Page 21 of The Lady
“My lady, it would be our pleasure.” The innkeeper gestured them inside his comfortable inn. The parlour was decorated in an old-fashioned manner, but everything was clean and suitable.
Once the innkeeper had left them to eat, Philip lifted his seat and moved it closer to Flora. She reached for his hand, interlinking their fingers.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“I am sorry I had no opportunity to discuss the matter with your brother.”
“You and I have a great deal to learn about each other’s families. But I find it decidedly agreeable that we can both agree on liking each other’s brothers and our sisters-in-law. That is certainly a welcome start.” She shifted in her chair, to more fully look into Philip’s face. “That is not what troubles you.”
“I fear you will lose too much by marrying me.”
“There is a great deal I shall lose. But I have been fortunate in my life to experience loss before. Both of my parents died when I was not yet sixteen.” Flora’s expression contracted. “And that pain was not what I would wish on anyone. But it taught me the important things in life are not what position one holds or the fancy dresses one can buy. It is about this.” She reached up and placed her hands either side of Philip’s face. Her touch was warming, reassuring, and the sweet scent of jasmine scent clung close to her skin. “You are what matters. A man of integrity. One whose birth is just one definition of him, and I am interested in far more than the circumstances of your heritage.”
Still his fears, the countless notes and letters from his mother burden him, and Philip reasoned it was better to have it all out before any exchange of vows might be made. “Your brother is a duke?—”
“If Kit cannot see beyond the start of your life, and onto what you are now, then he is not the man I thought he was.”
Getting to his feet with just a quick squeeze of her fingers, Philip walked over to his travelling chest and extracted the letters he had kept over the years from his mother. He could not quite explain to her why he had. There was not a moment of kindness or affection in them. Yet it felt important that Flora had all these details. “Here.” He handed them across to her. “These were written to me by the dowager.”
“You wish me to read them?” Flora’s round eyes lifted and held his.
Philip nodded and watched as Flora started to read. It was the easiest way, he reasoned, to know what the woman, who had known him best, made of him. Once she was done, Flora would know it all. Once or twice, she winced, and wrinkled her nose in distaste, but otherwise she maintained her composure until she was done with the letters.
Finally, she looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “Did Margot or my brother ever tell you what happened to me at Tintagel?” She sucked in her breath, still holding the missives in her grip. “I was bullied and manipulated by the household servants as they wished to find the family treasure. They were cruel, but their motivation was clear—they wanted money. It drove them. I may never understand how it became such an inspiration, but at least it is a form of rationalisation. This—” She placed the letters down on the table. “There is no reasoning for your mother’s cruelty.”
“I am a bastard.”
“Women have had bastards as long as… as long as there have been women.” Colour flooded her cheeks. “It is society who misbehaves and treats this occurrence as something odd and different. Well, I say society can go hang. And if I were you, I would burn those letters. They have nothing to do with you and everything to do with the dowager.”
Emotion flooded through Philip. A vulnerable part of him, the child he had been, wished to cry as he had done in his youth over the realities of his parentage. But the flood of colour on Flora’s face, the strength of her feelings, her loyalty and her love, convinced him that this was right. No matter the obstacles they would be happy together.
“Can I hug you?” She stepped closer, her fingers gripping his shoulders, and Philip nodded as she wrapped her arms around him. It was the comfort that was needed. Better still when his hungry mouth sought out hers and started to kiss her ravenously.
The heat of her breath and the hold of her arms conveyed all the unspoken emotion. It rushed through him with a fierce primitiveness that shocked him. He wanted to make love to Flora, then and there in this very parlour.
His hand stole down the front of her dress, stroking and caressing the shape of her breasts through her gown. She let out the most gratifying of moans.
Within a flash, Philip had moved and locked the parlour door before he swooped down on Flora again and resumed kissing her passionately. Their hands were wild over each other, pulling and yanking to loosen one another’s clothes.
“Are you certain?” his question asked heatedly against her neck as he pressed her against the wall.
“God, yes.”
He loosened the folds of his breeches and adjusted the soft bunched material of her dress, looking up as he did so into her face.
Flora was smiling at him with such affection and encouragement that Philip felt his stomach flip.
When he nudged himself inside her, it was gratifying to feel the soft, wet welcome of her sheath tight around him. With a gentle coaxing movement that fought against his baser desire to lose all logic, he proceeded to rock within her. Gratefully accepting the noises of pleasure she made as he held her against the wall. Soon passion overcame them, and the movements became wilder. Her cries had to be covered with his mouth, and then he felt the unmistakably tightening of her body as she lost herself to the sensation. As she gasped out her own release, Philip found his own—his body pinning them there.
It was only when there was a knock at the door from the innkeeper, asking if they wished for more food or anything else, that Flora pulled herself away from him and went to ready herself for the ceremony.
Philip stared at the letters which still lay on the table, then with a smile that had everything to do with the future and nothing to do with the dowager, threw the letters in the grate to be burnt and forgotten.
Within the month,Philip had secured himself a position as a private doctor in Edinburgh. It was fortunate as a former colleague in London wished to retire, and Philip was more than delighted to take over his patients in the Scottish capital.
They had been lucky since there were the most charming cottages, in the cosiest sounding place, Dean Village. There, dozens of these handsome new buildings ranged by a bubbling stream—the water of Leith. The beautiful walk was often enjoyed by the newly married couple as they meandered through the gothic city of Edinburgh, talking in the bright sunshine, huddling from the occasional outbreak of rain, and stealing kisses when no one was too close by. The cottage had been most pleasing, decorated by Flora, who was delighted with the place. Philip hoped to surprise her with the welcomed gift at Christmas, informing her that the cottage was in fact theirs.
“It is quite fortunate,” Mrs. Caton remarked, having set up tea for them in the dying afternoon sun. “As I happened to be talking to the formidable Mrs. Elsken, who insists she had never seen a more handsome doctor than yourself.”
