was not difficult to work out what was upsetting her, only to know how to cope with it. The situation with Alice was clear enough, if painful. At least she had a clear conscience and the comfort of knowing she was doing what was best for her daughter, however much it hurt.
But Avery Falconer was tying her in knots. They had shockingly frank conversations about desire and yet she could be open with him about nothing else. She wanted him with a directness that was unmistakable, but she did not know why. Was it because he looked so much like Piers, but mature and reliable? Or was it that he was a devastatingly attractive man who was open about his attraction to her? Perhaps it was simply that she could not forgive him for stealing Alice, however well meant his actions, and therefore everything about him, good and bad, was exaggerated.
Whatever she thought of him, and however much he loved Alice now, she could not forget that love and concern for an unknown baby could not have motivated him to buy the child. Pride, arrogance and the certainty that he knew best for anyone who might be connected with the lofty Earl of Wykeham was what had driven him then and it was pure chance that good had come of it.
Oh, but she ached for him.
* * *
‘Cutting off your nose to spite your face, are you?’ Mab demanded over the breakfast table the next morning.
‘Probably.’ Laura bit into a slice of toast, chewed, thought, swallowed. ‘Do sit down, Mab, you make my head ache stomping about. I have so few days left with Alice and I’m a fool to allow one mystifying man to stop me spending them with her.’
‘Mystifying, is he?’ Mab poured herself some tea and planted herself on the chair across the kitchen table. ‘Not the word I’d use, myself. Downright—’ She broke off and was lost in thought, searching for the word. ‘Edible. I could think of other ways to describe him, but none of them decent.’ She buttered a slice of toast and applied plum preserve with a lavish hand. ‘Saw him riding past yesterday morning, first thing. Got a handsome pair of shoulders on him. And thighs,’ she added. ‘You’d know you’d got something in your bed with that one, right enough.’
‘Mab!’
‘Well, I’m female with eyes in my head and I’ve got a pulse, haven’t I? Good-sized nose and feet...’
‘Mab!’ Piers had big feet, too... Oh, stop it, you are as bad as she is. ‘All right, I am not dead either. Avery Falconer is very attractive. And intelligent. And he is good to Alice. And I like him. I just cannot forgive him.’
‘Worse things to forgive a man for than giving a child a loving home.’ Mab demolished the toast and picked up her tea. ‘You and Mr Piers made a right hash of things between you, thinking with your...well, not thinking at all, if you ask me. You should have insisted he marry you before you got into bed with him and he ought to have cared enough about you not to have risked it. And don’t look at me like that, you know it is true.’
It was like being slapped in the face. No, it was like having a bucket of cold water poured over a fragile sugar tower of illusion. Young love, passion, an undying, innocent romance—or two young people being thoughtless? She had built a castle in the air and inhabited it with her perfect knight, her gallant soldier, and hadn’t the wit to think through the likely consequences of sleeping with a man off to a battlefield in the near future. And Piers had not fought hard enough to behave like a gentleman and not a randy young soldier.
More than time to let go of girlish fantasies. There was no such thing as undying love or she wouldn’t feel so much as a twinge of desire for Avery Falconer. And Avery was guilty of nothing more than a strong sense of family duty and an honourable obligation to the child of a cousin he was probably very fond of. He had taken Alice for Piers’s sake.
Mab eyed her warily, braced, no doubt, for a blistering retort about the impudence of maidservants daring to speak their mind, or floods of tears. ‘Thank you, Mab. You are quite right.’ Not that it didn’t hurt or was shaming to have the truth pointed out so bluntly, but it was probably like lancing a boil, she’d be glad later when the agony subsided.
‘And you are quite right about today, too. I’ll walk up to the Manor now. It is foolish to waste a minute with Alice.’
* * *
I will be pleasant and friendly and make it quite clear I want neither flirtation nor kisses, she resolved half an hour later as she negotiated the steps up the ha-ha and tackled the sloping lawn. Halfway she met Jackson, the footman, his hands full of a dew-wet hoop and ball.
‘Miss Alice forgets her toys, ma’am,’ he said with his friendly grin. ‘Were you coming to see her? Only Miss Blackstock’s taken her off to Hemel Hempstead in the gig to buy new shoes. You’ve just missed them.’
The disappointment was ridiculously sharp, not less for it being her own fault. If she hadn’t been sulking over Avery she might have been in time to have joined the shopping expedition. ‘I will just say good morning to Lord Wykeham, in that case,’ she said, summoning a smile.
‘He’s in the Blue Sitting Room, ma’am. The window’s open if you can manage the step.’ He pointed. ‘Or I can go in and announce you?’
‘No, you continue your search for the contents of the toy box, Jackson. I can find my own way.’
Her footsteps were silent on the smooth flagstones. Laura stooped to look into the unfamiliar room and saw Avery. He was half-seated on the edge of a desk, his long legs out in front crossed at the ankles, his hands behind, bracing him. His head was down as though he was deep in thought. Laura hesitated, her hand on the window frame for balance, then caught her breath as he looked up, his face stark and naked as she had never seen it.
He must have heard her involuntary gasp, for he turned, his expression under control so fast she wondered if she had imagined the pain. ‘Caroline. I was not expecting you today.’
‘I know. I have missed Alice, haven’t I?’ She stepped down into the room. ‘Avery, what is wrong?’ The shadow of that inner agony was still on his face, now she knew to look for it. ‘My dear man...’ She went towards him, her hands held out and he stood, pushed away from the table and she was in his arms.
He said nothing before he kissed her, his mouth urgent and demanding, his tongue tangling with hers as she responded, opened to him as though they were old lovers who knew each other’s bodies with utter familiarity. She knew how he would taste, how he would feel in her arms. She knew, as she kissed him back, how he would angle his head, how he would explore her mouth, how she would melt into him. He was everything her restless night-time imaginings had promised he would be and more. And he is this man, not another, not Piers.
He had turned as he kissed her and she felt the hard edge of the table press into her buttocks, the hard ridge of his arousal press into her belly. Desperate for air so that she could kiss him again, Laura dragged her mouth free. His eyes were dark and fierce and wild, the eyes of a man whose control was always perfect—until now.
‘Caroline.’ It was a growl, a statement, not a question.
Caroline? Who? Laura froze. Caroline was not her. Caroline was a lie and she could not be like this with a man she was lying to. ‘Avery.’ She slid her hands down so they rested on his chest. Under her palms his heartbeat thudded. He stared down at her and slowly the darkness of passion faded out of his eyes.
‘Avery,’ she said again. ‘I cannot—’
‘Hell.
