The Sum of All Kisses (11 page)

“You have me,” Hugh found himself saying.

The two Pleinsworth sisters fell utterly silent. Hugh had a feeling that this was not a common occurrence.

“I suspect you’d have a difficult task recruiting me for a game of Oranges and Lemons,” he said with a shrug, “but I’m happy to do something that does not require much use of my leg.”

“Oh,” Frances said. She blinked a few times. “Thank you.”

“This has been the most entertaining conversation I’ve had at Fensmore,” he told her.

“Really?” Frances asked. “But hasn’t Sarah been assigned to keep you company?”

There was a very awkward silence.

Hugh cleared his throat, but Sarah spoke first. “Thank you, Frances,” she said with great dignity. “I appreciate your taking my place at the head table while I danced.”

“He looked lonely,” Frances said.

Hugh coughed. Not because he was embarrassed, but because he was . . . Bloody hell, he didn’t know what he was feeling just then. It was damned disconcerting.

“Not that he
was
lonely,” Frances said quickly, shooting him a conspiratorial glance. “But he did look so.” She glanced back and forth between her sister and Hugh, apparently only just realizing she might be caught in the middle of an uncomfortable moment. “And he needed cake.”

“Well, we all need cake,” Hugh put in. He could not have cared less if Lady Sarah was put out, but there was no need for Lady Frances to feel ill at ease.

“I need cake,” Sarah announced.

It was just the thing to move the conversation forward. “You haven’t had any?” Frances asked in amazement. “Oh, but you must. It’s absolutely brilliant. The footman gave me a piece with extra flowers.”

Hugh smiled to himself. Extra flowers, indeed. The decorations had turned Lady Frances’s tongue purple.

“I was dancing,” Sarah reminded her.

“Oh, yes, of course.” Frances pulled a face and turned to Hugh. “It is another great sorrow of being the only child at a wedding. No one dances with me.”

“I assure you I would,” he said in all seriousness. “But alas . . .” He motioned to his cane.

Frances gave a sympathetic nod. “Well, then, I’m very glad I was able to sit with you. It’s no fun sitting alone while everyone else is dancing.” She stood and turned to her sister. “Shall I get you some cake?”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

“But you just said you wanted some.”

“She said she
needed
some,” Hugh said.

Sarah looked at him as if he’d sprouted tentacles.

“I remember things,” he said simply.

“I’ll get you cake,” Frances decided, and walked off.

Hugh entertained himself by counting to see how long it would take for Lady Sarah to cut through the silence and speak to him after her sister departed. When he reached forty-three seconds (give or take a few; he didn’t have a timepiece for a truly accurate measure) he realized that he was going to have to be the adult of the duo, and he said, “You like to dance.”

She started, and when she turned to him, he realized instantly from her expression that while he had been measuring an awkward pause in the conversation, she had merely been sitting in companionable silence.

He found this strange. And perhaps even unsettling.

“I do,” she said abruptly, still blinking with surprise. “The music is delightful. It really does make one stand up and— I beg your pardon.” She flushed, the way everyone did when they said something that might possibly refer to his injured leg.

“I used to like to dance,” he said, mostly to be contrary.

“I— ah—” She cleared her throat. “Ehrm.”

“It’s difficult now, of course.”

Her eyes took on a vague expression of alarm, so he smiled placidly and took a sip of his wine.

“I thought you did not drink in the presence of the Smythe-Smiths,” she said.

He took another sip—the wine
was
quite good, just as she’d promised the night before—and turned to her with every intention of responding with a dry jest, but when he saw her sitting there, her skin still pink and dewy from her recent exertions, something turned within him, and the little knot of anger he worked so hard to keep buried burst forth and began to bleed.

He was never going to dance again.

He was never going to ride a horse or climb a tree or stride purposefully across a room and sweep a lady off her feet. There were a thousand things he’d never do, and you’d think it would have been a man who’d reminded him of this—an able-bodied man who could hunt and box and do all those bloody things a man was meant to do, but no, it was
her,
Lady Sarah Pleinsworth, with her fine eyes and nimble feet, and every bloody smile she’d bestowed upon her dance partners that morning.

He didn’t like her. He really didn’t, but by God, he’d have sold a piece of his soul right then to dance with her.

“Lord Hugh?” Her voice was quiet, but it held a tiny trace of impatience, just enough to alert him that he’d been silent for too long.

He took another sip of his wine—more of a swig this time, really—and said, “My leg hurts.” It didn’t. Not much, anyway, but it might as well have done. His leg seemed to be the reason for everything in his life; surely a glass of wine was no exception.

“Oh.” She shifted in her seat. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said, perhaps more brusquely than he’d intended. “It isn’t your fault.”

“I know
that
. But I can still be sorry that it pains you.”

He must have given her a dubious look, because she drew back defensively and said, “I’m not inhuman.”

He looked at her closely, and somehow his eyes dipped down the line of her neck to the delicate planes of her collarbone. He could see every breath, every tiny motion along her skin. He cleared his throat. She was most definitely human.

“Forgive me,” he said stiffly. “I was of the opinion that you thought my suffering was no more than I deserve.”

Her lips parted, and he could practically see his statement running through her mind. Her discomfort was palpable, until finally she said, “I may have felt that way, and I cannot imagine I will ever bring myself to think charitably of you, but I am trying to be a less . . .” She stopped, and her head moved awkwardly as she sought words. “I am trying to be a better person,” she finally said. “I do not wish you pain.”

His brows rose. This was not the Sarah Pleinsworth with whom he was familiar.

“But I don’t like you,” she suddenly blurted.

Ah. There she was. Hugh actually took some comfort in her rudeness. He was feeling unaccountably weary, and he did not have the energy to figure out this deeper, more nuanced Sarah Pleinsworth.

He might not like the overly dramatic young miss who made grand and loud pronouncements, but right then . . . he preferred her.

Chapter Eight

S
he really could see over the entire room from up here at the head table, Sarah thought. It gave one the opportunity to stare quite shamelessly (as one did at events such as these) at the bride. The happy bride, dressed in pale lavender silk and a radiant smile. One could, perhaps, shoot dagger eyes at that happy bride (with no intention, of course, that the happy bride actually see those dagger eyes). But it was, after all, Honoria’s fault that Sarah was stuck up here, sitting next to Lord Hugh Prentice, who, after apparently having a lovely conversation with her younger sister, had turned unpleasant and surly.

“I do bring out the best in you, don’t I?” Sarah muttered without looking at him.

“Did you say something?” he asked. He didn’t look at her, either.

“No,” she lied.

He shifted in his seat, and Sarah glanced down long enough to realize that he was adjusting the position of his leg. He seemed to be most comfortable with it stretched out before him; she’d noticed that the previous night at supper. But whereas that table had been laden with guests, this one was quite empty save for the two of them, and there was plenty of room to—

“It doesn’t hurt,” he said, not turning even an inch in her direction.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, since she had
not
been looking at his leg. In fact, after she had noticed that he was holding it quite straight, she had been quite purposefully looking at at least six other things.

“The leg,” Hugh said. “It doesn’t hurt right now.”

“Oh.” It was on the tip of her tongue to retort that she had not inquired about his leg, but even she knew when good manners called for restraint. “The wine, I imagine,” she finally said. He hadn’t had much, but if he said that it helped with the pain, who was she to doubt him?

“It is difficult to bend,” he said. And then he did look at her, full straight and green. “In case you were wondering.”

“Of course not,” she said quickly.

“Liar,” he said softly.

Sarah gasped. Of course she had been lying, but it had been a
polite
lie. Whereas his calling her out on it had been most assuredly not polite.

“If you want to know about it,” Hugh said, cutting off a small bite of cake with the side of his fork, “just ask.”

“Very well,” Sarah said sharply, “are you missing any great big chunks of flesh?”

He choked on his cake. This gave her great satisfaction.

“Yes,” he said.

“Of what size?”

He looked like he might smile again, which had not been her intention. He glanced down at his leg. “I’d say about two cubic inches.”

She gritted her teeth. What sort of person answered in cubic inches?

“About the size of a very small orange,” he added. Condescendingly. “Or a somewhat massive strawberry.”

“I know what a cubic inch is.”

“Of course you do.”

And the bizarre thing was, he didn’t sound the least bit condescending when he said
that
.

“Did you injure your knee?” she asked, because drat it all, now she was curious. “Is that why you cannot bend it?”

“I can bend it,” he replied, “just not very well. And no, there was no injury to the knee.”

Sarah waited several seconds, then said, primarily between her teeth, “Why, then, can’t you bend it?”

“The muscle,” he said, letting one of his shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “I suspect it doesn’t stretch the way it ought, given that it’s missing two cubic inches of, what did you call it?” His voice grew unpleasantly droll. “Ah yes, a chunk of flesh.”

“You told me to ask,” she ground out.

“So I did.”

Sarah felt her mouth tighten. Was he
trying
to make her feel like a heel? If there were any official society rules for how a gentlewoman was meant to behave with a partially crippled man, they had not been taught to her. She was fairly certain, however, that she was supposed to pretend that she did not notice his infirmity.

Unless he required assistance. In which case she
was
supposed to notice his limp, because it would be unforgivably insensitive to stand aside and watch him flounder. But either way, she probably wasn’t supposed to ask questions.

Such as why he couldn’t bend his leg.

But
still
. Wasn’t it his duty as a gentleman not to make her feel awful about it when she flubbed?

Honoria owed her one for this. Honoria probably owed her three.

Three of what, she wasn’t sure, but something large. Something very large.

They sat there for another minute or so, then Hugh said, “I don’t think your sister is coming back with cake.” He motioned very slightly with his head. Frances was waltzing with Daniel. The expression on her face was one of utter delight.

“He has always been her favorite cousin,” Sarah remarked. She still wasn’t really looking at Hugh, but she sort of
felt
him nod in agreement.

“He has an easy way with people,” Hugh said.

“It is a talent.”

“Indeed.” He took a sip of his wine. “One that you possess as well, I understand.”

“Not with everyone.”

He smiled mockingly. “You refer to me, I presume.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say,
Of course not,
but he was too intelligent for that. Instead she sat in stony silence, feeling very much like a fool. A rude fool.

He chuckled. “You should not chastise yourself for your failure. I am a challenge for even the most affable of people.”

She turned, staring at his face with utter confusion. And disbelief. What sort of man said such a thing? “You seem to get on well with Daniel,” she finally replied.

One of his brows rose, almost like a dare. “And yet,” he said, leaning slightly toward her, “I shot him.”

“To be fair, you were dueling.”

He almost smiled. “Are you defending me?”

“No.” Was she? No, she was simply making conversation. Which, according to him, she was supposed to be good at. “Tell me,” she said, “did you mean to hit him?”

He froze, and for a moment Sarah thought she’d gone too far. When he spoke, it was with quiet amazement. “You are the first person ever to ask me that.”

“That can’t be possible.” Because really, didn’t everything hinge on that one detail?

“I don’t believe I realized it until this moment, but no, no one has ever thought to ask if I meant to shoot him.”

Sarah held her tongue for a few seconds. But only just. “Well, did you?”

“Mean to shoot him? No. Of course not.”

“You should tell him that.”

“He knows.”

“But—”

“I said that no one had asked me,” he cut in. “I did not say that I had never offered the information myself.”

“I expect his shot was accidental as well.”

“We were neither of us in our right minds that morning,” he said, his tone utterly devoid of inflection.

She nodded. She didn’t know why; she wasn’t really agreeing to anything. But it felt as if she should respond. It felt as if he deserved a response.

“Nevertheless,” Lord Hugh said, staring straight ahead, “I was the one to call for the duel, and I was the one who shot first.”

She looked down at the table. She did not know what to say.

He spoke again, quietly, but with unmistakable conviction. “I have never blamed your cousin for my injury.”

And then, before she could even think about how to respond, Lord Hugh stood so abruptly that his injured leg bumped into the table, splashing a bit of wine out of someone’s forgotten glass. When Sarah looked up, she saw him wince.

“Are you all right?” she asked carefully.

“I’m fine,” he said in a curt voice.

“Of course you are,” she muttered. Men were always “fine.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

“Nothing,” she lied, coming to her feet. “Do you need assistance?”

His eyes blazed with fury that she’d even asked, but just as he started to say, “No,” his cane clattered to the floor.

“I’ll get that for you,” Sarah said quickly.

“I can—”

“I’ve already
got
it,” she ground out. Good Lord, the man was making it difficult for her to be a considerate human being.

He let out a breath, and then, even though he was clearly loath to do so, he said, “Thank you.”

She handed him the cane, and then, very carefully, asked, “May I accompany you to the door?”

“It’s not necessary,” he said brusquely.

“For you, perhaps,” she shot back.

That seemed to pique his curiosity. One of his brows rose in question, and Sarah said, “I believe you are aware that I have been tasked with your welfare.”

“You should really stop flattering me, Lady Sarah. It will go to my head.”

“I will not shirk my duty.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then sent a pointed glance toward the twenty or so wedding guests who were currently dancing.

Sarah took a steadying breath, trying not to rise to his bait. She probably shouldn’t have abandoned him at the table, but she had been feeling merry, and she liked to dance. Surely Honoria hadn’t meant that she must remain at his side for every moment of the wedding. Besides, there had been several other people left at the table when she’d got up. And she’d come back when she’d realized he’d been all alone with only Frances for company.

Although truth be told, he did seem to prefer Frances.

“It is strange,” he murmured, “being a young woman’s duty. I can’t say I have ever before had the pleasure.”

“I made a promise to my cousin,” Sarah said in a tight voice. To say nothing of Iris and her judgmental ways. “As a gentleman, you should allow me to at least attempt to fulfill that promise.”

“Very well,” he said, and his voice was not angry. Nor was it resigned, or amused, or anything she could discern. He held out his arm, as any gentleman would, but she hesitated. Was she supposed to take it? Would it set him off balance?

“You won’t knock me over,” he said.

She took his arm.

He tilted his head toward hers. “Unless, of course, you push.”

She felt herself flush.

“Oh, come now, Lady Sarah,” he said, looking down at her with a condescending expression. “Surely you can take a joke. Especially when it’s at my expense.”

Sarah forced her lips into a tight smile.

Lord Hugh chuckled, and they headed for the door, making faster progress than she would have expected. His limp was pronounced, but he had clearly figured out how best to compensate for it. He must have had to relearn how to walk, she realized with amazement. It would have taken months, maybe years.

And it would have been painful.

Something akin to admiration began to flutter within her. He was still rude and annoying, and she certainly did not enjoy his company, but for the first time since that fateful duel three and a half years earlier, Sarah found that she admired him. He was strong. No, not in that
watch-how-effortlessly-I-can-toss-a-young-lady-onto-a-horse
way, although for all she knew he was that, too. She did have her hand on his arm, and there was nothing soft about him.

Hugh Prentice was strong on the inside, where it truly counted. He’d have to be, to come back from such an injury.

She swallowed, her eyes finding focus somewhere across the room even as she continued in step next to him. She felt unsettled, as if the floor had suddenly dropped an inch to the right, or the air had gone thin. She had spent the last few years detesting this man, and while this anger had not consumed her, it had, in some small way, defined her.

Lord Hugh Prentice had been her excuse. He had been her constant. When the world tipped and changed around her, he had remained her steady object of disgust. He was cold, he was heartless, he was without conscience. He had ruined her cousin’s life and never apologized for it. He was horrible in a way that meant nothing else in life could ever be
that
bad.

And now she had found something within him to admire?
That
was unlike her. Honoria was the one who found the good in people; Sarah held the grudge.

And she did not change her mind.

Except, apparently, when she did.

“Will you dance to your heart’s content once I’ve left?” Lord Hugh suddenly asked.

Sarah started, so lost in the tumult of her thoughts that his voice hit too loudly at her ears. “I hadn’t thought about it, honestly,” she said.

“You should,” he said quietly. “You’re a lovely dancer.”

Her lips parted in surprise.

“Yes, Lady Sarah,” he said, “that was a compliment.”

“I hardly know what to do with it.”

“I’d recommend accepting it gracefully.”

“And do you base this upon personal experience?”

“Certainly not. I almost never accept compliments with grace.”

She looked up at him, expecting to see a sly look, maybe even a mischievous one, but his face remained as impassive as ever. He wasn’t even looking at her.

“You’re a very odd man, Lord Hugh Prentice,” she said quietly.

“I know,” he said, and they steered around Sarah’s enormous great-uncle (and his remarkably tall wife) to reach the ballroom door. Before they could make their escape, however, they were intercepted by Honoria, who was still radiating such happiness that Sarah thought her cheeks must ache from smiling. Frances was standing at her side, holding her hand and basking in the bridal glow.