somewhere along the way, the baron had started to matter. He had filled her thoughts more than she even wanted to admit to herself, and last night she had positively ached for his pain. He meant something to her.