“You must save some of your secrets.” His fingers tangled with hers again.
The press of their palms together was somehow just as intimate as the joining of their bodies. It occurred to her that she had never held hands with a man before. Robin was her first, and as the man who steadily claimed more and more of her heart with each passing day, it was somehow fitting.
“I have more secrets,” she told him, tugging him along down the path. “You cannot believe I would reveal them all to you at once.”
She walked backward on the path before him, because she did not want to miss a moment of drinking in the sight of him. He was so tall and debonair, his hair rakishly tousled, the sunbeams catching in the golden glints hidden in his wavy locks. She wanted to sketch him like this, she thought. And a hundred other ways, too. Wanted to capture this moment and freeze it, to keep it forever locked in her heart for when he was gone.
But she must not think of that now.
Now was a day of innocence and warmth, of birds singing in the trees and bees swiftly buzzing about as they conducted the business of tending the vast Coddington Hall gardens.
“You are at home here,” he said, giving her a boyish grin that melted away the remainder of the ice which had once inhabited her heart. “You are like a goddess. Persephone, bright and beautiful. In the house, you are different. More formal, more careful. Almost as if you fear you will misstep.”
He had noticed? Was she that obvious, or was he simply that observant? She could not be sure. She spun, finding her place at his side.
“As you have no doubt ascertained, my marriage has not been a happy one,” she said. “I have never been able to meet the duke’s high standards of how a proper duchess should speak and act. I am not dignified enough.”
“To the devil with such rubbish.” The vehemence in Robin’s voice took her by surprise, so too the edge of anger simmering in it. “And to the devil with him.”
“You must not say so, Robin.” She had been raised to believe one should not wish anyone to the devil. “He is your uncle.”
She felt him stiffen at her side, the tension rolling off him in tangible waves. “He is nothing to me.”
The anger remained in his tone, but this time, there was something different about it. There was hatred too. Pure, seething, vicious loathing.
Robin despised the Duke of Longleigh.
She wondered why she had never been able to decipher this before today.
“You hate him,” she said softly.
“He is not a good man,” Robin told her, which was not news of any fashion.
Tilly had known her husband was not a good man from the night they had married. He had crudely fondled her breast, cursed her for failing to cause his member to rise that he might do his husbandly duty, and then proceeded to his club, where he no doubt drowned himself in drink as he was so oft wont to do. From there, things had gotten quickly worse. The years of their marriage had been nothing but misery, isolation, blame, and destruction. She only had happiness when he was in London and she was in the country or peace when he was racing his yacht and she was far from him.
“No one understands that better than I do.” She gave Robin’s hand another reassuring squeeze.
“You may be wrong in that.” The bitterness lacing his voice was unlike the charming sensuality she had come to expect from him.
“What vendetta do you have against him?” she asked softly, wishing he would confide in her. There had been a hint of his discontent before, during their initial discussion and intimations of it later as well. But this was the first occasion upon which the mask he wore to shield his emotions slipped.
“You needn’t concern yourself with it. Suffice it to say that it is ample.”
His refusal to confide in her hurt. Tilly could not deny it. They shared their bodies with each other, and yet he would not tell her any specifics of how he had come to be here in this most unusual and scandalous arrangement. Nor had he so much as hinted at what the debt he owed Longleigh could possibly be.
She found herself wondering what information the duke could have to hold such power over a man such as Robin. But if her lover would not tell her, she could not force him. Mayhap he would, given time.
Of which they had increasingly less.
Seeming to sense her sadness, Robin brought their interlaced hands to his lips for a kiss. “Enough of such seriousness, love. This day was meant for nothing but lightness, sunshine, gardens, and kisses.”
The look he slanted her was rife with promise and passion. He was so compelling, and she ached whenever he looked at her. How she loved him. The brevity of their time together had no effect upon her feelings. She felt as if she were always meant to know this man, to be his.
“I want to sketch you,” she said impulsively. “Will you let me?”
“You sketch?”
“Passably.” Shyness passed over her, for she had never asked anyone to sit for her before. While she adored sketching her friends and acquaintances, she ordinarily drew from photographs for her inspiration.
