He nodded, staring at her.
She said, "Look," thinking to show him. She held her
arms out and spun, clearing a little space in the fog around her – it receded
in response to her movement. Yet when she looked up, his regard – those
startling eyes – was fixed on her with such contemplation, she had to look off.
The strange, familiar elation rushed in. Along with a kind of embarrassment. A
funny little war of emotions that brought a tension inside her.
She couldn't meet his regard, but the stir of emotion was somehow
so nice. She just let it play over her as she stared off.
For as far as she could see the ground had become white and
fluffy. It was like viewing a skyful of clouds from above. In the near distance
the top of a little hill with its crumbling tor stood out like an island in a
sea of vapor. She waded toward it, Mr. Cody behind her, as white, rolling air
gathered, more and more abundant.
Within minutes, fog surrounded them, as dense as cotton wool. It
blocked off all sense of direction, all sense of anything outside the two of
them. It was as if they stood together inside a cloud.
So bizarre.
Lydia
knew fog from
London
, but never
such a dramatically swift change, never so thick you couldn't see your hand in
front of you. If she and Mr. Cody should take more than a step or two away from
each other, they would disappear entirely from the other's sight.
She heard him drop the satchel and rabbit, one heavy, one light
thud. Once deposited on the ground, the items were no longer part of the
evident world. Then, as if diving down after them, the man beside her
disappeared as well.
"Mr. Cody? Sam?"
Lydia
looked down
through the fog where a moment ago he had been. She was just able to make out a
darkness that was presumably the top of his head.
"Here." His voice was bent close to the ground.
She followed it, kneeling down, then sitting back onto her heels –
the fog traced the paths of air as she cut through it.
"This is unbelievable," she said. Unearthly. Through the
haze, she saw Sam squatting. He was fiddling with something on the ground
beside her, unbuckling—
"Hey!" She scrambled around in front of him, on the
other side of her satchel. "Hey! Stay out of my things!" she said.
She stood onto her knees, wrestling him for the satchel's handles, holding the
bag together, its fastens loose, all but the last flap in the last buckle.
"No!" she said emphatically.
He gave her a slant-mouth look as they faced each other. "I
want to see what we have here."
They both held on, him pulling, her holding the closure together,
an accelerating tug-of-war she could feel she would lose, if she didn't
convince him to give in. "What I have," she told him. "The bag
belongs to me."
"I carry it. Besides, I'd say, in dire straits, which I'd
call these, what's in the only baggage we were able to save belongs to both of
us."
"It's my bag. You can't appropriate it."
"All right, it's yours. But I want to look. I might think of
a way to use what's inside that you haven't. It might help us." He made a
snort of a laugh, a joke. "You don't by chance have a compass in here, do
you?"
"No."
"Why can't I look? What do you have you're so damn afraid
I'll see? What can it matter, under the circumstances?"
"No!" she said again as he pushed her hands out of the
way and pulled the strap out of the last bar of its buckle. "No!" she
repeated. She smacked his dark fingers as they took full possession of the
handles. His hands were strong. When swatting at them didn't stop him, she hit
his arm. He pulled the handles apart, the satchel open, with
Lydia
ending up
batting at his arms and hands, his face, striking at anything in her fury.
"Stop" – she couldn't halt him – "stop, stop! Stop it!"
For a few seconds, he attempted to look into the satchel under the
barrage of her blows. Then, with an impatient grimace, he paused long enough to
grab both her hands, crossing one over the other at the wrists, then wrapped
his fingers around to hold her hands immobile with one of his as he pulled the
edge of the satchel wide open with his other.
The strangest thing. She was furious and breathing hard – he had
no right to snoop. If he'd have let go, she'd have hit him again. Yet at the
same time the power in his grip of her wrists, the sensation of being held
within his strength. Something changed. A feeling related to last night
loosened her resistance. She felt herself give in, give herself over, oddly receptive
to his hold of her.
He must have noticed it, because, though the satchel gaped, he
looked up at her suddenly, and his frown became less angry and more puzzled –
contemplative, even worried. He studied her.
She opened her mouth, the space it might take for a word to come
out. What word? There was none. She wet her lips instead, a quick roll of them
inward, a lick of her tongue. Lord, what a feeling. She felt her breathing grow
shallow as her abdomen lit with a kind of glow that became warmer with each
second, spreading from the low center of her into her limbs.
Attraction. It was the strangest sensation. Over nothing. She'd
never felt anything quite like it, or rather had felt something like it, weak
relatives to it. But this. This feeling was so … complicated, more fascinating
by half than anything she'd known or imagined. Which left her baffled as to
what to do.
She wanted more of it; she wanted to explore it. She was even
coming to think she could predict the feeling – know how to elicit it, incite
it.
All of which was so wildly inappropriate it left her breathless.
How much could she allow herself out here, knowing full well the differences
that separated them?
They stared at each other. She into a dark face, dark lashes at
narrowed eyes with irises the color of bottle-blue glass. These eyes full of
intelligence. And awareness. Beautiful eyes set into a handsomeness that was
scruffy and bruised, but no less potent – more so, in fact:
Reckless
,
she thought again. Raw. Uncivilized. Oh, the word
uncivilized
thrilled
her to think it. His unshaven, cut face looked dangerous. The Wild, Wild West,
she thought. She wanted to explore it.
Explore it, she did – she let her eyes travel over him, no
pretense of doing anything else. Mr. Cody had a band of lighter skin at his
hairline. His forehead showed where his face had been hidden from the sun by
his hat brim. A sweet, tender detail.
Oh, she thought, if only he were a … a duke, for instance – higher
in precedence than Boddington's father, a marquess. She wished they were in
London
. Or, no,
Yorkshire
. Yes, they
could be on a moor in
Yorkshire
. And he was
courting her with her family's approval. They might go on drives out onto the
moor, just to be alone like this. He would speak properly, dress differently.
And if he should kiss her? What would it feel like, his mouth? She wished he
were a true candidate for the role her feelings wanted to lend him. Suitor.
Swain. Then she could let herself go, smile and flirt, because what would it
matter?
After a moment, he scowled deeper, then gave his head a quick
shake. He pushed her hands away and looked down over the open rim of the
satchel.
Lydia
glanced into
bag herself, saw an added embarrassment that she'd forgotten, and, as quickly,
snatched up what lay on top of everything else. She tried to get it out of
sight before he could recognize it.
He caught her arm by the elbow, brought her hand forward, and
pried the book from her grip.
After which he smiled broadly, then laughed. He looked over at
her. "I guess your brother and I aren't the only ones who like cheap
novels." He faced the book around so she could see the silly paperback
cover.
Buffalo
Bill and the
Stagecoach Bandits.
He turned the book over, reading the
back. He grinned up, amused. "A double pleasure: Now you have to admit
you're a hypocrite. Plus" – with glee – "I haven't read this
one!" He set it down beside him, out of her reach. "I'll just take
it, since you don't like these 'cheap, inelegant' books."
"It's not even mine. I can't—" Still on her knees, she
reached over the satchel toward the book by his hip. As they jostled, she lost
her balance, falling over – she caught herself by one hand in the dirt, one on
his boot, all but facedown into his lap.
He helped her up by her shoulders, pushing her back. "Well,
aren't we just getting cozy here."
They ended up face-to-face – hers frowning, his grinning – inches
apart over the satchel.
He tilted his head at her, cajoling. "Come on," he said.
"What do you want that would make you cooperative? My hat? You wanna wear
my hat while I poke through this thing? We'll dump out the last berries. You
have my hat. Or my boots?" He laughed. "You like those so much. You
wanna wear my boots? I'll go in my socks; you can have 'em. But I'm looking in
this bag, 'cause—"
"Don't be silly. Nothing like that—"
Sam reared his head back, his eyebrows rising. "But
something. You want something from me." He blinked, laughed again. What he
said surprised her, but the second she heard it she knew it was true: "I
haven't named it yet," he told her, "but you want something from
me." He laughed again, amused. "Go ahead. Tell me. I'm waiting."
Lydia
wasn't sure.
She sat back onto her heels, struggling to understand herself what she wanted.
He frowned, angled his head, a little wary. "Spit it
out."
"I want to understand last night. I want you to show
me—"
"Whoa." He held up his hands. "I'm not showin' you
anything."
"No." She laughed, suddenly nervous, giddy. "Show
me how it feels—" She stammered. "Show me how it feels to kiss
someone who – I – I want you to kiss me so I—"
The look on his face stopped her cold. His expression was as
surprised as if she'd slapped his face. "No," he said with alarm.
"Oh." She stared, taken aback, then nodded, trying to
look neutral, when she felt anything but.
An awful physical sensation dropped through her chest into her
stomach. Disappointment, she thought. And shame. The shock on his face, the
finality of his swift, single-word answer, made her feel like a trollop. And –
oh, dear, hurt. Her feelings were hurt. Why? she wondered. Why didn't he want
to kiss her? What was wrong with her? It had been a bold thing to say, but—
"I – I was only asking—" she began. "It was only a
kiss," she tried to explain.
She'd kissed a handful of men and never found any of them less
than enthusiastic for the privilege. The truth was, she'd done a bit more than
kissing with Boddington, who was gentleman enough to pretend she hadn't, not
only to others but even with her. It had been last summer. Right after he'd
offered for her, she had let him run his hands over her and quite enjoyed it.
Better still, she had parleyed this little sexual foray into some sort of
advantage over him. Afterward, she neither accepted nor refused his offer, but
rather left him dangling: He was sure by her actions that she would accept,
then eventually unsure by her lack of confirmation, all the while seeming
willing to stick around eternally if it meant he might one day fondle her
again. Which so far she hadn't allowed, a fate he'd accepted.
With Mr. Cody, she felt confused after last night. She had
virtually no experience with the physical evidence of a man's interest, or none
but his. Nonetheless, she'd thought what she'd felt behind her last night had
to do with his wanting to kiss her.
When she let herself look at him again, it was worse: He'd
realized he'd hurt her feelings. Now he felt sorry for her. "Liddy,"
he said. She wished he'd stop saying this name he'd made up for her.
Then wished that was all he did. He came forward onto one knee,
his arm dangling over the other for a second – till that hand reached across
and touched her.
Sam couldn't help himself. He had to touch her somewhere, so,
frowning with concern, he brushed back a piece of her hair – a wild, curling
corkscrew that lay on her delicate shoulder. She shuddered when the backs of
his fingers grazed her. He said again, "Liddy—"
"Stop saying that." She shot him a glance. "You
make me feel awful."
"I don't mean to."
"Wicked, wrong" – she stammered unintelligibly for a few
mutters – "sick, soft and hot inside, my stomach lifts—"
He laughed. "That doesn't sound very awful—"
"Stop laughing at me!"
"I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at, oh, fate or
somethin. Lid, I can't help it if I make you 'soft and hot' inside. You want
me, that's all. And you feel guilty about it. You shouldn't. It's normal.
Common even. Women are supposed to want men. And I want you, too, darlin'; so
there." Under pressure, Sam got real down-home, no matter how he might
like not to. He told her, "But we're not doin' anything about it, 'cause
you're as innocent as a flop-eared pup for all your age and 'elegant'
sophistication." Shaking his head, he repeated again what he'd said last
night. "No more wild coach rides for you. They make you crazy." He
added, "And they make me crazy, too – enough that, between the two of us,
we could end up doing things that'd be bad for you." A breath. "I
don't care who you say you are. I can see you're a girl who shouldn't be giving
herself to some passing—"