Chapter Seven

Samuel heard acrash! outside the drawing room. Leaving the comfort of his gin and solitude, he ventured to the garden attached to the back of the townhouse. As he stepped outdoors, his lungs immediately filled with the odd mix of nighttime scents of succulent, meaty family dinners and fruity roses. The private, high-walled garden was lined on all sides with the blasted fragrant flowers thanks to the previous owner. Samuel didn’t mind the cloying, powdery smell, but he didn’t love it either. It reminded him too much of funerals.

It appeared that his ward didn’t approve of the robust flower either. He spied Myfanwy on the pebbled walking lane that framed both sides of the garden, a ball in her hand, ostensibly lining herself up to bowl down the path.

Silently, he regarded her unusual behavior, admiring her lithe form as she ran down the lane, winding up her arm to bowl. With astonishing speed, she whipped it at one of the plants at the far end, taking off half of a juicy red rose in one striking slice.

Samuel clapped slowly as he emerged from the shadows, causing Myfanwy to yelp and clutch her hands to her heart as if to keep it inside her chest.

“You scared me!” she shrieked, fetching her ball from the battered plant. Samuel noticed her stride past a broken flowerpot, which he surmised had been the source of the earlier noise.

“You know,” he drawled easily, enjoying the round, plush view of Myfanwy’s backside as she bent over to search for her ball under the bushes. “Plants are expensive. I’m not as rich as the gentlemen of your acquaintance, you know.”

With a triumphant “ah-ha!” Myfanwy shot up straight. She tossed the ball in the air and caught it. “Oh, please. You’re richer than Croesus. My father told me all about your investments. You do know that, don’t you? He told me everything.”

Samuel didn’t know what he knew anymore. Not when her sunburst red hair sat all disheveled and enticing around her face. Half of him wanted to run his fingers through it—try to tame it—and the other half never wanted her to wear her hair any different for the rest of her life.

Myfanwy cocked her head, waiting for him to answer. Samuel cleared his throat. “Um…yes… You know what I mean. Someone put a great deal of money and time into this garden.”

“Not you?”

Samuel almost laughed. “No, not me. I bought it this way, and I’d hate to have to spend money to repair it after you’re gone.”

Myfanwy took deliberate steps back to the top of her makeshift pitch, her brow furrowed. She had a very kissable brow as well, Samuel surmised. In fact, every spot on her body deserved to be kissed by him. Especially her arms, which were bare since she’d changed after practice into a cap-sleeved gown. She’d been the only woman who hadn’t asked him to tear off her dress sleeves at practice—almost as if she was being spiteful. Or maybe she just didn’t want Samuel to touch her.

He didn’t like that thought, not one bit.

“Where am I going?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

Myfanwy tossed the ball up in the air again and caught it. “You said ‘after I’m gone.’ Where am I going?”

Oh.Samuel locked his hands behind his back and waded further into the garden, being sure not to get too close to her. It was safer that way for reasons he didn’t want to contemplate. Myfanwy had divulged that she liked it when Samuel looked at her; however, she’d never said anything about his touching her. No, that was his wishful thinking.

Realizing that he’d pushed his leg too far that afternoon, he sat on the little bench against the brick wall facing her. “When you get married, obviously.” Did his voice always sound this rough? Why was he so thirsty all of a sudden?

Samuel pulled at his collar while Myfanwy chuckled mirthlessly. “I thought I already told you that wasn’t going to happen.”

Samuel pulled harder. “You never told me that.”

“I’m positive I did.”

“When?”

She shrugged. “Before.”

“Before what?”

How could she continue to look at him so incredulously? She was the one who wasn’t making any damn sense! “Before everything, just before,” she answered sharply. “It’s not a secret. I’m sure I told you when I first moved in.”

Samuel winced. He wasn’t at his best in that period, so soon after the fateful circumstances that led to his retirement, not to mention his friend’s passing. If Myfanwy had divulged anything at that time, she would have had to shout over all the booze he’d been drinking. And alcohol could be awfully loud.

“Never mind,” he stated, shifting on the bench. He desperately needed another ice bath tonight. His hip muscles were screaming. “Just tell me why I won’t have the pleasure of seeing you leave anytime soon.”

Myfanwy’s shoulders slumped. “Do you always have to be such an ass?”

Samuel didn’t respond. It wasn’t necessary, since they both knew the answer.

The woman sighed. “You don’t have that long to wait, actually. As I’m sure you know, I will reach my majority soon, then I’ll be able to take my money and live on my own. You can plan a party for me at that time if you’d like. I adore lemon cake.”

“I already knew that.”

“You did?”

Samuel caught the hopeful note in her tone—and the way it made his heart thump at odd intervals. He cleared his throat again. “Where will you go, if you don’t mind my asking?”

With another huff, Myfanwy turned away from him toward her target. She started her windup down the pitch and managed to take off an entire rose head this time. Not bad.

Her chest heaved from the exertion, and that damn hair was flying all over the place once more, bracketing her face like she was a picture of the Madonna and Child. “I don’t have to tell you,” she said, panting. “But since I’m certain you won’t try to stop me, I might as well. I’m going to buy a little bit of land and a small house—nothing too hard to manage—and start a cricket club. A real one. A place we can all be ourselves and call home without men or mothers skulking about, begging to give their opinions or make us doubt ourselves. A proper clubhouse. Just for us women.”

More parts of Samuel’s body were screaming now, but he couldn’t pinpoint where they were. They were too deep inside. Questions, so many questions, ran through his mind. Rational questions. Logistical questions. But they all fell to the wayside as the only one that mattered charged out of his mouth. “Why do you think I won’t try to stop you?”

In the process of going after her ball, Myfanwy froze. She stared at the ground for a couple of heartbeats before lifting her gaze to his. “You’ve made it clear that you’d like me to leave,” she said softly.

Samuel hauled himself to standing. If his entire body hurt when he was sitting, what was the point of not being on his feet? “I’ve never said anything of the kind,” he muttered gruffly, striding past her toward the bushes. He heard him follow on his heels.

“In the past, you’ve made it quite clear that you’d like to see me married—”

“I said I wanted to do right by your father.”

“So…you want me to be happy!”

“Yes,” Samuel replied. “Happy and married.”

“Those aren’t always the same thing.”

Samuel got on his knees and scooted under the bush, throwing out curse after curse as the thorns waged a silent war on him. Myfanwy seemed only too happy to let him do this chivalrous deed on his own. His hand finally cupped the ball, and he escaped with his clothes mostly intact.

He offered it to Myfanwy with a cocky half-smile. She started to take it from him, but then her hand diverted sharply. Her fingers dove into his hair. “You have petals on your head.” She laughed while rustling it about.

Samuel had to stop himself from closing his eyes. He hadn’t been touched in so long. He’d forgotten how beautiful it was, how goddamn transcendent. A shudder escaped him, and Myfanwy’s hand whipped away.

Thank the Lord it was dark outside. Samuel swore that he was blushing. “Um…thank you,” he said. He shoved the ball in her hand and made a fuss of dusting the dirt off his palms while backing away a few steps. Space was needed. They could be in different rooms, and they would still need more.

Myfanwy seemed embarrassed by her action—or maybe his—because she shuffled her boots in the pebbles. The grating, grinding sound seemed like it was coming straight from his rusty, sluggish heart.

What would happen if he held her right now? Samuel wondered. He almost believed that she would let him, maybe even want him to. Then he would know what the pearly skin of her arms felt like. He could trace his hands over the goosebumps that he would surely cause, and experience the vibrant muscles just under her surface. Because this woman was strong. So very strong. But she was not his. She was a viscount’s daughter. He was a bricklayer’s son. And although he had money, and maybe even a little bit of celebrity, they would never be on the same level.

Once more, Samuel locked his hands behind his back and gripped tight. “What of your friends?” he asked quietly. “They will all get married and won’t be able to play with you anymore. Joining the matrons is a way for you to counter that.”

Myfanwy humphed, crossing her arms. “I will never play for the matrons.”

“Because they’re married?”

“No,” she spat, her composure breaking. Hugging her middle, she continued. “Because they’re pompous and rude and completely forget about their friends once they put rings on their fingers. Not just forget…they pretend like they never existed in the first place.”

Samuel was beginning to understand. The viscount wasn’t the only person that Myfanwy had lost. It appeared that she considered her married friends ghosts to her as well.

“Is that why you want to beat them so badly?” he asked.

Myfanwy bobbed a shoulder petulantly. “Perhaps.”

“Oh, no, that’s not good enough. I told you about my history with Cremly. Now it’s your turn to do the same.”

Myfanwy wanted to argue with him. He could see it in the glint of her eyes, but he also could see she was tired. Like a house of cards, Myfanwy collapsed from his pressure. “Fine,” she said, brushing his shoulder as she moved past him. “But let’s sit down, at least. Your leg is hurting you again.”

“It’s not,” Samuel countered, but Myfanwy didn’t turn around.

“We both know it is. You don’t have to pretend with me, Samuel. I know you better than you think.”

Samuel frowned…but hobbled in her wake to the bench, setting a mental reminder to ask her everything she thought she knew about him—which couldn’t be much.

He took a seat next to her and leveled her with a there, are you happy now? glare. “Explain.”

Myfanwy rolled her eyes, keeping her attention in front of her, giving Samuel an ample view of the swanlike column of her neck. The tendons pulsed and tightened as she deliberated over her words. Samuel wanted to shake her—and kiss her—and then tell her not to measure her conversation with him. He wanted off-the-cuff comments, ideas that just sprang in her head, no filters between them. Samuel was never comfortable in this world—his injuries and his family had seen to that—and yet he wanted Myfanwy to feel unfettered with him.

“Jennifer—Miss Hallett—is my very best friend in the world. You know that, correct?”

“I do.”

Myfanwy nodded. “Well, she wasn’t my only best friend. We had another. Lilly Gladwell. It was always the three of us. All the time. I thought nothing—not even a slip of paper—could ever come between us. And then…”

“And then?”

She inflated her lungs. Samuel prepared himself for the worst. By his own admission, he wasn’t superb at consoling others, but he’d be damned if he fell short with Myfanwy.

“She got married.”

Her nails cut into the leather of the ball. Samuel hesitated, hoping there was more to the story.

There wasn’t.

“That’s it?” he asked after a couple of beats. “She got married?”

Myfanwy’s eyebrows crowded angrily toward her nose. “What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? She got married. That’s plenty.”

Christ.Samuel was so far out of the game, he couldn’t even see the pitch. How was he supposed to console the woman when he didn’t understand why she was so upset? And she was upset. It was obvious. Even with her head facing front, he could see her eyes shining with tears. He hoped to God they didn’t fall. That would test his empathy skills.

“Explain more…please,” he urged.

Myfanwy’s eyelashes flickered, and Samuel held his breath, but no tears fell. She rolled the ball around and around; the tendons on the tops of her hands lifted up and down like piano keys. “I suppose men don’t understand this sort of thing,” she began. “Maybe it all could have been different, but the second Lilly got married, it was as if she turned into a different person. All her time and energy were spent on her husband.”

Samuel’s spine straightened. Now he was getting it. “And she had no time for ladies. That’s to be expected in a new marriage, no?”

“No!” Myfanwy exclaimed, finally canting her body to his. It was then Samuel realized that her eyes weren’t bright because she was close to tears, but because she was close to anger. Samuel felt enormously better. Tears he didn’t understand, but anger and he were old friends.

Myfanwy went on, “Lilly had time for friends—new friends. Jennifer and I called on her, but she never called back. We saw her at balls and parties, but she pretended like we didn’t exist. She wrote us out of her life and created an entirely new one. I didn’t know what to do. I felt so…so…”

“Helpless?”

Myfanwy grabbed his hand. “Yes! Helpless! Thank you.”

Samuel resisted the urge to move his hand underneath hers so their palms were facing each other. He mustn’t tempt himself, because then he would tangle his fingers in between hers and all hell would break loose in his soul.

She glanced down at their hands, and her eyes widened at what she’d done…but she didn’t take hers away.

Nor did Samuel remove his. Instead, he coughed because he was afraid of what his voice would sound like if he didn’t. “Um… So, revenge. That’s where your lust for winning comes from. I suppose that’s as good a reason as any.”

Myfanwy squeezed him, and Samuel almost jumped out of his seat at the utter bliss of her inflamed touch. There was so much intensity to this woman, and he wanted all of it to be directed at him.

“No, not revenge,” she stated firmly. “I’m better than that.”

Well, shit.Samuel was quite certain he was not.

“I have a plan,” Myfanwy continued. “If the single women win—and if we continue to win—then the ladies will want to stay with me, with my new club. And…maybe…” She looked away hastily. “Maybe some of them won’t see the need to marry at all. Maybe they’ll recognize other options. Maybe, like me, they’ll be curious about…alternative lifestyles.”

Samuel’s gaze narrowed. “Some of them…like Jennifer?”

Myfanwy flinched. “What about Jennifer?”

“You actually believe that she won’t get married—that she won’t leave you—if you win.”

Suddenly, Myfanwy’s entire body shrank, as if she was being stuffed into a cage. “It could happen.”

The poor, na?ve girl. Samuel understood there were many who wondered if he truly had a heart inside his beaten body, but now he knew for sure, because it positively shattered at Myfanwy’s pathetic words. He’d never considered her a lonely person; however, it appeared that his ward’s loneliness rivaled his own.

But there was a major difference between them.

Samuel’s cricket career had been so successful because he’d craved autonomy. Being alone, affording his luxurious townhouse, not having to plan his days around a bricklayer’s schedule, was all he’d ever wanted. Myfanwy, on the other hand, valued winning as a way to keep the ones she loved around her. They’d both experienced loss in life, and they each had reacted to it in completely different ways.

But Samuel could help her. Beyond a doubt, he knew he could. Even if that meant she would eventually leave him, he would do it. Because that would make her happy, and Samuel realized there were no limits to what he would do to keep her so.

He heard a sniffle. And it just came to him. As natural as breathing, as faithful as a dog at her feet, Samuel raised his hand to her face. Slowly, with utter devotion, he used his thumb to wipe the tears from her cheeks. He didn’t flinch once. Didn’t even hesitate.

Myfanwy returned a sad, shy smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what has come over me.”

“It’s fine,” Samuel said, amazed at how level his voice was, how smooth and confident it escaped from his mouth.

Tiny tears collected on Myfanwy’s eyelashes, and he was reminded of the fairytales his mother used to tell him and his brothers before they fell asleep at night about desperate princesses and lovestruck knights. He’d loved those stories—loved any stories that got him out of Sutton, if not in body, then in mind.

Chagrined by her emotion, Myfanwy rustled about, using her fingers to stanch the flow of her tears at the corners of her eyes. Even so, Samuel didn’t take his hand away. As if it had a mind of its own, it remained holding her cheek. No, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t doing it on its own. It was Samuel.

Her brown pupils swallowed her face, and she stared at him. Samuel couldn’t read her expression. It wasn’t fear that kept her locked with him, though it wasn’t desire either. It almost looked like recognition, like Myfanwy was encountering something she hadn’t seen in a long time.

Her next words gave credence to that thought. “I’m glad that I have you here, Samuel,” she said tentatively. “I…I…uh…wanted to ask you something, ask you if you’d be amenable to something…with me. But now I can’t ask it.” She blushed prettily, ducking her head.

She spoke so low, so timid, that Samuel bent his torso to her. “Why?” he asked, echoing her soft tone, hoping to feel her next words brush against his lips.

“There’s something about you,” she said gently. “Something different, but also the same.” Myfanwy shook her head. “I don’t know.” She licked her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. “You remind me of someone long ago. Someone who…” She angled her head, and her hair skimmed over the top of Samuel’s hand, scorching him.

“Someone who…?”

Again, her smile held a hint of sorrow. Somehow, Samuel knew she was speaking of him—the man he once was—and he wanted to kiss the anguish from her. More importantly, he wanted to kiss that memory away, because that man was gone and never coming back. There was only the man that he was now.

He pressed his hand against her cheek and nudged her closer, so close that the features of her face ceased to be. Freckles, dimples, cheekbones, syrupy eyes, all were lost. The only thing that remained was Myfanwy.

In a life filled with long shots, impossibilities, and pure luck, Samuel took the biggest gamble of his life and simply laid his forehead on hers.

And just as he’d wanted, Myfanwy’s next words did caress his mouth—but they were the wrong ones. “Someone who…someone who once truly loved something.”

Samuel’s face flinched back. Myfanwy’s eyes were closed. She’d been waiting for his kiss. And he’d moved away, struck by her comment.

“What?” he asked.

Myfanwy blinked like someone just waking from a confusing dream. “What?” she repeated.

“What did you say?”

She shook her head. “I just said—”

Samuel dropped his hand. “No, I heard you, but I don’t understand—”

The door to the garden opened. “Mr. Everett, sir?”

Myfanwy shot up from her seat, dropping the ball to the pebbles as she smoothed her dress down on her lap.

Benjamin was too good of a butler to announce his surprise at finding them together, though Samuel did detect a slight rise in his voice. “Ah, hello, Miss Myfanwy. I didn’t know you were here. Uh, Mr. Everett?”

Samuel got to his feet as well, although not as quickly as Myfanwy. “What is it?”

“There’s a caller for you.”

“At this time of night? Send them away.”

Benjamin’s mouth tightened. “I really think you should come and speak with them,” he urged. “You’ll want to see this.”

Samuel could feel Myfanwy’s gaze on him, and he almost tasted her disapproval. Clearly, she thought it was a woman. Who else would come this late? He almost wanted to tell her that she didn’t know him as well as she thought, since he never had women come to the house. He always went to them.

Samuel nodded and began to move. Of course, Myfanwy was right behind him.

She followed him all the way to the foyer, her feet pounding louder and louder into the floor as they went. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he proved her wrong. He couldn’t wait to ask her what she thought she’d find.

When they reached the door, he turned to give her one smug grin before reaching for the handle.

But Samuel should have known. The night had been much too sunny for him. Again with the damn rain.

His expression fell the moment he opened the door and saw the child on the other side. Two children, really.

A rough-looking urchin—couldn’t have been more than ten—shoved a note into his hand. “She needs you,” was all the boy said before taking off in a flash, leaving the younger child woefully behind.

Since the little one barely reached Samuel’s busted kneecap, she couldn’t be blamed. Besides, the child was beyond terrified and on the verge of hysterics as she sucked her thumb and gazed up at him helplessly.

Samuel didn’t bother reading the note. He already knew what it said anyway. He knew by the color of the child’s head. Red.

“Goddammit,” he whispered. “Not again.”