After the Kiss (17 page)

There were only three days remaining to them. He
was all too aware that Margaret was intent upon returning to her cottage on the Downs. If she did, he would have no reason to seek her out again. After all, he’d given his word.

Unless, of course, he convinced her to remain with him.

H
e picked up the oars and began to row again.

Even the act of doing something so obviously unfamiliar was performed with grace.

“Do you like the rain?” she asked.

He glanced over at her. “I like storms.”

“And cider?”

“Cider?” A smile curved his lips. She felt proud of herself for coaxing him to amusement. Even if it was a little at her expense.

“Cider.”

“All in all, I prefer brandy.”

“What is your favorite color?”

“Blue,” he said, and surprisingly winked at her.

“Do you like sweet foods? Or sour?”

“I haven’t thought about it,” he said. “I like lobster soup. And those little tarts cook used to make. I don’t
care for mutton,” he said, obviously considering the question. “But I do like roast beef.”

“And Christmas pudding?”

“I like currants best,” he said smiling. “Is there a reason for this litany of questions?”

“A lamentable curiosity,” she confessed.

She had studied him avidly these past days, marked things in her mind that she would recall when they were no longer together. He was a man capable of focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all else. When he laughed it was almost with a sense of surprise, as if his levity was so rare that it startled him. There was a scar on his left knee from when he was six and mean to his sister’s cat. A confession he had made ruefully last night. The cat had retaliated by digging its claws into him. The scar was both a lesson and a punishment, he’d admitted.

“Is my curiosity equally acceptable?” he asked.

She smiled and replied. “My favorite color is green.”

“And your favorite foods?”

“Something easy to grow,” she admitted. “Other than that, I have few preferences.”

“Storms?”

“They seem lonely to me,” she admitted.

“They needn’t be,” he said casually. “I could always arrange to be with you in inclement weather. If I were loving you when it thundered, I doubt you would know it.”

She wondered at the surprising hurt she felt by that statement, and its most apparent answer. “Unless your wife needed you,” she said quietly. “Or you were away at one of your estates. Or your child was ill and needed you at his side. Or your horse went lame and you couldn’t reach me in time.”

He stopped rowing. The gentle lapping of the river’s current carried them closer to shore as the boat nosed up against the gentle embankment of an island.

“You have thought of only the worst things that could happen, Margaret. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

A confession, then. She could not bear being on the periphery of his life, being an afterthought, a casual moment.

She smiled brightly. “One of the things that intrigues me about you, Michael, is the fact that you are unlike most peers I’ve seen. You work for the government when most nobles lead indolent lives. You employ a formidable butler because he is a war veteran. Yet you would have me believe that it would be easy for you to have a wife and a mistress and think nothing of it. Perhaps in the beginning. But it would only be a matter of time until you began to deplore the circumstances. And despise yourself.”

There was silence while he considered her. The only sound was the lapping of the water against the shore. Even the birds had quieted, as if to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“And you? Would you hate me?”

“No,” she said, smiling faintly. “But I would despise what I had become.”

“Is that truly how you feel, Margaret?’

“Yes,” she said. “It is. And I’ve no doubt you would come to feel the same.”

“I had no idea you had studied me so well.”

Her thoughts had been too often on him. Even when they were separated she had spent hours thinking of the Earl of Montraine. Wondering what he would do in certain situations. Dreaming of him, picturing him in all sorts of situations.

Her answer divulged nothing of that. “You forget, Michael, that I was in trade. It is important to be able to gauge people quickly. Especially if you wish to make a sale.”

“You were very successful, I imagine,” he said evenly.

The truth was somewhat different. Jerome had often struggled to pay their bills. Too often, he had solicited assistance from his brother. Even when she had asked him to consider any other available option.

“I confess to studying tradespeople less closely than you have nobles,” he said, his face somber.

“I do not doubt that you pay your bills in a timely fashion. I used to dread obtaining the trade of a peer. It meant that a bill would not be paid for months.”

“Perhaps they did as my mother does: hides them in her hatbox until the top will not close. Only then does she proffer them to me,” he said dryly.

“Then on behalf of all tradesmen in London, may I implore you to pay them with great dispatch? It sometimes makes a difference between having coal for the fire or freezing in winter.”

His wry smile surprised her. “Exactly the reason I must marry,” he said. “But then, I haven’t told you I need an heiress, have I?”

“You?” she asked, surprised. “But you have three estates.”

“That are doing badly at the moment. However,” he said, jumping from the skiff, “the day is lovely and I am not at all disposed to think of debts and obligations at the moment.”

The place where he’d chosen to have their meal was a small island, a picturesque setting, remarkably serene. It was also very private. From the waterline, the
ground sloped upward to a small knoll and then farther to a line of trees.

“Not in the middle of a river, Michael. Surely you have no plans for that,” she said, chiding him with a look.

He began to laugh, the sound carrying over the water and echoing back to them. She stood, hands on hips, glaring at him. But his laugh was so infectious that she could not hide her own smile. A moment later he reached out and grabbed her by her waist, lifted her effortlessly up from the boat, and set her on the ground.

“Now you think I go around fornicating in the fields. Tupping in the trees. Even I have more restraint than that. I think.”

She felt a flush warm her cheek.

“Although,” he said, “the thought does have merits.”

“You are incorrigible,” she said.

He only grinned and reached into the boat for the basket.

They settled on a knoll not far from the water’s edge. Together they set out the linen cloth Smytheton had provided.

“He’s very talented, Smytheton,” Margaret said, laying out the foodstuffs he had packed for them. “Is it customary for a man in his position to know so many things?”

“I think it has more to do with being an old campaigner,” Michael said. “His only flaw is that he’s a deplorable cook.”

He glanced into the basket. “A bit of roast beef, some cheese, and some sort of crusty bread,” he announced. “And,” he added, reaching into the bottom of the basket and retrieving two clay jars, “ale! Not
an elegant meal, but a fortifying one. Perhaps even Smytheton didn’t want to exceed his capabilities today.”

“I’m surprised that your household is so small.”

“Not the home of an earl? My work requires that I have some degree of privacy.”

“But you will be married soon, and circumstances will change.” She traced a pattern on the edge of the plate with her finger.

“Yes,” he said simply.

A moment later, she looked over at him. He caught her glance and returned it. “You weren’t correct, you know. I’m not as honorable as you think. I would keep you with me and feel no regret about it at all.”

He looked away, then, concentrating on the horizon.

He had surprised her with his revelation. Until now she’d thought his wish to make her his mistress had been because of their divergent roles in life. Now she realized it was not so much a function of aristocracy as necessity. He was as trapped as she. She would forever be the Widow Esterly and he was duty bound to marry an heiress.

She reached out and touched his arm in wordless understanding. He glanced down at her hand, placed his own upon it.

“Having you with me has made the thought of marriage possible,” he said, his voice low. She tightened her hand on his arm, feeling a spike of pain at his tone. He was not a man to whom confession came easily. “A week with you is not enough, Margaret. A year, perhaps, or two. Perhaps a decade. But not a week.”

She felt a surge of panic at his words, at the tenderness they invoked, then sought a refuge in irrita
tion. It was an easier emotion to feel, and one that guarded her. It would be too easy to fall victim to his charm, to accede to his request, to begin to understand his needs and join them with her own.

The most dangerous thought was that it would be almost effortless to become his mistress.

She looked startled.

“Is such arrogance a function of your nobility, Michael?” she asked, irritated. “Do you never listen? Do other people’s wishes not have
any
meaning to you
at all
?”

“I suspect that you have a prejudice against the nobility, Margaret.” A genial comment, one that gave her no hint of his thoughts. She made no secret of her anger at him. He almost admired her the freedom of her emotions. Perhaps it was easier than the restraint he felt at all times.

She shook her head. “I don’t know many. But what I have seen has not endeared me to them.”

“I shall attempt to convince you that one particular earl is not that onerous,” he said, smiling at her.

“To do that you would have to consent to cease asking me to be your mistress.”

He raised one knee and propped his wrist on it, then looked out over the river.

“What would you like to discuss, then?” An offering of himself.

She did not hesitate. “Why do you work when most nobles do not?”

“What would you have me do? Become a dilettante?” He frowned at her.

“Why are you not involved in Parliament?”

“I take my seat in Lords when some piece of leg
islation interests me,” he said. It was odd that he divulged so much of himself to her. Was it because they had been so intimate? Yet a pairing of bodies did not necessarily lead to a joining of minds.

“Ciphers give me a way to be of value,” he said, oddly compelled to justify himself to her. “Some way of being of service to my country.”

“Is that important to you?”

“I could not serve in the war,” he said. “My family needed me. Perhaps I felt the lack.”

“Did you do code work during the war?”

For a long moment he studied at her.

“I did,” he admitted.

“Then you were better placed there than to be cannon fodder,” she said. A bit of protectiveness that charmed him.

“Why did you come with me that first day?” A question he had always wanted to ask her.

It was her turn to study him. He could not help but wonder what she saw. A man who was too curious about her? He was certainly that. And one who chose not to reveal the exact extent of his fascination.

“Because I wanted a memory,” she said finally. “Or perhaps because I wished to be someone I was not for a little while. Someone daring and improper.”

“And now you’re content to be Margaret Esterly of Silbury Village?”

“It’s a role I am comfortable with,” she answered. “It holds no surprises, and no expectations.”

“No danger, but no delight. Is that how you wish to live your life?”

She slanted a look at him. “Most people do. Common lives, only rarely interrupted by joy or tragedy.”

“I know your tragedy,” he said, thinking of her husband. “What is your joy?”

“Simple things,” she said. “The sound of birds. Squire Tippet’s terrier puppies. The sight of snow. Being in the middle of the Standing Stones and listening to the wind.”

“None of those activities involves other people,” he said.

“Neither do your ciphers,” she countered.

“So we each find joy in solitary ways.”

He had the disconcerting thought that there were probably more similarities between them than differences. It was not wise to consider the links he had with this woman. It was perhaps dangerous enough that he found himself lusting for her continually.

“Shall we change that? Come to the theater with me tonight.
Macbeth
is playing and we shall immerse ourselves in tales of Scottish tragedy.”

“I have never seen it,” she said, and there was a trace of wistfulness in her tone.

“Then come with me.”

She nodded, then smiled.

“In the meantime, perhaps we should choose only safe topics of conversation. There is the weather,” he said. He looked up at the sky. “It looks to be a very pleasant day.”

“Yes,” she said, following his lead. “It does. No wind. No rain. Only a few clouds.”

“That topic is sufficiently exhausted, I believe,” he said.

She only smiled.

“Of the two, which do you prefer? Your cottage or London?”

She suddenly frowned at him. He felt chastised to his toes. “I am only curious. There is no underlying motive,” he quickly added.

“Are you always so?”

He thought about it for a moment, realized that his life had always been marked by his search for answers. “Yes. But I note that you are the same. After all, you have read the
Journals of Augustin X
.”

“A vastly improper thing to do. But they were the only books in the cottage.”

He didn’t attempt to hide his amusement at her sophistry. A flush on her cheeks was an admission that she knew her words were foolish.

“I think that I should explain codes to you,” he said. “Or number patterns. Or something that you might find exceedingly dull. A topic not related to you or me or this week.”

“I have never seen patterns in numbers,” she said, removing her bonnet and placing it beside her.

“If I were to say the numbers 1-7-13-6-12-18-11, what would you say?”

She thought a moment, repeated the first four numbers aloud. He knew the moment she understood. “Take a number, add six, add another six, subtract seven and then repeat it.”

“You have just solved a code,” he announced.

“It cannot be that easy,” she said dubiously.

“It is when you take it in small bits.” He looked away, wondering if he could find a way to explain it, surprised that he wished to try. “It’s similar to thinking of all the tasks you must accomplish in a year. It’s unwieldy to try to manage that much knowledge. But you can conceive of a day. Even a week. Add that together, and it becomes a sennight, month, a quarter.