Douglas: Lord of Heartache (18 page)

A shaft of pain lanced at Gwen’s heart, to hear Douglas talking in the same sentence—already—of both love and memories.

“You would be good for this place, Douglas. The people here would do well by you.”

“Are you so anxious to get rid of me, then?”

Gwen turned her face into his shoulder. “I most assuredly do not want to be rid of you. I wish it were not so, but there it is.”

“You still don’t trust me?” he asked, something resigned in his voice.

Gwen drew back to study him. “What do you mean? You heard my endorsement of you to Miss Tanner.”

“Guinevere,
why
won’t you marry me
?”

The clocked ticked, the fire roared softly in the hearth, and the raw wind soughed around the corner of the house, and there was nothing—not one word Gwen could think of to say. Douglas deserved the truth, but she hardly knew what that truth was herself or how to give it to him. She stood, keeping her back to him as she moved toward the door.

“It isn’t a matter of I will not marry you, Douglas. It’s that I cannot.”

She slipped from the room in a flurry of skirts, leaving Douglas to stare at the fire and consider at significant length why a woman
couldn’t
marry the man who was in mortal peril of loving her beyond all reason.

“Ladies.” Douglas interrupted a fierce debate over plow designs, the most recent of many fierce and exuberant debates between Guinevere and Loris Tanner. “I am tiring more rapidly than I had predicted. I don’t want to leave you without escort, though. Shall I send a groom out to join you?”

“I apologize, Douglas,” Guinevere said, turning her horse to walk along beside his. “I had not realized the time we’ve passed in the saddle. Why don’t we ride by Dove Cottage and then continue to Linden? We’ve seen plenty for one day, and the afternoon grows chilly.”

“Miss Tanner?” Douglas inquired politely, though judging by his aching fundament, chilly was a vast euphemism.

“I am a bit cold.”

“Then we shall ride in.” He urged Regis into a rocking canter, the ladies fell in behind him, and they soon reached Dove Cottage.

Douglas assisted Miss Tanner to dismount, but when she turned to lead her gelding to her stable, he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

“I think you should know, Miss Tanner, I wrote to Lord Greymoor today.”

She said nothing, her expression indicating she expected press gangs and constables to swarm her property at any moment. Douglas knew that expression, for it closely resembled Guinevere’s view of the world not so long ago.

“I suggested to Greymoor he might want to retain you in the capacity of steward,” Douglas said. “Andrew Alexander is one of few titled gentlemen—perhaps the
only
titled gentleman in the realm—who could be persuaded to accept a female in that capacity, thanks to Miss Hollister’s excellent efforts at Enfield and your peculiar circumstances here at Linden. Should he offer the position, and should you decline it, he will forward to you a sum commensurate with the salary you have earned since you assumed the post informally.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking away. “Lord Amery, thank you.”

Her grip on the reins looked perilously tight, though her sturdy gelding was in no danger of bolting off when his supper waited in the nearby barn.

“You are welcome, though you have Miss Hollister to thank for putting this option to Lord Greymoor.”

“Miss Hollister.” Miss Tanner turned and curtsied deeply.

“It is getting chillier, isn’t it?” Douglas observed, gaze going to the gray clouds overhead. He bowed crisply to Miss Tanner and swung up on Regis before one or the other female became overwhelmed by sentiment. “Miss Hollister, shall we be off?”

Upon reaching the Linden stables, Guinevere handed her horse to a groom and shot a quizzical look at Douglas as he led Regis into the barn.

“What did you say to her?” she asked, lowering herself to a bench while Douglas removed Regis’s bridle and saddle.

“I told her I took your advice.” He stepped back so Regis could shake his big dark head from side to side, and that turned into a whole body shake such as a sound, sturdy mount could best enjoy when free of saddle and girth.

“And that had her in tears?” Guinevere inquired, watching the horse.

Regis, completely unconfined, stood his ground while Douglas retrieved a coarse towel from the saddle room and laid it over his own shoulder.

“I didn’t know she was crying,” he said, stepping up to the horse’s face.

What followed was part of a ritual between man and horse Douglas had never intended for another—much less his lady love—to observe. Regis lowered his head to rub his face blissfully against the towel on Douglas’s shoulder, Douglas having to plant his feet and lean into the horse simply to stay upright. When Regis lifted his head away from Douglas’s shoulder, Douglas switched the towel to his other shoulder, and let the horse repeat the exercise on the other side of his face.

“Will that do?” Douglas asked the horse when Regis appeared to have tended to his itches. Regis turned an innocent eye on his owner, clearly a beast in need of treats.

“Shameless,” Douglas muttered, producing a small apple from his coat pocket, taking a bite out of it, and offering the rest for Regis to chomp to bits.

“What has you frowning?” Douglas asked Guinevere as he folded the pad over the saddle. Regis hung his head and shook all over again like a half-ton wet dog.

“I am thinking of how affectionate you are.”

Daft woman. “I don’t believe I’ve been described as affectionate before.”

“Ask Regis. He’ll tell you who’s affectionate.” Guinevere rose and took up scratching the horse’s withers, and really, the damned beast had no dignity. “So why, sir, haven’t you been affectionate with me lately?”

Douglas found a brush and focused on the flank of the horse he was grooming. Even over the scent of horse and barn, he picked up Guinevere’s floral, feminine fragrance, and his body became subtly more alert to her nearness.

“I have not wanted to impose,” he said. “It has been more than a week since the household was healthy enough for us to… disport, and you have rebuffed my offer of marriage yet again. I’m not sure where that leaves us.”

He brushed his horse, but had to pause to recall if he’d started on the beast’s neck or quarters—neck, most likely—and on which side.

“Douglas.”

He straightened and regarded her levelly across the horse’s back. “Yes, Guinevere?”

“That leaves us with
me
still desiring
you
, very much.”

Douglas had one hand on Regis’s withers, the other on the gelding’s croup. He braced himself against the horse and studied the muddy toes of his boots. Guinevere made this pronouncement in a blasted barn, where any groom might chance upon them, and where Douglas could
not
drag her up into the haymow—

“Are you sure that will be enough?” he asked, though he knew the question was pointless—also hopeless. “You want only my body, Guinevere? Only coupling? You would not rather have my name, my companionship, my honorable attentions, my future?”

“I may want all of that, Douglas Allen. What I want and what I can have are two different things.”

Oh, and wasn’t that lovely? Regis, having an unfortunate history, had gone tense at the note of temper in Douglas’s voice. He offered the horse a reassuring pat, and spoke with careful civility. “We are in the same position then, for what I want is apparently not what I will get either.”

She said nothing but took to stroking her hand over Regis’s neck in a slow pattern that Douglas found anything but soothing to watch. The horse, however, was calmed to the point of half closing its fool eyes. Douglas put the beast away and escorted Guinevere up to the house, pausing before they went inside.

He was not a complete simpleton. He might not win the lady’s hand in marriage, but he would console himself with whatever crumbs of intimacy she’d allow, and hope those might lead to greater possibilities.

“Tonight, then, Guinevere?”

She did not pretend confusion. She beamed a smile at him, a naughty, lovely smile such as every woman ought to aim at some hapless fellow at least once in her life. “Tonight.”

Then she sashayed through the door, pronouncing herself in need of a soaking bath. Douglas shut himself in the library, ostensibly to deal with his correspondence. In truth, he sat on the sofa, listening to the ticking of the clock, staring at the fire, and thinking.

***

When Gwen arrived in the family parlor, Douglas greeted her in the same cordial, well mannered tones he always did, offered her wine, which she declined, and made polite inquiries regarding Rose, Hester, Mrs. Kitts, and even wee Ralph. He offered his arm when the butler announced dinner, and seated her in the same unerringly polite sequence he always observed.

But after the soup had been brought, he indicated to the hovering footman they would serve themselves for the balance of the meal. When Gwen was alone with him and several courses had been consumed, Douglas regarded her over the rim of his wineglass.

“You are unusually quiet tonight, Guinevere.”

“I am preoccupied.” Douglas was a clever fellow. She need not be more explicit than that, though she did appropriate Douglas’s wineglass from his hand and gulp down a healthy measure of Dutch courage.

Douglas took the wineglass from her and set it out of her reach. “If you do not look forward to this as much as I, Guinevere, if you do not feel some joy in the anticipation of our joining, if you do not desire me as I desire you, then we shouldn’t do this. Not tonight, perhaps not ever.”

God
in
heaven, how could the man be so calm, so articulate?
Neither feat was within Gwen’s grasp, though she could be honest. With Douglas, she could manage that much.

“I am flustered,” she said, indulging in a monumental understatement. “We were becoming quite
involved
, and then Rose got sick, and our situation changed.” She reached for her water glass this time, thoughts completing themselves as she spoke. “Now Miss Tanner has come forth, and the decision to buy or not can be made, and circumstances have changed again. I am flustered, and I have lost track of you.”

“I am still here,” Douglas said, covering her hand with his. “I still desire you, and I still offer you my intimate attentions, but only if you still want them.”

“I do.” He had such beautiful hands, and he offered his for her to hold, when she could offer him so little in return.

“Is there a but, love?”

“But then we go home,” she murmured, mustering her courage, “and it will change yet again, perhaps for the last time.”

Douglas’s chin dipped as if he’d taken a blow. “If that is what you deem must happen, but we are not home yet, Guinevere, and tonight things will change between us yet again.”

She declined to argue, was
unable
to argue. When Douglas left her at her door, he leaned in to kiss her cheek, his lips near her ear.

“Leave your hair up for me.” His words sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine, so she ducked into her room, lest she drag him directly to bed that very moment.

***

The bath Douglas had ordered was waiting for him in his bedroom, and he quickly divested himself of his evening clothes. He wanted tonight to be perfect for Guinevere, and he debated the merits of masturbation as he soaked in the tub. Anticipation had him sufficiently aroused that he decided to indulge, hoping it would take the edge off his lust and allow him to show Guinevere greater restraint.

But damn and blast, onanistic gratification only left him hovering nearer to the edge of arousal.

As he toweled off and donned a dressing gown, he tried to prepare for what lay ahead. He and Guinevere would make love, more than once if God were merciful to a fool in love, and then… what?

Then, he most assuredly wanted
more
. Guinevere Hollister had been rebuffing even the possibility of suitors for five years. She wasn’t going to marry anyone else, and Douglas wasn’t going to give up on her. He set his mind to that resolution and made his way to her bedchamber.

He knocked twice then let himself in. Clad in her dressing gown, his lady love sat before the fire, her hair still up in an elegant twist. She was neither reading nor working on her embroidery, but simply sitting on the carpet, knees drawn up, toes peeking out from the hem of her dressing gown.

He’d never made love on the floor before, and did not entirely favor the notion for the consummation of his dealings with her—nor did he entirely reject it. “Guinevere?”

She looked up and smiled at him, a warm, beneficent welcome that erased whatever doubts he’d been holding at bay. He’d go slowly and ease her into passion. He
would.

He might have joined her before the fire, but she stood, crossed the room to slip her arms around his waist, and tucked her forehead against his chest.

“You want this?” Douglas asked for what his swelling cock hoped was the last time. She nodded without looking up. “Feeling shy?”

She nodded again, and when she laid her cheek against his chest, he could feel the heat of a blush on her skin.

“Guinevere.” He took her face between his hands, feeling her embarrassment against his palms. “I will not cause you pain. I will not importune you for favors you are unwilling to give. I’ll stop if you ask it of me.”

Her response was to go up on her toes and press her lips to his, a tender sealing of his vows to her. He gathered her against him, sent up a silent prayer of thanks, and opened his mouth over hers. For long minutes, they stood thus, kissing, holding each other, and exploring ground they hadn’t visited for days. When Guinevere’s hands began to roam his body, Douglas eased his mouth away from hers.

“I want to take down your hair,” he whispered against her neck. “Will you allow that?”

“Of course.” She would have moved away, but Douglas laced his fingers through hers, and walked with her to her vanity. She handed him the brush, and he stopped her as she lifted her hands to start removing the pins.

“Let me.”
Please,
God, let me.

He removed hair pins and loosened thick, coppery coils, strands of golden red sliding through his fingers like wishes on the wind. Soon her hair was streaming down her back, and Douglas was using the brush gently, in long rhythmic strokes. When her unbound hair shimmered by the firelight, he buried his nose in a fistful of lavender-scented curls.

“Time to undress you,” Douglas murmured to the pulse that beat in her throat. “Please.”

Guinevere stood and unbelted her night-robe, while Douglas watched from several paces off, lest he tear her clothes from her body.

“The nightgown, Guinevere.” He was begging in all but the most technical sense.

She stepped over to him and unbelted his dressing gown. He understood. She would not be the only one to be naked and vulnerable, so he slipped the dressing gown off, purposely turning his back to her to drape it across the foot of the bed. She had seen him naked, or parts of him, but this complete undressing now symbolized an intimacy of more than the body that he very much wanted to share with his Guinevere.

He turned to her and waited, his arousal clearly evident, desire coursing through his mind and body. Guinevere did not approach him, but rather, keeping the distance between them, lifted the nightgown over her head and laid it beside his dressing gown on the bed.