To Have and to Hold (45 page)

"I’ll find work."

"Housekeeper? You've experience there. Or a governess, perhaps?"

"Yes, perhaps. I can keep books."

"That sounds fascinating." His smile grew gradually less amused as he said, "You've gone through fire for ten years so that you can keep someone else's house, or books, or wipe the noses of their bratty children. That's brilliant, Rachel. So much more interesting and involving than being a countess and raising children of your own with the man you love." He closed in, backed her toward the window. "Deny that. Deny that you love me. Come, say it."

"I can't," she said tightly.

"No, you can't. Why is it so hard for you to believe I love you?"

"You didn't before. Why would you now?"

"Why not now? Who made it a rule that I had to love you 'before,' whenever that was—when I first laid eyes on you? Is that the rule? Then or never?"

"No, of course not. You know what I—"

"Well, I
did
love you then."

She had to laugh. "Oh, Sebastian."

"You don't believe me?"

"Certainly not. All you cared about was taking me to bed."

He opened his mouth to deny it, stopped, and finally shrugged. "Very well, but in no time at all—"

A tap at the door cut him off. It was the maid, carrying the tray Anne had promised. She put it on the table by the bed. Sebastian thanked her, and she curtsied and withdrew.

"Thank God it's not tea, it's wine. And about a dozen sandwiches. What's this, stuffed mushrooms? And a bowl of fresh bilberries and a pitcher of cream.
A feast."
He poured a glass of wine from the decanter and brought it to her. She took it, but when he went back to pour a glass for himself, she set hers down on the bureau without tasting it.

He sat at the foot of the bed and leaned back against the heavy post. She felt like a bundle of nerves; he looked completely at ease. A mask, she knew, at least in part. But truly, he did look lordlike; the mantle of earldom rested on him with annoying naturalness.

"I'll tell you when I first began to love you," he said, sipping his wine.

"That's not necessary."

"It was during one of our morning meetings. Early on, when I took such a delight in tormenting you. Pushing you, seeing how far I could go before you pushed back. Testing the depths of your stoicism, one might say. You had on your brown dress that day, and I'd gotten so used to the black, I thought it looked quite colorful. You stood in front of my desk, very quiet and demure, talking about cleaning the chimneys or some such thing. By then I wanted you constantly. I remember thinking your skin looked as if it would feel like chamois. I was fascinated by your hands. Your strict, sexy mouth."

Rachel changed her mind and reached casually for the wineglass on the bureau. Her hands weren't entirely steady; she used both of them to hold the stem and lifted the glass to her lips. The wine was sweet and bracing. She kept the glass, staring into its burgundy depths, pretending absorption.

"I wanted to see your hair in the light. I asked you to go to the window and draw the curtains wider."

She looked up, remembering. "It was raining."

"Yes."

A perfectly ordinary day. Nothing stood out; nothing had happened between them that she could recall.

"The maid came. Susan, the Irish one. She asked you a question, some household inquiry that couldn't wait. She was nervous—she knew she wasn't supposed to interrupt his lordship's morning conference with his housekeeper. I remember you smiled at her, spoke to her gently. Sweetly. She was afraid of me, but she trusted you. Loved you, I thought, because you were kind to her. When she went away, it struck me that I was jealous. I wanted you to smile at
me.
Speak gently to
me
."

"But how could I—"

"You couldn't. Of course. I knew it then, too. But I felt belligerent. 'I fired one of the stable lads yesterday,' I said—like a challenge. The servants loved you, I was sure, but they probably hated me. I'd discharged the boy because I saw him hit a horse, cuff a mare in the mouth with his fist because she wouldn't follow him into her stall. No one else knew why I let him go; I didn't mention it to anyone. 'I fired a lad,' I said to you, trying to sound as careless and mean as I knew you thought I was. With good reason. Do you remember this at all?"

She nodded faintly, but she was still bewildered.

"Do you know what you said to me? You said, 'Don't worry, my lord. Jerny told me Michael wasn't good with the horses. And he has family in Wyckerley, so he'll be all right.' "

She stared back at him, unblinking.

"It was—so inappropriate. So uncalled for. I knew you weren't a stupid or an insensitive woman. The only explanation for this bizarre show of sympathy and comfort for the man you had to know by then was your mortal enemy was a superior heart. Don't look away, Rachel. A heart that neither cruelty nor perversion nor captivity had been able to crush. Had not even touched."

She closed her eyes, unable to look at him any longer. When she heard him get up from the bed, she turned around, to stare out the window, as if the dark, watery view fascinated her. "You are . . . too much for me, Sebastian," she managed to say, watching her breath condense on the glass. "I'm afraid of you."

He was standing directly behind her, but he didn't touch her. "What you're afraid of is being happy. And frankly, I'm disappointed in you. 1 believed you were stronger. I thought you hadn't a cowardly bone in your body,"

"If you thought that, you don't understand me at all." She could feel his breath on the side of her neck, behind her ear.

"I understand you perfectly. Inside and out. Don't let your fear win this war. Be brave one last time. I dearly love you. I swear I'll protect you and care for you for the rest of our lives. Don't throw away this last chance."

She put her hands on the window ledge. She wanted to rest her head against the cool glass, but that would look too weak. Too cowardly. She felt a light touch on the crown of her head—a kiss?—and then Sebastian drew away.

She heard him moving furniture. She pivoted, and saw him drawing a chair up to the small table by the bed, and now he was sitting down and shaking out a big linen napkin. "You think about it while I eat," he suggested, and began to inspect the contents of all the sandwiches, sniff the mushrooms, pour himself more wine.

She folded her arms and started to pace, eyeing him uneasily. "You should think of yourself," she said. He cocked a questioning brow, his mouth full of bread and roast beef. "It's true I've been cleared of the crime I went to gaol for, but I'm still a fallen woman, and I always will be."

"How's that?" He bit down on a mushroom pensively.

"Not because of what I did, but because of what was dene to me. I'm a character now, an—object of interest. All your soaps and scents can't wash away the stench of prison, Sebastian, or the memories people have of what Randolph did."

"Being a countess could, though. You'd be amazed at how much respectability a title can buy. My own past isn't exactly sterling, you'll agree, but no one's ever going to impugn me for it now."

"But I'm a
convict."

"You
were
a convict. Now you're a martyr. Any day now I expect you'll be a heroine. And you'll be the toast of London when we go up in November for the opening of Parliament.''

"The—what?"

"I sit in the House of Lords, you know. Occasionally. Now that I'm going to be respectable, a veritable country squire, I suppose I'll have to attend more often. Hurry and make up your mind, darling, because I've just thought of an extremely interesting use to which we can put these berries."

She flushed, feeling hot all over. "You have answers for everything," she muttered. "Oh, God, I don't know what to do!"

He stood up, and this time she didn't back away; when he took her hands, she let him press them between his, over his heart. "Marry me, Rachel. I want you with me at Lynton for the rest of our lives. Having our children. Both of us in Devon, in this pretty village, living and working with the people who depend on us. Growing old together. I've given the house in Rye to my mother because I need to be here, and I'm needed here. But if you won't have me, I don't care where I am. I love you, darling, and you love me. Say it."

"Hove you."

"Will you be my wife?"

"Yes."

She came into his arms. They held each other, both trembling a little. She murmured, "I love you," again, and told him how much, freely, truthfully, not holding back. If they had wasted time, been afraid, made mistakes before this minute, it didn't matter anymore. Rain pattered against the window,- the mantel clock ticked; embers snapped and sizzled in the fireplace grate. Their hearts beat together, and this moment was perfect.

He kissed her. They seemed to drift toward the bed, sink down on it without conscious thought. She kissed his hands when he let her, but he was busy with them, and he touched her in a new way, with a slow, urgent tenderness she could hardly bear. Her borrowed gown was half unfastened before she realized what they were doing, or about to do.

She brought his hands to her mouth to still them. "Sebastian, stop, we can't do this here," she whispered—as if someone might be listening at the door.

"Why not?" He grinned at her. His hair was mussed from her fingers, his lips pink from kissing.

"Because.
This is the
vicarage."

"Christy won't mind. If we stay, somebody can put up a sign one day: 'A countess slept here.' "

She rolled her eyes. "I doubt that I would do much sleeping."

"Well, then the sign can say, 'A countess—' "

"Hush." She put her fingers over his laughing lips. Before he could reach for her, she stood up and backed away from the bed, smiling at him, buttoning her dress. "Let's go home."

"Home." The word convinced him. He said it again, "Home," as he rose from the bed and came to her, and she loved the sound of it in his voice.

They took hands. He opened the door for her. In the threshold he paused, and she turned to see him gazing back into the room. "What?" she asked, puzzled. "Did we forget something?"

"Definitely."

"What?"

"The bilberries."

Their laughter, his and hers, rang out as she pulled him from the room. The gay sound would follow them down through the years, keeping them company for the rest of their lives.