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Kissed at Twilight by Miriam Minger (8)

 

 

 

Chapter 8

 

 

Hours later, Linette sat nestled beneath the thick fur blanket Adam had settled upon her before Prudie had a chance to. The flickering lantern in one corner of the carriage illuminated his long legs, though she couldn’t see his face in the shadows.

In the opposite corner, Prudie sat with her head bobbing occasionally, which told Linette the ever-vigilant maidservant was having a very hard time staying awake.

No wonder, really. It had grown pitch-dark outside but for the pair of lanterns flanking the outside of the carriage that lit the road.

Adam’s examination of all those children had taken a lot longer than he had anticipated, but thankfully he’d only found a half dozen with any sign of croup. Mrs. Tate had insisted upon providing them a hearty meal of fish stew and fresh-baked bread before they left her cottage, and then the coachman had driven them past Arundale’s Kitchen so Adam might see where the men and older youths worked in the mine.

By then it had been near dusk, so Adam had said he would return tomorrow on Samson to meet the mine captains and perhaps even descend into the mine to meet some of the tinners. He had every expectation that the men’s wives and children would tell them that evening all about the new doctor, so Adam had said with some regret that he wouldn’t need Linette to accompany him to make introductions.

In truth, she would have done so gladly. Anything to further atone for the rudeness she’d displayed toward him, but at least she felt now that she’d made some amends. The two of them had spoken little on the return ride home, pleasantries mostly about the day and its events, as to not alarm Prudie after what had happened on the way to the tinners’ homes.

Linette closed her eyes and leaned her head against the velvet cushion, still astonished that she would have called Adam by his given name. How inappropriate and forward of her!

Prudie Dwyer had been with Donovan and Corie’s household for several years now, and had always been a diligent worker who took great pride in her position. A chambermaid originally, she had worked her way up to an apprentice lady’s maid, her usual duty until she’d been called upon as Linette’s impromptu chaperone.

Given that diligence, Linette’s anxiety had only increased that Prudie might speak with Corie, at the very least, about what she’d heard today—ah, but the thing had been done! She could not undo it, nor her near tumble from the seat when Adam had caught her around the waist with his strong hands—oh, Lord…

She glanced in Adam’s direction, but still she couldn’t see his face. He sat so quietly, but she doubted he was sleeping. Every once in a while he would shift in the seat or drum his fingers lightly upon his black bag set beside him…as if impatiently waiting for something, though what, Linette didn’t have a clue.

Then she heard it, a distinct snore coming from Prudie’s corner, the maidservant’s chin dropped to her chest.

“Finally!”

Startled by Adam’s low-spoken outburst, Linette had to catch her breath as he leaned toward her. His handsome face illuminated now, he smiled at her, shaking his head.

“I thought she’d never fall asleep. Now at least we can speak to each other without her listening to our every word. May I sit next to you, Miss Easton?”

She gaped at him in surprise when he didn’t wait for her reply, but made himself comfortable beside her though he didn’t go so far as to lift the blanket to share it with her.

Heavens, now who was being so boldly forward? As if reading her thoughts, he leaned closer, his broad shoulder brushing hers.

“If you’d prefer, I can go back to my seat. I thought this way we could keep our voices low as we visit and not awaken Prudie. What do you think?”

Linette wasn’t quite sure what she thought, other than that the sensation of his shoulder rubbing against hers was most disorienting. Yet she nodded, which made him smile at her and seem to relax.

“Good. I’ve had something on my mind since yesterday to ask you, but no chance until now. Is it true you’re leaving in three months for London? I didn’t want to just take Rose Polkinghorne’s word for it. Your father said she was a frightful gossip, so I’d wager a quarter to half of what she shared with me might be grossly exaggerated—”

“Mrs. Polkinghorne spoke with you about me?” Linette’s voice no more than a squeak, she was amazed from her shock at this news that she had any voice to speak at all. “About…about London?”

“Why are you so surprised? Are you and your sisters immune from her chatter? Oh, yes, the parson’s daughters. I suppose that might lead you to think your comings and goings are above interest…but I would think them more so, really—”

“Are you teasing me again, sir?” she hissed, glancing at Prudie to note with relief that the maidservant slept on, her snoring growing louder. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re so thoughtful when it’s time to act the doctor, but otherwise you only want to provoke me and—and ask questions of me that are truly none of your business!”

She looked sideways at him now to find his face so very close to hers, disconcertingly so, his smile faded into a serious expression. Yet it was his gaze that held hers, his eyes appearing dark as night in the flickering lantern light.

“It’s true that your plans are none of my business, Linette, but I would very much like to be a part of them if you might consider it. You have bewitched me.”

She blinked at him, her breath caught, the astonishing realization that he’d just spoken her given name nothing to her amazement at what he’d said afterward.

You have bewitched me.

His gaze had fallen to her mouth…dropped open, she realized with chagrin. She pressed her lips together even as he reached up to cradle her chin with his fingers.

Long masculine fingers that felt so warm upon her skin…and she shivered, but not from the chill in the carriage.

He was going to kiss her! Truly, his face coming closer while her thoughts whirled and spun.

She should scramble to the opposite seat or call out to Prudie, anything! Yet deep down she didn’t want to twist away from him no matter how much she knew she should. His closeness mesmerized her. Her heart raced faster with every second she anticipated his lips touching hers.

Except he didn’t kiss her, his mouth so close that his warm breath caressed her lips…and then unexpectedly, curved into a rueful smile.

“You’re right, of course, it’s none of my business.”

He released her chin and leaned back against the seat, heaving a silent sigh that made his chest rise and fall. She could but stare at him, as stunned by his abrupt change in manner as from what he’d said to her only moments ago.

“How could it be otherwise?” he continued, almost as if speaking to himself. “I’m a doctor with my very first practice and only what I earn to my name, while you’re a parson’s daughter with two duchesses for sisters. Two. Every door in London will open for you. All the eligible gentlemen will flock to dance with you—”

“Perhaps they will, and perhaps not,” Linette broke in softly, finding her voice at last. “My sister Marguerite hated her first Season. The ladies of the ton were so cruel to her because she was a parson’s daughter, and the gentlemen who asked her to dance the worst sort of fortune hunter. She only returned for a second Season because that time she had the family surrounding her at Almack’s…Donovan and Corie, and his brother, Nigel, the Duke of Arundale—God rest him, he passed away only a few weeks ago from a riding accident. Nigel’s wife, Charlotte, was in attendance that night as well, and Corie’s dearest friend, Lindsay, the Countess of Dovercourt, and her husband, Jared. None of them for a moment would have allowed anyone dare to be unkind to Marguerite…and of course the man of her dreams was there, too.”

“The man of her dreams?”

His voice very low, Adam looked closely at Linette again, which made her face burn with familiar warmth.

Oh, dear, first she’d lost her tongue and now she was chattering on so ridiculously! Yet he clearly awaited an answer, and she found herself nodding at him.

“Walker Burke…Jared’s closest friend, and now the Duke of Summerlin. Years ago Corie and Lindsay made a pact that they would not marry anyone less than the man of their dreams—and Lindsay urged all of us to do the same. They’re both happily wed, and so is Marguerite. It’s only by the strangest of happenstance that my two sisters have become duchesses, truly!”

Linette fell silent as Adam seemed to absorb everything she’d said, and her quick glance out the window told her they were near to the manor house from the lights flickering through the trees. Again, Adam’s chest rose and fell as if weighing what he might say next, and then he once more met her gaze.

“Do you think you’ll meet the man of your dreams in London?”

His voice now held a harsh tinge that surprised her, though she didn’t see any such dark emotion on his face.

“I don’t know, but it’s what I’ve imagined for so long. All the arrangements are made. I won’t have everyone surrounding me like Marguerite, as they all have young children now and are so busy. I’ll be chaperoned by Lindsay’s aunt Winifred, the Dowager Baroness Penney, and I’ve already an invitation to Almack’s. My sisters and I only have a modest fortune left to us from our mother, but perhaps because of Corie and Marguerite’s position in society—”

“If any man wants you for a reason other than love, whether your fortune or your family’s social standing, then he’s the worst sort of scoundrel,” Adam cut her off vehemently, taking both of her hands in his.

Linette winced, he held them so tightly, but he drew her closer until her face was only inches from his own.

“Beware, Miss Linette Easton. The one you perceive to be the man of your dreams may become your worst nightmare. So it happened to my mother. So it could happen to you.”

He released her then so abruptly that Linette could only gape at him, stunned tears misting her eyes, but she had no chance to say a word as the carriage rumbled to a halt. Adam at once retook his seat opposite her and just in time, too, as Prudie snorted awake and looked dazedly around her.

“Are we at the house, Miss?”

Linette nodded, her blurred gaze following Adam as he didn’t spare another glance at her, but thrust open the nearest door.

This time he didn’t wait gallantly for her to rise or to offer his assistance. Instead, he jumped to the ground and was gone into the darkness. She imagined to fetch Samson from the stables, their journey today too long for his horse to trot all the way behind the carriage.

“Forgive me, Miss Easton, did I sleep very long?”

Linette shook her head, trying desperately not to cry as she brushed past Prudie and took the footman’s outstretched hand to help her down from the carriage. Thankfully only another footman awaited at the front door, Donovan and Corie no doubt putting their children to bed, one of their favorite family rituals.

That only made fresh tears burn Linette’s eyes.

Ducking her head, she rushed into the house and up the stairs. She didn’t stop until the door to her room was shut firmly behind her and she collapsed against it, covering her mouth with her gloved hand to muffle her sobs.

 

***

 

“Dammit, man, why couldn’t you give her a moment to answer?”

Furious with himself, Adam stuffed the pillow under his head in a vain attempt to become comfortable, the night ahead promising to be a sleepless one. And not because of the lumpy bed he slept upon or that the slack pillows needed more goose down!

He could not forget the look in Linette’s eyes when he’d thrown caution to the wind and told her that she had bewitched him. She’d been utterly surprised, yes, but there had been something more.

A flicker of longing. Her breath caught, her softly rounded chin trembling when he’d come so close to kissing her.

Did he dare to believe she might harbor some burgeoning feelings for him? Surely not as hard as he’d fallen, Adam consumed with thoughts of her from the first moment he’d seen her in church. But in time…in time might she perhaps grow to feel the same for him as he felt so intensely for her?

Bloody fool,” Adam spat out, anger with himself building again. If he’d given her a chance to respond to his fervent declaration before assuming she wanted little to do with him—but no! Instead, he’d prodded her to reveal what lay at the heart of her hopes for the future and then he’d crushed the vision of happiness she longed for so dearly!

Yet it was true, just as he’d warned her. The man of her dreams that she imagined meeting in London might turn out to be as despicable as his father, and her end one day might be as tragic as his mother’s!

With an impotent roar, Adam threw the wadded pillow across the room and lunged from the bed, pausing only to grab a robe to cover his nakedness. Then he strode to the nearest window and braced his hands against the windowsill, staring blindly outside.

What in blazes was the matter with him? In a few short days, what had become of the rational thought and restrained composure that he’d honed during six years of medical study after turning his back on everything he’d known before? Everything he had hated and despised?

A ragged sigh escaped Adam as he rested his head against the cool windowpane.

He closed his eyes, listening to distant sounds from the harbor…a ship’s bell, the rumbling of wooden barrels along the wharf even at this late hour, and the raucous laughter of sailors as they spilled drunkenly out of one of the taverns.

Yet around him in tidy whitewashed cottages like Dr. Philcup’s, where Adam now resided, the townsfolk slept, and further out from Porthleven in their manor houses, the gentry and local nobility slumbered.

Like Linette Easton. The auburn-haired vision he’d never anticipated meeting who had turned his carefully constructed world upside down.

The often too serious young woman he’d wanted to make laugh and smile when instead, he had ground her cherished dream beneath his heel and wounded her. He’d seen the shock in her beautiful brown eyes and the mist of unshed tears.

Yet at least when she attended her first ball of the Season, she might be more wary now and protect her heart, Adam tried to console himself, staring out once more into the night.

How bitterly ironic life could be. If he had never renounced all bonds with his father, Adam might have been there to meet her and perhaps have the honor of her very first dance.

Instead he’d sought refuge from the demons of his past in a different life, a humbler life that the woman of his dreams would never share.

Not now. Not after how callously he’d treated her—damn it all!

Adam thrust himself away from the window, but instead of going back to bed, he strode down the dark hall to the study.

Work would ease his torment tonight. Dogged reading, research, and writing that kept his mind occupied and unwanted thoughts at bay had never failed him before.

He could only pray fiercely that throwing himself into his new practice wouldn’t fail him with each passing day that brought Linette closer to leaving for London.