The Sum of All Kisses (26 page)
Read The Sum of All Kisses Online
Authors: Julia Quinn
Tags: #Romance, #Historical, #Adult, #Music, #Humour
“It’s nothing.”
“Does your leg hurt?”
“Just a bit,” he lied. “But it’s much improved now.” Which wasn’t a lie. It was feeling almost well enough for him to consider exercising it in exactly the manner that had got him into this situation.
“May I try?” she asked quietly.
He turned in surprise. It had never occurred to him that she might wish to minister to him in such a manner. His leg was not pretty; between the fracture and the bullet (and the doctor’s ungraceful probing to remove the bullet), he’d been left with skin that was puckered and scarred, pulled tight over a muscle that no longer held the long, smooth shape it had been born with.
“I might be able to help you,” she said in a soft voice.
His lips parted, but no words emerged. His hands were covering the worst of his scars, and he could not seem to lift them from his leg. It was dark, and he knew she would not be able to see the angry, pinching welts, at least not well.
But they were ugly. And they were an ugly reminder of the most selfish mistake of his life.
“Tell me what to do,” she said, placing her hands near his.
He nodded jerkily and covered one of her hands with his own. “Here,” he said, directing her toward the most intransigent of the knots.
She pressed her fingers down but with not nearly enough pressure. “Is that all right?”
He used his hand to push hers down harder. “Like this.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth and tried again, this time reaching that awful spot deep in what was left of his muscle. He groaned, and she immediately let up. “Did I—”
“No,” he said, “it’s good.”
“All right.” She gave him a hesitant look and got back to work, pausing every few seconds to stretch her fingers.
“Sometimes I use my elbow,” he told her, still feeling somewhat self-conscious.
She looked at him curiously, then gave a little shrug and tried his suggestion.
“Oh, my God,” he moaned, falling back against the pillows. Why did this feel so much better when someone else did it?
“I have an idea,” she said. “Lie on your side.”
Honestly, he didn’t think he could move. He managed to lift one hand, but only for a second. He was boneless. There couldn’t possibly be another explanation.
She chuckled and rolled him herself, turning him away from her so that his injured leg was on top. “You should stretch it,” she said, and she held his knee in place as she bent his leg, bringing his ankle to his buttocks.
Or rather, halfway there.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He nodded, shaking from the pain. But it was— Well, maybe not a good pain, but a useful one. He could feel something loosening in his flesh, and when he lay again on his back and she gently massaged the aching muscle, it almost felt as if something angry was leaving him, rising through his skin and lifting away from his soul. His leg throbbed, but his heart felt lighter, and for the first time in years, the world seemed to be filled with possibility.
“I love you,” he said. And he thought to himself,
That makes five.
Five times he’d said it. It wasn’t nearly enough.
“And I love you.” She bent down and kissed his leg.
He touched his face and felt tears. He hadn’t realized he was crying. “I love you,” he said again.
Six.
“I love you.”
Seven.
She looked up with a perplexed smile.
He touched her nose. “I love you.”
“What are you doing?”
“Eight,” he said aloud.
“What?”
“That makes eight times I’ve said it. I love you.”
“You’re counting?”
“It’s nine now, and”—he shrugged—“I always count. You should know that by now.”
“Don’t you think you should finish the night with an even ten?”
“It was morning before you got here, but yes, you’re right. And I love you.”
“You’ve said it ten times,” she said, coming close for a soft, slow kiss. “But what I want to know is—how many times have you
thought
it?”
“Impossible to count,” he said against her lips.
“Even for you?”
“Infinite,” he murmured, sliding her back down to the mattress. “Or maybe . . .”
Infinity plus one.
Pleinsworth House
London
The following spring
M
arriage or death: the only two ways to avoid conscription into the Smythe-Smith Quartet. Or perhaps more accurately: the only two ways to extricate oneself from its clutches.
Which was why no one could understand (except Iris, but more on that later) how it came to pass that in three hours the Smythe-Smith Quartet would take the “stage” for their annual musicale, and Lady Sarah Prentice, recently married and very much alive, was going to have to sit down at the pianoforte, grit her teeth, and play.
The irony, Honoria had said to Sarah, was exquisite.
No, Sarah had said to Hugh, the irony was not exquisite. The irony should have been beaten with a cricket bat and stamped into the ground.
If irony had a corporeal form, of course. Which it didn’t, much to Sarah’s disappointment. The urge to swing a cricket bat at something other than a cricket ball was positively life-altering.
But there were no bats available in the Pleinsworth music room, so she had instead appropriated the bow to Harriet’s violin and was using it in the way God had surely intended.
To threaten Daisy.
“Sarah!” Daisy shrieked.
Sarah growled. She actually growled.
Daisy ran for cover behind the pianoforte. “Iris, make her stop!”
Iris raised a brow as if to say,
Do you really think I would rise from this chair to help you, my exceedingly annoying younger sister, today of all days?
And yes, Iris did know how to say all that with a quirk of the brow. It was a remarkable talent, really.
“All I did,” Daisy pouted, “was say that she could have a slightly better attitude. I mean, really.”
“In retrospect,” Iris said in a very dry voice, “that may have not been the best choice of words.”
“She’s going to make us look bad!”
“
She,
” Sarah said menacingly, “is the only reason you have a quartet.”
“I still find it difficult to believe that we did not have anyone available to take Sarah’s place on the pianoforte,” Daisy said.
Iris gaped at her. “You say that as if you suspect Sarah of foul play.”
“Oh, she has good reason to suspect foul play,” Sarah said, advancing with the bow.
“We’re running out of cousins,” Harriet said, briefly looking up from her notes. She had spent the entire altercation writing everything down. “After me there is only Elizabeth and Frances before we must turn to a new generation.”
Sarah gave Daisy one final glare before returning Harriet’s bow. “I’m not doing this again,” she warned. “I don’t care if you have to shrink to a trio. The only reason I’m playing this year is—”
“Because you felt guilty,” Iris said. “Well, you do,” she added when her comment was met with nothing but silence. “You still feel guilty about abandoning us last year.”
Sarah opened her mouth. It was her natural inclination to argue when accused of something, wrongfully or not. (And in this case, not.) But then she saw her husband, standing in the doorway with a smile on his face and a rose in his hand, and instead she said, “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“You do?” Iris asked.
“I do. I’m sorry to you, and you”—she nodded toward Daisy—“and probably to you, too, Harriet.”
“She didn’t even play last year,” Daisy said.
“I’m her older sister. I’m sure I owe her an apology for
some
thing. And if you’ll all excuse me, I’m leaving with Hugh.”
“But we’re practicing!” Daisy protested.
Sarah gave her a jolly wave. “Ta-ta!”
“ ‘Ta-ta?’ ” Hugh murmured in her ear as they made their way out of the music room. “You say ‘ta-ta’?”
“Only to Daisy.”
“You really are a good egg,” he said. “You didn’t have to play this year.”
“No, I think I did.” She would never admit it aloud, but when she realized that she was the only person capable of saving the annual musicale . . . Well, she couldn’t let it
die
. “Tradition is important,” she said, hardly able to believe the words that were coming from her mouth. But she had changed since falling in love. And besides . . .
She took Hugh’s hand and placed it on her abdomen. “It could be a girl.”
It took him a moment. And then: “Sarah?”
She nodded.
“A baby?”
She nodded again.
“When?”
“November, I should think.”
“A baby,” he said again, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
“You shouldn’t be so surprised,” she teased. “After all—”
“She’ll need to play an instrument,” he interrupted.
“She
might be a boy.”
Hugh looked down at her with dry humor. “That would be most unusual.”
She laughed. Only Hugh would make such a joke. “I love you, Hugh Prentice.”
“And I love you, Sarah Prentice.”
They resumed their walk toward the front door, but after only two steps, Hugh leaned down and murmured in her ear, “Two thousand.”
And Sarah, because she was Sarah, chuckled and said, “Is that all?”
The author of twenty-three previous novels for Avon Books, JULIA QUINN is a graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family. Please visit her on the web at
www.juliaquinn.com
.
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