9. To Hint at Dalliance, One Knowses, Is Not All Primroses

9

To Hint at Dalliance, One Knowses, Is Not All Primroses

A chill shuddered through Warrick. Shook his whole body. He gripped the bench hard, harder than he had before, felt a piece of the carved stone crumble beneath the clench of his fingers. Sweat broke out on his brow. His heart thundered. Breaths came swift and fast as he blinked even faster.

Brambles.

Arch. Garden.

The Ballenger estate.

Each recognition eased the fierce panic gripping every muscle and galloping through his chest.

Hell’s bells and devil take it. He had not thought of that day, of those moments—his angels?—in months. Had nearly forgotten. (Or tried to.)

Until a glimpse of a winter “angel” brought it all back.

His? His angel?

The governess? She was his promised angel? His heart tried to float at that. Till reality shot it down. Of course not, you fool! Not when you are destined to marry a fortune so you may care for your siblings. The estate.

Utter rot and rubbish. A man should be able to make his own way, care for siblings without sacrificing?—

A walking man mayhap. A man able to work. Not a titled man strapped to debts and family.

Pushing the unpalatable thoughts of his miserable future aside, his desperate gaze sought out?—

And found. A gentle peace wound through him, deepened his next inhale.

Navy cloak about her shoulders, plain winter bonnet disguising the fetching hue of her hair, his earthbound angel scuttled up from afar.

“Miss Primrose!” What was her first name? Though she attempted to maintain that “prim” demeanor, he knew much more lurked beneath.

At his shout, she stumbled, angled his direction but didn’t spy him immediately. “Might you scamper closer,” he invited, “and bring a ray of sunshine my way?”

Had he really just yelled for her to join him?

Spotting him amongst the brambles, she stilled. Exertion pinkened her cheeks and inflated her lungs.

“Please?”

After an inner battle, or so it seemed, she gave a slight nod and plowed through the light smattering of snow that had fallen overnight.

“What takes you afield today?” he inquired. “You did not accompany Lady Harriet into the village?”

As she came within talking (not shouting) distance, she pulled one gloved hand from the fur muff held tightly between them to tuck a few stray hairs back beneath her bonnet. “Lady Ballenger declared a holiday from lessons.”

And lines? he could not help but wonder. “At Harri’s urging, I’d wager.”

She tucked her hand back inside the muff. Up close, he could see what was likely cream or white when new had become brown with use and time. Did it, mayhap, match yet another brown dress beneath the cloak? “Harri?” She frowned at him. “Is that not presumptive? Even for you?”

“She invited the diminutive.” He gestured to the space beside him, more than enough for her trim frame and lightly flared hips. “Have a seat, if you would.”

“I think not.” She took one step away.

He gave a sardonic bark of laughter. “You scamper away as though you expect me to give chase. We both know the chances of that happening are naught.”

She glanced around, took note of the dried leaves and dead flowers, the rose beds dormant until spring; the house a good distance away; before turning her attention back to him. “Where is your conveyance?”

“Inside.” Where the grit, grime and goodly amount of dirt found outside wouldn’t find its way into the chair’s gears, making it even more challenging to use.

Beneath the shadow of her bonnet, on this already cloudy and bleak day, he saw her brow pinch, so closely did he watch her. “Then how did you…”

“Gain my current position?” He gave the bench a quick slap of one palm. “Carried.” He gave her a grim smile. “Carried by the burliest Larchmont footman to be found.”

“I am certain that grievously injured your pride.”

That went without saying.

He wanted to cross one leg, prop his right ankle on the opposite thigh and lean back, appear the gadabout rake she thought him, but nay. He could only coil his fingers around the edge of the bench, hope he appeared to be at ease, and pray he didn’t fall off.

“You wound me. Miss Primrose, skittering up through the snows, coming the way the wind dost blow. Wound me quite deeply.”

“Oh?” She was wary, but not enough to avoid his presence, cautiously approaching as he imagined a fawn might if he sat there long enough. “How so?”

“My lonely, ah…” He made an obvious show of looking toward his lap before facing her again. Couldn’t halt the lift of one eyebrow. “ Self awaited your arrival for hours my first night here.”

“Hours?” she scoffed. “Does not a soused man sleep soundly—and swiftly?”

“Ah. Not-quite soused enough to slumber without thoughts of you.”

She grew bolder, took two steps toward him and he had to fight not to show his pleasure. “Thoughts? Pray, shall I save us both the fuss and bother, slap you posthaste?”

He chuckled. “Please do not. For I am desirous of your company and therefore will keep my potentially bother some thoughts to myself. Shall I tender my apologies?” Not because he would necessarily mean them but because he truly wished her to remain. “I will, you know. For everything uttered at our last encounter, if you so wish it.”

“Mayhap. But not for every thing.”

This time, he couldn’t keep the gloat from showing as satisfaction flowed from her pert response straight through his body. “There now. Your eyes shimmer and cheeks brighten.”

How lovely she was, angel or no. Even covered head to snow-tipped toes.

“Should you not be frozen clear through? Simply sitting here—alone? For I at least have had my rousing walk to—” As though she heard herself, she blushed deeper. “Your fingers look iced. Shall I summon?—”

“Do not dare. And you accuse me of being frozen? Cast thine eyes downward. The bottom of your dress shows the sort of treatment one might expect from Lady Harri, not from her respectable governess. Your hem near dragging icicles, madam. As to myself? I may sit here through the day”—and he would, if he didn’t need to go in and piss at some point—“because I can feel .

“I welcome the sting of near-frozen fingers. The air’s cold bite within my lungs. The nip of the frosty breeze upon my skin. The strain of muscles too-little used these past months as I?—”

No. She need not know the effort it took to balance right now. Gah. How had he let sitting in that chair make him so weak? Though his shoulders and arms might have grown bigger from hauling his deadweight carcass around, they had no stamina whatsoever.

“How long have you been outside?”

“It matters not.”

“It does if you have let your blood congeal into shockles.” She thought his blood would turn to ice? Never. Not with her presence to warm him. “I do not wish to return inside. Too oft, it feels a prison.” Bitterness dripped from his mouth like melt off the branches. “Nor do I wish to be carried about like in infant.” Especially not in front of you.

“That is understandable. Eminently so. This past May is not yet that distant. Perhaps in time, things will improve.”

He grunted. “Enough distant to frustrate.”

She gave him a comforting smile, one that made him want to reach out and pull her down to sit beside him so he could bask in her closeness every bit as much as he had once clung to his angels. “At your home, can you smooth doorways?” she asked. “Build inclines your chair can climb? Mayhap even install a rope pulley for your arms to work your chair across distances faster? Give yourself some manner of independence?”

“You steal my breath.” And she did, on so many levels. But at the moment, ’twas her enterprising suggestions that invigorated something inside him that had been dormant for too long. “I vow, Miss Primrose, of the reddened nose, you should return with me, prod my body into healing.”

“Return?” To the house? To your estate? He could all but hear the disbelief.

“Aye.” His gaze dared her. Beseeched her.

“Should you take that attitude—your fixed determination to entice me upon your lap—and use similar perseverance to take strides toward healing, I wager you shall be rising on your own before long.”

“Tell that to my legs. Pardon. My limbs , would you?”

Absurd, that a man wasn’t supposed to utter the word leg in front of females.

“I know someone who might be of benefit…” She gestured toward the useless limbs which only made him wince, ready to abandon the topic. “Someone who might help restore?—”

“Spare me, please. These last months, I have burdened more physicians—and they me—than I care to recall.”

“But my uncle?—”

“Nay. Tell me of Miss Primrose, of the brightly glowing nose?—”

“You scoundrel!” She rubbed the red tip. “For pointing it out.”

“Then, Miss Governess of the Latin Vocabulary, teach me something about yourself. Let me learn more of you—so as to take my thoughts away from your…cherry-red nose and frost-nipped toes.”

Muffling a laugh, lest he continue his absurdities, she glared at him. “I would wager my last quarter’s earnings ’tis not my nose nor my toes that occupy your wicked thoughts.”

“Shall I tell you more? Perhaps, Miss Primrose, we could plan another coze? For which I could prepare any number of wickedly alluring odes?”

Still fighting it, she finally released the laugh. “You are a trial.”

As though he considered it a compliment, his eyes gleamed. “And should you not share something of yourself…” He brought one hand up to rub his chin, considering. “It is to your elbows, odes I shall compose.”

“Stop! Stop, you fiend,” she giggled, completely out of character.

He gave the dark slash of his brows a double wiggle. “Best you disclose…”

She sobered, thinking. Share of herself? Easier asked than answered.

But he sat there, confident, cocky and waiting.

What did he expect her to say? That her breasts hurt from being harnessed so tightly? That she hated wearing the “hide-me” pigeon dress he accused her of? That all week, she’d watched other females, not excessively much younger, flourishing in pastels made of frothy fabric that glided about when they walked instead of clunking ? Should she tell him that she’d pulled her hair so tight this day, she’d given herself an aching noggin? Or that, contrary to what she might wish, he’d occupied an indecent amount of her thoughts as well?

“Come now,” he prodded, returning his hand to the bench, where he had both curved about the edge, alongside each thigh. His feet, encased in tall boots, propped on the ground directly in front of him, remained as still as ice. “The last time we spoke, you showed no such hesitation in bantering with me and voicing your thoughts.”

“The last time we spoke, you claimed to be tippled beyond recollection.” Yet his intent, devil-may-care glint made her suspect he remembered every word.

He proved her right when he immediately cracked, “Pretty as a peacock, I do believe. If you were another sort of female, I would ask you to sit upon my lap. Alas, you left both my lap and my heart empty that night.”

“Your heart? Your bed , you mean.” She pierced him with her best disapproving, governess glare while inside the snug confines of her muff, her fingers tangled.

Why could she not be rid of him? Why must he, of all the men she had met (which actually weren’t all that many) since leaving the Young Ladies Improving Academy and striking out on her own, be the only one who provoked her fancy? Because you know he, of all of them, poses no threat?

No threat? He might not be able to give chase if she said nay, but he could threaten her heart indeed. “If you would devote yourself to working your limbs with half as much effort as you do at being shocking, I daresay you could dance by May Day.”

“And if a May Day dance is not what inspires me to work as you so despairingly phrase it?”

“Then determine what you care about sufficiently that will stir you to action. That is not something anyone else can do for you.”

“Will you meet me under the mistletoe?” he drawled, completely ignoring the gust of wind that buffeted them both, scattering his thick hair into disarray. She clenched her fingers tight, lest they be enticed to smooth it back. “Doubtless I could find something to stir me in that.”

“Mistletoe? Me? Nay. I am not bound for such trivialities. Nor is my place here—bantering in the garden with a rake…” She should glance toward the manor, see if anyone witnessed his nonsensical claims. But her attention couldn’t be swayed from the movement of his lips, of the wind rustling his hair. Of his strong, bare hands perched so temptingly near… She shook herself. “My place is shepherding and teaching young, impressible?—”

“Is it now? Then why do you remain? Here? With me?”

There is nowhere else I would rather be. No other place as compelling.

The brisk, solitary walk meant to enliven now excited instead. Made it far too easy to discard the distance she’d protected herself with.

After living in the Larchmont household for the last months, and being treated with a combination of respect and indifference from Lord Ballenger, the constant wariness she had worn like travailsome armor these past years had begun, just a bit, mind, to wane. But certainly wasn’t gone.

Being caught unaware by the younger, visiting brother of the wealthy viscount who had previously employed Aphrodite to shepherd his two young daughters… Being held immobile and forced to accept the hard thrust of his tongue—and the rest of his unwelcome body against hers despite her struggles—and forced to listen silently when he slapped his fingers over her mouth and uttered taunting promises of how he’d ensure her compliance, his restrictive grip only easing when a handful of maids came bustling in, wet and laughing from the rain that had chased them inside early after their half day off, had taught her early and well how certain men could not be trusted.

And that had been the least of her two awful encounters with the peerage. (Which, to sometimes calm her rising apprehension, she had begun secretly thinking of collectively as the pukeage .)

For once, instead of the dreadful memories hovering, she had to yank them forth, remind herself how very dangerous?—

“Do not retreat.”

“I have not—” But she had. Had taken two steps backward.

Traitorous feet.

“If bantering is not to your taste,” he blurted in a low rumble that topsy-turvied her stomach, “then let me confess I desire a kiss. Should not a brave and wounded soldier rate such a small token?”

“Well,” she huffed, determined to thwart what his request—and those lips—persisted in doing to her. “I desire my father safely returned to me and to know my mother’s embrace again, neither of which will ever occur. Despite petulant wishes, we do not always gain something simply because we desire it.”

He gave a low whistle. “Damn me, Miss Primrose, poetry to whom I must endeavor to compose. You surprise me, not something females often do. You have depths blazing from beneath that ugly shroud. Profunde ones. I would so find satisfaction in uncovering them. Ah! There it is. That lovely flush upon your nose. Miss Prim?—”

“That is quite enough! Not another ludicrous rhyming word about my red nose, slippered toes or?—”

“Banishing your clothes?”

A garbled scream strangled her throat. “You are the outside of enough!”

She whirled toward the big house.

A sharp pull on her cloak, accompanied by his deep curse, and he was hauling back on the bench and bringing her with him.

She toppled, practically into his arms—into his lap!

Attempting to ignore the strength of his arms, the welcome scent of his neck, where his scarf had loosened—something outside-fresh, kitchen-spicy and virile-male musky—she fought the urge to kiss his skin. To inhale him. To thread her fingers through?—

Aphrodite!

She scrambled to her feet. Reared back, shaking hands on trembling hips, and employed the tone that brooked immediate (or nearly so) obedience from Harriet. “My person is not a trifle to be dallied with at your whims. Please leave off haranguing me so I may return to my charge.”

“Tut, tut. I did not take you for one who would spout clankers. We both know your charge went into town with everyone. So harangue you, I must. I am duty bound, you see.”

Calling on every ounce of temperate behavior she exercised in front of others, she barely avoided stomping her foot. Instead, gave him a patently false yet serene smile. “Duty bound to annoy me straight inside. Good day!” That was too polite. She bent toward him and fairly growled, “I misspoke. I bid you a rotten day!”

Aphrodite! For shame.

He makes me feel things. Far too much.

She hadn’t been this riled in… In… Ever!

Before she could flounce off, he lunged and snagged her muff, right off her chilled hands.

“Miss Primrose, pardon.” He held the muff between them in a manner that might indicate surrender to someone more foolhardy than she.

Her father had given that to her mother when she was young. She refused to leave without it. She gripped one worn end and tugged. “Return that to me.”

“Not quite yet.” He tugged right back.

Several seconds elapsed, neither of them giving an inch. Her riotous breathing finally evened out. Skin flushed hot at his proximity, almost making her wish she could do away with her cloak and bonnet. She gave another, halfhearted tug.

He held firm. Practically drew her forth until she stood right in front of him, her long skirt brushing against his knees and all but obliterating the sight of his boots.

His head up-tilted, his eyes steady on hers, he allowed the jovial, half-bored mask to slip “This I tell you true: were I in a position to dally , you would not need fear me. Never so. For I have yet to attempt seducing the help since I was fourteen and received a birching for my effort.”

She did not know what to say to that. Just as well, for he wasn’t finished, rearranging his hold on her muff until she stood so close, his knees bumped into her trembling legs. “Alas, Miss Primrose of the petite, adorable nose and burdensome clothes, you behold before you a broken man. No dancing nor dallying in my future. So you see, promising me a kiss beneath the moonlight?—”

“Mistletoe.”

He gave a sad smile. “Can you not see? Granting me either would be a singular act of charity to one so grievously injured. One who has naught to excite his thoughts. What occupies them is only dread, knowing that next Christmas will arrive with my legs and body still confined.” His rakish air had crumbled. The pretense of roguish gallant vanished on the vapor.

Without conscious thought, she placed light fingers upon his shoulder, needing to comfort. Trembled more when they slid to the warmth of his neck. “Come next Christmas, Lord Warrick, should you present your boots—or dress shoes—beneath the mistletoe, whether standing or not, I will grant you a kiss.”

The thought of doing just that had more than her shaky legs aflutter.

He gave her a hard stare at odds with the half quirk lifting one side of his mouth. “And if I decide I desire a moonlit kiss as well?” He covered her fingers with the strength of one hand. “Mayhap from the position of our limbs entangled upon my bed?—”

Oh my blazes!

She plucked her hand free from beneath the dizzying thrill of his, whipped her muff from his loosened grasp, and slapped his outstretched fingers when they reached for her. “Then, my lord, I consider it my duty to remind you that I am a servant.” Hell and drat. “ Limbs entangled? There are mistresses for that sort of thing.”

The idea of their naked limbs—legs—rubbing against each other’s? Of her, hated dress gone, sprawled upon his mattress? Of him, sprawled there with her? Her hair, loose and down…his strong fingers feathering through the tangle… Him, rising up over her?—

“You wretch!” she cried, mayhap out of proportion to his toysome banter, but not to how she responded. Craved to respond even more. “Evil, loathsome fouling! How dare you go and put such imagery in my head!”

Heart fluttering like the wings of a poor fledgling flicked from its nest, she bolted. More stirred than she’d ever been in her life.