Elisabeth Fairchild (23 page)

He held it out to her, shielding her from the rain, and yet taking no shelter for himself. He was, in fact, more doused by the parasol than not, for the rain it shed from Fanella’s person ran down its sides and onto his arm, as he picked up the baskets that had to be carried back to the carriage. His hat brim too, ran moisture, and Nell could see, in looking up at him, beads of rain on his cheeks, and dripping from his hair.

“Do take cover with me, Mr. Ferd,” she insisted. “This is an inordinately large parasol. There is surely room to keep both our heads dry. Never say there is not.”

As she spoke, warmth kindled in his blue eyes. In the midst of so much cold, damp rain, his pale eyes smouldered softly. The pansy black centers swelled. Transferring both baskets to one hand, he stepped beneath the protection of the parasol.

Rain misted down around them like a gray velvet curtain, closing off the outside world, until the periphery of their vision might discern shapes no more than five yards in any direction. Their shrinking universe seemed composed of just the two of them, the object that drew them together, and the dripping bead curtain of rain that ran down off the lip of the parasol. There was little to look at but each other, but to look at one another while in such close proximity, seemed somehow improper, so Nell found her gaze darting and sliding, in awkward confusion.

Mr. Ferd seemed not at all unhappy with this new and much dryer arrangement of his person, but Nell, heart pounding so loud she was sure he must hear it, face flushing with her discomfort at standing so very near to this man that her skirt was in constant danger of brushing against his leg, could not feel at all settled. It was much easier to believe she cared nothing for her coachman when a proper space separated them, but with mere inches between them, her resolve was shaken. The rain seemed to have separated her from modesty and a proper sense of propriety, in the same way, that the pole of the umbrella separated them from one another.

Mr. Ferd removed his hat as soon as he stepped beneath her shelter, but his greatcoat dripped from the moment he took refuge, and while Nell did not find herself too greatly incommoded by what little bit of water did happen to fall her way, he was immediately preoccupied with what he regarded as a problem.

“Terribly sorry.” He pulled the coat away from her.

“It is no great thing.” She sincerely hoped he would not choose to be drenched again rather than drip in her direction.

It would appear he had a better idea.

“Hold this a moment.” He thrust the handle of the parasol into her hands, and began to shrug himself out of his greatcoat. Nell took the parasol readily enough, but, as she was not so tall as he, her natural inclination was to hold the thing much lower than he did. This presented a problem. The ribbing of the parasol thus dropped down to knock against Beau’s head as he struggled with his coat. In consequence, he hunched his shoulders and leaned forward, while she, conscious of the resistance, tipped up her chin to see what obstacle the parasol had met.

Their eyes could not help but meet under such circumstances. Come together their gazes did, for what seemed an eternity of anticipation before their lips connected as well, as he bent his head further to meet hers, and she lifted her chin, when she might have ducked it down, and thus averted what was sure to follow. Nell’s eyes closed with the terrifying realization that while she wanted to be kissed, and kissed most particularly by this young man, more than anything else she had wanted within memory, it was wrong in her to do so.

His lips brushed hers, soft and warm and gentle, like the rain. Arms hanging loosely shrouded in the half removed greatcoat, Mr. Ferd had no power to hold her submissive to the meeting of their lips, and yet she did not pull away.

The kiss was plush as velvet, hot and surprisingly dry in the midst of so much dampness. The touch was fragile, glancing, and yet unbelievably powerful in the emotions it stirred. Nell flushed with an inward heat. She inhaled rather abruptly between slightly parted lips when he pulled away from her, the sound like a backward sigh, as if she meant to recall his lips to hers.

He drew away, in order that he might look at her, as if to reassure himself that she did in fact not resist his very improper advance.

Nell looked back at him, mouth alive with longing, eyes liquid with fear that he had not found the kiss to his liking. With the sweetest smile she had ever seen, and a light of recognition, warming his pale eyes, he bent to kiss her a second time, as lightly as the first, this time planting soft kisses above, below and beside her mouth, in a manner so deliciously teasing that her own lips parted and sought his.

His kisses changed. They drank in her mouth as if it were wine, sipping and savoring. Shrugging himself back into the coat, and dropping both picnic hampers at their feet, his arms encircled hers, as if he meant to draw her into the coat with him. Such an embrace, seemed to Nell, to involve their bodies as much as their mouths. Raw urgency accompanied the clutching of him; hands and mouth. She could feel the hard handle of the parasol between them so close were they pressed. She listened, breath stilled, to the raw sighing of his breath between each searching kiss. Hungrily, he explored her: cheeks, neck, chin, and forehead. Her lips felt moist and swollen, easily bruised, like ripe fruit. She let him pluck them, with the sweet, heady heat of his mouth. She had never been prey to such feelings as those that coursed through her, and the very newness of such rampant emotion, carried with it the pleasure of discovery, and the spine-tingling sensation that she had leapt without looking, into the forbidden.

Fanella’s passion frightened her. There seemed to rise within her ribcage an uncontrollable elation, a feckless, ballooning joy, tethered by no more than a thin thread of fear. The fear was of surrendering,shattering her mild, uneventful life into a thousand irreclaimable pieces.

A second round of kisses rained down on her lips with frightening intensity, foreign, forbidden kisses in which Beau’s tongue, like liquid fire, darted along the ridge of her lips, probing their parting. Nell’s anxiety grew. Surely this strangely invasive tangle of tongues was more than just kissing.

The parasol brought Nell back to her senses. It slid awry between them. Unheeded at first, raindrops began to pepper her hat, her eyelashes and cheeks, while Beau’s tongue, with growing persistence, thrust into her mouth. Nell drew in a startled and sobering breath.

Driving her hands against Mr. Ferd’s chest, she pulled away from the unexpected lure that his mouth had become, her desire for him as palpable as the taste he left on her lips.

He blinked, looked down at her hands as they stiffened between them, and fell back from any contact with her, blue eyes searching hers with a look of concern, as if it mattered very much to him what she was thinking in that awkward moment. What he saw brought a gentle, knowing smile to the lips that had so recently taken possession of hers. Nell found herself holding her breath, hoping he did not mean to surrender her so easily.

He bent to retrieve the parasol.

Their separation, as he withdrew the warmth of himself and his greatcoat, was awful and strange for Nell. She shivered, teeth actually rattling in her head, jolted by the sudden, debilitating awareness that she had placed herself in a damningly vulnerable position. Her emotions had robbed her of good sense and judgment. Desire had brought her to the brink of ruin. She must stop this madness, and stop it now. Her knees trembled weakly beneath her and her body craved nothing less than the warmth and solidity of his, to brace it.

What must Mr. Ferd think of her?

He turned toward her, as he stood, dripping parasol in his hands. The answer to her question, was to be read in the sweetness of his expression. The message such an expression conveyed sang like a lark in the depths of her heart. He thought her as awesome and wonderful as she did he! She could read it in the pale depths of his eyes, in the growing smile. He marveled at her, desired her, meant to have her. Such intent could be read in his look. Nell could not help smiling, but even as she smiled, she realized that it was still up to her to stop this thing, to nip it in the bud before she was compromised beyond redemption.

She shivered again, and a sense of sadness and loss cooled the flame of her passion. She forced herself to look away from him. She could not hold fast to her resolve and yet look into those azure eyes. The heaven in their depths that was not hers to claim, a heaven that might bring with it a hell, of her own making.

“Dear, Miss Quinby.”

Her back stiffened, as he lifted the parasol to shield her from the rain once more. She held one small, gloved hand before her like a shield. “No!” she gasped, willing him to fall silent.

Never had the coachman bent to her will in the past. Neither was he bent now.

“Nell,” he chided, ever so gently. She had never heard her given name on his lips before, and the sound caused her hand to fall. He took it in his own. “You cannot hold up your hand a-a-and pr-pretend that naught has happened. You feel this as intensely as I do. I can read it in your eyes.”

His voice was far too elated to be stilled. He wheeled away from her, the parasol whirling in one hand, the other uplifted to the rain, which he allowed to wash over his face, over the wide-eyed expression of joy that transformed it. “This f-f-feelig is too wonderful to deny. You know it is.”

His eyes challenged denial, and when no denial voiced itself, he turned his happiness heavenward again. “Today is the a-a-answer to my prayers, and dreams, and heartfelt wishes. Today. . .” his boots jigged water from the puddles in the pathway. “Today, we will r-remember for the rest of our lives. We will speak of it when we are both old and gray, and our children’s children dare a-ask about the wisdom of love.”

“Mr. Ferd!” Nell did not recognize this wet, wild man. He had not the look of a reliable coachman about him at all, and he dared to speak of children! “Please, I beg of you . . .”

He had turned and raced back to her, and fell on both knees in a puddle at her feet.

“Nay, say no more! I have something I would a-ask of you, and you will want to hear it, I am certain of it.”

Nell’s mind raced. The rain had slacked off to almost nothing. Aurora and her aunt were doubtless wondering what had become of them. They must not return to find their coachman on his knees before her, as he was now.

“Get up, Mr. Ferd,” she insisted. “Do get up, I beg of you.”

“I will rise soon enough, my love, but for now, my knees are too weak to hold me. P-Passion will do that to the strongest of men, you know.”

“Passion?” she whispered. She could not hold her heart aloof from him in such a declaration.

“Yes, Fanella Quinby.” Again, her name fell prettily from his lips. He smiled, his most winsome smile. “I find myself quite hopelessly in love with you.” His voice was thick with emotion. “Will you marry me, Miss Quinby? Will you marry me, Nell, holding up the candle of your lips to ignite the flame of love that I have held back like the tide thus far, or would you refuse me, and allow the cold waters of your denial flood the fertile Weald of my heart, extinguishing the flame of my passion forever?”

Nell was amazed that of all things he might say, these were the words which passed his lips. He spoke poetically, his prose uttered in all sincerity. A little noise issued forth from her throat, her lips paralyzed by their recent foray into uncharted territory.

He rose from the pathway, allowing the parasol to tumble away from him as he did so, and for the breadth of a moment, so close did his face loom to hers, she thought he meant to kiss her again. Such was not his intention. He meant naught but to gaze deep into her eyes. Stripping off one sodden glove, he lifted his index finger to caress her cheek, as light and as moving as his first kiss had been. His eyes followed the course of his finger, which traveled to her eyebrows.

“I do love you, my dear,” he repeated earnestly.

Something in her gaze seemed to disturb him. He pulled back, and a look passed over his pale eyes, like a cloud through a clear sky. It was a look of fear, as if he read her thoughts, and stood now in dreadful expectation of disappointment.

His mouth no longer smiled. “Do not answer my proposal in haste,” he said huskily. “My heart is broken if you say me nay without giving it at least a modicum of consideration.”

Fanella stood quite still, chest heaving, eyes heavy with concern for what she had done, and what he asked of her as a result.

“The life I have to offer,” he went on, “is not, I will admit, what you are accustomed to, but, I am quite certain that I can make you comfortable, even happy. You seem to know me, to understand who and what I am, far better than any woman I have ever before encountered, and yet there are ways that you know me not a-a-at a-a-all.” H broke off uncertainly. “I would have you know a-a-all of me. There is much I would tell you, should have told you long a-a-ago . . .”

He looked at her lips again with such piercing need, such blatant desire, that Nell found it difficult to swallow. Unable to bear the glowing hope in his eyes, that she must squash, she rested her head on his broad, damp chest, shaken by a desire to tell him that she would follow him anywhere, if he could but hold her safe from a life of poverty and social censure.

His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek. His voice rumbled in her ear. “I know that this must come as a surprise to you. I had not meant to rush into this thing like a bull after red flannel, but I must tell you . . .”

“Fa-nel-la!” Her aunt’s voice interrupted him. “Fanella! Where are you?”

Nell’s head came up so abruptly, she slammed Beau’s mouth shut. “Oh my! We must go,” she said, conscience stricken.

Wincing from the pain of having clapped his tongue between his teeth, Beau caught up her hand. “B-But wait, I must tell you. . .”

“Fa-nel-la!” The sound drew nearer.

“Whatever it is, you must tell me later,” Fanella insisted. Disengaging his hold on her, she set off resolutely toward the voice that called her back to reality.