After the Kiss (18 page)

“The greatest difficulty in solving codes isn’t finding the pattern, but breaking it down into manageable sections.”

“How does an earl become a code breaker?”

“He must first be a little boy interested in number games,” he said. “I invented codes to use when communicating with my closest friend. It was a way to confound my sisters, then it became a fascination all its own.”

“Your childhood sounds as if it was a happy one, despite all those sisters.”

“It was not,” he said simply, toying with a piece of grass beneath his hand. “My father shot himself when I was fourteen.” He heard the words with a kind of horrified wonder. He never spoke of his father. “What about your childhood?” he asked, in an effort to change the subject.

“I seemed to spend it forever at my lessons,” she said. “My Gran had been a governess once, and she was determined that I should learn everything she knew.”

“Your Gran would not approve of your being here,” he said, before she spoke the words. An unsafe topic.

“No,” she agreed, “she would not.”

The silence between them was not as companionable as before.

“We might discuss Parliament,” she said finally. “I used to have rousing discussions with Samuel Plodgett.”

“Your friend the draper?”

She nodded.

“Or poetry. But then, I recall you do not like poetry.”

She walks in beauty like the night
. There was something wrong about a man who quotes to himself. And Byron, of all people. Wordsworth had said it better.
A perfect woman, nobly planned, to warn, to comfort, and command; and yet a spirit still and bright, with something of angelic light
.

He was becoming, he realized, decidedly foolish.

T
heir luncheon finished, they packed up the dishes. They stood, began to walk inland. It was, as they had each decreed, a perfect spring day with no hint of rain in the sky.

It was difficult to tell that he was an earl. Or that she was a poor widow. On this forested island, rank and role did not seem to matter. A curious silence had overtaken them. Not one of expectation, as it had often been in the past with them, but one of appreciation. As if they knew that times such as these were precious and rare and all too soon gone.

She tilted her head back to look up at the trees. From here the branches appeared like a canopy of emerald against an azure sky.

He had the oddest ability to capture her emotions. To incite her to amusement, or to irritate her. And, at the core of it, perhaps, the most disturbing emotion
of all. Desire? Or a ceaseless lust? Whatever the word, it was always present.

The temptation was there to tell him her secret, to make him understand why she could not stay. But in the end, it was more prudent to remain silent.

Just as it was wiser to hold something of herself back. Until today, she’d been able to convince herself that he hadn’t wanted anything from her but abandon. That, she could give to him in full measure. But companionship? Amusement? They trod on shaky ground, hinted at more. She had measured the boundary of their relationship once.
We cannot be friends and we must not be lovers
. But somehow, they had become both.

The trees were thick, so dense they could barely see the water. By the smile on his face, this site was exactly what Michael wanted.

He turned his head and studied her, his gaze both inscrutable and direct. He had that way of looking at things, as if he focused all his attention upon that one instant in time. He had done it often, but she had never found herself quite so pinned by a gaze before.

Slowly, he began to walk toward her. Just as slowly she backed away, a smile curving her lips.

Did he know that she had never experienced anything like what she felt with him? An instant delight and desire. It was better if he did not know. Her future was at stake. Hers and her child’s.

Her back hit something solid. She had backed up against tree, a venerable oak.

He smiled at her, a particularly teasing grin. She reached out her hands and braced them against his chest. He curved his hand around one of hers, brought it up to his mouth, and gently kissed her knuckles. The sweetness of the gesture charmed her.

“I’ve fallen into your plans well, haven’t I? Here, Michael? In the forest?”

He cupped his hands around her face, his thumbs brushing from the corners of her mouth to her cheeks. As if he wished to memorize the shape of it. She could only stand and stare at him.

“I only wished a kiss. Some men are addicted to brandy,” he said slowly, studying her mouth. “Some like to wager too much. It seems that my besetting obsession is kisses from Margaret.”

The expression on his face was one she had never seen before, something approaching tenderness.

All those moments in her life that had been precious to her, those times she would recall when she was an old woman, had taken place in this same odd serenity. As if nature itself recognized the import of these moments and hushed the world around her.

He dipped his head and kissed her. Sweetly, almost innocently. As if she were delicate and rare and precious to him.

She should not feel sad. An odd emotion to have coupled with such yearning. Her emotions felt held not in her heart but on her skin, and even the brush of air was enough to stir them.

The days were passing as quickly as seconds. The week too soon gone.

She extended her arms around him, pressed her cheek against his shirted chest, her eyes closed tight. Each second of this embrace was to be remembered, recalled. Every sound. A gentle breeze in the branches above them, the whispering of leaves being stirred by forest creatures. The faraway call of a boatman, a laugh. The lapping of the river not far from where they stood.

She drew in her breath and held it, the better to
keep this one moment crystal and pure. Yet prudence spoke in that instant.
Do not do this to me. Do not make me love you
.

It might already be too late.

“I cannot see you without wishing to kiss you,” he said harshly against her temple, his voice at odds with the gentleness he held her. “And I cannot kiss you without wishing to touch you. But when I touch you, all I want is to be in you. To feel you around me. To hear you cry my name in that soft voice of yours.”

He pulled her tighter against him.

“If you said the word,” he said gruffly, “I would take you now on the forest floor. In a boat.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I would no doubt love you up against a tree.” He lay his cheek against her hair, his hands pressing against her back. The beat of his heart seemed to be an echo of her longing for him, translated into sharp, stinging tears.

“For the love of God, stay with me, Margaret,” he whispered hoarsely.

A tear fell and dampened his shirt.

She wanted him. Not for a moment, an hour. Or even a week. There, a confession. A purging of the soul. She wanted all of him, not the dregs of his life. Not the odd moments when he could spare the time.

“No, Michael,” she said, pulling back slowly, the effort more difficult than she believed. She turned away from him, lowered her head, stared at the ground. “Would it be better if I left now, returned home?”

“A threat, Margaret?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. He had become the stern and unapproachable earl once more.

“No, Michael. Only a question. Would it be easier if we simply said good-bye now?”

“No.”

“Then please, do not make this more difficult on both of us. The agreement was a week, and after that, you would forget me.”

“And if I cannot?”

“You must,” she said simply.

He said nothing, only began to walk toward the shoreline.

She followed him in silence.

The Duke of Tarrant stood before a fire in his library. If his servants thought it unusual that he asked for one to be laid on this warm spring day, they did not express it to him. He would not have cared.

He had envisioned leaving behind the
Journals
, wondering perhaps if there would come a time when a grandchild, or even a great-grandson, would stumble onto the secret. A time distant from now, when sentiments were not so inflamed and when people would measure history with detachment. His actions would not be reviled in that distant age. Instead, they would be understood, and perhaps even applauded.

His descendants would have marveled at the courage of the twentieth Duke of Tarrant. Whether they agreed with his philosophy was unimportant. They would have felt, nonetheless, a pride that he had acted upon his convictions. As had all the men who had come before him.

Because of Jerome, and now his widow, that was all changed.

Now not one person alive would know what he had done. What he had single-handedly accomplished with his money and his brilliance.

He opened the book and tore the frontispiece from
it, threw it into the fire, and watched it curl, a writhing paper snake. Consumed to ash all too quickly. Another few pages. It took nearly an hour for it to burn. With each page, his bitterness mounted.

H
e had ordered that the sconces in the stairway be lit, along with those in the foyer. He had dressed earlier, placed the key grid for the Cyrillic cipher and his translations into the leather dispatch case to take to Robert tomorrow. He had, finally, solved it this afternoon.

At first he thought the sender was in the employ of a man of some repute. Count Ioannis Antonias Kaponistrias had been a member of the Russian diplomatic service, one of the chief advisors of Czar Alexander I. But in recent years, his interests had changed. He’d become active in the cause of obtaining Greek independence from Turkey. What Michael deciphered indicated that he’d been betrayed by a woman, no doubt someone close to him. She had been so successful in her machinations that the conflict be
tween Greece and Turkey would probably only escalate.

Not the first time he’d uncovered a woman’s involvement in matters of state. As operatives, women were often overlooked, thought gentle and weak. His experience indicated just the opposite. They were frequently the most successful of spies, only because they were underestimated.

Smytheton crossed the foyer, disappeared into the hallway. “I am waiting for Margaret,” he almost said. An explanation that was wholly unnecessary. But perhaps he only wanted to voice the words, hold fast this moment.

Upon their return from the river, she’d remained silent. An odd and disconcerting experience for him. He was familiar with a woman’s tantrums. Screams, shouts, wails of despair, anything but an almost sad serenity. It had consumed his own irritation.

When Margaret descended the stairs, his breath stilled. Her face was luminous in candlelight. Her mouth, that beautiful mouth, was curved in a soft beguiling smile that mirrored the sparkle in her eyes.

“You look radiant,” he said, a bit of honesty offered up with a smile.

“If so, I am only a fitting partner for you,” she said softly.

It was a simple day dress of deep blue silk, a shade and fabric that Michael had chosen because he was partial to blue. Across the top of the high bodice and puffed sleeves was a row of gathered lace. The full skirt fell to her ankles in a cascade of folds.

He wished now that he had gone against her protestations and ordered a formal gown. She would not be dressed as ornately as most of the women attending the theater. His gift would have to suffice.

“I was wondering if you needed any help dressing,” he said, smiling up at her. “You’ve no maid.”

“I have never had one,” she said.

“Still,” he teased, “I should have offered.”

“And you? Do you not miss having a valet?”

“Harrison says I should. But living in this house is a recompense. The modiste did well,” he said, reaching out his hand to her.

He twirled her in a slow circle, approving of her appearance. They left the foyer and walked down the hall to the dining room.

The table was covered with china, cutlery, and crystal arrayed upon a white tablecloth. A silver epergne designed in the shape of one of the new clipper ships stretched nearly the length of the table, candles protruding from every available orifice.

Her eyes widened as she stared at it.

“Smytheton borrowed that monstrosity,” Michael said in his own defense. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“It does have one advantage,” she said. “The room is as bright as day.”

He helped her into her seat, to the right of his at the head of the table. Smytheton entered with the first course, a lobster soup. It was very rich and heavily seasoned. No doubt the reason Margaret ate so little.

“There seems to be a great deal of cutlery,” she said, fingering a fork.

He understood in that moment, and cursed himself for a fool. He had thought, somehow, to make the night magical. All he’d done was to illuminate the differences between them.

“I admit,” he said, forcing a smile to his face, “that it looks overwhelming. But think of it as if it were a
puzzle. All the various utensils are used for a specific purpose. Such as this, for example,” he said picking up an odd-looking fork. The tines of it were curved at the end, almost as if it were the bowl of a spoon. “A fish fork,” he said.

Again he picked up another item from the table and held it aloft. This fork was as strangely shaped as the other. But the tines were half the length of its handle.

“A fruit fork.” When he proffered a knife that matched the fork in size, Margaret smiled.

“I suppose it would be too common to simply pick up an apple?”

“Exceedingly,” he said with a smile. “Then you would have no reason for this plethora of silverware.”

He held up a large spoon crafted in a perfect oval. “But it is in the spoon that we truly have fine mastery. This is the soup spoon,” he said. “Not to be confused with the dessert spoons.” Another piece of cutlery joined the first. “There is also the custard spoon, and the pudding spoon.”

“So many?” she asked, amazed.

“Oh, yes,” he said, smiling at her. “It’s a ceremony of entrance, you see. Once you have mastered the dinnerware, you are considered one of the initiated.” He returned the cutlery to its place.

“When did you become initiated?”

“I was eight, I believe,” he said. “And a very well-behaved child.”

She tilted her head, surveyed him. “I doubt that’s entirely true,” she said. He only smiled in response.

One by one the courses were consumed. He noticed that Margaret only managed a taste of some of the dishes. She was unconsciously emulating those most proper of society matrons who thought it common to partake of every course.

When the meal was over, and Smytheton summoned to convey his appreciation to the cook, they left the dining room. Margaret remained in the foyer, standing silently beneath the shadowed dome while he retrieved his gift from the library.

“I have a surprise for you,” he said upon returning. His words echoed back at him, and he drew her away from the rotunda.

“More than the dinner or the theater?” she asked, surprised.

He nodded, and unfurled the shawl. Its paisley pattern was enhanced by delicate gold threads woven into the design. She reached out her hand, and stroked it softly. Even in the darkness it glittered.

He placed the shawl on her shoulders, discovering in that instant that he liked giving her things. It pleased him on an elemental, almost visceral, level.

Her expression of surprise muted to become pleasure.

“I should not take anything else from you,” she said faintly.

“The nights can be cool,” he softly said, feeling an absurd tenderness. “I would blame myself if you became chilled. Then you would have to remain longer.”

“You make it difficult to refuse you, Michael,” she said, smiling up at him.

“Then you should not,” he said, smiling.

“I will miss you when I leave,” she said. An artless comment, one that he could see she had not meant to say. But it hung in the air between them, lengthening the moment.

“My lord,” Smytheton said, stepping inside the door. “The carriage is here.”

Michael nodded, and held out his arm.