He rubbed his free hand across his jaw. “All the people I met with in London, the solicitors and men of business and Father’s old associates, they would look at me with stony faces and give me approving nods, saying things like, ‘Good man. You’re holding up well. It’s what your father would want.’ But,” he went on, his gaze beseeching, “is it what he’d want? For me to simply put him in the earth and then walk away as if suddenly he was no longer my father? To forget about the rock samples he’d bring me, or the way we used to take rambles through the estate and talk about a book he’d just read?”
The anguish in Owen’s voice resounded within her, and she ached for him.
Slowly, she said, “Grieving for him, missing him, it all speaks to how much you cared. And that is never a bad thing. He must have loved you very much.”
His smile was small, but heartfelt. “I’m trying to be a good Duke of Tarrington. Theoretically, I’ve been preparing to be the duke my whole life—yet it feels sudden. I thought I’d have more time to learn what I need to do in order to fulfill my obligations. I want…” He struggled to speak, as if searching for the right words. “I want to bring honor to the title.”
“You do,” she said without hesitation.
“How do you know?” he asked wryly.
“I’ve faith in you.” She gave his hand another squeeze.
He exhaled. “Glad one of us does.” Firelight played across his face, and shadows dipped between the furrow in his brow. “You said your mother passed away when you were Maria’s age.”
“Yes,” Cecilia said quietly. It hadn’t been fast or gentle. Her mother had screamed for hours, but attempts to save her and the child were in vain. “They said it wasn’t supposed to happen like that. It was supposed to go easier than that—but then, there was well over a decade between me and the next child, so…” Her bones felt rusty as she lifted her shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Miss Holme,” he said, his voice genuinely regretful.
She accepted his condolences with a small nod. “I’d been hoping for a baby sister, or even a brother, and thought for a bit that it was my fault, wanting something that turned out so dangerous to my mother’s health.”
“Of course it wasn’t your fault,” he said vehemently.
She gave him a little smile. “I know that now. But thirteen-year-old girls are less inclined to understand the world from a position of cold logic. With her gone, though, it made me take a long look around at my life, at the little world of my town that was to contain the whole of my existence. I discovered something about myself.”
“What was that?”
He poured her more cider, and she took a drink, savoring its tart taste.
“I wanted more than to take my place beside my father at the shop counter. I wanted more than marrying someone I had known my whole life. So when I was old enough, I advertised my services as a governess.” She laughed ruefully. “To say my father was displeased vastly diminishes the scale of his fury.”
“He should have been proud of his daughter’s spirit,” Owen asserted.
She sipped at her cider in an attempt to wash away the bitterness caused by her father’s anger. “A spirited daughter was not one of his objectives. And he was doubly furious when I revealed to him that I was going to be a governess on the Continent. But I could not resist the opportunity to learn so much about the world.”
She had learned about herself, as well. Her father had insisted that she choose: be a governess, or be welcome in his home.
She missed Edgar Holme—he never answered her letters—but she valued herself more.
“Regarding our lessons,” she said, guiding the conversation back to more comfortable territory.
He straightened, ever the attentive student.
“Taking into account that you’ve already given me several shattering orgasms,” she continued, “I think you can call me Cecilia, rather than Miss Holme.”
“Does anyone else call you Cecilia?” he asked.
“You’d be the first in a long time.”
Ah, that smile of his, warm and bright and genuine. “It’s just for us, then.”
“Just for us,” she repeated softly, then crooked her finger at him. “Kiss me.”
Chapter Five
The following night, Owen stood at the lone table in the gamekeeper’s cottage. As he waited for Cecilia, he arranged and rearranged the plates of food into a display he hoped would please her eye. Perhaps he should slice the pears rather than leave them whole. There was the worrying possibility that she didn’t like pears—he couldn’t very well ask anyone in the house if she had a fondness for them, or any other dish, without arousing suspicion.
He moved the pears back into the basket, which he then tucked under the table. If she didn’t prefer the fruit, he wouldn’t give it to her. All he wanted was to give her exclusively the things she loved.
He drummed his fingers on the small, paper-wrapped parcel he’d placed at her seat. A single sprig of cornflowers was tucked into the string tied around the gift—he’d picked it earlier today when out for a stroll with his mother and sisters, and had tried to keep it fresh by setting it in a small bottle filled with water. As he’d hurried to the cottage tonight, his thoughts had been circling over all his preparations, including fretting as to whether or not the cornflowers would retain their freshness and vibrancy until she saw them.
Owen let out a small, rueful laugh. “Christ, look at me,” he muttered. Since parting company with Cecilia last night—after an hour of delicious fucking—he’d been in a frenzy to see her again, and not just to see her, but to make her smile, hear her laugh, run his fingers through the mass of her dark honey-colored hair as it spread on a pillow.
His fantasy of her far surpassed the reality of who she was. Her boldness, her quickness of mind, her humor. There was so much of her he didn’t know, and what he had glimpsed had been, in all ways, exceptional.
Merely thinking about the waves of her hair made him bite back a growl of desire. God Almighty, there wasn’t a part of her that didn’t arouse him.
A glance at his timepiece revealed it to be five to midnight. He’d been early, too early, but he wanted to make sure everything was perfect for her.
He went to the bed and smoothed his hands over the blankets, where he’d scattered fresh green herbs that would release their scent as he and Cecilia lay atop them. The heat of their bodies would also bring out the herbs’ fragrance.
She taught him so much, but he had other means of learning. This little gambit with the herbs, for example, he’d read about years ago when a secret book about seduction had made the rounds at Eton.
He’d taken many of the lessons to heart, but never until now acted on them. Before Cecilia, he’d been too diffident, too hesitant. There had been a few girls who had intrigued him, but he had remained locked inside his own apprehension. Yet with her, she gave him both knowledge and freedom, urging him to liberate that dark, surging need within him.
His father had alluded to the fact that he and Owen’s mother enjoyed robust bedsport. Distressing as it was to have the image of his parents’ amorous life in his head, it had encouraged Owen to believe that perhaps someday, he might have a wife whose fierce desires were equal to his.