Beyond Innocence (38 page)

He wanted to sit in the sun with her all his life.

The baby fussed as
Florence
tensed.

"Let me have him." Wanting only to calm her, Edward eased the heavy bundle from her arms. The baby widened his eyes at him,
then
tried to bat his face. Charmed by his energy, Edward pretended to eat the dimpled fist.

"How's little Ivan?" he growled.
"As terrible as ever?"

Ivan wriggled excitedly at the teasing, his baby-chuckle throaty and full out.

"You know him?"
Florence
said,
her gaze finally on him.

"Of course I know Ivan. The Battles are my tenants."

"And a fine landlord he is," Mrs. Bartle put in, approaching with two steaming dishes of tea. "You couldn't wish for better." The tea dispensed, she handed her daughter a small sweet biscuit. Still leaning into
Florence
's knee, the girl looked curiously up at Edward.

"Did you bring socks?" she said.

"No-o," Edward answered, the question confusing him.

"Good," said the girl.
"'Cause nobody's socks are as nice as Mama's."

"Hush," scolded Mrs. Bartle, though Edward could tell she was fighting a smile.

He wasn't sure he should ask for an explanation. Instead, he hitched young Ivan to a sitting position and anchored him to his chest with the bend of his arm. "Now I've got you, little man. We'll see if you can
get at my tea from there."

The baby squealed with pleasure and flapped his pudgy hands. His little feet pummeled Edward's thigh. He was strong, this boy, strong and full of life.

"What a bruiser." Edward chuckled.

"Like his father," Mrs. Bartle agreed, seeming pleased not to have to wrestle for once with her youngest child. She smiled cagily over the rim of her cup. "You're good with babies, your lordship.
Almost as good as Miss Fairleigh."

"I suppose I remember when Freddie was this age." He set his cup on the floor so he could mop a bit of drool from Ivan's chin. "He was better than a new pony to me. A happy baby, just like this fellow."

Florence
popped up from the seat as if something had bitten her. "I really should be going," she said,
her voice strained. "Catherine will wonder what happened to me."

"I'll walk you back," Edward said, rising just as quickly.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Bartle agreed, already reaching for her son. "You shouldn't go unescorted."

Florence
didn't look happy with this arrangement but, as he'd hoped, she was too polite to put up a fight with Mrs. Bartle looking on. After assuring the shepherd's wife he'd need "the lads" at harvest just like always, he and
Florence
took their leave. Side by side, they trod the grassy, rock-strewn land, Edward with his hands clasped behind him,
Florence
with them folded at her waist.

"Are you well?" he asked when she maintained her stubborn silence.

She pressed her lips together and walked faster. Edward was amazed a little thing like her could cover
the ground so quickly. Apparently, country living had done more than pink her cheeks. In what seemed like no time at all, they reached the edge of the copse of beeches that led to Catherine Exeter's lane. Edward racked his brains. He had to say something. He didn't know when he'd get another chance.

He cleared his throat. "That's a handsome family Mrs. Bartle has."

Florence
came to a standstill. "Stop," she said, as if he'd covered her in curses. "You're not being fair."

"How am I not being fair?" he asked, glad they'd halted but confused.

"You were dandling that baby as if you liked it, as if it were your own."

"I do like it... him. Ivan is a nice baby and I've known Angus Bartle since I was small."

This explanation did not satisfy
Florence
. She brushed impatiently at a fallen wisp of hair. "I know what you're thinking," she said. "You're thinking I can marry Freddie and have babies with you. Well, I won't do it. I won't!"

Edward hadn't been thinking anything of the sort. That she would accuse him of it intrigued him. Despite her fierce denial,
Florence
didn't sound as sure as she might have liked. Heartened, he ventured to stroke her arm. She yanked her hand away before his fingers could catch it up.

"Don't," she said, and pressed her fist to her mouth. Her eyes glittered with pent emotion, their color richer than the summer trees.

The glitter told him she was weakening; told him she yearned for the comfort he could give. Breath held, he stepped closer and coaxed her head against his chest. His heart sighed with silent pleasure as she yielded, as her hands tightened on the sides of his back. The subtle motion of her fingers on his ribs, a soft, catlike kneading, sent a shiver of sensual enjoyment to his groin. His sex lifted, helplessly, deliriously, as he let his own arms circle her back—not tightly, just enough to hold her near.

"Don't be angry,
Florence
," he whispered. "I'm only trying to make amends."

"There are no amends for what you've done." Her words were muffled, hovering on the edge of tears.
He murmured her name and pressed his lips to the smooth warm skin of her temple. Longing shot through him like a knife: longing and a pleasure too deep for words. He wanted to take her mouth with
his until the wanting melted like wax and drowned them both. Unfortunately, the kiss he did take, gentle though it was, seemed to remind her of what had gone before. With a cry of impatience, she pushed at
his chest until he freed her.

"Stay away from me," she said, the warning shaking like a leaf. She backed away, her skirts swishing in the bracken beside the path. She put the length of two men between them before she turned. Edward wanted to follow, but instinct told him to let her go. He watched until she disappeared among the dancing shadows of the trees. He remained where he was, rooted to the damp earth-scented ground.

Something was happening inside him, a subtle shifting, like the changing of a tide. Her accusation had turned his imagination down a frightening path.

Florence
thought he wanted her to marry Freddie but sleep with him.

He didn't understand how she could let such an arrangement cross her mind. Couldn't she see it would make a travesty of what they felt? They had cared for each other; still did, he was certain, not just with their bodies but with their hearts.
Florence
would never have been intimate with him if that were not the case. She was no jaded daughter of the peerage. She was a vicar's child, and a good, sweet woman
in
her own right. That she could consider
a duplicity
of this magnitude, even for a moment, meant she
must love him very much.

Perhaps as much as he loved her.

The possibility sent a tingle of shock across his scalp. If it was true ... If he had become as necessary to her happiness as she was to his, how could he offer her less than his all? How could he
not
marry her?

The question dizzied him, rocking foundations he'd thought were granite firm. Marrying
Florence
would mean putting her first, ahead of Freddie. He'd never set a woman ahead of his brother. He'd never even set one ahead of his holdings. The thought of taking a wife had always made him feel impatient, boxed
in.
But
Florence
. . .

He couldn't live without her, not with any ease of heart or mind.

And he no longer believed Freddie would make her happy.

But perhaps Edward could. Perhaps, of all the men in the world, only Edward could. Her tears said she thought so, even if she wasn't willing to admit it.

Freddie wanted to be free to love where he pleased. Maybe Edward should finally let him. Maybe, in spite of all the arguments against it, Freddie knew what was best for him. Edward's heart thudded his
ribs as if he'd run a race. Fear was part of what drove its swift percussion, fear and something he
thought was hope.

"I will," he whispered to the cloud-flecked sky, to the wind-ruffled leaves and the birds that chittered busily in the trees. "I will marry her."

A whoosh of lightness swept his body. Once he'd made the decision, it seemed inevitable, as if he'd been moving towards it from the moment he saw her at Madame Victoire's. He would marry
Florence
. He, Edward Arthur Burbrooke, earl of Greystowe, would take the vicar's daughter for his bride. He remembered the way the Battles' girl had leaned against her knee. The vision made him grin. He and
Florence
would have beautiful children together.

And all he had to do was bring her to the same conclusion.

* * *

Forence flurried up
the narrow stairs as if she were being chased. Her room was a snug little nest on the second floor, small but bright. It had a bed, a chair, a chest of drawers, and a washstand and basin so
like the one she'd had at home it might have been its twin.
Simple things for a simple life.
Her shoulders did not relax until she shut herself among them.

She'd been wrong to want to escape this, to aim any higher than what she had. A simple girl like her
could not navigate the snares of the upper class.

It was just as Catherine said. The Burbrookes had a fatal charm.

She sagged back against the door, her hands pressed flat to the wood as if to bar her fears from entry.
It was far too late for that. The danger lurked within. Seeing Edward had brought it back: not just the erotic things he'd done, but the sweet ones.

She remembered how protective he was of Freddie. How he'd pulled her by the hand through the Royal Academy of Art, flaunting propriety just to show her a picture he admired. She remembered his rare smiles. His common frowns. The way he'd held her tucked against him in the night. The way they'd danced at the Vances' ball like angels twirling on a cloud. She missed his company with an intensity that made her ache.

Disgusted, she thumped the wood behind her with her fists. Those memories were lies. The real Edward had ice water in his veins. The real Edward cared for nothing except his family name. He was a devil in noble clothes.

But the baby, her torn heart cried. A devil couldn't make a baby laugh!

She swallowed hard and pushed herself from the door. Edward wasn't a devil. He was a man, a man
who might well find entertainment in bouncing a baby and still not give a fig for her. He wouldn't have been dreaming of hav
ing a child himself. He wouldn't have thought: what a good mother she'd be, or
how I'd love to have a daughter with her eyes. No. His only concern had been tricking her into saving
his brother, a brother who—quite obviously—didn't want to be saved.

Be firm, she thought, taking Catherine's advice for her own. Be firm, be firm, be firm.

When her legs crumpled beneath her, Edward's ring, still hidden in her pocket, hit the floor with a
fateful clink.

* * *

Though Lizzie kept Edward informed of
Florence
's schedule; he hadn't been able to catch her alone
since that day at the Bartles' cottage. She clung to Catherine Exeter as if the woman were a lifeline in
a storm.

From what Edward could see, she was the opposite. Day by day, the duchess's friend was sucking the
life from his beloved: stealing her glow, her smiles,
her
very spirit. And who knew what tales Imogene
had been telling? Each time he engineered the crossing of their paths,
Florence
looked paler and thinner. Haunted, he would have said if he'd had a romantic turn of mind.