Chapter 11
What a dull marriage it would be to wed a man whose only interests are drinking and wagering. I advise each lady to find a gentleman in possession of many talents and no vices.
Mrs. Matcher
A Lady’s Guide to a Gentleman’s Heart
Three carols.
Heath had sat for three additional songs, performed by his mother, father, and younger brother, no less.
Through it, he’d been forced to sit alongside Emilia’s brother, who’d scowled at him all the while.
As such, the moment Graham had concluded acting out the lyrics of “I Saw Three Ships,” sung by his three lively stepchildren, Heath had slipped away from the festivities, unsure who was more eager for his departure—he or Emilia’s brother, Barry.
Nor did Heath’s desire to quit the music room have anything to do with the performances, but rather, his desire to see her.
After dashing above stairs to gather his cloak and gloves, Heath sprinted through the corridors. He raced toward a pair of young maids, and they went wide-eyed as he approached.
He slowed his stride enough to touch his brow in greeting before continuing on.
He’d never done something as inappropriate as to dash about the ducal halls. And how bloody wonderful this felt, how freeing.
Emilia Aberdeen, the spitfire who’d snagged his hopeless heart as a young lad, had all these years later taught him what it was to live without a care for his responsibilities and to celebrate the pleasures he’d once allowed himself.
What would Renaud say about all that? Any of it? a voice taunted at the back of his mind.
Heath, however, proved more of a selfish bastard than he’d ever believed himself to be, for he continued forward, not stopping until he reached the doors leading to the terrace.
Grinning, he pushed the doors open. “I—” His words abruptly ended. A pair of servants, a plump maid bundled in her cloak and one of the strapping footmen, stared back guiltily. “Oh. Er…” As the couple dropped a respective bow and curtsy, Heath glanced about, searching for the one person he’d sought. The one person you have no business seeking out…
“Lord Heath,” Emilia called from the opposite end of the thirty-foot terrace.
His heart lifted the way it always did when she was near. “Lady Emilia,” he murmured, walking to meet her.
“Are you ready?”
Heath looked around, taking in the details that had first escaped him—the saw resting alongside the balustrade. The neat curl of rope. A shovel.
“What is all this about?” he blurted. For whatever it was the minx intended, it included the pair of servants. He should be grateful that his growing temptation for this woman would be checked firmly by the company of servants. He should be. But he was decidedly not.
“We are going tree hunting.”
As mired as he was in his own regrets, it took a moment for Emilia’s revelation to sink in. His ears must have heard wrong. “What?”
He knew he sounded like a damned lackwit incapable of anything more than the sporadic what?, but really, he’d not a deuced clue what she was up to.
Emilia slipped her arm through his. “We are going tree hunting for your m-mother,” she explained, her teeth chattering in the cold.
He allowed himself to be propelled along for several steps, while the servants behind them gathered up the supplies littered about the patio, before grinding his feet to a halt. “I’m sorry. We are going where?”
Emilia sighed. “We are going to find an evergreen to bring back to your family’s residence for the Christmastide season.”
She spoke as if he should know that. As if she were speaking about some peculiar tradition his family took part in… which they decidedly did not.
“Your sister-in-law, Martha?”
Heath glanced around for the latest edition to their quartet.
“She is not joining us, Heath,” she said with an exaggerated sigh. “It is her family’s tradition.”
“What family? We’re her family.”
Emilia pounced. “Precisely, and as such, each Whitworth should care enough to learn about what is important to her family’s traditions.”
He puzzled his brows. “What in blazes manner of custom is that?”
“It is a medieval Livonian one,” she said in beleaguered tones, as if she expected him to know about ancient Livonian customs. But then again, mayhap clever as she was, the self-taught scholar was in possession of even the most obscure details. “It became quite popular with the Lutheran Germans.”
Lutheran? His frame shook with amusement. “Lutheran customs?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Do you have a problem with Lutherans?”
“I have no problems with anyone. My proper father, however, would have never relented to allowing—”
“Your father was quite enthused by the idea of a tree when I broached it with him earlier in the week.”
That immediately quelled his mirth. She’d not only spoken to his father, but she’d secured his approval for an unconventional custom. Whatever piece of him hadn’t already been hopelessly in love with Emilia Aberdeen was lost in this moment. Was there nothing she couldn’t manage, no dragon she couldn’t tame?
Alas, that devotion proved—as always—vastly one-sided.
“Your sister-in-law shared with me how each holiday she and her children would go out hunting for a tree to bring home and decorate, and I believed this would be a lovely way to make her feel more at home here.”
Heath worked his gaze over her beloved face. When most of the other guests had been distant to Martha, treating her as an outsider to this often-cold world of Polite Society, Emilia had engaged her daughters and also taken time to learn about the young woman. His heart shifted as he fell in love with Emilia all over again. There’d be worry enough later about the deepening intensity of that emotion. Now, he wanted to enjoy this moment—and her.
Emilia eyed him suspiciously. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I’ve never known a person like you in my life,” he said softly.
Her lips parted. “Oh,” she breathed, stirring a little cloud of white with her breath.
His gaze went to her rosebud mouth, and a hungering to take her into his arms filled him.
Nay, it had never left. It had been there, a tangible yearning he’d fought valiantly for years.
“Shall we?” she whispered, her query an invitation to claim the kiss he craved.
In a rustle of velvet, she turned dismissively and trotted over to the servants who’d continued to the stairs. As she left him staring after her retreating figure, it occurred to him that she hadn’t been encouraging an embrace.
Of course she wasn’t, you damned fool.
As Emilia spoke to the servants, Heath rubbed his chilled palms together. A moment later, the young man passed the saw over to the lady.
Marching halfway back, she held the tool aloft in Heath’s direction. “Let us carry on, then.”
He let his arms fall back to his sides. Earlier, he’d believed she was funning him, only to find she was dead serious. “Now?” he called over. “You wish to go tree hunting now?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Heath smiled. Hunting a tree in the dead of night with snow threatening—that was the teasing he’d come to expect from the lady.
“I am going tree hunting now,” she clarified. With that, she started down the stone steps, and he stared after her for several moments until her slender form disappeared from sight. The maid and footman followed along behind.
Yes, she intended to do this, then. This… Livonian tradition practiced by his sister-in-law and nieces and nephew. Even with servants accompanying her, Heath couldn’t very well leave the lady on her own at this hour. And yet… as his legs began carrying him forward, obligation was not what had him following along. It was a need to be with her. He reached the top of the stairs and found her already twenty paces ahead, the servants trailing at a slower, shorter, more sedate pace. “You do know it is dark out, my lady?” he called after her.
“Hardly,” she returned, neither breaking stride nor glancing back. “There’s a full moon’s glow.” Her voice carried on the winter wind, echoing around the countryside.
He squinted up at the cloud-studded sky. It was more like a half-moon’s much fainter glow, but that hardly merited at this point. For a second time that day, he found himself racing after the spitfire. His boots ground up snow and ice as he ran. The servants barely spared him a look as he passed.
The night chill stole the air from his lungs, so that when he reached Emilia’s side, he was slightly out of breath.
With her spare hand, Emilia tipped her bonnet to the side and angled her head to look at him. “You came.”
“Did you doubt I would?” he countered. With her was the only place he wanted to be. It was the only place he’d ever wanted to be. He’d been years too late, and because of that he’d lost that right.
“No, Heath.” Offering him a sad smile, she held over the saw. “I knew you would come.”
He tried to make sense of that, detecting layers of meaning within those five words but unable to peel back a single one of them to make any sense of.
Heading back toward the cluster of trees, he and Emilia settled into silence, the quiet broken only by the crunch of the snow. This, however, wasn’t the easy quiet he’d come to appreciate these past days with her. Rather, a tension thrummed between them.
A chuckle sounded in the distance from the footman trailing far behind, the levity at odds with this newer, more stoic version of Emilia Aberdeen. Heath stole a glance back at the couple. At some point, they’d ceased walking and lingered in the background. “You’ve lost your servants,” he noted.
“They are not my servants,” she said tightly, increasing her stride and leaving Heath behind.
At some point, they’d returned to the aloofness that had long existed between them, the barriers he’d deliberately and expertly crafted. As such, he should be grateful. It certainly made it easier to honor his loyalty to Renaud.
Nay, that would never be easy. He’d go back to secretly resenting the only real friend he’d had in the world for loving the only woman Heath had ever and would ever love. Only, he wasn’t grateful. There was a damned tightness in his chest over what he’d lost. You never had her. You simply deluded yourself these past days with the lady into believing she might share the sentiments that had only been one-sided. Sighing, he started after Emilia.
At some point, she stopped, facing an arch of fir trees. The collection of nature’s artwork formed a semicircle of evergreens that had grown in ascending height.
She remained silent, her gaze locked forward, and damn him for the pathetic fool he was, but he resented blasted trees for so holding her attentions.
This was, of course, a moment that Renaud would have expertly filled with charming words. Emilia’s laughter would have spilled from her lips.
God, how he hated his friend for having always possessed that ability, not for every woman, but for this one.
Say something…
“What now?” he asked and then winced, at last grateful for the absence of the glow of a full moon.
Emilia didn’t even deign to look at him. “Now, we cut.”
“Which one?”
She stretched a finger out, and he followed it—
Heath squinted. Perhaps he was not looking at the same fir. He leaned forward. “Which one?”
Emilia wagged her finger. “That one.”
Yes, nothing wrong with his vision. She’d selected the tallest and fattest of the collection. He slapped the saw against his leg, contemplating the impossible task. With a sigh, he started forward. “Very well.”
Very well.
That was all he’d say?
She’d selected the largest of all the trees, a nigh impossible task for one man. And he’d not even called for the help of the servants who’d accompanied them?
Muttering under his breath, Heath doffed his hat and tossed it onto a nearby boulder. It skidded along the back of the rock and landed with a thump in the snow. As he proceeded to fall to a knee and lift the branches to inspect the trunk of the tree in question, bitterness assailed her.
That was Heath. Dutiful, obliging Heath who’d never say no to anyone. The same Heath who was out here even now because his mother had ordered him to occupy the poor spinster. Mayhap she’d given him a whole host of ladies to dance attendance on.
’Twas the season to spread cheer to those in need of cheering: Francesca Cornworthy, Martha… Tears clogged her throat. Me.
“I still say this is a silly tradition,” he called into the tree’s branches. He grabbed the saw.
“And yet, you’ll do it a-anyway,” she said, her voice shaking.
Heath paused.
“Because that is what you do. Isn’t it, Heath? You come to the aid of all the poor, unfortunate souls in need of rescuing.” It was wrong to resent him for being kind. Only, it wasn’t that she resented his kindness. She resented his pity… She craved his kindness. Wanted it to be sincere and come from a place of honesty and not this lie perpetuated by him and his mother.
His back went up, and stiffening, Heath came to his feet. Slowly, he faced her. “What is this, Emilia?” he asked in grave tones.
“I don’t need your pity.”
He drew back as if he’d been struck. “I don’t pity you.”
“Oh, no? What is it one calls showing a woman a good time to cheer her up?”
Even in the cold of night, all the color drained from Heath’s cheeks, leaving him pale. “Oh, God.”
At least he’d not deny it. What an inconsequential consolation.
Emilia bit the inside of her lip, hating deep within her soul that he’d finally acknowledged her after all these years because of some chore he’d been given. Hating herself even more for having been duped by whatever game she herself had played and having forgotten the real motives behind his joining her. She found strength in the much safer emotion of outrage.
“Listen to me, Heath Whitworth,” she hissed, striding over to him, her skirts whipping angrily about her. “I don’t need you to entertain me or look after me like I’m a child.” I wanted you to want to be with me. She jabbed a finger into his chest so hard the digit ached. “And certainly not because your mother ordered it.”
The clouds shifted overhead, and a faint beam of moonlight bathed his face and illuminated the spark of hurt in Heath’s dark gaze. “That is all this was, then?” he asked tiredly. “Your joining me each day was to impart some kind of lesson?”
She started.
I will not feel bad. I will not feel bad…
How dare he turn this around? “You are no different than the rest of the w-world,” she whispered. It was only the cold that lent a quiver to her voice. She’d tired of the world looking at her as though all that she was, all that defined her, were the actions of another. “You look at me and see only Connell’s betrayal.”
Heath’s throat moved wildly, but he didn’t speak. What else was there for him to say?
Emilia moved so close their knees brushed, and she was forced to angle her head back to meet his gaze. “I’ll have you know I found peace with what happened, and I was quite content with my life, Heath Whitworth.” Emilia froze, momentarily stricken by the accidental—and worse, accurate—slip of her tense. “I am content,” she hurriedly corrected. Too late. She’d revealed the truth she’d kept even from herself.
“Emilia,” he began, but she shoved her finger into his chest once more, and he grunted.
“I already told you I do not want anyone’s pity, Lord Heath. Not yours and not anyone’s.”
His expression softened, and she stumbled in her haste to put space between them.
“I don’t pity you, Emilia Aberdeen,” Heath’s solemn utterance halted her in midstride, and she made herself stay put.
Emilia scoffed. “Come, let us not have any more lies between us. Do you truly expect me to believe that had your mother not given you specific directives to entertain me, that you would have for even one moment taken breakfast with me? Gone skating with me?” Kissed me? “Rescued me that evening in the billiards room?”
He briefly closed his eyes. “No, you are correct. I wouldn’t have.”
Her entire body jerked, and she felt like he’d run her through with that truthful admission.
Well, you sought the truth, and he gave it. “I see.” There was nothing left to be said between them. Before she did something even more pathetic, such as dissolve into a blubbering mess of tears, she stomped by him.
“You don’t see, Emilia,” he called after her. His voice, harsh and guttural, grew increasingly closer. Emilia whipped around just as he stepped into her path and caught her by the shoulders. “You never did.”
Raw emotion blazed from the depths of his eyes and seared her from the heated intensity of it.
“See what?” she managed to whisper.
Heath briefly tightened his grip upon her arms. He lowered his head so close to hers, the warmth of his breath caressed her chilled skin. “That I spent my whole life admiring you from afar.” Her breath caught. “Loving you from afar.” He abruptly released her. “So, do not think any of”—he slashed a hand between them—“this was because of pity or some sense of honor.” With that, he stalked off.
Emilia’s heart hammered against her rib cage.
Her thoughts stumbled around in circles as she sought to make sense of all he’d said… and revealed. Everything, however, twisted around in her mind, like tangled vines that could not be unwound. That revelation… his revelation defied everything she knew to be fact.
He couldn’t love her.
“You do not even like me,” she blurted. “You didn’t know I existed.”
Heath stopped and, for a long moment, remained with his back to her. “I know, Emilia. I know all too well.”
But… The wind knocked her bonnet back, dislodging several strands of hair that whipped around her eyes. She slapped them back, needing an unhindered view of him. “You rarely spoke to me when I was a girl.” She’d taken him for the snobbish ducal heir who’d had no need for a girl underfoot. “Why… why, you ran the other way whenever I was near.”
Doffing his hat, Heath turned and faced her. “I didn’t know how to be around you,” he said tiredly as he fiddled with the brim. “You were spirited and playful and courageous, and I was…” He grimaced. “Bookish Lord Heath. Ducal heir and nothing more.”
An ache settled in her chest. The person he described was what she, too, had taken him for. These past days with him, however, had shown her the parts of Heath Whitworth that she’d never looked close enough to see. Parts of him she’d come to love.
Heath cleared his throat. “I was never glib with words, and by the time I’d worked up the courage to approach you in London…” He glanced away.
“Almack’s,” she breathed. Her first set. He’d been the first person to dance with her when she’d made her debut.
A memory cut a swath through the tangle of weeds in her mind.
“You want to dance with me?” Emilia blurted.
Lord Heath shifted on his feet, looking as pained as he always did around her. “Unless you’d rather we not…?”
“No! I’d… like that. Very much…”
How had she not remembered that day? Nay, she recalled parts of it, including what, until this very moment, she’d erroneously believed to be the most important aspect of that day. “I…”
“Forgot?” A sad smile hovered on his lips. “And why would you recall? You met the love of your life that evening.”
“And you introduced us,” she whispered.
Heath chuckled, the sound devoid of even the barest hint of happiness. “I introduced you to the man who stole your heart.”
Her chest ached. What would life have been like had Heath been the one who’d courted her?
As soon as the thought slid in, she hated the reality lurking alongside it: You wouldn’t have ever seen him as you do now. She’d painted a false image of him as a proper, staid, prim lord who’d never tolerate a wife who liked to spend her summers talking with gypsies and chasing after her dreams.
She’d been so wrong about so much.
“I… I didn’t know, Heath.” She didn’t know because he’d done such a convincing job of making her believe he didn’t even like her.
He released a long sigh that stirred a soft cloud of white. “You wouldn’t have,” he said, jamming his hands into his cloak pockets. “Because I couldn’t have you know that. My opportunity to share how I felt had come and gone.”
Emilia touched a hand to her temple. It still didn’t make sense. “But then, after Connell jilted me.”
A muscle leaped in his jaw. “Being near you was an impossibility,” he said cryptically. He exhaled slowly through his teeth. “Either way, I just thought you should know that I never disliked you. That I only ever admired your spirit and your strength.”
Neither spoke for a long while, the stretch of silence agonizing.
Emilia drifted closer, and he forced himself to remain there for whatever she might say—or worse, might not say. Then she stopped and tipped her head back to meet his gaze. “Latet enim veritas, sed nihil pretiosius veritate,” she whispered.
“Truth is hidden,” he translated hoarsely, “but nothing is more beautiful than—”
Clutching the front of his cloak, Emilia kissed him.
The truth…
He stiffened as she laid claim to his mouth.
I am lost…
Or mayhap this was being found.
Groaning, he caught her hips, and with the cold winter wind assailing them, they ravaged each other’s mouths, tangling their tongues in a passionate duel that burned away any remnants of the winter chill.
He caught her under her buttocks and dragged her into the vee of his legs.
Even through the fabric of her skirts, she felt his length pressed against her belly. Twining her arms about his neck, she layered her body to his in a bid to get closer. Hating the cold. Hating their garments.
She moaned and tipped her head to better take his kiss. An ache settled between her legs, agonizing and glorious at the same time.
“Emilia,” he rasped against her cheek, trailing his mouth lower, his warm breath a gentle sough that drove the cold from her. Her name came over and over. In wonderment. An entreaty. A husky mark of his desire.
She tipped her head and, reaching between them, loosened the clasp at her throat, so the garment fell loose. “Heath,” she returned on a keening moan as he flicked the tip of his tongue down the column of her throat before settling on that place where her pulse pounded with desire for him. And then he suckled that sensitive place.
Emilia bit her cheek to keep from crying out. “Mmmm,” she whimpered.
She was afire. A spark had ignited, and the conflagration now consumed her. “I’ll never be cold again,” she panted.
Thwack.
Snow fell from her brow and blurred her vision. Teeth chattering, Emilia wiped the remnants away.
Together, she and Heath looked up to the evergreen branch overhead that quivered in the aftermath of dropping a mound of snow atop them.
“H-holy h-hell,” she managed. “I-I was wrong.” She was deuced freezing.
Catching her to him, Heath drew her close and held her.
Their chests shook with a shared giddy amusement.
“Are we still cutting d-down th-that tree, m-my lady?”
Emilia wrapped her arms around his waist, and clinging to him, she glanced back so she could meet his gaze. “M-mayhap we wait until it is lighter and a wee bit warmer.”
Nonetheless, Emilia and Heath remained there in the cold, holding each other. With his arms wound about her, his embrace felt like… home.