Page 41 of Miss Delightful
“Kissing is only the beginning, but we’ll not tread that path unless you decide I am who and what you desire. The choice is yours, and no amount of kissing or tippling or petting myhorsechanges that.”
She stroked his lapel. “You are so fierce. Melanie was right to entrust John to you.”
High praise, also a wee bit of a dodge. “You are safe with me, Dorcas. I realize the words are meaningless, but I offer them to you as a pledge nonetheless. I am the last man who will coerce, threaten, or inveigle you into anything about which you are reluctant. I will charm you, though, to the extent of my modest capabilities, and you are free to charm me as well.”
She regarded the cat and kittens, all heaped together for yet another family nap. “My charm is the kind that winkles flower donations out of dowagers or encourages the choir director to take on a program for the children. The other kind of charm…”
“Yes?”
“I have never aspired to it, but with you…”
“With me?”
“You think I am delightful. Perhaps I can be charming in your direction as well. The mind boggles to contemplate such notions, and I am growing a bit chilly. Shall we return to the house?”
The stable wasn’tthatchilly, and Alasdhair was learning just how much passion Dorcas Delancey kept trussed up behind her starch and manners. “Do you truly want to return to the house, Dorcas?”
“No, but I want to savor this encounter, to marvel that a man of substance and honor is attracted to me. I should aspire to regain my bearings, but I have clung to my bearings for years, afraid any misstep would lead to ruin, when in fact…”
She came to him and wrapped him in a hug. “I have been lost, Alasdhair MacKay, and you know how that feels. I never thought to find, or to be found by, such a one as you.”
His arms came around her, and he rested his cheek against her temple. “You think I’m delightful?”
“And that is an understatement.”
He wallowed in the pleasure of Dorcas’s embrace, of her words, of her trust. She was right. The world had changed for them both in the past hour, and the situation wanted savoring and considering. No need to rush, no need to panic. Dorcas Delancey was not a woman of mercurial temperament or flighty notions.
And if Alasdhair was very, very patient, and very, very lucky, then someday, Dorcas would explain to him how she’d landed in a situation where all of her choices had led to sorrow.
* * *
Dorcas walked homewith Alasdhair MacKay at her side, the experience feeling novel, though he’d performed that courtesy previously.
As a younger woman, she’d observed the proprieties, never setting foot outside the vicarage without Papa or Michael, or at least the housekeeper and a footman, to scare away brigands and footpads. If she’d ventured into the slums, she’d done so among a well-guarded committee of the charitably inclined.
Then Michael had proved he was incapable of keeping himself from harm’s way, much less protecting Dorcas. The church work had taken up more and more of her time, Isaiah Mornebeth had made a pest of himself, and the habit of venturing forth alone had taken hold.
Papa had objected, but he’d seen the futility of spending all of his days jaunting about calling on new mothers, ailing elders, or the parish’s shopkeepers. His objections had faded to grumbling and, in the past year or so, to patient resignation.
When Dorcas ambled along beside Alasdhair, his scarf tucked around her neck, peoplenoticed. She was no longer an anonymous female, neither shopgirl nor matron, hurrying down the walkway on some domestic errand. She was an escorted lady, with a brawny Scotsman guarding her from all perils.
You are safe with me. He could not know—and Dorcas must never allow him to learn—why that assurance was worth more to her than all the flowery speeches or graceful waltzes in Mayfair. He could not know that his little conversations with John had melted her heart. That his kindnesses to Melanie had won her admiration.
“What does the rest of your day hold?” Alasdhair asked as they approached the tea shop.
“The midwinter fellowship meal is next Sunday. I must confirm who is bringing what dishes, who will look after the younger children so the parents can sit and enjoy some adult conversation for a change, and who will assist with cleanup.”
“You don’t aspire to planning formal dinners or musicales?”
“Aspire? To organize a meal for a mere thirty people is no work at all, sir.”
“Speaking of meals… I am a tad peckish and, more significantly, willing to resort to any subterfuge to spend another half hour with you. Might we stop for a snack?”
He did not manage well on an empty belly, according to his cousins. Dorcas liked knowing that. “A cup of chocolate would suit, and it’s not subterfuge if you announce it on the very street.”
“Stratagem, then.” He held the door for her, and she preceded him to the same quiet table they’d taken before. Would this becometheirtable? Couples created routines and rituals like that, not that Dorcas considered that she and Alasdhair were a couple—yet.
Though they weresomething.They had kissed, they haddiscussedkissing, and he had confided his wartime memories to her.
