“Have you ever been in love?” Elsie asked, then added, “Don’t worry, I am not looking for a declaration.”
He smiled, and again Elsie was struck by how handsome he was. “No. I have not.”
“I imagine you have kissed a girl, though.”
His smile remained. “Yes, indeed I have.”
“Then I suppose you wouldn’t have any objection to kissing your intended?” Part of her wanted to erase the memory of Alexander’s kiss, to prove that any kiss would send her head spinning and set her body afire.
He looked momentarily embarrassed but recovered nicely enough. “It would be my pleasure,” he said gallantly, then leaned forward, stopping abruptly, almost angrily. “Have you spoken to my father?” he demanded.
Elsie stepped back, startled by his sudden fierceness. “Do you mean privately?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Do I look as if I’ve been browbeaten by anyone other than you today?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.
Lord Hathwaite let out a small sigh, his anger disappearing as quickly as it had come. She hadn’t been aware of his temper until that moment. “I do apologize. My father has a way of getting beneath my skin and festering there.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, which made him look rather like a petulant boy. Elsie stood beneath the arbor, wishing she were back in the Wrights’ home with the others. Her fiancé was such a gloomy sort.
“Shall we go back?” she asked, after what seemed like an interminably long time. She’d never understood some women’s fascination with quiet, brooding men. Quiet was fine, she thought, thinking of Alexander, but brooding
and
quiet was simply tedious.
The first day without Elsie was blissfully quiet. Alexander got an enormous amount of work done and he could almost convince himself that he was glad she was gone. And then, the second night, he gave in and sat at the piano, not playing, but remembering her soft, warm body, the way she’d been so responsive, her smell, her sounds. He was filled with a sharp pang of loss. The loneliness of his days and all the days to come covered him like a shroud.
He missed her. He missed having someone to talk to, who would not judge, who would laugh at his humor such as it was, who would look at him without pity. Even Monsieur, for all his kindness, thought of Alexander as someone to pity. And he wanted things, desperately so, that he could never have. He wanted to love her, be in love with her, wake up next to her every day of his life. It could never be. He was unable to give her the life she deserved, for he was only half a man, one who humiliated himself in public even now.
He touched the middle C lightly, smiling at the sound. He tried not to think of his past, but for the first time in years, he felt its loss. First the lake and the boys, and now Elsie making him feel for a few days as if he could jump up and touch the moon. The fall was so, so far.
When Elsie returned, she would not find him, for he’d already told Monsieur he would work only during the daytime. It was critical to the mural, he’d told his master, that he be able to paint in daylight anyway, even though the painting had not suffered from working in lamplight. Monsieur’s ban had been obeyed by everyone in the household, including Elsie. She had enough honor, he knew, that she would never put Monsieur in danger of discovery.
He knew when she returned, for he heard the carriage’s arrival, and heard her voice through the door. That his entire body felt her presence with such intensity only validated his conviction that they must stay apart.
Nothing good can come of seeing her
, he told himself again and again. His heart, good God, his heart hurt so damned much.
That night as he lay in bed in the small cottage he and Monsieur shared, he pictured her entering the ballroom and finding it empty. He knew she would be disappointed and it took all his resolve not to go, not to wait for her. He could tell himself he could not touch her, that it was wrong, but he knew if they were together again he would not be able to resist.
He ached for her, his heart, his body, but he spent the night staring at the ceiling, listening to Monsieur snoring in the next room.
Chapter 7
Elsie walked into the ballroom on the third night after her return from the Wrights’ house party, allowing her heart to hope that Alexander would be there. Instead she felt a now-familiar pang of disappointment. No, it was more than that. It was pain, raw, physical pain.
It didn’t matter that he was merely an artist’s assistant. He had become something more to her and to have him purposely avoid her was—unendurable. She needed to see him, to explain how sorry she was that she had allowed that kiss. It was wrong of her, wrong of them, even if it had been the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her. What she’d thought had been a beautiful kiss she now remembered with a bit of shame. Engaged girls did not wander about their houses in the night and kiss men who were not their intended. She should not have allowed it, should not have encouraged it. It could never be more than a dalliance, a spoiled girl’s infatuation with a man she could never have. Thought of like that, she was completely in the wrong.
Still, no matter how she chastised herself for her foolishness, she pined around the house, hovering outside the ballroom door just on the hope she might glimpse him. And he, no doubt, was simply relieved that the house’s naughty little heiress had finally left him alone. Even as she tortured herself with such thoughts, she knew, deep down, that Alexander didn’t think of her so.
She wished they could go back to how they’d been, simply two lonely souls finding friendship. But that kiss, the one she’d so fervently wanted, had been such a terrible mistake. Why her heart should feel so empty, she didn’t know. Certainly, she wasn’t in love with Alexander. That was impossible. But she knew she missed him, knew the thought of never spending an evening talking and laughing with him left her feeling hollow and more than a little wretched.
She sat at the piano and tapped at a single note, sighing out loud, sounding very much like what she was: a young woman in the throes of her first infatuation. She began to play a song that captured the grief in her heart, another Chopin piece that never failed to make her throat close on tears even when she was not already feeling sad.
As she played the
Tristesse
, she closed her eyes, letting the music flow from her fingers, losing herself, until she realized she was crying. Abruptly, angrily, she stopped and dashed away the tears.
“That was beautiful. Chopin would be proud.”
She gasped, and smiled, seeing Alexander standing at the entrance of the closest French door.
“I don’t know why I’m playing such a sad song,” she said. It was so clearly a lie, she let out a watery laugh. She’d been looking at him, but turned to stare blindly at the piano keys. “Why have you stayed away, Alexander?”
“I think you know,” he said, his voice low. How she’d missed the sound of his voice. “I shouldn’t be here now.”
Elsie twisted her hands in her lap and smiled uncertainly at him. “I’m glad you are here, for I need to apologize to you. I have been putting you in a terrible position, forcing you to entertain me when you should be working.”
“I could have told you to leave. Even that first night. The fault is mine. I knew it could only lead to a bad end.”
Alexander watched silently as Elsie moved her hand back and forth upon the ivory keys, almost a caress. Lamplight bathed her in a golden glow that made her seem impossibly beautiful. Her long hair, pulled back loosely from her face, seemed almost afire in the light even as her face was cast in a shadow. She literally took his breath away.
Alexander had never been drawn to a woman the way he was drawn to Elsie. He wasn’t a stupid man, or one driven by his baser needs. But as he’d lain abed earlier that night, he’d let his mind wander to the ballroom where he knew she would be. He vowed he wouldn’t touch her, though God above knew he wanted to. But he simply needed to see her, to listen to her voice, to be with someone who didn’t judge or pity.
He closed his eyes, willing away the loneliness that for some reason he was only just now starting to recognize.
“I should go,” he said.
She could have had any number of reactions. She could have been defeated or angry. Instead, she leapt up from the piano bench, her white teeth visible even in the gloom of the ballroom, and smiled brightly at him.
“No, please stay,” she said. “I promise not to put you in a compromising position.”
He stayed at the door, staring at her, as if unsure whether or not to enter. He knew he should not. He knew he should turn around and go back to the little cottage he shared with Monsieur, but she drew him to her, made his heart long for things he’d never even let himself dream of.
“I have apologized and you have accepted, so all is well,” she said. “It was completely uncharacteristic of me. Honestly.”
He smiled slightly. “You don’t often kiss workers who come into your home then?”
She blushed, two spots of red in her otherwise pale face, and let out something that sounded very much like a snort of mirth. “Not usually. It was terribly forward of me. My mother certainly would have scolded me and my father, well, he would have been shocked by my behavior.”
“I did kiss you back,” he said, wishing she hadn’t apologized—again—for something he’d wanted so much. It only confirmed his belief that he should not touch her again. She was a baron’s daughter and he was nothing. No one. He must continue to tell himself that lest he let himself think impossible thoughts.
“Yes, but how could you resist?” Elsie said, laughing. She was fighting hard to turn this conversation into something light and trivial, and he decided to let her.
“True. But I fear I cannot let you take the blame, not entirely,” Alexander said. “I should have forbade you to come here. I could have ignored you or sent you away. But I didn’t.”
Elsie stood and walked to the little sofa set nearer to the mural. She sat, then turned so that she could look at Alexander, who still hovered near the door, still uncertain whether he should stay. “You’ve been getting a lot of work done, I see.”
“No distractions.”
“Would you come sit by me?”
He hesitated only a moment before joining her on the sofa, pressing his large body as far away from her as possible. No need to test himself too much.
Elsie stared at him while her mind went over and over what she wanted to say. The truth of it was, she liked him, quite a lot, but she also knew that they could never be anything more than friends. After all, she was practically engaged; true, the announcement hadn’t been made yet, but that was only a formality and she knew it well. He didn’t know she was engaged, and to blurt it out now would seem somehow presumptuous. How mortifying if he was simply enjoying a little dalliance and she was thinking he wanted something more meaningful. She’d done that once before. A young man had asked her for two dances, and she had felt she must tell him she was engaged. He’d been rather confounded by her announcement. “I only asked for a dance, not for your hand.” She still burned in mortification from that set down.
“You told me I was being cruel, and I understand that now,” she said. “But I acted foolishly. And hurtfully. I understand that I am a baron’s daughter and you are... you are ...”
“Nothing,” he said, without inflection.
“Not nothing, you know that,” Elsie said, her tone chastising. “You are, in fact, one of the most wonderful, intelligent, talented men I have ever met in my life. But I am also a realist, and I think you are, too.” She took a bracing breath, praying that he would understand what she said next. “So for that reason, I believe we should agree to be friends only.”
He looked at her sharply, then let out a rather humorless laugh.
“I do recognize that there is a certain attraction between us. Would you agree?” she said, trying to sound sophisticated even though her heart beat madly in her chest. To suggest such a thing was quite unlike her.
He tilted his head as if examining her. “I would.”
“But I, for one, believe I can restrain myself from thinking of you as anything other than a friend.” She ended this last with a sharp nod. He raised one eyebrow and gave her one of his half-grins, as if everything she uttered was charming and not entirely serious.
“You could try to think of me as a servant,” he said in that same amused tone. Why he thought this was funny was beyond her comprehension.
“Is it impossible for a man and woman to be friends?”
Alexander could not quite believe what she was asking of him, and his old assessment about how incredibly naïve she was seemed to be true. All he could think of when she was gone was how he wanted to hold her, how he longed to bury himself inside her, how she would taste, sound, feel when his mouth closed around her taut nipple. It had been pure agony staying away from her when he’d known she’d returned and he knew she was wandering about the house alone wearing only her nightclothes. He was not a saint, he was nothing close to a saint and he hadn’t had a woman in far too long to be able to sit by one this beautiful and be able to tolerate it with a smile. And yet, if he wanted her company, if he wanted the privilege of talking to her, looking at her, it would seem he would have to accept her olive branch of friendship and pretend he didn’t want to lay her down on this couch and taste every inch of her delectable body.
“No, it is not impossible,” Alexander said slowly and completely disingenuously, though part of him wished it were true. It would be far less torturous if he could think of her as some asexual being.
“So. We are agreed.”
He decided that he was willing to suffer through his unfulfilled desire simply to be with her. A frighteningly telling thought, indeed. “Yes. Agreed.”
“Oh, marvelous,” she said with a little clap. It was an adorable habit of hers when she could not contain her happiness, that little clap. “Good, then. Now that we are friends, I want you to tell me about your childhood.”
“A very boring story,” he said, feeling his entire body heat.
“But it is your story and I am interested.”
Alexander swallowed. He’d never told anyone about the pain of his childhood, the humiliations, the beatings. He had never told a soul who he really was, and God willing, she would never find out.
“My father was an important man,” he said. “And I was a shameful embarrassment to him.” He stopped to gauge Elsie’s reaction, and was gratified that he saw no pity on her lovely face, only curiosity. “I suppose it was maddening to him that I refused to speak to him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Alexander shook his head, for it was a question he’d asked himself a thousand times over. “He was a stranger to me and I could not speak to strangers. He spent most of his time in London, coming home only rarely. My throat would freeze up. I tried so hard so many times. In my head I screamed to myself, but nothing would come out. It was only after I knew someone well that I felt brave enough to speak.”
His father had been a large and frightening man, especially to a little boy who constantly lived in fear of him. It became so bad that all Alexander needed was to hear his father’s footsteps and he would freeze up, putting on what his father called “that idiot look.” He’d hated himself nearly as much as he hated his father.
It was always the same. His father would demand something, and he would stand there, stiff and unmoving, unable to utter a sound, and his father would have his secretary cane him. He never laid a hand upon Alexander himself, but always delegated the task as if even touching his son would somehow contaminate him.
One of the worst beatings came when his father had quietly come up to the schoolroom to observe his sons being taught. Alexander had been reading aloud, proud of his ability, glad to impress their tutor, Mr. Thoresby. And then, when he’d finished, his father had entered the small room, clapping, but Alexander knew he was furious. Like every time before, his throat closed and he shut down while he furiously begged himself to speak. Anything. One word. One syllable to show his father he was not the failure he thought he was.
But he could not.
“How terrible for you,” Elsie said when he was finished.
“Yes. It was.”
Somehow during the telling of his terrible tale, she’d moved over until she was sitting next to him. She clasped one of his hands in both of hers, holding it firmly in her soft grip. “Who is he? I should like to throttle him.”
“That,” he said, giving her hands a squeeze and pulling away, “is something I shall never divulge.”
“The Earl of Derby,” she guessed, frowning.
“No. Do you think I come from something so grand as an earl?”
“Lord Shelton? I’ve never liked him much. He seems like the kind of man who would hurt an innocent child.”
Alexander laughed. “Stop. It is unimportant. That is part of my life that I do not care to think about.”
“It’s hard for me to think of you like that, so helpless. You don’t seem helpless to me at all.” Her hand was back on his arm, foolish girl. Did she not know what that simple touch did to him, how it made it difficult not to drag her into his arms, especially with her looking so fierce and protective? He might have expected pity, but the thought that she wanted to throttle his father was rather heartwarming.