Page 18 of In Compromise with the Earl
Chapter Seven
In his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, Oswald began to pace the ten feet of the pagoda hard enough that he feared he might wear a rut into the floor.
Second thoughts were starting to set in, and he wondered what had possessed him to ask Aphrodite to meet him there? What was he going to do? Bare his soul and his demons to her? Tell herhisvulnerabilities and his fears?
He raked a hand through his hair, and he paced. This was a mistake and as soon as Aphrodite came, he was going to apologize to her and ask her to put it behind them.
“You walk like a man possessed,” she said from behind him. The ivory gown she wore left her shoulders bare, the bodice glimmering with the subtle embroidery and the skirts flaring from a nipped-in waist. Oswald temporarily forgot to breathe.
She came closer and cocked her head. “Look at that. I’ve rendered you speechless.”
Shaking himself out of his stupor, Oswald said, “I apologize. I shouldn’t have called you here. Please go back inside.”
“No.”
He rubbed his face, “I won’t dissuade you, will I?”
“I sense you already know the answer to that,” she smiled while seating herself on one of the wooden benches. “Having second thoughts I see.”
Standing with his back on a column, he lifted a boot to it and crossed his arms. “I wonder is its right for me to tell you things that I have not even told my mother.”
Her bows rose. “If you fear that I might tell your secrets to the gossip columnists—”
“No,” he shook his head. “And you would not have to go far for that, my dear. Isn’t your bosom friend the principal of them?”
“Lady Pandora and I are not as close as you might think,” Aphrodite said, with a twist of her lips. “But we are not here to hear my story, are we?”
Before he began, he asked, “Where is your chaperone?”
“Inside, waiting on me.” Aphrodite said. “Unlike some other misses who go to the trouble of evading their companions, mine trusts me enough to know that I can handle myself.”
“T’is a fine line you are walking,” he remarked.
She shrugged. “Seems that I have been walking it for most of my life. Please, go on.”
Looking at the swaying trees beside them, the memories of when he had first met Claire swam back to him as crystal clear as the day he had met her. Only this time they came with hollow regrets and pain instead of the giddy excitement he had first felt.
“When I met Claire, I had almost given up on finding a wife,” Oswald said to the trees instead of Aphrodite. “My mother encouraged me to go some ball at Vauxhall and she was there, more beautiful than the fireworks that decorated the sky that night.”
“It felt as I had been enchanted, totally bewitched. I had to find her the next day and I did. Three hours later, I had a courtship agreement in place with her father and I thought to myself I was the luckiest man in England. Funny how I look back it and realized that I was the buffoon of England.”
“What went wrong?” Aphrodite asked.
Oswald felt bitter anger. It had taken him months, bottles of blue ruin, harlots and hermitage to get him to a semblance of peace in his life. “You know what went wrong. Funny enough, she was a coy and a blushing virgin with me. Over the two years of courtship, she allowed three kisses, and when we married she was the vestal virgin in the marriage bed.”
“While she was entertaining men here and there,” Aphrodite said.
“And from what some Lords have flung into my face, she was a wild one in bed,” Oswald grunted. “From then on, I vowed to never again let my emotions overrule my rationality.”
He paused to swallow down the bitter gall in his stomach. Edging closer to her, he found a warm pinkness on her cheeks. “Have I told you too much?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s just I realize that I’d done more with you in two days, than your late wife did in months.”
He grasped her hands, his warm callused hands enveloping her small, softer ones. “Are you regretting it?”
“No,” she sighed tremulously. “I just wonder why this connection we have is so strong that it made me wanted to kiss you.”
Dropping her hands, he sat near her and dropped his between his legs. “I wish I could answer that.”
