Seduction - His Every Kiss Part 21

"Of course, and I knew we would get married when he was ready. He was not a settling-down sort of man. It took him awhile."

"I'm not a settling-down sort of man, and even I wouldn't live with a respectable girl of good family without marrying her. He should have married you."

"He did," she reminded him. "One day, he just said it over breakfast. 'We should get married.' Just like that. And we did."

"And six years after your wedding, your family will not forgive you?" he asked.

"Forgive?" She choked on the word and bent her head. "Dylan, I have five sisters. None of them have married, nor even had suitors. We never had a great deal of money. Enough from the estate to live comfortably, but there was never much in the way of dowry. All of my sisters live at home, and they shall probably die spinsters because of my disgrace. My brother married a respectable girl, but not the one he loved, who broke their engagement because of me. James gave me money when I asked for it, but I am too proud and ashamed and I-" She stopped and gave a deep sigh. "Oh, it was such a scandal. The consequences of my choice ruined so many lives, consequences I never thought about when I ran off. Both my parents died in the shadow of my disgrace. Their shock and grief, my brother told me. I was the apple of their eye, and I broke their hearts. My brother and my sisters just want to forget me and forget any of it ever happened. I don't blame them."

"I do." He was outraged, and he didn't bother to hide it. "Your parents died because we are all food for worms some time. Your sisters need to stop being bitter about their lot in life and find men of backbone, men who won't give a d.a.m.n what society has to say. Your brother sounds like most of the high-principled, n.o.ble-minded men I know. They accept only the distinguished invitations, go to the club to get away from their wives, and go to the brothels because they married respectable girls instead of girls who actually loved them. And if his fiancee left him because of you, she wasn't worth marrying in the first place. As for you-" He stopped to draw breath. "Grace, I think you are the kindest, most compa.s.sionate person I have ever known. You're far too good for the lot of them."

She stared at him, blinking back tears, utterly astonished by his long, furious speech. "Thank you," she managed to say after a moment.

"You're welcome." He looked at her, and all he wanted was to get that awful pain off her face and out of her mind. In an attempt to divert her, he grinned. "I'm rather glad you told me about this."

She drew her brows together with suspicion at that grin. "Why?"

"Until now I was beginning to think I should write to the Archbishop of Canterbury and nominate you for sainthood. It's quite a relief to know I don't have to. Writing to bishops makes me queasy."

She laughed, a series of giggles mixed with hiccoughs.

He reached into the pocket of her robe. Sure enough, there was a handkerchief in there. He pulled it out. "Here."

"How did you know there was a handkerchief in my pocket?"

"Good girls always have a handkerchief. Blow your nose, and don't shed one more tear over doing what you truly wanted to do and enjoying some happiness. And for G.o.d's sake, stop wearing a hair s.h.i.+rt and las.h.i.+ng yourself because you fell in love with somebody your family and your neighbors didn't like. A girl can't help who she falls in love with, I suppose."

She smiled at him, an unexpected smile. "And shall you still feel the same when Isabel falls in love with a man you loathe?"

Nonplused, he stared back at her and felt as if he'd been kicked in the stomach.

h.e.l.ls bells, he'd never thought of that. "She wouldn't."

"Oh, wouldn't she?"

"No. I'll lock her in her room. Will twenty years be enough?"

"I doubt it. Besides, what makes you think locks would stop her?" She wrapped her arms around herself and s.h.i.+vered. "I'm getting cold. Let's go in."

Instead of answering, he pulled off his dressing gown and wrapped her in its heavy silk folds.

Then he put his hands on her shoulders, turned her toward the ocean, and slid his arms around her. She stiffened at once and tried to pull away, but he did not let her go. "Take a bit of your own advice and relax. I know I'm the greatest scapegrace England's ever had. Except for Byron, of course. But I won't try anything dishonorable. I promise."

She curved her hand around his wrist at her waist. "Like I said once, you could be a very nice friend."

"No, I couldn't. I would always want a peek under your petticoats." He pulled her back against his chest and held her for a long time, keeping her warm in the circle of his arms. His cheek against her hair, he listened to the sea in front of them and the nightingales in the trees above their heads, inhaling the scents of the garden and the ocean, and feeling the rise and fall of her breathing beneath his arms. He couldn't remember the last time he'd held a woman just for the sheer pleasure of it. A long time ago.

It wasn't until they were walking back to the house that he realized he hadn't noticed the whine in his head for the entire time they had been out here. It was only a dim hum in his brain right now, and he knew that had something to do with Grace, who made him feel a peace he hadn't felt in years. If only she could keep the noise in his head hushed all the time, but he knew she couldn't. It would come screeching back, again and again, probably for the rest of his life.

When they went back inside the house, she returned to bed, and Dylan went back to the piano. The moment he sat down and looked at the sheet music, he knew what was wrong.

It's too much, he realized, all his earlier frustration vanis.h.i.+ng in sudden clarity. Chords were too heavy for this bit. He needed something lighter. Without conscious thought, he tapped a minor key-gently, not pus.h.i.+ng it all the way down, but instead making the delicate sound of a grace note. That was right, exactly right.

He seized his quill and dipped it in the inkwell, then scribbled down a series of notes, alternating main ones with the shorter, lighter ones of an adjoining tone. After a few moments, he paused to study what he had just written. It was exactly right. Grace notes, he thought. How fitting.

Chapter Sixteen.

During the week that followed, Grace did not even attempt to resume Isabel's lessons. Being in the country was all so new and exciting that it could not be anything but a holiday to the child, and her father's attentions were far more important than German lessons or mathematics. In the light of this new world she was in, Isabel even put her music in second place.

She picked out her pony and promptly changed the animal's name from Betty to Sonata. Dylan began teaching her to ride. He took both of them to the orchards and showed them the mill and distillery, where cider, perry, sloe gin, vinegar, and scented soaps were made. The eighth day after their arrival, they went on a picnic.

Taking a blanket and a basket of cold ham, fruit, cheese, and bread, they went down to the sh.o.r.e. After their picnic, it was low tide, and they explored the tide pools. Grace showed Isabel how to gently use a stick to seek out the tiny animals disguised in the rocky pools. The child was fascinated by this exotic environment-its crabs and sea urchins and tiny fish.

Afterward, they spent most of the afternoon exploring the caves beneath the cliffs, then Dylan took Isabel for a walk along the sh.o.r.e. Grace sat on the blanket and watched as father and daughter walked together, hand in hand, barefoot, and looking for sh.e.l.ls. Grace watched them from beneath the wide brim of her bonnet as they stuffed the pockets of Isabel's dress with sh.e.l.ls and starfish.

Grace thought of that awful night in London ten days ago when she had asked Dylan what he intended to do with the child.

Be a real father. What else can I do?

He had meant it. He spent whole days with Isabel now, instead of minutes. He spoke of her as something more than simply an obligation. He was becoming a real father, a father in the most important sense of the term. She smiled as she watched him lift Isabel onto his wide shoulders. He waded out in the surf up to his hips, his arms lifted with his hands on his daughter's waist.

Days like this were what the child needed so much. Attention, care, and love. Grace wondered what would happen when the year had pa.s.sed and her agreement with Dylan was over. The cottage he had promised her was somewhere here on his estate, and she would be willing to remain Isabel's governess, but what of the child's father? If he remained in Devons.h.i.+re, could she stay?

Grace forced such speculations out of her mind.

She knew they were useless. She returned her attention to father and daughter, watching as Dylan carried Isabel out of the surf.

When they returned to where she sat, Isabel dumped the contents of her pockets on the blanket to show off her treasures to Grace, but it was not long before the child's attention was once again diverted. She started to explore the area behind them, wading into the ma.s.s of sea pinks, white st.i.tchwort, and other May flowers that covered the hillside.

"Careful," Dylan warned her as she bent to pick a handful of the white flowers. "If you pick that stichwort, you'll be pixy-led."

"What does that mean?" The child straightened and looked at him, puzzled. "What is pixy-led?"

Grace and Dylan looked at each other and laughed, but it was she who answered Isabel's question. "To be pixy-led is to be mad, bewildered, or lost. Even bewitched."

Dylan added in a murmur, "Or intoxicated."

She ignored that and explained to Isabel, "The piskies don't like it when people pick the stichwort, and they shall put a spell on you and lead you astray."

Isabel looked at her father, eying him with doubt. "Is that true?"

"Of course," he said, straight-faced. "Everyone knows about the pixies."

Isabel was not convinced. She folded her arms. "Have you ever met one of these pixies, Papa?"

"Yes, I have. They are very sweet things."

"What?" Grace protested, trying to sound as serious as possible. "Piskies are not sweet! They are devilish green creatures, and small enough to ride on snails. And," she added to Isabel, "they don't like children who misbehave. If you are naughty, they will come and turn your nose into a sausage."

"I don't believe it!" the child said stoutly. "If that was true, Papa would have a sausage nose. He always misbehaves."

Dylan laughed, but Isabel was serious. She walked back over to the blanket and plopped down on the sand beside it. She shook her head with disapproval. "You two are not very good at making up stories," she said, sounding wise. "When you try to fool someone, you should make sure your stories match."

Dylan's lips almost curved into a smile, clearly amused by his daughter's advice. "What do you mean?"

"Mrs. Cheval calls them piskies. You said pixies. And you said they are sweet, and she said they are not. She said they are green, and you didn't say that. You see, you are making this up as you go along."

"No, no," Grace a.s.sured her. "I come from Cornwall, where we call them piskies." She glanced meaningfully at Dylan. "And they are not sweet. They are mean."

He ignored her. "Not mean. Sweet. Pretty."

"You two are teasing me," Isabel said with a sniff.

"We're not teasing," he a.s.sured her. "Every person sees different kinds."

She rolled her eyes. "It all sounds silly to me. I don't believe pixies are real at all."

Grace and Dylan looked at each other.

"Grace," he said as if astonished, "my daughter does not believe in pixies."

"They get very angry when little girls don't believe in them," she replied. "They'll cut off all her hair when she's asleep," she added ominously, moving her fingers like a pair of scissors. "They might paint her face green and we'll never be able to wash it off."

"They wouldn't!" Isabel cried, suspending disbelief for a moment in the face of Grace's warning. "Would they, Papa?"

"No, no," he rea.s.sured her. "You're my daughter, and the pixies like me."

Grace turned to Isabel. "The piskies may like him, but little girls are different, so you'd best be good." Grace shot him a warning look from beneath the brim of her bonnet not to contradict her about that, and he took the hint.

"Sir?"

Dylan glanced past her, and Grace turned to see Molly standing on one of the steps carved into the side of the cliff. "It's time for Isabel's dinner," the nanny told them.

The child gave a cry of dismay. "Oh, no! Do I have to go in?"

"All of this will still be here tomorrow," Dylan reminded her. "You live here, remember? Go on."

Reluctantly, Isabel stood up, brus.h.i.+ng sand from her backside as she walked to where Molly stood on the stone step waiting for her. She grasped the woman's hand but paused before starting up to the house. "Papa?" she called and turned to give Dylan a mischievous smile. "Does this mean next time I do something naughty, I can say a pixy led me to do it?"

"No!" Grace said before he could speak.

When Isabel started back toward the cliff steps with Molly and vanished from view through the thick shrubbery and trees, Grace returned her attention to Dylan. "I was trying to persuade her to be good and you ruined it!" she said in good-humored exasperation. "Nice piskies, indeed!"

"Sorry. I couldn't bear to let her think her face could turn green."

"Oh, heavens!" she cried, laughing. "You do have it badly!"

"What do you mean?"

"You are smitten, Dylan Moore, thoroughly smitten, with your little girl."

"Perhaps I am," he admitted, laughing with her and looking a bit stunned by the notion. "Who'd have thought that was possible?"

"I never doubted it for a moment," Grace lied.

He reached behind him, plucking a handful of sea pinks and stichwort from a clump nearby. He turned toward her, rising on his knees. Before she realized what he intended to do, he lifted one of the pinks above her head and pushed it into the ribbon band of her bonnet. Grace stared into the white wall of his s.h.i.+rt front. His s.h.i.+rt was wet, and through the fine linen she could see the hard lines of his body.

"Now you've done it," she said and shook her head in an attempt to deter him. "You picked that stichwort, and now you're the one being pixy-led."

"Too late. I became pixy-led five years ago."

Those words startled her and she tried to look up, but he placed his hand firmly on the crown of her head. "Don't move," he said and pushed a white flower into the ribbon of her bonnet, then leaned back and reached for another flower from the handful he had picked. This time, instead of putting it in her hat, he brushed the pink tuft of the flower beneath her chin, with a faint, knowing hint of a smile. "Pixies are sweet," he p.r.o.nounced. "Pretty."

Grace felt the delicate edge of a flower petal tickling her chin and shredding her notions of virtue. He brushed the flower along her jaw, up her cheek, and over her bonnet, then added it to the other one he'd already tucked into the ribbon band.

The sun was low in the west behind him, and his arms were raised, making his torso a dark shadow inside the fabric. From beneath her hat brim, Grace lifted her gaze as high as she could without moving her head, then let it fall across him again-the beard stubble beneath his chin, the strong column of his throat, the unb.u.t.toned opening of his s.h.i.+rt, and the barest hint of the black chest hair beneath it. Her memory filled in the rest-a dark triangle that tapered down with his torso and disappeared beneath the waistband of his trousers.

She closed her eyes, and her fingers curled into the blanket on each side of her hips, digging into the sand. She was utterly still, feeling the pull of him like Newton's gravity, trying to hold off natural laws by grasping fistfuls of sand.

He lowered his arms and bent sideways to look into her face beneath the stiff overhanging brim of her bonnet. "Nice hat," he said and ducked his head beneath it.

If he kissed her, if he pressed her down into the sand, she would let him. In the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. His every kiss eroded her resistence just a little bit more, until now it was as easy to tear apart as paper, and she knew she was the one under a spell. His spell. He wasn't touching her, but his mouth was only an inch away and his gaze was like a caress. She felt herself teetering on the edge of a cliff. Last time she'd felt this way, she'd jumped off that cliff. She had floated and soared like a bird on the wing, only to come cras.h.i.+ng to the ground in a painful, broken mess.

If he kissed her right now, she would take that foolish, foolish step, fall right off into s.p.a.ce, and forget the hard, painful lessons she had learned about wildly attractive, disreputable men. If he kissed her, she would drag him off the edge with her. She would pull the long, heavy length of his body over hers, feel his weight, his mouth, his beautiful hands.

Dylan did not kiss her. Instead, he moved back, putting a bit of distance between them. "Were you really trying to use pixies to make Isabel behave?" he asked in the most ordinary, conversational voice imaginable as he sat back and stretched his long legs out beside her hip, still not touching her.

Grace fought her way back from that high, dangerous cliff to a safe, sensible place on solid ground. She forced herself to concentrate on the conversation they had been having. Parental discipline, a good subject, a safe one. "It worked when my governess did it."

"Too well, in my opinion."

"You just demolished my best weapon," she told him, ignoring that comment. "The best weapon anyone in the West Country has with children. Fear of the piskies is very handy sometimes, Dylan."

"We shall need to find other ways to keep her out of trouble."

"It's too late. I fear that now, any time she wants to do something, she can say she was pixy-led."

"I cannot blame her for that." Dylan reached for another sea pink. He stripped away the flower and tossed it aside, then stuck the stiff stem between his teeth, leaned back on his hands, and grinned at her like a Penzance pirate. "It has always worked for me."

He was downstairs. Grace knew because the piano woke her again. This had been happening every night for a week now. She never knew when he slept, but it had to be for only a few hours at a time, for he spent much of his time during the day with Isabel and herself.

Grace had drifted off to sleep every night to the sound of his piano. In London, he went out at night, but here, she realized, there was nowhere to go. He did not seem to like the quiet and serenity of the country, but that did not make sense, for he had bought an estate in the country.