Page 26 of The New Earl’s Convenient Wife

Half an hour later, Juliana bid goodbye, with apologies, to young Jemmy as he left her at the closest meadow and trotted off. Though he waved off her regrets and replied with a grin that he’d rather thank her, as he didn’t mind a bit exchanging his chores for a task that required no more effort than sitting a sure-footed fell pony.

She watched the little mare trot away, smiling, until a cow lowing in the pasture captured her attention.

Her smile faded as her gaze swept the field to the trees bordering its far end where, on the far side of a stone wall flourished a thick undergrowth of bracken, the new green of emerging fronds luminous against the brown of the winter-killed plants.

Cutting the bracken… She heard again in her ear the sad, lilting Gaelic tune she’d learned from one of the nursemaids as a child. Small wonder returning to her rock retreat on the heights had recalled it.

She had fled there and sung it to herself often enough in the grim, heartbroken days after learning Rafe had fallen in love with Thalia Heathcote. Her last hope, that the news might be just an exaggerated bit of her mother’s London gossip, being snuffed out when he returned home, his face alight with passion and talking of nothing but his incomparable Thalia.

That confirmation of his feelings put an end once and for all to daydreams about a future with him she only then acknowledged she’d wanted more than anything. Making her realize with soul-deep despair that, as he saw Thalia as his one true love, he was hers.

She would never claim the love of the childhood friend who’d roamed the fields with her. The young man who’d indulged her and helped her hide away a red squirrel named Bixby. Who’d always made time for her, who didn’t seem to find her odd or embarrassing, who never tried to coax her into behaving like a typical young lady.

That discovery left her alone, bereft, abandoned and wandering the woodlands and meadows they’d explored together like the fairy of the song, ‘Tired and alone/cutting the bracken, cutting the bracken/forever cutting the bracken.’

As the deep sadness of those long-ago days welled up, she struggled to banish the emotion, force it back into the hurting place deep within into which she’d imprisoned it years ago. Her story had ended much better than that of the lovesick fairy, she reminded herself. Her lover had not been forever parted from her, but was here now, at her side.

She might not have his love, but she had his company, his kindness and his promise of fidelity. She’d discovered with him a depth of passion she’d never dreamed existed when she was indulging her girlhood dreams.

A passion in which Rafe obviously delighted as much as she did.

Forcing back the memory of love unrequited, she turned her thoughts to their interlude on the fell.

Had they not been interrupted, would Rafe have made love to her, there under the wind-driven clouds, in the shadow of her rock fortress?

Her body shivered in response at the thought.

She’d seen the passion darkening his eyes and quickening his breath. He’d desired her, she knew without doubt.

He loved ‘wild creatures’ he’d said, inferring that he viewed her as one. Better to lock away the hopeless dreams of youth and concentrate on tempting him with the ‘wildness’ he found appealing. Forget about a love he could never offer her and bind him closer instead with the passion they both shared.