Only a Kiss (13 page)

That boyhood episode had been virtually the
only
dark blot on his life. Well, there had been his father’s death three years ago, and that had been excruciatingly painful. But such losses occurred in the natural course of one’s life, and one did recover over time. It seemed to him that he had spent all the rest of his life studiously
avoiding
pain and really doing quite a good job of it. But who would not do likewise, given the choice? Who would deliberately court pain and suffering?

He was not in the mood for making excuses for himself, though. His adult life had been one escapade piled upon another. Since coming down from Oxford almost ten years ago, he had taken care to remain uninvolved in all except shallow, meaningless, often downright stupid frivolity. He was thirty years old and had done
nothing
in his life of which he could feel proud. Well, except his double first degree with which he had done
nothing
since getting it.

Was it
normal
?

It certainly was not admirable.

He had said something—this very morning. He frowned in thought for a moment.

Living is not merely a matter of staying alive, is it? It is what you do with your life and the fact of your survival that counts.

And he had said it in criticism of
her,
pompous ass that he was.

He was a survivor too, was he not? He had survived his own birth, no mean feat when so many newborns did not. He had survived all the perils and illnesses of early childhood. He had survived that ordeal on the cliff face. He had survived reckless horse and curricle races and a duel with pistols and the jumping of broad gaps between houses from four stories up, once during a heavy rainstorm. He had done a lot of surviving. He had got to the age of thirty more or less intact physically and mentally and emotionally.

It is what you do with your life and the fact of your survival that counts.

What the devil had he ever done with his? What real use had he made of the precious gift of breath?

He left the cave and walked down the beach until he was at the water’s edge. The salt of the air was more pronounced here. He felt exposed, surrounded by vastness, half deafened by the elemental roar of the sea and the breaking of the waves. The sun was sparkling across the water, half blinding him. Hector was gamboling along in the shallows, knee-deep in water, sending up cascades of it behind him. He was going to be caked with sand to take back to the house.

What was it exactly he feared about the sea? Percy asked himself. Was it that all that water could trap him and drown him? Or was it something more fundamental than that? Was it the fear of vanishing into nothing in such vastness? Or the fear of coming face-to-face with the vast unknown? Was it just that it was easier to cling to his own trivial little inland world?

But he was not used to introspection and turned his attention back to his dog, which was obviously enjoying itself.

His
dog?

“Damn your eyes, Hector,” he murmured. “Could you not have been a proud, handsome mastiff? Or taken a fancy to Mrs. Ferby instead of me?”

She had not played fair—Lady Barclay, that was, not Mrs. Ferby. He had told her the whole of his story, even to the pulling down of his breeches for his spanking. She had told him only part of hers. A chunk of it, the key part of it, had been omitted. And it was the very part that he suspected would explain everything.

He had no right to know. He had had no right to ask in the first place. He had only more or less tricked her into telling her story by offering his own in exchange. And he did not
want
to know what she had withheld. He had cringed even from what she had told him. He had the feeling—no, he
knew
—that the missing details would be unbearable.

He always avoided what was unbearable.

She had spent
three years
at Penderris Hall. And she was not mended even now. Far from it. It was not simple grieving that kept her broken.

He did not want to know.

He did not usually pry into other people’s lives. He was not usually curious about what was of no personal concern to him, especially if it promised something painful.

Lady Barclay was not of any personal concern to him. She was not in any way at all the type of woman to attract him. Indeed, she was all that would normally repel him.

What was
abnormal
about his dealings with her, then?

Devil take it, he thought abruptly, he needed to leave. Not just the beach, though he turned to stride back up it anyway, leaving Hector to catch up to him. Hardford Hall. Cornwall. He needed to put them behind him, forget about them, send a decent steward down to manage the estate and content himself with the knowledge that he had done his duty by coming and setting things in order. He needed to get back to his own life, to his friends and his family.

He needed to forget Imogen Hayes, Lady Barclay—and she would surely be only too delighted to be forgotten. She would not have to hide out so much in the dower house with him gone.

He would definitely leave, he decided as he scrambled up the path to the top, out of breath but unwilling to slow down. Today. Or at worst first thing in the morning. He would get Watkins to pack his belongings and would send word to Mimms in the stables. But he would not have to wait for either of them. He could ride his horse home as he had ridden it here.

He would leave today.

He would send an excuse to the Quentins.

He was feeling purposeful, even cheerful, as he pushed through a gap in the gorse bushes without quite murdering his boots, and then strode across the lawn toward the house. The only decision that remained was whether he would take Hector with him—not running beside his horse, of course, but in the carriage. Watkins might well abandon stoicism and hand in his notice. And Percy would be the laughingstock of London. But who cared?

He would be many miles on his way before darkness. His spirits were buoyed by the thought and his stride lengthened at the pleasant prospect of going home—and never coming back.

There was no one in the hall when he let himself into the house. But there were two letters on a silver tray on the table facing him. Percy looked down at them, hoping they were for anyone but him, as they probably were. No one had written since he came here.

He recognized the writing on both—that of Higgins, his man of business in London, on the one and . . . his mother’s on the other.

P
ercy frowned at the letters. He could have done without this distraction when he was all set to march upstairs and ring for Watkins before his purpose cooled.

Perhaps Higgins had found someone to take on the job of steward. Now
that
would be well-timed news—and fast too. But how the devil did his mother know he was here? He had been very neglectful and not written since he came here. Perhaps Cousin Cyril had passed the word on. And then his frown deepened as he cast his mind back. Had he written to her himself? That night before he set off for Cornwall after writing to warn Ratchett that he was coming here and to suggest that the cobwebs be swept off the rafters before he arrived? Devil take it, had he really added
that
to the letter? That was what came of setting pen to paper when one was inebriated.
Had
he written to his mother too? And if so, what the deuce had he said?

He broke the seal and opened the single sheet. His eyes scanned the closely spaced lines of her small, neat handwriting.

Yes, she had indeed received his letter from London, and she was delighted that he was at last doing his duty by going down to his Cornish estate. However, she was deeply disturbed to learn how unhappy he was with his life and how lonely . . .

He would swear off liquor from this moment on. Not a single drop would ever again pass his lips. What sort of sentimental, self-pitying drivel had he written in that letter?
To his mother?

He read on.

Perhaps taking up his responsibilities at Hardford Hall would be the making of him, and it would not surprise her at all if his neighbors were welcoming him with open arms after two long years of waiting. He would surely discover purpose and friendship there—and perhaps even a special someone?

Percy grimaced. His mother was ever hopeful and ever the hopeless romantic. He must write to reassure her—and squash her expectations—before he rode off in the direction of London. Dash it all, that was going to delay his departure by at least half an hour.

And double dash it all, he was going to be letting her down.

Again.

And disappointing her.

Again.

She never said as much, but he knew she was still hoping that one day he would make her truly proud of him. She was forever declaring her love and her pride, but he knew he had disappointed her from the moment he left Oxford after scaling such heady academic heights there and slid into a life of idleness and frivolity.

His eyes had become unfocused and gazed through the page rather than at it. There was only a sentence or two left, though, probably just the courtesies with which one always felt obliged to end a letter. He focused his eyes upon them.

“I will do all in my power to lift your spirits, Percy,” she had written. “I and perhaps a few of your aunts and uncles and cousins. We never did have a chance to celebrate your birthday together as a family. We will do it belatedly. I will be leaving for Cornwall tomorrow morning.”

He stared at the last sentence in the hope that somehow, by some wizardry, the words would change before his eyes, dissolve and evaporate, become something else or nothing at all.

His mother was coming.

Here.

With other assorted and unidentified relatives.

To stay. To celebrate his birthday belatedly. To lift his spirits.

By now she was already on her way. Given his mother’s usual manner of moving herself with her baggage and entourage from one geographical location to another, it would take her forever to get here, since she was coming all the way from Derbyshire. But even so . . .
She was on the way.
That meant there was no chance of stopping her. And maybe there were hordes of aunts and uncles and cousins all gradually converging upon this particular spot on the globe too. There was no way of stopping
them
—assuming any of them had heeded his mother’s rallying cry, that was.

It was a pretty safe assumption that some of them had.

All would be hearty jollification at Hardford. A family party. A grand one. It would not be just about his birthday either, or just about family, he suspected. It would be about his homecoming as Earl of Hardford too. There was a ballroom at the back of the house, a largish room, gloomy, shabby, and sadly neglected. He would be willing to wager half his fortune that his mother would take it on in a great burst of energy as her special project. The birthday-cum-family-cum-welcome party would become a grand ball the likes of which Cornwall had never seen before—and throw in Devon and Somerset for good measure. He would wager the other half of his fortune on it.

One thing was crystal clear. He was not going to be galloping off anywhere today after all. Or tomorrow.

Crutchley creaked his way into the hall. Prudence came darting after him and growled at Percy before darting away again. It was like déjà vu.

“Crutchley,” Percy said, “give the order to turn the house upside down and inside out, if you please. My mother is expected within the next couple of weeks, with the possibility of an indeterminate number of other guests ambling in either before or after her. Or even
with
her, I suppose.”

If his butler was taken aback, he did not show it. “Yes, m’lord,” he said, and creaked away back whence he had come.

Percy proceeded upstairs with lagging steps to see if Lady Lavinia was anywhere to be found. He would be willing to wager another half of his fortune—no, that would make three and there were not three halves in a whole, were there? Anyway, he would wager
something
that she would be ecstatic when he told her the news.

So he was fated to see her again, then. He did not
want
to see her. She bothered him.

He wished he had not pressed her to tell any of her story. The gap in it made his stomach churn even more than the whole thing had before she told him.

*   *   *

Two days later Imogen admitted to herself that she was restless and unhappy. And lonely. And very, very depressed.

She had hit bottom, it seemed, a dreaded place to be. It had not happened since she left Penderris five years ago. Not that she had ever been happy during the intervening years. She had never wanted to be. It would be wrong. And she had certainly felt moments of loneliness and depression. But she had never allowed herself to be engulfed in near despair without any discernible way of dragging herself free.

She had held her life to an even keel by killing all deep feeling, by living upon the surface of life. The only times she had allowed her spirits to come close to soaring were those three weeks of each year when she was reunited with her fellow Survivors. But that was a controlled sort of euphoria. Although she adored those friends, sympathized with their continued sufferings, rejoiced in their triumphs, she was not intimately involved in their lives.

Now her life felt frighteningly empty.

Perhaps it was because almost a year had passed since the last reunion and she had not seen any of them in the interim. She would be with them again soon. But even that prospect could not significantly cheer her.

She had kept herself busy. Her flower beds were bare of weeds and she had clipped the box hedge on either side of the gate, though it was too early in the year for there to have been any real growth. She had worked at some fine crochet she had started at her brother’s house over Christmas and read a whole book, though she was not sure she remembered its contents. She had written letters to her mother and her sister-in-law; to Lady Trentham and Hugo; to Lady Darleigh, who would read it to Vincent; to George. She had walked into Porthmare to make a few purchases and to make a few calls. She had baked a cake earlier to take to Mrs. Primrose’s sister in the lower village—she had recently given birth to her fourth child. She had checked every room upstairs and every cupboard and wardrobe and drawer to make sure everything was back in order.

There was nothing left to do except more reading or crocheting. She was alone and there was no social event planned for the evening.

Self-pity was a horrible thing.

She had last seen him the evening before last at the Quentins’ card party. He had been his usual charming self, and had behaved toward her just as if she did not even exist. She did not believe their eyes had met even once during the evening. They had spoken not one word to each other and had sat at different tables for cards.

It had all been an enormous relief. She had still been feeling raw from the telling of her story. Why
on earth
had she allowed him to maneuver her into doing it?

But could he not have
looked
at her even just once? Or said good evening to her at the start or good night at the end? Or
both
?

The confusion of her feelings puzzled and alarmed her. It was so unlike her to allow anyone to dominate her thoughts or control her moods.

He was expecting company at the hall. Thank goodness she had been able to move back to the dower house. His mother was coming and perhaps other relatives too. His mother was determined to organize some sort of belated thirtieth birthday party for him, he had warned everyone at the Quentins’ social evening, but everyone, of course, had been delighted. Imogen could not remember when there had last been company at Hardford Hall or any sort of party there. For Dicky’s eighteenth birthday, perhaps?

She hoped she need not be involved in any way at all, with either the visit or the party. Perhaps it would all happen after she left for Penderris.

She
wished
he would just simply go away, though that seemed a remote hope now, at least for a while. Perhaps if he went away she would be able to recapture some of her serenity.

She made a cup of tea after washing the dishes she had used to make the cake, and took it into the sitting room, where Blossom kept guard over the fire. At least the cat was a live being, Imogen thought, setting down her cup and saucer and scratching her between her ears. She felt rather than heard a purr of contentment. She was so
glad
Blossom had come and stayed. She had never before thought of having a pet, some living creature to comfort her and keep her company.

There was a knock upon the door.

Imogen looked up, startled. It was not late, but it
was
February and already dark outside. It was also raining. She could hear it against the windows—the first they had had for some time.

Who . . . ?

There was another knock.

She hurried to open the door.

*   *   *

Until his hand released the knocker and it banged against the door, Percy convinced himself that he was merely out for an evening stroll but would check that the roof was still on the dower house while he was at it before circling back to the hall.

It was a dark evening but he had not brought a lantern with him. The twelve capes of his greatcoat did a decent job of keeping out the rain and the cold. The brim of his tall hat did a tolerable job of shielding his face, though only if he held his head at a certain angle, and even then there were little deluges every time enough water had collected at the edge of the brim to become a waterfall, one of which had found its way down the back of his neck. The path along which he had walked was becoming a bit slick underfoot and threatened to turn to mud if the rain continued. A wind was getting up. It was not exactly a gale, but it was neither a gentle breeze nor a warm one.

In other words, it was a miserable evening to be out, and only when his hand had released the knocker did he admit to himself that a stroll was not after all what he was out for. And here he was ending a sentence again, even if only in his own head, with a preposition.

She did not dash to open the door for him. Perhaps she had not heard the knocker. Perhaps he still had a chance to slink away, to retrace his steps and dry off before the library fire with a glass of port in one hand and the volume of Pope in the other.

He rapped the knocker against the door again, and within seconds the door opened.

She had come back here to escape from him. A fine time to remember that.

“Are you really all alone in the house?” he asked her. “It will not do, you know.”

He had discovered only at breakfast this morning that her housekeeper did not live in. He had wondered if that had been the housekeeper’s idea or hers. He would wager upon the latter.

“You had better step inside,” she said none too graciously.

He did so and stood dripping all over the small hallway.

“No,” he said firmly as she began to stretch out a hand. “You are not a butler, and there is no point in both of us being soggy.” He removed his hat and coat as he spoke and set them down nearby while she folded her hands at her waist and looked inhospitable.

She watched as he ran a finger beneath the back of his cravat. There was nothing much he could do about its dampness except put up with it.

“The fact and propriety of my being alone in the house are absolutely none of your concern, Lord Hardford,” she told him. “I will not have you play lord of the manor here in my own home.”

He opened his mouth to dispute that last point, but closed it again without saying anything. It would be petty to argue. But he could not capitulate entirely. “Even opening the door after your servant has left could be dangerous,” he said. “How did you know it was safe to do so now?”

“I did not,” she said. “And clearly it
was
not. But I will not live in fear.”

“The more fool you, then,” he said. He had not missed the insult, but perhaps he had returned it. One did not normally call a lady a fool. “Are we to remain freezing out here in the hall?”

“I beg your pardon,” she had the good grace to say as she turned to lead the way into the sitting room, which was invitingly cozy and warm. “I do hope, though, you have not come here to be disagreeable, Lord Hardford. Take the chair by the fire while I make some tea.”

“Not on my account,” he said, availing himself of the chair she indicated. “And I am not always or even often disagreeable.”