Chapter Fifteen
"I do believe I have never yet seen such a perfect summer's day," said Cecily, not for the first or even the second time in the past five minutes. Jemima remained perfectly absorbed in her book, and the clock was ticking towards twelve. If Cecily wanted to meet Robert at the oak, she would need to leave quickly. Curse her father's overprotective nature! There was really no need for Cecily to have a companion for a simple stroll through his well-kept forest.
She had attempted to plead with her father over that very imposition that morning, but he was not to be moved.
"Do you wish me to die from a seizure of the heart?" he had demanded, as Cecily wryly recalled that she had inherited her own stubbornness from him. "Your mother and I were beside ourselves with worry the last time you got lost in the woods. It will not happen again!"
"But I will not go far this time," Cecily pleaded. "And I certainly will not venture onto the Scarcliffe Hall side of the river. I have more than learnt my lesson."
"I will not hear of you entering the forest without a suitable companion," said the Duke. Cecily knew her father; she knew that when his mind was made up, it was impossible to change it. This was one of those times.
So she was left to persuade a reluctant Jemima to accompany her out on a walk through the woods. There was no question of taking a lady's maid – after risking her reputation by disappearing from the carriage with Robert in front of the footmen and driver, Cecily could not rely on the servants not to put two and two together with their gossip. Besides, it would be more than a servant's position was worth to defy the Duke and let Cecily go off alone.
Jemima, on the other hand, was perfectly amenable to all manner of intrigues. If only Cecily could find some way of communicating to her that there was more to her pestering than a simple desire for fresh air!
She leaned across to whisper the truth to Jemima, but caught her mother's inquiring eye. The Duchess was taking tea just across the drawing room, and Cecily had no desire to risk her curiosity.
"Don't you just long for a walk in the sunshine, Jemima?" Cecily asked, growing desperate. Jemima looked up with a frown.
"I long to finish my book. A task which you are making excessively difficult."
"But how pleasant it would be to sit and read out on the grass!"
"Have you some particular reason for venturing outside, Ceci?" asked her mother. "Why don't you ring for a maid to walk with you? That will be more than enough to satisfy your father."
Cecily gave her mother a sunny smile. "I was only concerned for Jemima's health. She spends such a lot of time indoors."
"Jemima's habits are the height of gentility, Ceci. I only wish I could say the same for yours."
Cecily was about to give up when Jemima closed her book and stood up with a sigh. "Oh, I dare say you're right," she said, winking. "A little fresh air will do me good. Let me go and put on a pelisse, Ceci. I don't think it's quite as warm out there as you say."
Cecily was so overcome with excitement that she ran ahead of Jemima and pulled the first pelisse she saw from the wardrobe herself. Now that the Duchess was not there to see, Jemima's expression grew decidedly suspicious.
"You are not particularly good at keeping secrets, Cecily. I don't know if anyone has ever told you that."
"Nonsense! What secret reason could I possibly have for walking through Scarcliffe forest on a day like today?"
Jemima wrinkled her nose. "And if I were to suggest that, instead, we amble down to Loxton?"
Cecily held out the pelisse for her to put on, shaking it impatiently. "I would tell you that there is nothing to beat the wind in the trees or the sunlight falling through the leaves, or –"
"Or the gentleman you hope to meet there." Jemima buttoned up her pelisse, sighing. "I hope I am not wrong in encouraging this."
Cecily embraced Jemima with all the exuberance her secret lent her and kissed her on the cheek. "Believe me, Jemima, you are doing the greatest good deed in the world!"
The day did not, in fact, possess the perfection which Cecily had claimed for it. She did not notice. As far as she was concerned, the air was warm, the sky a glorious blue, the birds were singing, the scent of flowers hung on the gentle breeze. If Jemima grumbled a little and pulled her pelisse tighter around her, it must have been for some other reason than an overcast sky and a brisk wind.
She was about to see Robert again, and there was nothing which could spoil the joy of her anticipation.
"This looks a likely spot to sit and read awhile," she said, as they came across a fallen tree only a short distance from the clearing and the ancient oak. Jemima shrugged.
"It will do. I suppose you are going to keep wandering on while I sit here?"
"Well, I wouldn't want to disturb you."
"Ha! Very well. Do give my regards to…anyone you should happen to come across."
"Oh, I doubt very much I'll cross paths with anybody all the way out here," said Cecily. Jemima did not return her wink.
"In all seriousness, Ceci, I hope you've thought this through. It's a little more dangerous than our usual mischief."
"Why, Jemima! When did you turn into a fretful old lady?"
Jemima refused to be teased. "I don't want to see you hurt."
Those words rang ominously in Cecily's ears as she picked her way across the leaf-strewn floor to the clearing. She had allowed her passion for Robert to master her in a short space of time: too short, Jemima would doubtless say. Deep feelings left her open to deep wounds if it should all come to nothing. She was vulnerable as she had never been before.
Then she saw Robert, leaning against the old oak tree with his hat cocked over his eyes to block out the sun, and all her misgivings fell away.
The effect he had on her was nothing short of magical. Every part of Cecily's body came alive in his presence, the memory of Robert's touch filling her to the tips of her fingers. She had never in her life felt true hunger until that moment, with the echo of last night's kisses tingling on her lips, and Robert's cool gaze meeting hers across the sunlit clearing.
"You're late," he said. Cecily ran towards him, relishing the shock and pleasure that lit his eyes as she threw her arms around him.
"I have been trying to leave the house all morning. I almost missed you!"
"It would not have mattered," said Robert, brushing a lock of hair back from her eyes. "I would have waited till sundown, and then come back to wait again tomorrow."
His horse whickered softly beside him. Cecily rather fancied that Thunder recognised her. "Hello, my lovely one," she murmured, stroking Thunder's nose. "Have you missed me?"
"Am I to compete for your affections with my horse?" Robert complained. Cecily let out a laugh of delight as he caught her by the waist and kissed her.
"He is such a very fine horse. I cannot help myself!"
"Neither can I," said Robert, his lips moving to her neck. It was all Cecily could do to pull herself away. Robert was chastened. "What's wrong?"
"We have work to do," said Cecily. "I did not come here to let you take liberties with me. We are here to discuss the feud between our families, not to – to get carried away."
His lip curled upwards into a half-smile that started a pool of heat in Cecily's stomach. "But you make it so delightfully easy to get carried away, Cecily."
She crossed her arms, determined not to show how much he affected her. "Do you really mean all you said last night, or will a few kisses satisfy you?"
Robert dropped his smirk the moment he saw she was serious. "You are right. We must not let our heads be turned by present enjoyments, when there is so much more to be gained. You must trust me, Cecily. I do not make promises lightly." He shrugged off his jacket and spread it on the ground. "Sit here beside me, and let's see if we can make sense of the tangle of sins our families have woven together."
Robert leaned against a tree, and Cecily sat on his jacket with her head resting on his shoulder. As Robert began to talk, she pulled the glove from her own hand and slowly began working his leather riding glove from his fingers.
"My father has always told me that his aunt, Lady Letitia, was kidnapped by your uncle, Lord Thomas," said Robert, allowing Cecily to entwine her now-bare hand with his own. The touch of his skin brought Cecily a strange mix of comfort and excitement. She felt her thoughts wandering to the recollection of how his hands had grasped at her so ravenously the night before, and had to force herself to concentrate on what he was saying. "It's true that Letitia must have suffered a great misfortune at some point. By all accounts she was perfectly healthy until the kidnapping – or whatever it truly was – but her health was broken by the terror of the experience. And, of course, the humiliation of the scandal that followed. That business with the portrait."
"Portrait? I have never heard about any portrait."
Robert lifted her hand to his chest and began half-consciously toying with her fingers, as though the simple touch of her gave strength and steadiness to his thoughts. "It is my understanding that your great-grandfather made the claim that Lady Letitia had, in fact, run away with an artist. A portrait painter."
"That's what my father told me."
"He may not have told you that the then Duke brought evidence of this so-called affair to Scarcliffe Hall. My father called it an attempt to strike Lady Letitia down at the height of her misery. He says it was a portrait of Lady Letitia which the Duke claimed had been painted by her lover, and was proof of their affair. Naturally, my family dismissed it as nonsense – a cruel attempt by the Balfours to distract attention for Lord Thomas's actions onto his innocent victim. Letitia was only sixteen years old at the time. She had not even made her Come Out."
"Young girls can be prone to silly infatuations," said Cecily. "Is it possible that she did love this painter?"
"I cannot say. My father claims not, but he was only a boy at the time. All that is certain is that her grief over the incident left her at the mercy of a severe nervous complaint. She had to withdraw from family life completely. She spent the rest of her days being cared for in a secluded house in the village of Burnsley, together with other people suffering fragility of the mind."
"How horrible!" Cecily wondered what was more likely to drive a woman to madness – the terror of kidnapping, or the agony of a lost love? "But how did my great-grandfather come by the painting at all? Why should he have a portrait of Lady Letitia, and what would induce him to claim it was painted by her lover?"
"You will have better means to answer that than I do. As far as I know, the portrait is still at Loxwell Park. After my family refused to take back their accusations against Lord Thomas, the Duke of Loxwell hung the portrait in his drawing room and told everyone who came calling that it depicted the scandalous Lady Letitia."
"That is a cruel thing to do!" cried Cecily. "I am ashamed to be descended from a man who would be so unfeeling towards a young girl, even if he truly believed she had done wrong."
"The old Duke had lost his son, and blamed my family," said Robert. "I can understand his rage. Pain drives men to do things they would not otherwise contemplate."
"I feel I understand now how our trouble began." Cecily glanced up at Robert, concerned. "What I do not see is how we are to prove or disprove either claim. Lady Letitia, I suppose, is long dead?"
"Influenza. When I was a child."
"And Lord Thomas, of course, is dead too. That only leaves the man who painted Lady Letitia's portrait. If I can find the painting – for I assure you, it no longer hangs in our drawing room – I will be able to discover his name from the signature. That is something."
"What good will finding the painter do, if he is even still alive?"
"He will at least be able to give us the truth of his alleged affair with Lady Letitia. If it can be proven that my great-grandfather was wrong to accuse her, I am sure my father can be persuaded to apologise."
"It is a very great thing, for a Duke to admit he was wrong," said Robert, sounding unconvinced. "I would not pin your hopes on this, my Cecily."
"Then how else am I to learn to hope?" Cecily brought Robert's hand to her lips and kissed it tenderly. "I must take some action. I cannot simply sit and wait for fate to let us be together."
"You are right. And for my own part, I will do all I can to discover how the ring with the Balfour crest came to be hidden away in Scarcliffe Hall. If my father is truly still working against yours, he must be stopped at once." Robert drew Cecily close up against him. "I will no longer allow him to have his way in maintaining this silly feud. It is nothing to me whether your great-grandfather insulted my great-aunt or not. You are all that matters."
Cecily answered him with a lingering kiss that left both of them breathless. It was an as-yet-untasted delight to her to know that Robert's desire for her was as deep as her own for him. She relished every one of the soft noises of pleasure that she drew from his lips as proof of her triumph.
She felt so wholly conquered by him that it seemed only right that he should be equally overcome by her.
"If there are any gentlemen in this forest," came a strident shout, "they would do well to be on their way before I come across them!"
Robert jerked away from Cecily in horror. "We are discovered?"
"It's only Jemima. Don't worry. She will not tell a soul." Cecily got to her feet and brushed off her dress. "I will be with you in a moment, Jemima!" she called. "Robert, when will I see you again?"
"Why, here, every day, at the same time?"
"That is quite impossible. My parents have been keeping a close eye on my movements ever since I got lost in the forest. Mama was already a little suspicious that I was so eager to go outside today."
"Then write to me. You can send Jemima if you cannot get away yourself." Robert examined the oak tree which had sheltered them, looking for a suitable hollow. "Here – in this hole. Place your letters here and I will find them."
Cecily turned up her nose. "I thought I told you we were not to write to each other."
"You are happy to break every one of your father's rules but that one?"
"It is not my father's rule but society's. And I am not denying you without reason. Letters are too dangerous. They could be used to reveal us before we are ready to bring our families back together. That would be disastrous."
"I will burn your letters the moment I read them," Robert promised. "Though it will break my heart to do it. Only say you'll write to me, Cecily. I don't want another day to pass without you, even if it is only to read your letters."
Cecily was beginning to see Jemima's point when she said that seeing Robert was dangerous. She had never met anyone she was less capable of resisting. It did not bode well for the future. If they ever married, Cecily intended to have her way much more often than not. "I will write as often as I can," she said. Robert thanked her with another kiss that unwound from close-lipped chastity into a passionate clinch.
"Cecily!" Jemima called again. Cecily broke away from Robert with a breathless laugh and ran towards the sound of Jemima's voice.
"Remember to write!" Robert called.
"How could I forget?"
Cecily reached Jemima with a smile so wide it almost hurt and eyes that danced with laughter. Her mind was still in the glade with Robert, watching the dappled sunlight play across his handsome face.
Jemima's expression brought her crashing back to reality. "Is something wrong? Are you ill?"
"One of the groundskeepers went past me only moments ago," Jemima hissed, clutching her book to her chest. "I was convinced he would find you, and I was almost too slow to stop him walking in your direction!"
"Oh, Jemima." Cecily put her arms around her friend and hugged her tightly. "It was too much for me to ask you to hide my secret. I won't put you in this position again, I swear it!"
"But it was a good thing you did. I told the groundskeeper that I had heard a noise like a wounded animal coming from south of the bridge. He went off to find it. And very lucky he did, too!" Jemima was not given to great shows of emotion, but she had gone unnaturally pale. Cecily quite understood. The idea that she had almost been found in Robert's arms…
No, she would not let herself think of it. She and Robert had only their few stolen moments, and she would not let them be overcome by fear.
"Let me take you back to the house. A cup of tea will quiet your nerves," she said soothingly. Jemima passed a hand across her forehead.
"How your own nerves can bear it all, I will never know!"
Cecily was uncomfortably reminded of Lady Letitia and the breakdown of her mind once her secret love was revealed. Would that be Cecily's fate, if she were caught and torn from Robert forever?
I am not some sixteen-year-old girl, Cecily told herself. I am made of stronger stuff. I lived in perfect happiness before Robert, and I shall live on if he is taken from me.
Her mind shied away from further imaginings of that pain. The feat must have shown on her face, for Jemima was looking at her curiously.
"Did you at least enjoy yourself?" she asked. "He is a good man, is he not? I cannot imagine you falling for anything less than a truly good man."
"He is wonderful," Cecily whispered. "I only hope that you can someday find the man to make you feel the same way."
Jemima let out a snort of laughter. "When I fall in love, I will do it sensibly," she declared. "None of this foolish star-crossed nonsense. Now, I believe I was promised a cup of tea. I am half-chilled to the bone after sitting down in this wind, Ceci. I had no-one's strong arms to warm me, you see."
"Of course, my dearest Jemima! We will return to Loxwell House at once." Cecily linked her arm with Jemima's. If she was uncharacteristically quiet on the way home, Jemima made no mention of it.
In truth, Cecily did not know whether the stolen meeting with Robert had left her happy or sad. She was perfectly content in his affections for her, of course. But in some ways she had been left with a more insurmountable obstacle than she had ever been aware of before. Their family injuries ran deep.
Could she be the woman to finally heal them?