Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh

7

Imogen’s palm was still stinging. It was still red too, she saw in the light of the candle on her dressing table.

She hated him. Worse, she hated herself. Hated herself.

She could have avoided that kiss. She could have kept her distance from him. But even apart from that, there had been time to realize his intent and turn away. There had been a look in his eyes to warn her, the lifting of his hand to set at the back of her neck, the bending of his head toward hers. Oh, yes, there had been time.

She had not turned away.

And though for the first moment after his mouth touched hers—mouth, not just lips—her mind had been blank with shock, there had also been that next moment when her mind had not been blank at all, when she had wanted him with a fierce longing and had kissed him back. Just the merest moment.

But how long was a moment? Had anyone ever defined it? Set time limits upon it? Was a moment one second long? Half a second? Ten minutes? She had no idea how long her moment of weakness had lasted. It did not matter, though. It had happened, and she would never forgive herself.

Only a kiss, indeed.

Only a kiss!

He had no idea. But could she expect him to? He was a mere man—a handsome, virile, arrogant man who had probably always had just what he wanted of life, including any woman he desired. She had seen the way all the women, regardless of age and marital status, had looked at him tonight. Oh, no, he certainly could have had no idea. They had been alone together in the library late at night, they had been standing close to each other, and they had been quarreling. Of course his thoughts had turned to lust. It would have been surprising if they had not.

Imogen sat on the stool before the dressing table, her back to the mirror. Her life was suddenly in tatters again, and there were still several weeks to go before the annual gathering of the Survivors’ Club at Penderris Hall. Her longing for the company and comfort of those six men was suddenly so acute that it bent her in two from the waist until her forehead almost touched her knees. George, Duke of Stanbrook, was probably at home. If she went early . . .

If she went early, he would welcome her warmly and without question. She would find herself enveloped in peace and safety and . . .

But she had to learn to cope alone with her living. That was what she thought she had done by the end of those three years at Penderris. She had made a pact with life. She would go through the motions of living it, return to Hardford, be an attentive daughter-in-law and niece, a cheerful and sociable neighbor, a fond daughter and sister and aunt. She would live alone without allowing herself to become a recluse. She would be kind—above all else she would be kind. And she would breathe one breath after another until there were no more, until her heart stopped and brought her final, blessed oblivion.

She would go on, she had decided, but she would not live. She was not entitled to do that. The physician at Penderris had tried to lead her out of it, but she had remained adamant. Her six friends had offered comfort and encouragement and love, abundant and unconditional. They would have offered advice too if she had solicited it, but she had never asked them to talk her out of the future she had set herself.

She spread her hands over her face and ached with longing to see them all again, to hear their voices, to know herself accepted for who she was, known for who she was and loved anyway. Ah, yes, for three weeks out of each year she allowed herself to be loved.

Now her fragile peace had been shattered—by one moment and what the Earl of Hardford had carelessly dubbed only a kiss.

Imogen undressed for bed though she had no expectation that she would sleep.

*   *   *

Percy absented himself from home for most of the next day. Assaulting a lady who was living under the protection of his own roof was decidedly not the thing, and he certainly owed her an apology, which he would get to in good time. First, though, he needed to take himself off and out of her sight for a while.

He checked that the roofers were working at the dower house again—they were, all six of them, as well as Tidmouth, who was inside the garden gate, leaning back against it, arms folded, looking masterful. Percy did not linger in case Lady Barclay should come on the same errand.

He paid calls upon Alton and Sir Matthew Quentin, both of whom owned land and farmed it even if they had never actually wielded a hoe or sheared a sheep. He felt woefully ignorant. No, he was woefully ignorant, and he needed to do something about it. He found himself tramping about the land of each in turn for the whole day and talking about virtually nothing other than farming—even with Lady Quentin at luncheon, since she set the topics of conversation. Alarmingly, he realized as he rode homeward in the late afternoon, he had enjoyed himself enormously and had felt not one jot of boredom. He had begun to conceive ideas for his own land. He was even excited at the prospect of conferring with his new steward when that as-yet-unknown individual arrived.

Excited?

He was going to be a candidate for Bedlam if he did not leave Cornwall soon and return to civilization and his familiar idle existence.

He spent the evening in the library reading Pope, while the ladies presumably conversed and drank tea and busied themselves with whatever worthy and productive projects ladies did busy themselves with in the drawing room above. Lady Barclay had been almost silent during dinner and more like granite than marble. He obviously owed her a serious apology.

He took the path toward the dower house again the following morning, Hector trotting inevitably in his wake, though it was not his intended destination. That was something altogether different, something for which he had steeled his nerve last night after Pope had lost his appeal—twenty pages of blank verse could do that.

She was at her house before him today. She was standing at the gate—a popular place, that—talking with Tidmouth, who was oozing oily obsequiousness, especially after he spotted Percy approaching. And good God, there was actually a roof on the house, six workers swarming over it, looking diligent.

Percy considered turning away and proceeding with his main plan for the morning, but sooner or later she was going to have to be confronted at more than a dining room table with her aunt and the female baritone to stand between him and embarrassment and humble pie.

“Ah, Tidmouth,” he said after bidding Lady Barclay a good morning, “you are gracing us with your presence and your expertise again today, are you? Cracking the whip?”

“Anything and everything to oblige a lady, Your Lordship,” the man said with a leer, revealing a mouthful of square, yellow teeth. “Cold as the weather is, it being only February and not normally the time of year for such bitter outdoor work, I will put myself and my men to any trouble and inconvenience necessary for the lady to have a roof over her head. No whipping required.”

“Quite so,” Percy said. “I will leave you to it, then. Cousin, may I interest you in a walk?”

She looked at him as though walking with him was the very last thing she wished to do. But perhaps she recognized the inevitability of a tête-à-tête encounter with him sooner or later.

“You may,” she said.

He did not offer his arm, and she did not show any sign that she either needed or expected to take it as she fell into step beside him.

“I believe,” she said stiffly as they moved out of earshot of the man at the gate, “I ought to thank you for intervening on my behalf with Mr. Tidmouth. I was despairing of getting back into my house this year, but he has promised that I will be in next week.”

“You are thanking me, then,” he said, “for making it possible for you to leave me so soon?”

“That would sound ungracious.”

“But true?”

“May I remind you,” she said, “that it was you two evenings ago who lamented the fact that the longer my house was uninhabitable, the longer you were obliged to offer me hospitality in yours.”

“I am sorry about that kiss,” he said. “It ought never to have happened, especially beneath my own roof, where I should be protecting you from insult, not offering it myself.”

“But as you observed at the time,” she said, turning her head away so that he could not see her face around the brim of her bonnet, “it was only a kiss.”

It sounded as if he was not to be forgiven.

They stopped at the top of the broken cliff face with its zigzagging path downward. He had stopped a little farther back two nights ago, on the other side of the gorse bushes, when he had come to see if any smugglers were swarming the beach, cutlasses at the ready—at least, that was what he assumed he had come to see. He had been a bit agitated at the time. His knees felt decidedly weak now, and his breathing quickened.

It was not a windy day, but there was enough of a breeze to make the air nippy. The tide looked halfway in—or halfway out. He had no idea which. Waves were breaking in a line of foam along the beach. The sea beyond them was foam-flecked too. Apart from that, it was steely gray.

“Would you care to go down?” he asked her.

Please say no. Please say no.

“I thought you were afraid of the sea and the cliffs,” she said.

“Afraid?”He raised his eyebrows, all incredulity. “I? Whatever gave you that idea?”

Her eyes searched his face for a disconcerting moment, and then she turned and disappeared over the edge. Oh, nothing quite as drastic as that. She stepped off the cliff-top path and onto the track down and then she kept on going. She did not look back.

He looked down at Hector. “Stay here or trot back home,” he advised. “No one, least of all I, will call you a coward.”

And no one would call him a coward either, by thunder. No one ever had. No one had ever had cause—well, except once. He just happened to be terrified witless of the sea. Ditto of sheer cliffs. Not too fond of golden sands either, mainly because they had a nasty habit of widening and narrowing with the tide—sometimes narrowing to a point at which sea and cliffs joined forces.

Why the devil did he need to prove anything to himself? But it was too late now to change his plan. He could hardly stand up here and wait to wave down at her when she reached the beach.

He launched out into space.

It was not even a particularly dangerous track, of course. Indeed, it was a well-used thoroughfare. It had been climbed numerous times, had it not, by bands of smugglers as they hauled casks of brandy and Lord knew what other contraband, to be stored in the cellar of the dower house. Lady Barclay had probably tripped up and down here a thousand times for pure pleasure—though his mind’s choice of the word tripped caused his stomach a moment of distress.

There were just a couple of places where the path disappeared, to be replaced by rocks large and sturdy enough to provide perfectly safe footing. He was down on the beach almost before he knew it, his feeling of relief and triumph tempered only by the knowledge that somehow he was going to have to get himself back up there in the foreseeable future.

Something was bleating. There was no sign of any sheep. But Hector, he could see, was stranded on the jutting rock just above shoulder level and could not seem to find the path that would have brought him the rest of the way down.

“I believe,” Lady Barclay said, “you have a friend, Lord Hardford.”

“Only one?” he said. “Could I be that pathetic?”

He reached up and gathered the dog in his arms. He did it carefully. The creature’s legs still looked as if they could be snapped as easily as dry twigs. Its ribs were still clearly visible, though they were beginning to acquire a thin covering of fat. He turned, the dog still in his arms, and caught a look on Lady Barclay’s face that surely teetered on the brink of laughter.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Something.”

“I was reminded,” she said, “of a picture Aunt Lavinia has hanging in her bedchamber. It is a sentimental depiction of Jesus holding a lamb.”

Good God!

He set Hector down on the sand, and the dog gamboled off to visit a pair of seagulls, which did not wait to be greeted.

“It is to be hoped, ma’am,” Percy said, “that you never have a chance to make that observation in the hearing of any of my acquaintances. My reputation would be in tatters.”

“Your reputation for manliness, I suppose you mean,” she said. “I daresay that is more important to you than anything else.”

“You have a caustic tongue, ma’am,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back and squinting down the beach toward the sea. Actually, everything looked a bit better from down here. The sea was still far enough away to seem unthreatening.

“I merely meant to suggest,” she said, “that there is nothing particularly unmanly about caring for a dog that cannot care for itself.”

He had no desire to pursue that particular line of conversation. “I can see,” he said, “that this would be a perfect spot for smugglers.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “The bay is sheltered, and there are no dangerous rocks to make a landing treacherous. There is a way up the cliffs too. There is even a cave.”

“Show me,” he said.

It was a large one and conveniently close to the path up to the top. It stretched deep into the cliffs. Percy stood on the threshold, peering in.

“Does the tide reach this high?” he asked.

“Almost never,” she said. “The high-tide mark is well below here.”

Yes, he could see the dividing line between soft, powdery sand and hard, very flat beach that got watered every twelve hours by the tide.

“There is no smuggling in this particular bay any longer?” he asked.

“If there is,” she said, “they do not come up onto Hardford land. Not that I would know for sure, I suppose, unless I sat at a darkened window deep into the blackest nights. They certainly do not use the cellar of the dower house any longer.”

“Why did you use the word vicious?” he asked her as they turned from the cave to stroll along the beach, the chilly salt breeze in their faces.

She shrugged. “The leaders can be bullies and tyrants. They sometimes press men into service, I have heard. And they have been known to enforce loyalty and secrecy with threats and even violence. There was a young groom here who worshiped my husband and loved to work for him. He begged to go to the Peninsula as his batman, but he was only fourteen at the time and his father refused his permission. He remained here in safety. I do not know exactly what his transgression was—we were away from here by then—and he would not say the only time I asked him after I came back, but they broke both his legs. He still works in the stables—Aunt Lavinia saw to that. But the bones did not set well. And his spirit was broken.”

Lord, he did not need this, Percy thought. His life to the age of thirty had been remarkably serene and trouble-free. He had been careful to keep it that way. And he had no wish to change things. Why should he? He liked his life just the way it was. Well, except for the boredom, perhaps, and the general feeling of uselessness and time passing him by.

“Wenzel fancies you,” he said, bending to pick up a piece of driftwood to hurl for Hector’s entertainment.

She turned her head sharply toward him at the sudden change of subject. “He is a good man,” she said. “He was my husband’s closest friend.”

“But you do not fancy him?” he asked her.

“I do not believe, Lord Hardford,” she said, “my personal life and fancies are any concern of yours.”

“Ah,” he said, grinning at her.

Her cheeks were pink—from the wind rather than from indignation, he guessed, for her nose was a bit rosy too. She looked very wholesome—neither marble nor granite. Though definitely peeved. “But you are my third cousin-in-law once removed and therefore of familial concern to me.”

“I am not at all convinced Aunt Lavinia is certain of her facts,” she said. “But even if she is right, it is a very remote connection and not one of blood. I do not fancy Mr. Wenzel or any other man, Lord Hardford. I have no interest in courtship or remarriage, as I believe I have told you before.”

“Why?” he asked. “Oh, yes, I know we started this conversation before, but it did not progress very far. I asked your age, I recall, but you would not give it, and who can blame you? It is impolite to ask such a question of a lady. I am guessing you are about my age. I celebrated my thirtieth birthday two days before I set out for Cornwall.”

“There is no shame in being thirty,” she said, “even for a woman.”

Which, he supposed, provided him with his answer.

“In my experience,” he said, “there is a marked difference between men and women when it comes to matrimony. Women want it, full stop; men want it or at least will tolerate it in their own good time.”

“And will you tolerate it in your good time?” she asked.

Hector was standing before him, panting and gazing upward with his bulging, ever-hopeful eyes. That dog was not going to be pretty even when it had fattened up. The stick lay on the sand between them. Percy bent to pick it up and hurl it again.

“Probably,” he said. “There is the succession to secure and all that since there appears to be an alarming dearth of possible heirs at present. How long has your husband been gone?”

“More than eight years,” she said, turning to walk onward.

She had probably told him that before too. “So you were about twenty-two,” he said.

“According to your calculations,” she said, “I suppose I was.”

“And how long were you married?” he asked.

“Almost four years.”

“Eight years have not been a long enough time in which to heal?” he asked. “Twice as long as you were married?” He was genuinely puzzled. He could not imagine a love quite so enduring or a pain quite so intense. He did not particularly want to imagine it either.

She stopped again and turned to look out to sea. “Some things do not heal,” she said. “Ever.”

He could not leave it alone. “Is there not some . . . indiscipline?” he asked. “Some self-indulgence? Have not other people suffered widowhood and got over it? Is there not a point at which continuing to suffer becomes . . . almost ostentatious? Worn like a badge of honor to set you above other, ordinary mortals whose sufferings cannot possibly match your own?”

He was being markedly offensive. And with each added word he was making things worse. He was almost angry with her. But why? Because he had once kissed her for all of two seconds and could not seem to put the kiss out of his mind? Because she had once laughed at something he said but had not laughed since? Because she was the one woman out of the legions he had known who was quite impervious to his charms?

He was beginning not to like himself a great deal.

He ought to have apologized, but was silent instead. Hector was panting at his feet again, and once more was sent in pursuit of the stick. Where did such a skeletal creature find the energy?

“Have you seen me on any occasion display open suffering, Lord Hardford?” she asked, her eyes on the incoming waves—they were definitely incoming. “If you have, I beg you to inform me so that I may make the necessary adjustments to my behavior.” She waited for an answer.

“You have shown none, of course,” he admitted. “But one cannot help wondering when one meets a young and beautiful woman who has clothed herself in marble what lies within. And one cannot help guessing that it must be suffering.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “there is nothing. Perhaps the marble is solid, or perhaps it is hollow and there is nothing but emptiness within.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded. “But if that is the case, where did the laughter come from two evenings ago? And the kiss? For a moment on that evening it was not just I kissing you. We were kissing each other.”

“You have the imagination of a thoroughly conceited man, Lord Hardford,” she said.

“Ah, and you have a lying tongue, Lady Barclay.”

Hector appeared to have tired himself out. He fetched the stick and plopped down at Percy’s feet. He became instantly comatose.

“If it is any consolation to you,” she said, “my total lack of interest in you has nothing to do with you personally. Without any doubt, I have never met a more handsome man than you or one more capable of charm. If I were interested in flirtation or courtship or remarriage, I might well consider setting my cap at you, though I am fully aware that doing so would be inviting certain disappointment and heartache. Fortunately, perhaps, I am not interested. Not in you and not in any other man. Not in that way. Ever. And if it offends your manly sensibilities to hear me say it, then comfort yourself with the thought that within a week I will be back living at the dower house.”

“Total lack of interest,”he said, “yet you kissed me.”

“You took me by surprise,” she said, and the words hung between them almost as though they had some significance beyond their surface meaning.

What did her self-discipline hide? Why would she not let go of it? Mourning for eight years after a four-year marriage surely was excessive and self-absorbed. But he would not pry further. She would not tell him, and if she did, he had the feeling he really, really would not want to know.

What had happened to her when she was in captivity?

“If I wear marble as an armor,” she said, breaking the strange silence, which had made him very aware of the elemental roar of the sea and the harsh, lonely cry of seagulls, “then you wear charm, Lord Hardford. A careless sort of charm. One wonders what lies behind it.”

“Oh, nothing, I do assure you,” he told her. “Nothing whatsoever. I am pure charm through to the heart.”

Although the brim of her gray bonnet half hid her face from view, he could see that she smiled.

And it somehow made his heart ache—his very charming heart.

She turned her head to look at him. The smile was gone, but her eyes were open. Well, of course they were. She would hardly look at him with closed eyes, would she, unless she was inviting another kiss, which she decidedly was not. But they were . . . open. The only trouble was that he could not interpret what he saw inside them.

She really was quite incredibly beautiful. He clasped his hands behind his back to stop himself from touching one finger to that tantalizingly curved upper lip.

“I believe,” she said softly, “that after all you are almost likable, Lord Hardford. Let us leave it at that, shall we?”

Almost likable.

Foolishly, he felt that it might be the most precious compliment he had ever been paid.

“Am I forgiven, then?” he asked her. “For kissing you?”

“I am not sure you are that likable,” she said, turning to make her way back toward the path to the top.

She had actually made a joke, Percy thought, looking down at Hector, who had awoken from his coma and was scrambling to his feet.

“I am not going to have to carry you up, I hope,” Percy said.

Hector waved his stubby tail.