“You made it clear on that occasion,” he said, “that you do not wish for a second husband. Not yet, at least. You are happy here in this cottage in this village with your freedom and your independence, and I cannot blame you. Sometimes it must be hard to be a woman, or so I would imagine. But there are needs all of us share, men and women alike, cravings it is hard to deny and not so easy to satisfy—especially for an unmarried woman. Perhaps you believe you have detected a kindred spirit in me since I too live alone and am single. Perhaps finding yourself unexpectedly in company with me that night gave you the idea to broach the possibility of a mutual understanding, though you lost your courage before you could be fully specific. I do not believe I misunderstood your meaning, however, Lydia. You want a lover. Perhaps I do too. Perhaps that is why I asked to be invited in tonight and why you did invite me.”
“Did I?” she asked him. But she answered her own question before he could. “Yes, of course I did, but I did not want the responsibility of having done so. I left the gate open.”
Even in the flickering light of the fire and the candles he was aware that her cheeks had flamed red. But to her credit she had admitted the truth and she did not look away from him. Neither did she stop frowning.
“It seemed like such a splendid idea when I was simply dreaming it,” she said. “But when I was presented with the unexpected opportunity to actually say it, I realized how totally outrageous and unthinkable it was. I hoped I had stopped before you understood, but of course I had not. I am mortified. Oh, what a colossal understatement. I am sorry.”
“Sorry you made the suggestion?” he asked her. “Or sorry that I understood it and asked you to invite me in tonight?”
“I—Oh, I really do not know what to say,” she protested— and smiled so unexpectedly that Harry moved his head back an inch. Good God, she looked suddenly vivid and very pretty, that prim, lacy cap notwithstanding. “I keep waiting and hoping to wake up, actually. I am so dreadfully embarrassed.”
“You need not be,” he said. “I am flattered that you focused your dream upon me.”
She laughed and bit her lip again. That wide mouth, he thought, would be lovely to kiss. How the devil had she kept herself so virtually invisible all these years? That it had been at least partly deliberate he no longer doubted.
“I find that hard to believe,” she said.
“Why?” he asked. “Lydia, you must not underestimate yourself. If we are to have an affair, it will be between equals. Neither of us will be condescending to the other. Neither of us will be inferior or beholden to the other. Or superior either and merely conferring a favor.”
“An affair.” She did what he had done a few moments ago. She jerked her head back a fraction and then looked down at the hands spread across her lap, her eyebrows raised. Her vivid smile was long gone. “That sounds awfully … wicked.”
The dog had nodded off to sleep and was snoring slightly. It looked like a large white pompon on her slipper. Some chaperon.
“It is by no means inevitable,” he told her. If he were to press matters now and they ended up in bed together, they might be forever sorry. Theywouldbe, surely. They would find it impossible to face each other tomorrow and forever after. They were just not ready, if they ever would be. “I can drink my tea and go on my way, and we can forget the whole thing.”
She attempted to raise her cup from the saucer, but her hand was shaking. She set it back and put both cup and saucer on the table beside the tray.
Harry drew a slow breath. “We do not even know each other, do we?” he said. “Though we have been acquainted for several years. I suppose you know some basic facts about me. And I know that you were the wife of the Reverend Isaiah Tavernor and are now his widow. I have heard that you are the daughter of a gentleman of some substance. That is all I know, though. Perhaps before we make any decision neither of us seems quite ready to make we ought to learn more about each other and find out if we can be in any way comfortable together. If we canlikeeach other at the very least. Tell me about yourself. Or is that too broad a request? Tell me who you were before your marriage.”
She sat back against one of the bright cushions and spread her hands in her lap again. They were bare except for the narrow gold band of her wedding ring. Her fingernails were short and neatly kept.
“I was Lydia Winterbourne,” she said. “My father is indeed a gentleman of property and fortune. He likes people to know that his grandfather was a viscount. I have three brothers, two older than I, one younger. The eldest was married two years ago. I have met my sister-in-law only once, at their wedding. Isaiah took me. My mother died when I was eight. She never fully recovered from giving birth to my youngest brother. My father has never remarried.”
“It must have been hard,” he said, “growing up as the only female in a house full of men. Or was it not hard at all? Were you the much adored treasure in their midst?”
She thought about it. “Both,” she said. “I was loved, even adored, to use your word, and sheltered from all harm. From the wicked world of men, that is. My father and James and William, my elder brothers, were all united in agreeing that it was very wicked indeed. I loved them dearly in return—I still do—and appreciated both their undoubted affection and their determination to keep me from all harm. Sometimes, though, especially as I grew older, I found it all more than a bit irksome and longed to break free.”
Hence the fact that she coveted her freedom now?
“You did not think of returning to your father’s home after your husband’s passing, then?” he asked her.
“Oh, they wanted me to go,” she told him. “All of them. My father and James came here for the funeral, as did Isaiah’s brother, and then accompanied me to his burial. Perhaps you remember?”
“I was away from home at the time, I regret to say,” he told her. “I was visiting my grandmother and her sister, my great-aunt, who lives with her. She—my great-aunt, that is—was ailing at the time and my grandmother was very much afraid she would not recover. I stayed until she rallied and began to get better.”
“They fussed and blustered and bullied, all three of them,” she said. “Though the wordbulliedis a bit unfair, for they had my best interests at heart, or what they thought were my best interests. I could not go back to my father’s house, though. I simplycouldnot. And though my brother-in-law has always been kind, both he and his wife are nevertheless virtual strangers to me. It was good of them to offer me a home, but there was never any question of my accepting.”
“You do not like being looked after?” he asked her.
She gave the question some thought, and it seemed to Harry that perhaps this was characteristic of her, not to chatter on about anything and everything but first to consider what she wished to say. Though she had spoken without due consideration just over a week ago, had she not?
“I do,” she said. “Of course I do. Who does not like being cared for? But only if it is a reciprocal thing. Only if I can care for you as much as you care for me.” She darted him a pained glance. “I ought to have used the pronounoneinstead ofyouandme. I was not speaking specifically—”
“I understood your meaning.” He reached out and covered one of her hands with his. His awareness of her became instantly more physical. It was a warm, soft, very feminine hand. “And I know how you feel. I can recall the time when I was brought home from the convalescent home in Paris—by my brother-in-law, my cousin, and my best friend, a fellow officer—still as weak as a newborn kitten and wholly unable to look after myself. My family descended upon me en masse and proceeded tofuss.You would not remember. It happened a short while before you came here with your husband. I appreciated their concern and also resented it—not, as I thought at the time, because I wanted to be left alone, but because they made me feel even more helpless than I already was. There was nothing I could do forthem, you see.”
“You must have been very badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo,” she said, “if you were still almost incapacitated two years later.”
“I was,” he said curtly. “There were times when I almost wished I had been killed outright, but those times were rare. Life is always precious. And my mother and sisters, my grandmothers too, would have been devastated by grief if they had lost me.”
