Marrying the Rebellious Miss Page 7

  Surely it must have been. One man knew, a man who had left her, a man who was not nearly good enough to be entitled to such knowledge. The thought roused a strong sense of jealousy and anger, two rather incongruent emotions considering their motivations. He was jealous that one man knew what he did not and angry at that same man for knowing and not appreciating. His rational mind understood those emotions made no sense. If the man who warranted his anger had appreciated Beatrice, Preston would not be sitting here now, drinking wine and contemplating thoughts that bordered on illicit.

  There was berry pie for dessert with fresh cream, another of Beatrice’s arrangements, and then it was time to head upstairs. Matthew was dozing, clearly ready for his bed. Today had been a much better travelling day for the infant than yesterday. When he said as much to Bea as she tucked the child in, she merely smiled. ‘Babies need their schedules. Schedules give them security.’

  Preston leaned against the stone fireplace, watching her as she sang a soft song to Matthew. It wasn’t just babies. Grown men did, too. For a large part of his life, knowing what came next, what was expected, had provided him with security first as a child, and later as he grew, confidence. It was only now that he questioned what the schedule of his life held in store.

  Beatrice moved away from the bed with a smile and a finger to her lips. ‘He’s asleep.’ She stopped at her bag and rummaged through it for a moment before giving him her full attention. ‘I have something for you.’

  ‘For me? Why?’

  She came to him with a laugh. ‘It’s your birthday, silly. It’s customary to give a gift, a small token to commemorate the occasion.’ She took his hand and pressed a fist-sized bag into it and curled his fingers around it. ‘It’s not much.’

  Not much? No, quite the opposite. It was everything. Preston lifted the small sachet and inhaled. Lavender, the scent of her hair. The sachet was pretty, too, in its silk-and-cotton bag, tied at the neck with a soft blue ribbon. A suspicion rose. There’d been lavender at the picnic spot today and he’d had a very long nap. ‘You made this?’ He began to study the tiny stitches, taking in the details.

  ‘Yes. I know it’s simple...’ She began to apologise, suddenly embarrassed.

  He ran a thumb over the silk, thoughtfully. ‘While I was sleeping?’ He smiled.

  ‘Yes. It was all I could think of.’ He’d never seen Bea quite so flustered, a pink blush on her cheeks. Then she took a deep breath and she was Bea in control once more. Her chin went up just a fraction like it had that day in the farmhouse when he’d come for her. She was steeling herself for something. ‘I wanted you to have something to remember our trip by.’ It was a bold thing to say. He’d been thinking much the same thing all day, but she was the one who’d found the courage to say it. Of course she was. Beatrice Penrose had courage in spades.

  ‘It’s a beautiful gift, Bea.’ An intimate gift. He could see her now, sewing secretively by his side while he slept; lavender picked from the fields stuffed into a delicate bag made of cotton from a white petticoat, silk from a chemise and tied with its ribbon; his birthday gift all fashioned from a woman’s undergarments, garments worn close to her skin.

  A gift could not get any more personal, any more erotic, than that. Although he doubted she’d intended the eroticism. What would she think if he decided to take it that way? Whatever the reasons for it, neither of them was immune to the other; that attraction had been one of the many surprises this journey had held. Tonight, that attraction was running rampant.

  The firelight played off her hair, her mouth curving up in a soft smile. These were magic moments, time out of time where nothing else existed but whatever existed between them. What happened in these moments stayed in these moments. If he did not do this now, he knew in his bones he would regret it for ever. Preston raised a hand to cup her cheek, to stroke the long column of her neck with his fingers, his voice husky. ‘Beatrice, I have something for you, too.’

  * * *

  His mouth found hers before there was time to reason, to regret. There was only time to act. It seemed the most natural, intuitive action in the world to give over to the invitation of his mouth, to step into the embrace of his arms, to press her body against the hard planes of his, this body she’d already undressed, already touched. She let her hands twine about his neck, let her mouth open to him, let her tongue answer his in a slow exploration. She could taste the dinner’s wine on his lips, could smell the lingering sandalwood of his toilette. She let her senses linger in the kiss, instinctively knowing the kiss in itself was complete. This was not a prelude to something else, something more. This was it. There was no rush to get through it because there was nothing to rush to. He would not lay her down on the bed and thrust into her in hurried anticipation of male completion.

  She savoured the kiss, even as it left her hungry. Deep in her core, where instinct prevailed against logic, her body was craving the ‘more’ even as she knew there wouldn’t, couldn’t be any more—just as she knew there couldn’t have been any less. In hindsight it was obvious to see this had been bound to happen. Hadn’t her thoughts been toying with just such a thing all week from the first moment she’d started to view him as more than a childhood friend, but as a man in his own right?

  She could feel him pull away, the kiss coming to an end and with it the intrusion of reality. She had kissed Preston Worth, her best friend’s brother! What had she done? But he’d started it. What had he done? What had he been thinking to do it? Her eyes held his, her body refusing to step away from him entirely as she put the question to him. ‘What was that?’

  His hazel eyes burned a hot green undaunted by what they’d done, or lines they might have crossed. ‘That was “thank you”.’ His voice was low, his hand still at the curve of her jaw.

  ‘For what?’ Bea’s own voice was shaky. She was nowhere in as much control as he was. She was still reeling. When Preston Worth kissed a girl, she felt it to her toes. She was still feeling it, every part of her aware of him even now. His thumb stroked the high plane of her cheek. The fire behind them, crackled with a sudden burst as the logs shifted.

  ‘For today. This is the best birthday I could have asked for.’

  Bea gave a rueful smile, well aware of how far short this birthday celebration fell from the ones he was used to. ‘There was no cake, no ball, no fancy gifts.’ If the Worths were in London there would have been an expensive ball for two hundred of their closest friends. If they’d been in the country, there would have been a day full of games and contests, a fair-like atmosphere, and dancing on the lawn of the Worth estate at dark, perhaps even fireworks. Birthdays were no small thing if you were a Worth.

  Preston shook his head. ‘I didn’t want all that. There’s a lot of pressure that goes with such celebrations. You have to live up to everyone’s expectations, not just for the day but for the whole year.’ He reached for her hand and brought it up between them so that the ring he’d given her caught the light. He chuckled softly. ‘Do you remember the year I got this? I never told anyone, but I was petrified when Grandfather gave me that ring.’

  ‘It was the year you turned eighteen and went off to Oxford.’ Beatrice smiled, remembering the occasion. ‘Your parents ordered a chocolate ganache cake. It was the best thing I’d ever eaten. I had two pieces.’ It had been one of the years the Worths had celebrated in the country since all the children were far too young for London. The Worths had let May and her friends attend the party that night. Bea had been thirteen. ‘You might have been scared, but you were also proud.’

  The words were tinged with the soft glow of memory. She could see him in her mind’s eye as he was that night, leaner than the man who stood before her now. There had still been the look of stringy adolescence about him, but he’d had his height, even then.

  ‘Bea, it’s not just tonight I’m thankful for. It’s the whole week.’ He looked down at her hand
with the ring on it and she had the sense he was gathering his words. She watched the space between his brows crease in concentration. ‘I was sent to “rescue” you, to bring you home—your parents’ words, not mine,’ he added when she opened her mouth to protest the idea of a ‘rescue’. ‘But you were the one who did the rescuing, Bea. You listened to me go on about the coastal work, my grandmother’s estate, my life in general.’

  He made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh. ‘I don’t know when I’ve ever talked so much about myself. I should probably apologise for it, but I find all I can do is thank you.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘If I don’t tell you tonight, there will be no time tomorrow, no place for it. This week, Bea, with you, I got to be a man, just a man. A man who was entitled to his own thoughts and ideas, a man who didn’t have to answer to society’s expectations. I haven’t been that man for a long time. Sometimes, I wonder if I ever was.’

  ‘You are. You always have been,’ Beatrice said the two words with conviction. She’d grown up with Preston, with the Worths. She knew exactly the wonders and worries of being a Worth. She’d lived them with May. The Worths loved their children, but they expected excellence from May and from Preston. It was a different sort of pressure than the pressure the rest of them grew up with. ‘Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve always known what to do, what was right.’ She gave him a teasing smile. ‘Do you remember the summer we found the stray pup in the woods behind Evie’s house?’ She watched his face soften.

  ‘Yes, you and May brought him to me. He was sickly, starving. He could barely walk.’

  ‘We couldn’t have been more than nine. We had no idea what to do for him, but you did. I remember, too, how mad your father was when he discovered you’d let the puppy sleep in your room. He demanded you give the dog away,’ Bea said slowly. This wasn’t a pleasant memory. May had told her how her father had yelled and yelled, and how Preston hadn’t backed down because someone in want had needed a champion even though it meant taking on his own father—a man who could only be described as formidable with a capital F.

  ‘Breese turned out to be the best hunting dog Father ever had.’ Preston chuckled. ‘Father retired him this autumn after the last Westbury Ride. Breese caught the fox, but his leg is acting up again. Father thought it best to end on a high note. Now, Breese gets to lay on the hearth rug in Father’s office every day.’ Anyone who knew Lord Worth knew how much affection he lavished on that dog and how much he liked to brag about his son saving that dog as a puppy.

  ‘I don’t think a weak person effects that kind of change, Preston,’ Bea said. ‘You’ve always been strong. Just because you’ve chosen to follow a path recommended by your family doesn’t make you weak.’

  Preston raised her hand, his voice a low rasp as his lips skimmed her knuckles. ‘Thank you, Beatrice.’

  ‘Don’t.’ She drew her hand away, half-fearful this would lead to another kiss.

  A question flitted across his expression. ‘Why?’ He reached for her, but she stepped back with a shake of her head.

  ‘We’ve already taken a great chance with the first kiss. With another one, we might ruin everything, change everything,’ Beatrice cautioned, hoping he heard the unspoken message: that she’d liked this week, too, that it had meant something to have this time with him, but that time was over. Kissing Preston Worth was not something the real world would allow. She’d kept him from the real world long enough. If not for her, he’d be at Seacrest or in London getting on with his life.

  Even if he were eligible for her consideration, there were her rules to consider. Men were dangerous, even well-meaning ones. Passions were dangerous when indulged in real time. ‘Everything changes tomorrow, anyway,’ Beatrice argued gently. Why invest in something that would end so quickly? Something they couldn’t keep?

  But Preston wanted to challenge those assumptions. ‘Maybe not everything. Maybe we can keep this.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Beatrice acceded, not wanting to fight, but also not wanting to make false promises. She saw the hope and the reticence in his eyes, too. Despite his willingness to argue her conclusions, neither of them was convinced this fragile, undefined something-more-than-friendship they’d created would survive what waited for each of them in Little Westbury. In fact, Beatrice reflected, they were so sure it wouldn’t, they were taking great care to say their goodbyes now while they still had the privacy in which to do so honestly.

  Chapter Eight

  It had been best to say goodbye last night, Beatrice reflected, staring out the nursery window at the empty front drive three storeys below. Preston’s coach had driven away hours ago and the stilted, horribly formal goodbye he’d given her had been devoid of any of the emotion that had been present last night. There certainly hadn’t been any more kisses. There had been, however, that brief moment in the carriage before he’d opened the door when he’d given her a reassuring smile with the words, ‘You’re home, Bea. It will be all right.’ There had also been the furtive squeeze of his hand when he’d helped her down.

  Despite Preston’s acts of covert support, the whole episode of arriving had been awkward from start to finish. Her parents had been waiting at the steps to greet her; either because propriety demanded it and they didn’t want the servants to gossip about giving their daughter a poor reception or because they were genuinely glad to see her. It was hard to know. She’d been an embarrassment to them when she’d left last summer. They’d been eager to have her far away before her pregnancy had begun to show.

  To ease the awkwardness, there’d been Matthew to show off immediately. She’d had him in her arms so there’d be no shuttling him off, basket and all, to the nursery and pretending he didn’t exist. It had gone better than expected. Her father had even smiled at his grandson and her mother had cooed, saying, ‘He has dark hair like you, Bea. He reminds me so much of you when you were a baby.’

  But Bea thought she knew what was going through her mother’s mind: Thank goodness he looks like her. It will cut down speculation on who the father is.

  She could already predict how her mother would want things to progress; pretend that the birth was some sort of immaculate conception, that a father had not been requisite. She might even manage to convince people. It was amazing what society believed when it wanted to.

  After Matthew had been properly adored, there’d been the required conversation over tea. Her father asked Preston how the journey had been, making mundane enquiries over the roads and the inns and the general state of travel. When the clock chimed two, precisely a half-hour after their arrival, Preston rose and made his very proper goodbyes. He shook hands with her father, gave her and her mother a short bow and was gone.

  Truly gone, a fact emphasised by the fading sound of carriage wheels on gravel, and it nearly undid her. Her throat felt thick. Beatrice drew a shaky breath and hugged her son. She was home at Maidenstone, surrounded by servants and family, people she’d known her entire life, and she’d never felt more alone.

  Lord, she missed Preston. Bea reached for another stack of cloth nappies and began to fold them. It helped that her hands had something to do. Matthew was sleeping, worn out from the afternoon, but she wasn’t ready to leave him. Her old room was waiting for her the next floor down. That would have to be addressed. She couldn’t be that far from her son. Either she would need to move up here or he would have to move down there.

  The nursery door opened softly and her mother slipped inside, glancing around for Matthew. ‘Is he asleep?’ she whispered delicately.

  ‘Yes, he’s in the crib in the other room.’ Bea nodded towards the antechamber where the little beds were. There was a crib and her old bed in there. It was too small for her now, but perhaps a larger one could be brought up.

  ‘Wonderful.’ Her mother smiled hesitantly. She’d been good with Matthew downstairs, wanting to hold the baby and exclaim over him. It made Bea
trice hopeful that perhaps their relationship could be repaired. Her mother had struggled with her pregnancy, torn between concern for her daughter and the social consequences this event would have for all of them, while dealing with her own sense of betrayal—that her daughter had done something without her permission or approval or even awareness until it had been too late.

  Her mother glanced at the pile of clothing on the table. ‘You don’t need to do the laundry, Beatrice. There’s a maid for that and I dare say she’d love to have something to do. She’s been sitting around twiddling her thumbs all afternoon.’ It was a reprimand, a reminder that she wasn’t in Scotland any more. She was a lady of good breeding and that came with expectations.

  ‘I don’t mind. I like taking care of Matthew myself,’ Beatrice argued gently. She didn’t want to pick a fight with her mother so soon. No doubt, there would be plenty of opportunity later for quarrelling, and over much more significant issues than folding nappies.

  ‘Well, you’re home now. I am sure you’ll get used to everything again. After all, nothing has changed.’ Her mother smiled determinedly as if saying the words was all it took to make the statement true. That was one remark Beatrice could not let pass.

  ‘Nothing, Mother?’ Bea pressed the issue in soft tones. Her mother’s powers of denial bordered on astonishing. Bea wondered how long the denial would last when Matthew squalled in the middle of the night, or when she had to admit to all of Little Westbury her daughter had brought a baby home, but no husband.