“Again? Will you tell me that story again?”
“Not at this time,” Lady Henrietta said. But she was smiling.
Aunt Esme walked into the nursery at that moment, and said, “You must come to tea tomorrow, and I shall invite the children to the parlor, Henrietta.”
“Yes, do come,” Josie said.
“I would be more than happy to visit the nursery. We needn’t disrupt the children’s schedules.”
But Esme clearly felt just as Josie did. “Nonsense,” she said briskly. “Tomorrow is the day that the Ladies’ Sewing Circle is meeting. Did you forget? You promised to keep my stitches from wandering right off the bedsheet. Moreover, both Mr. Fetcham and Darby have promised to stop in and relieve our boredom.”
At that, Lady Henrietta really looked as if she were going to refuse, and Josie’s lip began to quiver. She was just warming up for a really terrific bout of tears, when Lady Henrietta gave in, and Josie danced around and around in circles instead.
20
The Garden of Earthly Delights
It was impossible not to think about the garden. It drew her like steel to the true north. Sebastian was down there in the gardens. Doing…whatever gardeners do. What did gardeners do in January?
It was simply irresistible: the idea of the proper, stuffy Marquess of Bonnington digging holes in the frosty sod, or tying up fruit branches. Esme had brooded over it for two days, wondering where Sebastian was living. Whether he had given up and left. The whole situation seemed so unlikely. Most of their conversations during the time he was engaged to Gina had led to his admonishing her for imprudent behavior. But what could be more imprudent than what he was doing now?
What happened to the measured, thoughtful marquess, who never made a decision without consulting his conscience? Perhaps, having his reputation ruined turned him into another man. It freed him from the burden of social opinion.
She was standing at her bedchamber window—she didn’t want to think about how often she had found herself there, looking over the back gardens—when she caught a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered man making his way toward the orchard. She watched for as long as she could see him.
There was something utterly different about Sebastian. She could swear he was whistling, although she couldn’t see his face or hear him. He walked differently, not with the rigidity of a marquess, but with freedom. It made her wonder about other sides of him. For example, would the kisses of a convention-bound marquess differ from the kisses of a gardener?
Not that she had disliked Sebastian’s kisses…not at all. But one thought led to another: would it change the way he made love, if he were living in a gardener’s hut rather than sleeping on fine linen sheets?
It still made her grin to think that she was the only woman in the world who knew how Sebastian Bonnington made love. That stiff morality of his had kept him a virgin.
Sebastian had reached the orchard and seemed to be cutting various branches. It was simply too tempting. She had to go see what he was doing. A mistress should definitely show proper concern for the state of her garden, after all.
She had to make her way carefully down the slope and past the rose arbor because there was a crackling frost on the dead grass. Her boots slipped more than once, and the only thing that stopped her from turning back was the realization that she probably needed someone’s arm to get back up that slope.
He wasn’t whistling. He was singing—and it wasn’t even a hymn, which wouldn’t have surprised her.
“My mistress is a nightingale, So sweetly can she sing.” He paused and slashed off another branch of the apple tree he was pruning. He had a deep, rich baritone. “She is as fair as Philomel, The daughter of a king.”
“That’s lovely!” she said.
He swung around and a slow smile crept across his face. “My lady.” He ducked his head in a laborer’s greeting.
“Stop that,” Esme said, grinning despite herself. “You forgot to tug your cap,” she pointed out.
He raised an eyebrow. “I only tug my cap for the male members of the household, I do. I don’t hold truck with women trying to interfere with my work.”
“Oh hush,” Esme said. “Do you know more of that song, Sebastian? It’s lovely.”
“It’s not a song for a lady.”
“Yes it is!” Esme had a good memory, and she sang it in a high, clear voice: “She is as fair as Philomel, The daughter of a king. Beautiful. Is that a song from the court of Henry VIII? It sounds a bit like one of those old ballads.”
She never would have guessed that the very proper marquess could look so wicked. He was leaning back against the apple tree, arms crossed over his chest. His voice rolled out as smooth as honey, “She is as fair as Philomel, The daughter of a king. And in the darksome night so thick, She loves to lean against a prick.”
Esme gasped.
He grinned. “I would guess it’s later than Henry VIII. I learned it in the pub down in the village. Would you like to hear another verse?” Without waiting for her answer, he sang, “My mistress is the moon so bright; I wish that I could win her.”
Esme covered her ears. “I don’t even want to know,” she moaned.
“She never walks, But in the night…” he left the apple tree and drifted closer, “And bears a man within her.”
“That’s despicable!”
“What part?” he asked in a conversational kind of way. “The place where he says he wishes he could win his mistress, or the question of what she does at night?”
“The entire verse! Haven’t you anything better to do than repeat ribald verses you learned in the pub? You never would have sung such a song before you became a gardener!” she accused.
His eyes were bright with laughter. “True enough. And you’re right, my lady, I do have work to do.” He tugged at his cap and turned his back to cut another branch.
“Are you supposed to be pruning in the middle of winter?” she asked suspiciously.
He shrugged. “No, but these trees haven’t been pruned in so long that I don’t think it will make much difference.” He reached up to slice a branch above his head.
She watched him idly for a moment but discovered that what she was really looking at was the way his shoulders tapered down to his waist. And the way gaiters emphasized the power and strength of his thighs.
Her face grew hot as she realized, and she pulled up the hood of her pelisse, but in that instant the branch dropped to the ground and he turned.
Sebastian always could read her face. He moved slowly but with the assurance that marked every one of his movements. He reached out and his hands went to the small of her back and pulled her slowly toward him.
He stopped when the hard circle of her belly touched his body. Esme didn’t look away from his eyes. She knew damn well that if she looked away, she would think about what—she didn’t want to think.
He bent his head and his lips brushed hers as softly. His lips were hot and sweet. They demanded nothing.
One of his hands roamed down and touched her belly as lightly as a feather floats to the ground. “I wish this was our child, Esme,” he said against her mouth.
“It’s not,” she said hastily.
But she didn’t move and his mouth came back to hers, and just as always, even the brush of his lip made her weak. Made her moral resolutions melt.
She meant to move back. She really did. But somehow her mouth opened not because he demanded it, but because she remembered…And she remembered correctly. The taste of him was heaven and earth rolled into one.
Their tongues met and mated, and all her dreams came back to her in a rush. It wasn’t as if they were truly lovers, but she had dreamed so many variations on the evening they spent together that it felt as if they’d been together for years. It was that easy. They kissed with the sweetness of familiarity, and the deep craving of lovers separated for months. He moved as if he knew every tingle in her body, as if years had attuned him to her cravings.
&nbs
p; She trembled against his hard chest and one of his big hands drifted southward, slipped into her pelisse and clasped her breast. She arched forward, just a trifle, into his palm.
He didn’t really say anything except her name, but his voice, usually so controlled and urbane, sounded thick and hoarse.
In that one strained syllable was a valuable lesson. Suddenly Esme realized that it wasn’t necessarily all bad to gain so much weight. Of course, she had curves before carrying a child. And she had noticed in passing that her chest had expanded as generously as the rest of her. But it wasn’t until she heard the rasp in Sebastian’s voice, and saw the way he shuddered just from touching the heavy swell of her breast, that she saw a benefit in the situation.
She melted into him as if the baby in her belly didn’t exist, as if they were kissing in a bedchamber. He was kissing her back, his mouth hard and possessive, and his fingers moved over her breast in a way that sent flames through her body and weakened her resolve even further. A craving, that’s what she felt. A craving for him, for Sebastian, a thirst that had only grown in the six months they’d been separated.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” he said, and his voice was smoky with desire. He pulled back. “I dreamed of you until I thought I was going insane, Esme. I came back because I decided it was better to return than endure any more of those dreams.”
His words brought her back a measure of sanity. “We can’t do this!” she gasped, pulling back so quickly that she almost fell over. He steadied her.
“Why not?”
She gaped at him. “What’s happened to you, Sebastian Bonnington? I used to call you a Holy Willy when you were engaged to Gina. Sometimes I thought you lived for the moments when you could catch me in an indiscretion and read me a lecture!”
“I did,” he said. “Because I wanted to talk to you, Esme. I wanted to watch that flush rise in your cheeks, and find your magnificent eyes focused only on me, not on other men. I didn’t ever want to see you flirting with a simpleton like Bernie Burdett. I wanted you only looking at me.”
“But you were engaged to Gina.”
He shrugged. “We were friends for years, and it seemed an entirely reasonable marriage.”
She scowled. “That’s a foolish notion—a reasonable marriage.”
“You were married,” he said quietly.
“Yes, in a reasonable marriage.”
“I think Gina and I would have been kinder to each other than you and Miles were. I genuinely love Gina and I respect her enormously.”
“Miles loved me!”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Well, he was genuinely fond of me,” she snapped.
“He didn’t respect you.”
She looked away with a careless shrug. “Well, who could? Early in our marriage, I behaved like a strumpet…But I loved Miles. It’s true that I didn’t love him in an amorous fashion, but there are very few love matches made these days.”
“You were never a strumpet,” Sebastian said, looking down at her.
She met his eyes. They were the cloudless blue of a summer’s day. “I wouldn’t wish you to misunderstand the life I’ve led, Sebastian, out of foolish romantic notions that you have nourished in Italy. You only slept with one woman in your life, but you were merely one of a list who entered my bed. True, the list is not terribly long, but you know as well as I do that there are only four kinds of women in the world: maiden, wife, widow, whore. I would say that I have the last two nicely covered.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “Did you enjoy the first time you were unfaithful to your husband?”
She swallowed, and then raised her chin. “No, but I did it. And I enjoyed those who followed.” She said it defiantly.
“If Miles had returned to your bed; if he had shown any distress at your blatant, public seductions; if he had shown any wish to pleasure you himself, would you have sought out those men?”
There was a moment of silence.
She raised her face, eyes shining with tears. “I would have sought out you, Sebastian.”
He didn’t say anything, just swept her into his arms and held her as tightly as she’d ever been held. He smelled like apple trees, and woodsmoke. He crushed her face against a coat rougher than anything a marquess ever put on his body, and she just clung to him.
After a few moments he tipped up her chin and pressed a kiss on her lips. She swallowed, hard. “I must go.”
He nodded. “I am not saying this due to a lascivious impulse, but you can always find me in the gardener’s hut at the bottom of the apple orchard, Esme.”
“You’re living in a hut? You?”
He nodded. “I’m enjoying it. But the important thing is that I’m there if you need me. For anything.”
She couldn’t smile straight because she was going to cry again. He looked down at her silently, and then he said, “I thank God I didn’t marry Gina. Even if I had, I’d still be living at the bottom of your apple orchard. And what a scandal that would be.”
She made it up the frosty slope by herself.
21
The Sewing Circle Meets at Lady Rawlings’s House
The next afternoon came all too slowly. By four o’clock, Josie was so excited that she hardly knew what to do. She ran around the playroom with a little basket over her arm, trying to put all the soldiers in it so she could take them downstairs with her.
“Do you think my brother is in the drawing room already?” she kept shrieking. The idea was so exciting that she dashed around and around the room. That sort of unladylike behavior would have driven Nurse Peeves quite out of her mind, but Nanny just patted her head as she tore by, and asked if she wanted to use the chamber pot before going downstairs.
Her new friend Henrietta was sitting with Aunt Esme when they reached the parlor, and Josie was so excited that she ran in a little circle before she managed to drop two curtsies and say, “Good afternoon,” just as she’d been taught.
Then Henrietta told her the story of the lost boots again, and Josie ate seven lemon tarts without feeling the least inclined toward sickness, so when Anabel had to go upstairs for a nap, Josie begged to stay. She sat quietly just in front of Henrietta, and started pulling the soldiers out of her basket, one by one, and organizing them into battle lines.
“Where did you find those toys?” Aunt Esme’s voice was sharp, just like Nurse Peeves’s when Anabel threw up on her.
Josie shot her a quick glance, nudged just an inch closer to Henrietta, and said, “They were upstairs. Nanny said it was all right to play with them.”
Aunt Esme didn’t say anything more, and after a moment Henrietta patted her head, and said, “Why don’t you take your soldiers back to the nursery? I’m certain that Anabel is missing you.”
Josie knew as well as anyone that Anabel was still taking a nap. She began putting her soldiers back in the basket one by one, very slowly. Then she looked over at the settee and saw that Aunt Esme was crying again.
The first time Josie saw her aunt crying it was baffling, almost frightening. But now she knew Aunt Esme well enough to know that she cried quite often, so Josie just put the last soldier into her basket in a long-suffering type of way, and curtsied to her aunt. But after she curtsied to Henrietta, she whispered, “Do you think you could visit me tomorrow? And tell me the story of the lost little boots again?”
And Henrietta smiled at her and said perhaps, and so Josie didn’t mind going upstairs very much.
Which left Henrietta in the drawing room with Esme. She handed her a handkerchief. She had taken to carrying some extras in her reticule. Esme was in the stage of weeping in which she appeared to be having trouble breathing, but luckily Henrietta had seen at least two such attacks in the last week and had no fear of her extinction.
“I—I’m so-sorry,” Esme said. “Those are my bro—my brother’s soldiers, that’s all. Nanny must have brought them with her. I haven’t seen them in years.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
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“His name was Benjamin.”
Henrietta got up and sat next to Esme on the couch and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”
“He died when he was fa-five. It was a long time ago. I shouldn’t cry about it now. It was just seeing his tin soldiers again.” And she dissolved into sobbing on Henrietta’s shoulder. “I ne-ne-never cry,” she wailed. “Never! I didn’t even cry at the funeral, even though he was my own sweet Benjamin, my own-own poppet, and no one loved him the way I did. He was my very own.”
“Oh, Esme, I’m so sorry,” Henrietta repeated. Her own eyes felt prickly. “That’s awful.”
But Esme was pulling herself upright. “I am so tired of all this grief,” she said in a wavery sort of way. “I truly haven’t cried much in my life at all. I know you probably don’t believe me, because we’ve only known each other a month, but it’s true. I am not a wet blanket. At least, not in my normal state.”
“There’s nothing improper about crying at the memory of one’s brother. Any child’s death is heartbreaking.”
Esme blew her nose, which was already rather red, and reached for a lemon tart, except Josie had eaten them all. Henrietta passed her a tray of jellies.
“I cry at everything. This morning I spilled my hot chocolate all over the bed and almost started crying over that. All I do is eat and cry. Thank goodness, at least I enjoy the former activity. I’m sorry, Henrietta. What were we discussing before this happened?”
“Nothing terribly important.”
“Yes we were,” Esme said. “I was trying to pry out of you what happened with Darby. Because you left the house last Monday, looking quite pleased with each other, but have you exchanged more than two words in the last few days?”
“Of course we have spoken on occasion,” Henrietta said in her most reasonable voice. “We don’t have a great deal to say to each other, but that is natural when people’s interests are so very disparate.”