Hugh would know. Polly Perkins had made it rejection number six last Wednesday eve. Probability said sooner or later one of the dames he asked would bite. It wasn’t as if Hugh didn’t have plenty to offer: a nice Cotswold estate, a pedigree dating back to the Norman Conquest and a very warm and gracious heart. What he didn’t have was a pretty or in any way handsome face. Hugh had a nose on par with an elephant’s, which coupled with his beady sparrow-like eyes made him look more caricature than man, and completely overrode the Swansbrooke name.
“Best you forget it, Tinker and try for another one. You’re not short of admirers. The right one will come along.”
Bran heaved a sigh though his nose. Relationship advice from the most rejected man in England, just what he needed. “I’m not giving up on her.” He didn’t even want to contemplate a shared existence with another woman. Besides, in his heart, refusal aside, Cora was already his. He’d been wandering about with her image in his head and another pressed to his heart too long to yield after the first hurdle. He couldn’t, wouldn’t let her escape.
“What are you going to do?” Hugh asked after they’d spent a minute or two staring into the darkness. He offered up the drink to Bran again, who took it, and a mighty gulp.
The liquid left Bran’s mouth again almost immediately. “Jesus and damnation! What is that muck?” He wiped the residue from his lips with his coat cuff, although the sharp and tart taste continued to burn his tongue.
Hugh offered him a sympathetic shrug and patted him on the back to help with the expulsion. “That’d be Reeve’s Special Mint and Pea Pod Wine. Fierce, ain’t it?”
It was certainly something, although fierce wasn’t top of the list of adjectives he’d have used. God-awful and muck featured rather more prominently, along with dreadful and piss. “Who the devil looks at a pea pod and thinks, I know, let’s turn it into wine?”
“I believe Reeve has a fascination with watching the maids shell the peas, and well, waste not want not…” Hugh seized the glass and drained the remainder, giving a sigh as it went down. “But you know, Tink, you never did answer me. What will you do? She’s not a flighty creature. She’s one of the stubborn ones, and if she’s said no, I can’t see that she’d change her mind.”
She hadn’t precisely said no. She’d simply not believed him serious. Although, Hugh had a valid point, the minx would probably think a second proposal a mere continuation of the same theme.
“All suggestions welcome,” he said.
Hugh peered forlornly at the empty glass. “What does the father say?”
“Reeve? He told me he’d be only too delighted for me to take her off his hands, and could I please make it prompt so as he can retire to his sheep farm in Cumbria before the shearing starts. Also he’d like to get back to the business of tupping his mistress rather than being flounced around London like a prize bullock with golden cobs. There was a tad more than that, something involving a haberdasher, but I didn’t catch all of it.”
“So, you’ve his blessing.”
“If you can call it that.”
Hugh dug his elbow into his thigh and rested his chin upon his open palm. “I don’t know,” he said. “Not short of stuffing her in a sack and refusing to let her out until she agrees. Can’t see how else you’re going to change her heart.”
He didn’t want to change her heart. He wanted her to sit and listen and acknowledge the fact that the offer was real. If she still said no, then so be it. He’d have to assume the love between them was exclusively on his part, and that perhaps no amount of courting would change that. First though, he needed to get her to listen and realise he wasn’t making a mockery, but that he genuinely did love and admire her. No other woman would ever accept him in the way Cora would, or be so comprehensively involved in his life.
“You know,” he remarked, while swiping his hand through the undergrowth. The heads of several flowers toppled on to the path. “The sack idea’s not such an appalling concept.”
“Bran, it’s a truly revolting idea. No woman’s going to want you after you’ve tied her in a sack.”
“Then for heaven’s sake give me an alternate way of getting her alone.”
“You don’t need me to tell you that. You’re adept at it. What was it you were saying was your favourite game the other week, that variant on hide and seek?”
“Hugh!” Bran threw his arms around his friend and smacked a kiss upon his cheek. “Of course, you’re a genius.”
Hugh cocked a brow. “So, you’re going to suggest hide and seek?”
“Nope.” He bundled his friend off the bench and back onto his feet. “You’ll have to suggest it. If I announce it, it’ll just raise suspicions. Come along now, back to the house.”
Chapter Three
Of Buffets & Games
“But what if he was serious?”
Cora tapped the tip of her fan to her pout and glared at her friend. She could only see Harriet’s back for the other woman was huddled behind the privy screen adjusting the ribbon ties of her stockings. Cora didn’t even want to contemplate that possibility. Better that she accepted it as the insincere nonsense it had been. “He made me look foolish with all that overzealous posturing and his declarations.” Her gaze strayed from Harriet to the nosegay of foxgloves and baby’s breath Bran had pinned to her bodice. Annoyed, she tore it off and cast into the nearby grate. “He only did it because Biddy told him of our contest. He wouldn’t even have thought of it otherwise.”
“I don’t know, Cora. Doesn’t it say something that he was at least prepared to attempt to win you a prize? As for his posturing... He has always been one for flamboyance.”
Cora shook her head refusing to let herself believe. If Bran had stripped her naked, stuck a number on her rump and paraded her around the room like a prize heifer she wasn’t sure it would have hurt so much, but to dangle something she wanted so badly before her like that… that hurt. She clenched her fists tight as the splinter of shock that still remained embedded in her heart worked itself loose.
He simply couldn’t have been serious.
She’d seen how he looked at Tessa de Lacy, all wide eyed and slack jawed. He’d never stared at her like that. Although to be fair, there weren’t many men who didn’t stare at Aunt Tessa in that way.
Some folks said she and Tessa looked alike, but Cora couldn’t see it. Tessa had hair the colour of honey, like buttercups scattered across a meadow. Cora's hair was more brassy and held none of the light, nor did it curl quite so prettily.
But what if he had been serious?
And he took her at her word, and never did address her thus again. Might she have just ruined everything?
“Are you done?” she asked Harriet. “We ought to get on with this business of hiding. They’ll start seeking soon.”
“I’m done. Where shall we go?” Harriet emerged with her wide apple-blossom and gold skirts fanned around her. “I thought I might take the window seat next door, the curtains are of a similar fabric, so I might blend in.”
Cora’s gaze dropped to her own outfit, deep ocean-blue with sprays of turquoise, emerald and jet. She’d be accused of not trying, which would only make her mother upset. “Go ahead, I’ll find somewhere else.”
Harriet scampered off, and Cora turned in the opposite direction. She slipped across the corridor and stepped around the hounds in the dog-parlour, making her way to the concealed buffet. The cubby-hole contained only a few dusty knickknacks, which were easily pushed into one corner. Having folded her voluminous skirts around her, she climbed inside and inched the door closed behind her.
There wasn’t much air in the cupboard, and it was fusty and dark. Cora spent the first few minutes pressed to the door frame, sucking in breaths from around the gap in a state of nervous anticipation. When after what felt like five or more minutes had passed, she grew impatient, shuffling her feet, and finally sagged against the rear wall with her eyes closed.
When Bran had got down before her holding that posy, she’d so desperately, desperately wanted it to be real. A wry smile claimed her lips. The sting of tears in her eyes soon followed. She refused to let them fall. Listening to him say all those things she’d dreamed of hearing him say and knowing he meant not a single word of it, hurt like a tear in her chest. Even now, she could hardly catch her breath at the thought of it. Only for a split second had she contemplated saying yes
.
Accepting him was what she wanted, but she loved him too much to bind him to match he didn’t genuinely desire. He had to want her every bit as much as she wanted him.
The sound of movement in the room beyond provoked an irritated snort. “Oh, just find me. Let this be over with, so that I can retire,” she muttered under her breath. She’d plead a headache, and no one would miss her. The racing pulse in her temples certainly resembled a migraine, even if it was her heart that was really afflicted.
The motion ceased and she supposed maybe it had only been the dogs shuffling about.
Damn you, Branwell, for not loving me back
. Why couldn’t he love her back?
The buffet door opened, prompting a small gasp to escape her throat. Bran smiled on spying her, but instead of hollering out that she was found, he squeezed into the cupboard beside her.
Cora pulled herself up straight.
Little light penetrated the cupboard, but enough to see his ruffled forelock and the red-gold glint of his lopsided queue. “What are you about?” she demanded.
“Hiding. Weren’t you listening? The seekers are to hide alongside the hiders, until we’re all squashed together and everyone is found.”
“Oh!” If she’d known, she’d have opted for a curtained window bay likewise little Harriet. “Were there others following you?”
Bran grin broadened so that she saw the gleam of his teeth. “No. Most of them headed into the other wing.”
So, they were alone.
“I needed to talk to you, Cora.” Bran reached out and tugged one of the ringlets that spilled over her shoulder. He let go when she squashed herself against the wall to avoid the contact, and the ringlet sprang free, falling to rest on the swell of her bosom.
“If you’re referring to your earlier tomfoolery, I’ve already heard enough for one night.” Her words sounded strangled as she forced them out past the toxic lump in her throat. The tears she’d worked so hard to suppress prickled her eyes again. One escaped and rolled down her cheek, but she quickly brushed it away. “You’ve already embarrassed and ridiculed me enough. Can’t you see when to stop? Oh, confound it. Let me out of this cupboard. It’s improper we being together like this, and you know it.”
She drove into him, leading with her elbow, but Bran didn’t move an inch, other than to groan over the impact.
“Cora… Sweet pea, I have never ridiculed you. Not ever.”
“You’re still doing it now, and don’t call me that. You know I hate it.”
“Do you?” he mused, pressing finger and thumb to his lips. “You wore them in your hair to the Faringdale’s masquerade, do you remember? Who was it you were supposed to be, Mary Mary? You’re certainly being contrary. Cora, I thought we understood one another.”
“I know you mean well, but…”
Bran pressed his index finger to her lips. “Stop. Retrospectively, I admit my timing was ill-conceived.” His voice quavered a little as he spoke. “I ought to have waited until we were alone, but you’re damned near impossible to pry from your group. Oh, Cora. I never intended to be disingenuous, but rather romantic. I love you. Why shouldn’t I declare it before everyone else?”
Cora squinted at him, her thoughts in tumult. He sounded so serious. If only she could see him clearly enough to tell if he still sported that playful pout.
And if he didn’t?
Then maybe she didn’t want to see… Gosh, he must think her the most ungrateful, appalling romp for refusing him like that. She pushed again at his torso. “Please, Bran, let me out.”
“Cora.” Rather than moving aside, he crowded her. The taut muscles of his thigh pressed tight to her skirts, so that heat radiated all through her lower limbs. An inferno lit deep in her womb when he leaned closer still and touched her. His fingertips traced the line of her jaw, and his thumb nudged up her chin so that their gazes met.
Bran’s eyes gleamed just above hers, onyx dark in the pitiful light. “Don’t run. Please don’t turn me down a second time in one day. Cora, I love you. I’m an appalling fool for not realizing it earlier. What am I saying? I’ve known it forever, but I didn’t want to deprive you of your Season and your coming out ball.”
“Oh, Bran, as if any of that ever mattered.”
He swept his thumb upwards and gently brushed across her parted lips. Cora’s pulse began a flighty dance. She hung on his every word. Sweet heavens, was he about to kiss her? She parted her lips, willing him forward, to take what she so desperately wanted to give, while at the same time, her fingers clawed so that her nails dug into her palms. She ought to be strong and remain aloof. Only, she so much wanted his love it was impossible not to strain towards him.
Bran’s warm breath mingled with hers. Their lips lay no more than a finger’s breadth apart. “I want you, Cora Reeve. I want to do wicked things to you that will make more than this faint heat colour your cheeks. I want to push your legs apart, get down on my knees and whisper that proposal you laughed off into your quim, and maybe once I’ve made you sob with bliss, you’ll finally take me seriously.”