Page 39 of The Marquess' Wicked Wager
And he wouldnotrisk her safety, nor her honor, with any more of his foolishness. An idea sparked. He rushed down the stairs, not caring one bit for his appearance, needing desperately to speak with the keeper of the inn.
* * *
The easy sounds of the morning did little to soothe Edna’s spirit; the nip in the air, even less. Edna stared over the garden, having hoped the sight of it might coerce her muses into activity. It did not. Ithadnot for nigh on two hours.In point of fact, her inspiration had never felt quite so lacking… much of the same could be said of her honor. She recoiled at the thought, setting aside her drawing tools with a sigh.
Violet had gone into town, her seamstress story having not been total artifice, and for that, Edna was thankful. The last thing on this earth she needed was her godmother asking questions. It had been a hard-fought battle to stay behind, but Edna’s sourness had resolved the matter eventually.
When she had awoken, she had even had the fool thought of knocking on Albert’s door. A part of her, the one that was not so shrouded with embarrassment, wanted desperately to apologize. Another part wanted to run. A third, to throw herself into his arms and pick back up where they had left off. She had never had a less ladylike thought in her life—then again, she had never felt less like a lady than when in the arms of the Marquess of Remington. To her surprise, she rather liked it.
Before she could even chance at processing that dire thought, she heard a rustling come from behind her. There, walking across the gravel just outside the inn, heading toward her with a gait that was not entirely convincing… was Albert.
She got to her feet, her legs seizing in preparation for her to bolt off. She didn’t. Edna merely stood there as Albert marched forward and stopped so far away, she would have thought them strangers.
“Good morning,” he drawled, and she almost sighed for the gravely sound of his voice.
“Is it?” She brought her hands before her, resting them on her stomach. What was one supposed to say in a situation such as this? For all her etiquette classes, she had not a whit of grace about her. “How did you sleep—”
“Edna.” He stepped toward her, still holding whatever it was beneath the cloth. Edna could have sworn she caught a sweet smell in the air… “Do we really have need of pleasantries at a time like this?”
Feign ignorance—that’s what she wanted to do. She couldn’t, not when he looked at her like that. “I would hazard, My Lord, that we do not.” She turned around from him in a huff and plopped herself indecorously on the stone bench behind her. “What is it you’ve brought with you? Something with which to punish me?”
She couldn’t bring herself to look at Albert, but she could hear the smile in his voice. “Not quite.” He settled before her. She glanced up, if only to avoid lookingdirectlyat one of two spots that had led them to all this trouble. “I thought we might need a thing with which to form a bridge.” He pulled away the tea towel, wafting the heady smells of cinnamon, butter, and gooseberries in the air. “A pie.”
Edna’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “A pie?”
He nodded.
“That would hardly hold up a bridge.”
“Blue,” he admonished. She had not heard that name in weeks, and it sent a ripple of nervous excitement down her spine. “A consolation…pie.”
Edna chewed at the corners of her mouth to stifle a smile. “And what do you propose I do with that?”
“Come now, Blue. You know better than to set me up for a barb like that.” He sat beside her, careful to keep some space between them. Her heart lurched in her chest for his being so close. “Surely you remember our first walk together. You told me…”
“I told you,” she interrupted, “that ladies were not allowed pie.”
“In a few more words, aye.” He grinned. That dratted boyish grin of his. “So, is it a pie you’re inclined to accept?”
Edna lifted her chin to look over it: butter crust, its top glinting with browned sugar, gooseberries peeking through the lattice… “Is it just a pie?”
“It’s a pie… and a walk if you’ll accept me.”
She blanched. A moment alone with Albert,again, could only spell trouble. “All right, but we cannot drift too far. Violet will have my head if she finds the both of us gone when she returns.”
Albert’s body rocked with laughter, and it tolled like relief. He stared at her for a long moment in that devilish interim between intercourse and action. He ran the back of his pointer finger over her cheek then pulled away as though her skin were fire.
* * *
Ere long, they were ambling down a small country path that began at the bottom of the inn’s gardens and ended at a faraway point on the horizon.
“I know you shall loathe me for what I am to say next, but there has never been anything but honesty between us.” He slowed his pace, and Edna mirrored him. Her chestnut hair bobbed beneath her bonnet, her face so gamine in its beauty. She stared at him with anxious doe eyes. “What transpired between us yestereve…well, I am sorry. It is all I can say.”
Her neck bobbed. “As am I.” She paused. “But I am not sorry for what happened, only for how I acted.”
Albert was picking at the skin of his thumb. He stopped at her confession. “What do you mean by that, precisely?”
“I mean exactly what I said.” She looked off across the fields. While Albert was no artist, he wanted nothing more than to capture thetableauin time. “If you are apologizing because you are concerned for the integrity of my person, for my honor, there’s no point to it.” How a woman so delicate could be saying something so bold… “I liked it, Albert, far more than is right.”
