Chapter Twelve
“If you won’t let me send for the doctor,” Olivia said, bending close, “at least let me have a look.”
Sebastian bit the inside of his cheek and brought himself back to something like his normal self. He managed a nod. What fool he was. Miss Willow had no reason in the world to consider him in anything like the light in which he’d just been thinking of her. She didn’t even like him, for pity’s sake. Couldn’t possibly like him. Not now.
Nearly as competent as McNaught, she was, with quick, sure hands. He must have been favoring his wounded side, for she softened her touch there when she slid the garment off his shoulder. She dispatched the buttons of his waistcoat just as quickly. Her fingers brushed his shirt front and then separated the halves, reaching a hand to his injured side. “I need more light. Can you make it to that chair or will you stay here?”
Aware she had pointed, he shook his head. “Not yet.” She rose, and he listened to the step of her boots across the floor. He heard her strike a flame, then smelled a mutton-fat candle. Through his closed eyes, the darkness lifted. She knelt at his side again. “Do you think your wound has broken open?”
He opened his eyes and lifted one shoulder, the one that didn’t hurt him.
She pushed aside his waistcoat again, holding it away from his body. “I don’t see blood.”
“There’s still a bandage.”
“Oh. Then it’s not soaked through, thank God.”
“I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”
She hesitated and then said, “That’s wicked of you, my lord.”
“I’m a wicked man, Miss Willow.” He was pleased to hear her laugh. Like her smile, the sound of her laughter lifted his spirits.
“I shan’t remove the bandage. I might never get it back on if I do. Would you mind much staying without your coat? I don’t want to cover you if your wound has begun to bleed.”
To that, he nodded assent.
Her fingers probed the spot where the bandage made a thickness beneath his shirt. He smelled verbena, now, instead of the candle, saw the curve of her cheek, the twists of copper falling away from her forehead. Arousal crept back. The floor might be just the place to find out how well she kissed and whether her mouth was as soft as it looked. She sat back presently, and their eyes met: collided, more like. Thick, russet lashes framed eyes the color of fine sherry. “No blood,” she said, and then pressed her palm over his left chest.
“Waste of time, Miss Willow. I haven’t a heart.”
She snorted.
“Tired, nothing more.” Aware of the impropriety of her seeing him with his torso next to bare with his body undergoing an urgent reaction, he grabbed the edges of his waistcoat and fastened a few of the buttons. “If you’ll help me stand, I think I can make it to that chair.”
With a nod, she did as he asked. Once he was seated, she moved to the fireplace and quite capably started a fire. “You’ll catch your death in here.”
“I don’t think Diana could start a fire to save her life.”
“She’d have a dozen admirers to do it for her.”
He buttoned his coat, too, because she was right. The air felt damned cold. “You taught school here? In this room?”
“Yes.” Her head swivelled to him, attention landing on his buttoned coat. “You’ll not leave until I say you may. And that, my lord, is an order.”
“You have no business amusing me.”
She smiled. “My apologies. But I did tell you not to cover yourself.” He arched one eyebrow in response. “On your head be it.” She brushed off her hands and rose. “I’ll not cry at your funeral.”
“You sound like McNaught. Mother hens, the both of you. It’s irritating.”
“Tea. You need tea, that’s what you need.” She fetched her parcel from the floor. “If I go see if the kettle’s on in—in the other room, you’ll not expire on me, will you?”
“No.”
Her departure left Sebastian in sole possession of the tiny parlor. He stood out of pure spite for her concern and the sake of his pride. Miss Willow made her life here, and he wanted to absorb the setting down to the smallest nuance of his family’s crimes against her. A man could walk from one side of the parlor to the other in two steps. Not even a dozen candles would pierce the dreariness or erase the shadows. The Turkish rug looked as if it might have been cut down to fit the floor, the colors a vibrant echo of a once suitable setting.
He moved closer to the fire. Between the carpet’s edge and the hearth the floor planks were black with age around spots worn white by years of use. Half a dozen coals lined the bottom of the battered scuttle. The fire was the size of a saucer, a few coals heaped in the center of a fireplace that didn’t see many fires. The walls were whitewashed brick, the ceiling low with dark planks transversed by heavy beams. There were two doors, the one through which they’d come and the one through which Miss Willow had disappeared. One window looked onto the building next door, so close he could touch the sooty stone. The other had a view of Pennhyll.
There were two chairs, the table at his elbow and a wooden bench built into the window. One chair was a crude thing, bulky unseasoned pine. The other possessed a lightness of form that told of skilled woodwork and superior design. The table, delicate cherry, would not have been out of place at Pennhyll. On the mantel, propped against the wall, leaned a small, unframed portrait of a smiling older man whose red hair was too like Miss Willow’s to mistake for anyone but her father. He carried the candle near. At the father’s side stood a boy of perhaps nine or ten with sandy hair and a smile as joyful as his sister’s. A collie pranced at his feet. In the distance behind them, a grand house and farther in the distance, the towers of Pennhyll. Quite a contrast, the life depicted in the painting and the one embodied in a room bare of comfort.
The second door opened. Miss Willow used a hip to keep the door open and then balanced her tray on one hand while she gently closed it. “Sorry to have taken so long. I had to check on Mama and Mrs. Goody.”
“I trust all is well.”
She smiled, lifting one hand to brush a curl from her forehead.
Jesus. How could Andrew have laid a hand on her in violence? What possible excuse was there for such an offense? She’d told Andrew no. She’d refused his advances, as she would refuse any James made toward her, and his brother could not let her be because the privilege of his position gave him a life where a man came to believe nothing ought to be denied him.
“Yes, thank you. They’re fast asleep, bless them, and they’ll swear the both of them they slept not a wink all night and up with the sunrise.” She put the tray on the table and then lit another candle brought with her from the other room. Just as capably as she’d started the fire, she filled a cup with tea and poured in a dollop of milk. She presented the saucer with a flourish. “My lord. There’s bread and fresh butter here. Help yourself.”
“Miss Willow—”
“Please.” Her eyes skittered away from his. “Not now.”
He sipped and found it exactly to his taste. “Where do you sleep?” Damnation. He’d not been at sea so long that he’d forgotten the impropriety of asking a lady such a question as that. Well, when had he ever observed propriety with her? Besides, he wanted to know, and like his brother, her desires meant nothing in light of his own.
“Bread, my lord?”
“Yes, thank you. Won’t you have some?”
With a steady gaze, she said, “I’m not hungry.” She’d stripped off her gloves somewhere between leaving him and making tea so that her hands were naked.
Sebastian watched the graceful arch of her wrist as she filled a cup for herself. A motion as gracious as anyone might see in the best drawing rooms. Her long fingers ended in nails serviceably blunt. She took no milk or sugar, and he wondered if it was preference or because he’d had the last of the milk, and she wanted to save the sugar for another day. She turned the cup, but not before he saw the chipped rim now hidden against her palm.
“It’s your good fortune we have the flat with the kitchen.”
“Indeed.” Each moment felt more intimate, more comfortable and easy. He enjoyed the sound of her voice, the light in her eyes, the way she smiled, and how he felt when he looked at her.
Her mouth twitched, and she leaned forward in a confidential manner. “Well, perhaps kitchen overstates the case just a bit, but we can have tea when we like, and that’s saved our lives on more than one occasion, I’m convinced of it. I’ve always sworn by the restorative powers of a cup of hot tea. That’s what this country needs.” She smiled full-on this time, and his heart did another awkward turn in his chest. “More tea for everyone.” She sipped and shuddered. Her clear eyes met his over the raised rim of her cup. “Goodness, it’s hot. Caught me quite by surprise. I hope yours is not too hot.”
“Perfect.” Desire rose in him because she was so pretty, and so sincere in her enjoyment of a cup of tea, and because he was a man alone with a woman he admired.
“A Willow never accords a guest anything less than perfection.”
“It took my valet a month to remember how much milk I like.” Images from his dreams filled his head. Her skin beneath his palm, his thighs brushing hers.
She set down her tea. “Do you miss the Navy?”
“Yes.”
“Every minute I spent away from here, I missed Mama, and Far Caister and seeing Pennhyll rising above the mist. And yet, ever since my return, I find myself remembering the day the children picked me the loveliest bouquet of flowers because someone had told them it was my birthday, and I nearly cry from missing them. They could be dreadful brats. Conceited and spoiled. You can’t imagine what they were like at the beginning.”
“Was it your birthday?”
“No.”
“Were they disappointed?”
“It was such a lovely, thoughtful gesture. I wouldn’t have spoiled it with the truth for all the flowers in the world. You see, and I suppose I ought not to admit it, but in all my years, no one has ever given me flowers. I’ve always thought that quite sad.” She picked up her cup. “You ought to give Miss Royce flowers.”
“Thank you for your advice.”
“Andrew spoke of you often, you know. He was proud of you. Whenever you had an adventure, he was sure to read the account to anyone who would listen.”
“Adventure?”
“Well, so it seemed to us. I suppose to you it was all perfectly dull. For us, however, every moment a thrill.” She tilted her head. “Still, I think you miss the Navy because you were very good at commanding a ship, not because of the adventures. It must have been difficult to leave.”
“I haven’t left.”
She cocked her head in a way that invited silence or confidence, whichever he preferred. His choice surprised him.
“If ever a man wants to feel sure he’s alive, he should sail into the line of battle.” His chest tightened, but not from his injury. Why couldn’t he remember what it was like? The very things that had once filled him with pride and anticipation now felt distant, as if he’d made them up or had happened to another man, and all he had was the broad detail of someone else’s life. “Fighting the French. Confounding them and outsailing them and out-gunning them. Using sea, wind and sail to make a ship do what I want.” Every word was a bald-faced lie. Once, he’d felt those things, but he didn’t anymore. He didn’t feel anything. Nothing. Except where Miss Willow was concerned, he felt nothing at all. The realization shook him. It was true. He never felt alive except when he was with her.
Her mouth quirked. “Where you might die at any moment.” Her legs crossed at the ankles. One foot tapped a silent beat against the other. Her boots were damp from the snow, and the sole of one was separating from the leather upper.
“When you command a ship there’s no time to think about dying.”
“You make me want to join up.” She gave another of those grins that made her eyes dance. “What a shame they don’t ‘press the ladies as they do the men.”
He assessed his physical state. Still an edge of desire, less sharp than before but there, distracting him. The pain in his side felt as it had at Pennhyll; present but not debilitating. His thighs no longer trembled. “I was born for the sea.” What he wanted now was a taste of her mouth. He wanted to take her in his arms, hold her. Kiss her and make everything right.
“How fortunate for you, then, that your character suited your predicament. Not everyone is so lucky.”
“It’s in me, here.” He tapped his chest where he knew there was nothing. “Not a drop of blood. Just saltwater.”
“So I’ve come to suspect.”
He let that bit of impertinence pass. “I wanted to join the Army. But an Alexander spare who isn’t a clergymen is always a sailor, and my father refused to let me break with tradition. No one defied my father for very long. Not even Crispin.”
The name landed between them like a boulder.
“Forgive me,” he said.
She nodded. “It’s all right.” Her tongue touched her lower lip. “It doesn’t seem real. None of what you’ve told me feels real.”
“Did Andrew ever mention him?”
Her eyebrows drew together. “No. Not that I recall.”
A man in the grip of passion either acted on that passion or removed himself from the temptation. He could not act. However much he wanted her, to act would be unconscionable. He was going to marry Diana. He had no business settling his affections elsewhere. None whatever. He placed his cup on the table. What crime, he wondered, would the last of the Alexander men commit against her? Jesus. He was alone with her. Her reputation and future rested in his hands now. And he wanted her so intensely he did not trust himself to continue as a gentleman. “You were correct about the tea. I’m restored now.”
He rose, found his overcoat and pulled it on. She followed him to the door. She straightened the lay of his lapel and then brushed off a bit of lint. “I’ll speak to the staff about the dusty floors.”
He clutched his side. “Do not make me laugh.” Nor think another moment about having her in his arms. Sliding one hand high on the door jamb, he leaned toward her. “What do you want most in life, Miss Willow?”
“For my mother to be well.”
“Imagine you had that.” His fingers rested on the nape of her neck. “What do you want for yourself?”
“Peace on earth?”
“Come, Miss Willow. I want a serious answer from you. Better yet, a selfish one.” Though she stood inches from him, she seemed not to notice their proximity. As a grown man, he could control his base urges. He’d done so for years. He would do better by her than his father and bothers. Slowly, he lifted his fingers from the back of her neck. His palm took their place.
Head tilted, she considered him. “You’ll laugh.”
“Try me.”
“A family. Children.”
“What? Not thousands of pounds at your disposal? A mansion? Jewels or servants at your beck and call?”
She rested the side of her head against the doorway and looked at him from beneath her thick red lashes. “I always thought I’d be married one day with half a dozen children at my knees.” Her eyes danced again, and for a moment, the space of a breath, he was caught like a fly in a web. “I was right about the children at least, though I was sure they’d be mine.”
“Are you sorry?” What soft skin she had, such a tender nape.
“That I’m not a wife and mother?”
“Mm.” He imagined her with a husband, with children. His children. He saw her gravid by his doing, and him cradling an infant in his arms, the one he’d made in her. He could give her what she wanted, and, of course, he could imagine the act of making her so.
“I am. Yes.” She smiled, a little sadly, he fancied. “But not inconsolably, my lord. I expect, indeed, I hope, I’ll soon be teaching again, with another passel of children to care for.”
A deep breath caught the scent of her, a faint impression of outdoors, herbs, verbena and something light. Her nape under his palm made him feel his strength, and how easily he could overpower her. She was his, if he wanted her. She could not stop him doing just as he liked. The earl’s ancient rights over Cumbrian serfs paled in comparison to what he might have by brute strength. Just as his brother had done. “Jesus, no.”
“My lord?”
Unthinkable. What he wanted was her willing and compliant. Never force. “You are too thin,” he said. For all the ways in which she ought not to appeal to him, she did that and more. Desire surged in him. “Ladies ought not to have hollow cheeks. Damn me if you weigh seven stone. You’re not even as tall as McNaught.”
“I’ve hopes of growing five inches by Michaelmas.”
He wondered if she felt the same pulse of arousal. If so, she had better control of herself than he. He pushed away from the door, astounded and dismayed by this thoughts. “Put on your cloak, Miss Willow. It’s time we went back.”
“Let me send to Pennhyll. Someone will fetch you.”
“No.”
“You are a stubborn man, my lord.”
He shrugged and wished he hadn’t. His side throbbed. “It’s only a mile, for pity’s sake, I’m no weakling.”
“Pride is an abiding sin, my lord,” she said evenly. “It does not flatter you.”
“Devil take you, Miss Willow,” he replied just as evenly. And then he couldn’t stop himself. He smiled.
She smiled back. “We’ll ask for a dog cart at the Crown’s Ease.”
“Very well.”
“Let me tell Mama I am going.”
After she’d made her goodbyes, she returned with her gloves and her cloak. She pinched out the candles and broke up the fire. “Shall we?”
They walked to the inn, taking their time. Twilling came to the door, and Sebastian lifted a hand in summons. “A good morning to you, my lord,” Twilling said, “And to you, Miss Olivia.”
“Good morning,” Miss Willow said. “I’ve overdone myself, I’m afraid, and Lord Tiern-Cope has kindly offered to send for a carriage to bring us back to the castle. Might you lend us a dog cart to take us up the hill?”
He gave no sign he saw through the excuse, just shouted for the ostler and gave the instructions when the man appeared. While they waited, Sebastian leaned against the wall by the door. He didn’t dare take her inside, for he’d be forced to ask for a private room, and that would cause talk that would do her no good. He owed her better than that. Miss Willow stood to one side of him, close in case of disaster but far enough to satisfy propriety.
“Far Caister is a busy village,” he said.
“Now the earl is back, there is much to do. And with the dancing day after tomorrow, there’s even more than usual.”
“Ah, yes. The dancing. And the seance. What nonsense.”
“She’s very young.”
“Too young.”
“That is not a permanent condition, my lord.”
He looked at her. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
To her credit, she did not laugh. “If you mean ghosts like the Black Earl of Pennhyll, no, I do not.”
“Do you mean to say, Miss Willow, that you don’t believe he’s going to haunt us from dawn to dawn on the anniversary of his death?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“But?” He could see himself reaching for her, folding her in his arms, molding his mouth over hers.
“The dead do haunt us. I believe that. In our minds. Not in body.”
Across from the Crown’s Ease, a man on horseback surveyed the street. By his clothes a gentleman, and with an eye for horseflesh, judging from the thoroughbred on which he sat. A traveler, Sebastian supposed, since to his knowledge, he’d met all the gentry of Far Caister. He must be deciding whether to go inside the inn. After a while, he realized the man was staring at Miss Willow. Curious. For a full minute and more, he’d sat his horse, taking his eyes off Miss Willow long enough to study him. “Who’s that?” With his head, he indicated the man on horseback. “He’s been watching you since we stopped here.”
“Really?” She looked. “Where?”
“On the bay there. Across the street.”
Whoever he was, he knew he’d been noticed, for he nodded at Sebastian and urged his horse toward the Crown’s Ease. The gentleman, there was no doubting that much, lifted his hat in greeting. He had an open, friendly smile. “Good morning.”
“Sir,” Sebastian said, sliding his arm underneath Olivia’s. He was under thirty, with a mouth primed to grin that made an otherwise unremarkable face interesting. His boots gleamed like jet, the cut of his coat showed off a suspiciously narrow waist and his cravat was starched to a razor’s edge. His riding breeches looked as if he’d have a devil of a time peeling them off. He hadn’t quite the legs for it.
The gentleman stared at them. “Olivia,” he said, lifting his hat again. He glanced at Sebastian. “It is Miss Olivia Willow still?”
“Yes,” Sebastian said. And if he knew her name, why was she silent? He drew her closer to his side. The ostler brought around the dog cart. The stranger had to back away, but he nudged his animal forward once Sebastian helped Olivia in the cart and climbed in himself. Pandelion jumped in the back while Sebastian arranged a blanket over Olivia’s lap, tucking it around her legs. The paleness of her eyes struck him once again as more lush in effect than her hair. Damn her fantastic eyes. And now he had this absurd idea of being her husband stuck in his head. Dandling their son on his knee.
“Ah. But not Miss Willow for long, I take it.”
“And you are?” Sebastian said.
“My cousin,” said Olivia. “Mr. Hew Willow.”
Sebastian nodded, but just barely. “Mr. Willow.”
“How long have you been back, Hew?”
“Arrived just yesterday.” He looked at Sebastian. “Who is your companion, Olivia?”
Sebastian met the young man’s gaze. He felt a wave of dislike. “I am Tiern-Cope.”
“Tiern-Cope?” Hew Willow’s eyes widened. His horse danced, hooves ringing on the street. “But Andrew—You must be the younger brother. Captain Alexander. Good heavens.” He got his horse under control and inclined his head. He shot a glance at Olivia. “Lord Tiern-Cope. My deepest sympathies for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll call on you, Olivia. Are you still in Far Caister?”
“Yes, but I am staying at Pennhyll.”
“Are you now?”
“Yes.” She gripped the side of the cart. “Good day, Hew. Welcome back.”
Sebastian drove slowly, aware of Olivia next to him. Occasionally, her shoulder touched him or his arm bumped her. He spread his thighs wide, crowding her because he was a perverse son-of-a-bitch, it seemed. Within sight of Pennhyll he stopped the cart and set the brake. “Are you in love with your cousin?”
“What?”
“I saw how you looked at each other.”
She shook her head.
“Is he married?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t a year ago.”
He touched her temple. “Remember, what’s here is mine, Olivia.” Her intake of breath at the contact did not escape his notice. “And I don’t share what’s mine.”