Unclaimed (19 page)

But there was another, more important component to this wistful dream. He wanted a woman who would calm him. She needed to be level-headed enough that he might trust her with the truth about himself. She would bring him to balance. She would be a source of peace and quiet.

Yes. Of course, he also hoped that his wife would satisfy his physical desires, too. Still, every time he’d imagined marital intercourse—far too often for his peace of mind—he’d imagined it as a rational endeavor. Heated, of course, and pleasurable, naturally. He had no problem with pleasure regulated by reason. But sexual congress was supposed to leave his head clearer at the end.

When he’d met Mrs. Farleigh, he had wanted time to consider her. She’d seemed…possible.

She was beautiful. She was intelligent. And most important of all, she challenged him. She hadn’t believed all the folderol about his perfection. She was the first woman in a very long while who had seen through the claptrap of his inexplicable success to discover that underneath, he was still just a man like any other man. He needed someone who could turn to him and say, “Sir Mark, you are failing, and you must get yourself under control.”

Mrs. Farleigh might have done. He’d begun to hope that she was the woman he’d been waiting for, no matter what the townspeople said.

But now it was quite clear that he would have to discard that hope. There was one way in which Mrs. Farleigh was completely wrong for him. She didn’t calm him. No; she enflamed him. When he let his eyes flicker shut, he could see the fall of her eyelashes, the look she’d given him over her shoulder. He could see the pink of her lips, her mouth opening to his. He could still taste her sweetness on his lips.

She made him smolder. She took his logical thoughts, and instead of arranging them in calm and clean order, she shook them until he could not tell up from down, right from wrong—could only think in terms of
her
and
not her.

No. Despite her intelligence, despite the connection he felt to her, there was no question about the matter. She was wrong for him. Utterly, completely, and in all other ways wrong.

His reason knew it. But the rest of him was discontent with that decision.

Mark turned off the dusty track onto a lane. It headed straight down the hill, through a path lined by birch trees. The way was shaded; it wended down until it ran parallel to the briskly moving water of a mill-leat. Cool air rose around him, the temperature welcome against his skin. The walk, if nothing else, helped to bleed the edge from his sexual frustration. Deliberately, he kept walking past his mother’s house. He needed to regain his equanimity, to find the smooth imperturbable silk that normally surrounded him. Nothing like physical exertion to work his wants out of his system.

Glass bricks. He imagined them, cool against his skin. Distancing. Anything seen through glass must be far away, unable to touch him. If he laid them just right, he would be able to block off this smoldering powder keg of desire. He would be in control once again. He’d no longer sense the echoes of his mother but would again be a man whose emotions were all that was proper and gentlemanly.

He concentrated only on the distorting wave of the glass. It would mute out color, heat, shape—everything, really, except that which was sober and seemly. In his mental exercise, he built those glass walls high, higher, stretching until his mental tower of bricks rivaled that of Babel. It didn’t help that at every step along the way, he was confronted by reminders. The shadow of oak on water recalled the dark gleam of her hair. An errant beam of light, cutting through the gloom, brought to mind the sun-warm lips he’d touched. He waited until his breathing evened out. Until his wants fitted inside his skin once again.

It was only then that he let himself observe his surroundings. He’d traveled miles upstream from his mother’s house. In the distance, he could see the blackened bricks of a factory—one that no doubt had been burned back in the troubled times. Times his own family had precipitated. If he’d needed another reason to avoid the dangers that awaited him if he gave in to his animal needs, those dark stones stood as a whispering reminder. This wasn’t about him or his selfish, burning want for a woman.

Mark wasn’t his father. He wasn’t his mother. But…he might duplicate their mistakes, if he let himself slip.

Even with an hour between him and that kiss, even with his every thought bent toward expunging the sense of heat, he could still feel the pressure of her lips against his. No. There was nothing for it. He was going to have to stop indulging himself. He was going to have to stop pretending that his want for her was anything other than animal desire.

He was going to have to stop seeing her.

So why did that decision feel so
wrong?

That twinge of regret he felt, that soul-deep gasp that filled him…

That was only further proof that she was the last woman on earth he needed to be thinking about.

With that decision firmly in hand, he turned and headed for home. The walk back took longer, now that he was no longer trying to outrace his own desires. If anything, he was almost reluctant to turn to his house again. It was cold and empty, filled with the ghosts of his childhood: precisely not the calm comfort he needed to keep his life in regular order.

When he was a child, there had been scant opportunity for quiet and comfort. But still, there had been times when his mind cleared, when the everyday bustle had been taken away. In times like this, with his fears cascading about him with no escape, he found an almost meditative calm in reciting words he’d long memorized.

Lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts: and shall make me to understand wisdom secretly.

The words were familiar, restful. A muttered incantation, offered to his own fitful spirit.

Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness. Renew a right spirit within me.

That was what he wanted more than anything—to be refreshed, to not fear his own thoughts. But peace didn’t come. Nothing eased the turmoil he felt. No quiet. No calm. His thoughts made a whirlpool around him.

He made his way along the embankment of the mill-leat, the water running fiercely beside him, until he saw the familiar shape of home. It was just as he remembered it: gray and chilly in the late afternoon, fading into the brackish fenlike underbrush around it. Tonight, it would be dank and lonely. Mark sighed, wishing for the first time that one of his brothers had come with him.

When he was within a few yards of the entrance, movement off to the side distracted him.

He turned.

There was a moment of staggering stillness, as if the maelstrom of his discontent had simply frozen in place. As if every argument he’d conducted with himself had fallen in on itself. As if she had come here in answer to his desperation.

She brought him no calm. No quiet. If he hated excess, he should despise the sight of her.

He didn’t.

Jessica,
his body whispered.

“Mrs. Farleigh,” he said instead.

“Sir Mark.” She was wearing a heavy cloak, covering her from neck to ankle. Her head was bowed, not in reverence, but as if she were carrying a heavy burden. She looked up, and her eyes sought his.

At the look in them—that haunted, sad look—he wanted to go to her and put his arms about her. He wanted to turn and barricade himself behind the heavy wooden planks of his door. He wanted her never to feel sorrow again. He wanted to make it all better. He wasn’t sure if she was the answer to his desperate prayer, or temptation sent from the other side.

“I know how improper this must seem,” she said. “Particularly after what transpired earlier today. I know what you must think. But I did not come here to enlarge on our prior…discussion. Truly. I came because there is no one else I can turn to.”

She took another step toward him, and he could make out the tight lines around her eyes, the tremble of her hands. There was nothing fabricated about her distress.

“Mrs. Farleigh,” he repeated. He should send her away. He’d just decided that he could have nothing more to do with her. He should tell her to unburden her problems on the rector and be shut of the situation.

Right. And the man would no doubt paw at her breast and then blame her for tempting him.

No. Mark was many things, but he was not the sort of man who would walk away from a woman in trouble. Especially not
this
woman. This maddening, tempting, arousing woman.

He hadn’t responded, and she clasped her hands in front of her—not in entreaty, but in an unconscious movement. “We can speak out here, if it makes you more easy. I brought my cloak and an umbrella, just in case. But I want—no, I
need
—to talk with someone.”

And that’s when Mark knew that he was in even more trouble than he’d believed. Because all it took was that one plea, and the objections he’d had against her, so carefully considered, disappeared in smoke. And all he could think of was her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

JESSICA GASPED
in relief when Sir Mark silently opened the door and ushered her inside. He took her cloak and hung it on a hook. But he didn’t say anything as he conducted her down the long hall she’d walked once before. Once they’d reached the parlor, he silently gestured her to a seat in front of the fireplace. It was beginning to cool down; inside, it was actually cold. He set logs in the cavern of a fireplace with easy assurance before reaching for a small bellows and encouraging the embers to spark to life.

He did all of this without touching her, without a brush of his fingers against her neck. She was glad of it.

Flames licked up, devouring wood. He pulled the grate in front of the fire once more and turned to her. His gaze touched her eyes, dropped to her hands, pale and clasped together.

“You’re chilled,” he said. He spoke so matter-of-factly, she would never have known they’d kissed earlier. She might have thought there was nothing between them but bare facts. “Would you like some tea?”

“No.” Her fingers spasmed, and she burrowed them into her skirt. “No. I don’t like tea.”

He must have heard something in her voice, because he cocked his head and looked at her. But he didn’t press her any further. “Coffee?” he asked. “Warmed milk?”

“I don’t suppose you have any port.” The words escaped her.

But he didn’t look offended at the notion that a woman might do something so unladylike as take strong spirits. Instead, his eyes crinkled in amusement, and he turned and left. Rustling sounds, and then a long creak, floated into the room. He came back a few minutes later, with a pair of tumblers and a dusty bottle.

“No port,” he told her. “But—” he hefted the green glass “—I do have a bottle of the local apple brandy. Have you ever tried any?”

She shook her head.

He wrested the cork from the bottle and then poured a splash of the caramel-colored liquid into a glass. “It’s a local tradition.” He handed this over—their fingers did not touch—and then he poured himself a more generous measure.

She just needed to steady her nerves. A sip, that’s all. She was beginning to feel foolish for having come here.

He set the decanter on the side table and sat on the divan. She might have said that he sat next to her, but it was a long divan, and he’d settled on the opposite edge from her. If she stretched out her arm full-length, and he held out his hand, their fingertips might scarcely touch. Still, a little frisson went through her. They were sitting…
almost
next to each other. The cushions against her back moved when he leaned back. Her hand stroked the silk of the seat.

“To your health.” He raised his glass and drank.

Jessica sniffed the liquid tentatively. Above the sweetness of apple, she scented something strong and raw. It tickled the back of her throat. “Sir Mark,” she said tentatively, “are you trying to inebriate me?”

“I didn’t even give you an inch.” He raised one eyebrow. “Can’t you hold your liquor?”

She pressed her lips together and focused on the challenge. “I could drink you under the table,” she informed him flatly. But her heart wasn’t in it. She raised the glass and took a gulp.

She’d expected something smooth like cider. But what hit her was alcohol, raw and unfinished, burning her tongue, stealing the breath from her lungs. She coughed, barely swallowing the slug she’d taken into her mouth. This wasn’t the smooth taste of well-aged spirits sipped by gentlemen in London clubs. This was the sort of hash brewed by backwoods laborers, reserved for raucous gatherings. And then the effect of those spirits struck her, like a kick applied to the seat of the pants. It felt like a fire, igniting in her belly and pushing aside her worries.

She cleared her throat and stared at the seemingly inoffensive liquid. “You could have warned me. This is a death trap.”

“That, too, is a local tradition.” A small smile touched his lips, but faded as he looked at her. “And, truthfully, you looked as if you needed a bit of something to pick you up. I figured that would do the trick.” He took another sip from his glass. His gaze shifted from the apple brandy to her hands, wrapped around the tumbler. And then, he followed her arms, up, up until his eyes met hers. “Also, I believe I am trying to drown out my better self.”

Fire? The brandy had nothing on the heat in his gaze. She might have found her forgetfulness in the look in his eyes alone. The dark need. The desire. It was all there, too much to grasp with both hands.