“Hello,” she said from behind him. Her voice was breathless.
He turned and smiled. “Hello, wood nymph,” he said. “I have missed you.”
She moved forward and seated herself beside him.
“You hurt your foot,” she said. “Is it better now?”
“Yes,” he replied, “and it was a great annoyance, Nell, because it kept me from you.”
She colored and looked at him bright-eyed.
He leaned forward and took one of her hands, which were lying loosely clasped in her lap. “Nell,” he said, “I know so little about you. Tell me about yourself.”
The perfect opportunity! All she had to do now was to tell him that she was not what he had thought. He would ask what she meant and she would tell him that she was the third daughter of the Earl of Claymore, the one he had not met. He would not mind. He was in a sympathetic mood.
“There is really nothing to tell,” she heard herself say, and she shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “My life has been very ordinary. Tell me about yours. It must have been very exciting, I think.”
“And you would be very wrong,” he told her. “I have a great deal, do I not, wood nymph? Wealth and property and social status. It must seem to you that I cannot fail to be happy.”
“And you are not?” she prompted, unconsciously squeezing the hand that still held hers.
“I had a lonely childhood,” he said. “My parents died when I was an infant, and my grandfather brought me up in Scotland. He was a recluse long before I came to him. I was educated at home by him—fortunately, he was a learned and an intelligent man. He would not allow me to make companions of any other boy in the vicinity, and he did not wish me to go away to school. He and his housekeeper, who had been with him for years and years, were almost the only human companions I knew until I grew to manhood.”
“Poor little boy,” she said, her eyes suspiciously bright as they looked into his.
He laughed. “I am not trying to spin a tragedy,” he said. “It was a lonely childhood, yes, but there were compensations. I loved my grandfather and I believe he loved me. Even his refusal to let me out of his sight came, I think, from a fear that he would lose the one link with life that had come to him in his old age. It was a very secure childhood. It was not until long after he died and I decided that I should venture out into the world that I realized how ill-equipped I was to become a part of it.”
“Where did you go?” she asked.
“To London first,” he said. “I found life hard there. It is not easy for me to meet and converse with new people. I find myself frequently tongue-tied.”
“Yet you can talk to me,” Helen said.
He smiled and took her hand in a warmer grip. “Yes, little wood nymph, I can talk to you,” he said, “because I know you are not sitting in judgment on my conversation and my manners. I always used to feel the same way with . . . with someone else.”
“With a lady?” she asked.
“I had one good friend, too,” he said, not answering her question. “He was everything I am not: charming, at ease in any company, never at a loss for words. He helped me a great deal.”
“Why have you come here?” she asked.
“I wanted a little peace and quiet, wood nymph,” he replied. “I thought to find it here. Maybe I am more like my grandfather than I care to admit.”
“Have you found it?” she asked. “The peace and quiet, I mean.”
His eyes wandered over her face for a while before he answered. “To a degree,” he said finally. “I have met you, Nell, and with you I feel I can relax. I can forget that there are such things as balls and assemblies and dinner parties and afternoon visits to be made.
You do not realize how fortunate you are not to have to worry about such things.”
She smiled. The moment for her great revelation seemed to be slipping farther into impossibility. His hand left hers and reached up to cup the side of her head. His thumb stroked her cheek.
“I have missed you, Nell,” he said softly. And he meant it. He knew that he should not mean it, that he should even now be making an effort to remain aloof from her. But the magic was there, as it always was when he was with her. She sat so quietly and earnestly listening to him, this girl who was very beautiful despite the shabbiness of her dress and the untidiness of her hair. Desire was rising in him and he did not have the will to quell it.
“I have missed you too,” she said, and she turned her head so that her lips were against his palm.
Mainwaring was lost. His hand slipped through her hair to cup the back of her head and his other hand reached for her shoulder and pulled her close. Ah yes, her lips were as he remembered them, soft and warm, eager to part beneath the persuasion of his tongue, her mouth sweetly responsive to his invasion. He could feel her firm, unfettered breasts against his coat and her fingers in his hair.
But this time he wanted to be quite sure that she had as much pleasure as he. He laid her back against the grass and lifted her dress to her breasts and over her head and free of her arms. He removed her undergarments. He took his coat off and rolled it beneath her head before removing the rest of his clothes. She was beautiful, breathtakingly so. He gazed with wonder at her, not even touching her for a while. And he noticed that she gazed unashamedly back. Nell. His lovely Nell.
