Page 148 of The Ladies Least Likely
“I think my mother would have loved you as much as Beatrice does. You’ve won them over completely.” He laid her long braid against her shoulder, the thick mass touching her breast, and let his fingers trail across her cheek as if he were exploring that texture, too. His thumb traced beneath her lower lip and her knees buckled.
He said nothing to suggest that he was won over. He was staring at her mouth, but she couldn’t be sure what that meant. Reuben had pressed his body on hers without passion or love or care, only the will to dominate.
The swift pulse of blood in her ears felt different than when Reuben had held her tightly. The tremor in her body was of a different nature. But it shared something with fear, perhaps fearof the unknown, or fear of what she might learn if he kissed her. As Mal leaned close Amaranthe smelled again Reuben’s rank beery breath, felt the fleshy press of his stomach against her belly. Heard Eyde’s whimpers of pain as she knelt on the floor, beaten raw.
She stepped back and sucked in a long breath. Mal blinked with surprise and let his hand fall. She saw hurt flash through his eyes before he guarded his expression. He too fell back, putting distance between them.
“I apologize if I’ve imposed.”
“You haven’t,” she said quickly. “I appreciate your concern. About the linens. I—” She turned away to regard the trunk against the wall, the valise on the single chair. “I suppose I must pack for tomorrow.”
Her things were already packed, that was plain. “We should be there in a day or two, I should think,” she said. “And then we can talk to Reuben. I very much want to show you my book.”
He withdrew into the shadows by the door, and a small ache unfurled in her middle, watching him move away from her. She wanted him close. If only she could master this urge to flinch. She wanted him to touch her. She wanted not to think of Reuben every time he drew near. She wanted her wish to be close to him to overcome her fear that the reality would be a disappointment, nothing at all like the luscious feelings that wove through her thoughts and dreams.
“I wish for you to have what you what, Amaranthe,” he said quietly.
Him. She wanted him. There was no doubt now what the response in her body meant, despite the flinching. Perhaps it was always this way to be close to a man, the combination of wariness and desire, the fear that passion would lead to abandonment and hurt. It had for Eyde. It had for Mal’s mother. It had for women the world over, for centuries. How could shetrust that the gentleness of his touch, the steadiness of his eyes, the promise in his smile meant he would cherish her?
How could she trust that he would understand and forgive what she had done to support herself and the people she loved?
That thought kept her from calling his name as he stepped through the door and left her. She’d not needed to see him among his family to know Malden Grey was a good man, decent and generous and steady to the bone, whatever wild fits he’d shown in his youth. She’d not needed the thrill of his nearness and touch to tell her she longed to reach out for him and never let go.
It would harm him to marry her. But he didn’t know that. And one rising, rebellious part of her wanted to explore what might happen between them before he found out.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Well, that’s as stuck as it could be,” Mal said.
They stood by the side of the posting road, regarding the chaise buried up to its axle in mud. Mal was impressed by how quickly, and securely, they had managed to mire the vehicle in a fairly obvious obstacle, but the worn ruts in the well-used road were hard to avoid.
“There must be a way to get it free,” Amaranthe fretted. They were a day’s drive from Callington, still in Devonshire but close to the border with Cornwall. “Favella expects her babe any moment.”
“Aye, another brace of ’orses could get it out.” The post boy they’d gained at the last coaching inn took off his cap and scratched his head, regarding the enormous soup of thick dank mud that had caught their vehicle fast. “But it’s a dry night we’ll need afore we try it, and they must be a sturdy pair of cattle, and that’s that.”
“A night before we can get free?” Amaranthe moaned. “But where are we to stay?”
“Hi, now!” The post boy called to a farmer pushing a wheeled barrow in the field across the way. A small stream let out into the hedged ditch lining the road, the source of the mud since it hadrained most of the two days since they’d left Bristol. “How far to the next coaching inn, father? And have ye a brace of oxen to pull us free from our puddle, aye?”
“Me oxen you can have for a fair price tomorrow, if they finish plowing the north farthing tonight,” the farmer called back. “And you’ve a mile or two yet to the Queen’s Head in Tavistock.” He rested his barrow to regard the bright yellow vehicle splashed with smelly mud. “That’s a fair right fix you’re in!” he marveled. “You’ll lose a wheel do you try pulling ’er out now, I reckon.”
“And we’ll lose our luggage if we leave the coach here overnight,” Amaranthe guessed.
But the farmer had a solution for them. The post boy unhitched the horses and followed the farmer away, disappearing down a small lane leading along the edge of the field. Amaranthe paced a stretch of narrow earth verging the road, high enough to be away from the mud. The skirts of her riding habit swirled about her as she walked, and Mal admired the view a while before he took a seat on a fallen tree and patted the log beside him.
“The farmer said he had a cart we can borrow. He’ll not abandon us.”
She sat beside him, and her subtle, rich scent drifted to his nose, like cherries in vanilla.
“Heliotrope,” he said suddenly. “That’s what you smell like.”
She smiled, and he felt ridiculously pleased at being able to divert her mind. “Not many people can place the scent.”
“The flower that turns toward the sun,” he said. “There’s a myth about some poor nymph wasting away for love of the sun god Helios, I think.”
“Her name was Clytie,” Amaranthe said. “There’s a plant called turnsole, named for the same reason, that was used as a dye in medieval manuscripts. It made a beautiful blue forcolorists who couldn’t afford lapis lazuli. Something like the shade of your eyes, in fact,” she said, leaning close to peer into his face.
He stared back at her. Going about without her bonnet as she gardened with his aunt in Bristol had subtly darkened her nose and cheeks, deepening her natural color. Stranded at the side of the road in a costly habit, she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He was very glad he was the one stranded with her.
