Page 40 of Libby's London Merchant
She just stood there, her eyes on the distant field, where Joseph had disappeared into the Ames’ wooded park. “But I have come to paint, sir,” she said at last, closing the subject beyond his powers to open it again without appearing a complete rudesby.
He had heard enough. He gazed at her with admiration, wondering at her strength, wishing there were some way to tap into it.
The rock was warm, and Libby had seriously come to paint, he decided after his few attempts to restore conversation failed to elicit more than a grunt and a “H’mm?” from her. The duke eased himself off the rock and sat down on the ground, leaning back against the boulder, letting the sun warm his shoulders.
He sat there, his mind engaged in no more intricate task than trying to decide which, out of an embarrassment of riches, was Libby Ames’ best feature. He admired her profile, the way her improbably long eyelashes swept her cheeks. Her mouth was formed in a pout as she concentrated, and he wished again that he had kissed her in the garden when she had expected him to. He liked the way she carried herself, head high, shoulders back. You look like a duchess, he thought. By God, but you do. She was not very tall. This first walk together into the orchard had shown her head to scarcely reach his shoulder. She was a tender little morsel who would fit quite handily under his arm, and probably be simple to pick up and carry away when he felt more like such a venturesome enterprise.
With that pleasant idea circulating in his brain, dropped off to sleep.
When he woke, she was still painting, but she had moved the easel out into the sunshine, away from the shelter of the apple trees. Her bonnet dangled down her back and the pins had come out of her untidy hair until it spread around her face like a dandelion puff.
He smiled to himself, wondering again why she looked so good to him, in all her dishevelment and fierce concentration. After a moment’s thought, he realized with a start that she was the first woman he had admired in over a year that he wasn’t looking at through a fog of liquor. Everything about her was beautiful, and he was sober enough now to realize that his estimation of her would not change, because he saw her truly as she was.
“Eustace, I think you are about to be cut out,” he said, and didn’t realize he had spoken out loud until Libby gave him an inquiring look.
He got to his feet slowly, carefully, impatient with the pain in his legs, but grateful suddenly that he had crashed the gig and practically dismembered himself on the road in front of Holyoke Green. We can tell our children about this someday, and laugh a lot, he thought as he came closer and set Libby’s hat back upon her head.
“You’ll be brown as a Hottentot, and look, your cheeks are already pink,” he warned, touching her cheek.
She stuck her tongue out at him and turned back to her painting, but he took her in his arms and kissed her before she had time to take another breath or sketch another weed.
She smelled of sunshine and lavender, and her lips were wonderfully soft. She kissed him back with as much fervor as he dared hope for, and then she stepped back suddenly, her hands on his chest.
His hands went to her waist and stayed there. “I know why Dr. Cook rescued me from the road and the bottle,” he said quietly. “I am interesting to him. But why have you gone to this trouble?”
She did not move from his grasp. When he embraced her, the paintbrush had slashed a brown streak down the front of her muslin dress. She dabbed at the dress and then met his eyes. “I did it for the chocolate lovers of Kent,” she said, without a smile, but a gleam in her eyes that made him laugh out loud and turn her loose.
“It could be that I care,” she added softly, and seated herself on the boulder he had vacated.
He sat down again on the ground beside her and plucked a long-leafed wig. An ant was crawling up the stem. He turned the leaf this way and that. “Be serious, Libby,” he said.
She touched his head, and the gesture eased his heart, so gentle were her fingers. “I hate to see waste, Nez.” She waited a moment and folded her hands in her lap. ‘‘Was there something about Waterloo that made you take to the bottle? I’ve known of such things.”
How simple. He knew that she would understand better than most young females because she had been raised in war. He also knew that he would not tell her much. He wouldn’t describe that nauseating sensation that filled his whole body when the smoke cleared off the battlefield and just before dark covered the land. She didn’t need to know that he had raised up on his knees and looked over the dead bodies of his entire command, strewn here and there, with only three exceptions.
‘‘There were only four of us left, Libby,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately toneless. ‘‘The brigade major, God damn him, a sergeant, and two privates. That was all.”
She was silent. Her hand went back to his head. ‘‘And it’s your fault?” she asked.
He looked at her, a question in his eyes.
‘‘I mean, are you blaming yourself because you survived and they did not? Is it your fault you lived?”
He understood at last, for the first time in a year, and shook his head slowly, unable to speak.
‘‘It’s such a small thing, Nez,” Libby said. ‘‘I hardly know how to say it, because it seems so simple. It’s time you forgave yourself because you survived.” She moved closer to him. ‘‘Maybe it comes down to that. Maybe it’s time you simply let it alone.”
He could think of nothing to say because she was absolutely right.
She sat beside him for another moment and then slid off the boulder, kissed the top of his head, and moved off gracefully from the orchard without a backward glance, giving him time to be by himself.
He leaned against the boulder again, feeling almost lightheaded with relief that washed over him like a warm summer shower. He could not excuse the fact that he had ignored the three other survivors, following their return and discharge, but he knew that it was within his considerable powers to make it up to them now. He had been granted a reprieve from his personal hell by a little bit of a woman so practical and wise that he could only look at her with renewed admiration, and some other emotion that felt suspiciously like love.
He watched her with renewed interest, a smile on his face, as she walked slowly toward the open field that led to the edge of her Uncle Ames’s land. The bonnet still dangled down her back; he would have to remind her to wear it to save her skin.
The smile left his face. She stood still, tensed, and then she threw herself into sudden motion, grabbing up her skirts to her knees and running toward the fence, waving her free hand and shouting something that the wind picked up and tossed away.
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