They both knew what was to come—and it seemed they were both comfortable with putting it off a little bit longer.
“Do you much like wine, Miss Salisbury?”
He brought the glass towards her, and she reached for it.When she took it, her fingers grazed his own, the faint brush sending a shiver through her body.The act felt, for some reason, extremely intimate, but she couldn’t, for a moment, place why.Then, it occurred to her that she had never received such a simple, domestic gesture from anyone outside her own family or the servants at Parkhorne Hall.
The affairs that she had had with men were of the furtive, secretive variety, and they did little besides the physical act that drove them together.
Being a mistress, she was coming to see,wasa different thing.It involved living with a man on quite intimate terms.
“I do,” she said.“I always have at least a glass in the evenings.Sometimes more.My father built up quite a collection before his death.I’ve been enjoying drinking it.”
Leith had settled himself next to her on the sofa.He sat a respectable distance away, no closer than if they were acquaintances perched on the same tearoom settee.And yet the air between them felt heavy with what they knew would come next.
“You do not speak well of your father.”
“I don’t.I am glad he is dead.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, I am certain,” she said, exasperated.She hated when people expressed condolences for the best thing that had ever happened to her.And she did not appreciate his intimation that she perhaps possessed a reserve of tenderness for the man who had tormented her.
“It is only that,” Leith said, taking a sip of his wine, “sometimes our feelings on such things change.My friend, John, he said for years that he wished his father would die.That he hated the man.Now, though, I think he feels differently.”
“What changed his mind?”
“I think he realized, once his father actually died, that he was not quite the blackguard he had often made him out to be.”
“Well, my father has been dead for six years, and I have had no change of heart.And I won’t.He was a bastard.With, admittedly, a very good wine collection.”
Leith gave a smile at that, but she could still see the tension around his shoulders.
“Of course,” he said, “John would probably say that he fell in love.And that is what had changed his opinion.”
“On his father?”
Leith nodded.“Some problem with his father’s will brought him and Catherine together.They are very happy.He loves her beyond all reason.All those years we were at Eton and Oxford, John had not one care for books.The other day, I called at his home, and I found him in his study reading his wife’s latest history of English ruins.A drier topic I cannot imagine!And I actually learnt a few things when we were in school.”
She couldn’t help but smile at his vexation.It was so sincere.
“Have all of your friends married?”
“Yes.My three best friends all said they would never marry.And, for years, everything was perfect.The four of us had not a real responsibility between us—at least when it came to women.And then for a reason that I will never understand, they started getting married.Falling in love, they claimed.”
“Lady Tremberley, she was John’s sister, before her marriage?”
“Yes.And when I say I was shocked beyond all telling that Trem fell in love withHenrietta…I still don’t think I have recovered.”
“Do you not care for Lady Tremberley?”
“No, no.Well, as John’s sister, she could be a vexing little thing.I never thought she would be Trem’s wife.”
“And Monty and Olivia?”
He looked away from her, then.
“He adores her.”
“And what of you, Lord Leith?”she teased.“Do you think you will ever marry?”
