Cecilia shrugged, her sleeve brushing the Major’s caped overcoat. ‘She easily could have done, as must be obvious, but she did not. Mr Cotwin and Mrs Pritty both said that she delighted in the bizarre idea of surprising us after her death. My mother – though this will hardly improve your opinion of us – thinks that she might with advantage have surprised us much sooner, perhaps when our father died and left us in a deal of anxiety. My sisters have been supporting us, essentially, out of their own funds for several years. They could afford it, and did not grudge it for a moment, but it was… not ideal, for any of us. They all have several children each, and therefore many other demands upon their resources.’
‘It can never be pleasant to feel yourself dependent on another, however willing they are to have it so,’ he said with unexpected sympathy and acuity. ‘I have discovered as much, in a different way, since I was wounded. I was ill with a persistent fever for a long time, and weak as a kitten for many months afterwards. My mother nursed me with great devotion, and I did not make it pleasant for her. I am still not restored to the even, sunny temper I once had, and perhaps I never will be, however much I exercise and try to walk off my ill humour.’
She laughed, muffling her amusement with one ungloved hand. ‘You, even-tempered, sir? It seems most unlikely, when I have always found you to be much more like a bear with a sore head. And yet I suppose I must believe it, if you tell me so.’
After a moment in which Cecilia became suddenly freshly conscious of how alone they were, out here in the growing darkness, Major Bartrum said with an odd, uncertain note in his voice, ‘That is the second time today that I’ve thought you might be flirting with me. Are you?’
‘Can’t you tell?’ She could easily have said no, even put on a fine show of indignation at the outrageous suggestion. Apparently, she was, then. Flirting.
‘I would have been able to once; if I’d asked such a question, it would have been because I already knew the answer, which would usually have been yes, if a lady was being honest. I was a great flirt, once upon a time – it’s in the nature of a game, isn’t it, where both players know the rules? But I am afraid I have forgotten them.’
‘I have had four full London Seasons, and in the way of things, flirting does occasionally occur there, so perhaps I gained a little skill at it. I would have been most uncomfortable if I had not, like my poor sister Allegra, who must always say exactly what she thinks, and absolutely hated being a debutante as a result. But the stakes were so very high – marriage, you know, and a woman’s precious reputation and her future. That is all behind me now; I don’t have to concern myself about such horrid things any more. I am still exploring all the implications of that, I think.’
‘Now you have your independence, Miss Constantine.’
‘Yes, in both senses of the word. Financial independence, and the new sense of freedom that comes from having it, and being obliged to rely upon nobody in the world.’
‘You do not mean to marry, then?’
She could have told him of her circumstances, of Mrs Albery’s will, but it was a little awkward, indelicate even, and so she did not do so. ‘Not at present, nor for a long while. Maybe never, I don’t know. What about you, sir?’
She had overstepped, she realised immediately. Gravely so. The fragile intimacy that had seemed to be growing up between them had vanished in an instant. His voice was arctic once more when he replied. ‘Of course not. Do not put me to the trouble of telling you why; it must be perfectly obvious even to a person of the meanest intelligence, and whatever you are, ma’am, you are not that.’
He had been betrothed, she remembered, and his fiancée had spurned him after his wounding and his illness.Shehad hurt him too, now, stabbed him in that same raw, sore place with her careless, thoughtless words, and utterly shattered the new and undeniably pleasant feeling of closeness that had been growing so unexpectedly between them. However could she put it right?
There was no going back. There could be only forwards. ‘You believe no woman could want you, now that you are scarred.’ They were dreadful words, blunt and hurtful, and they hung in the air between them. She’d not have dared to voice them a month ago; she could scarcely credit the fact that she had uttered them aloud now.
Nor could he, it seemed. His deep voice was vibrating with pain and barely suppressed anger. ‘I believe it, Miss Constantine, because I know it to be true. I only need look in the mirror, and I have been given further proof of it, if such proof had indeed been needed, by the woman who was to be my wife, and is now wedded to another. He is an officer with a fine, handsome face and strong body such as I once had, and never will again. No facile words of sympathy can alter that, so do not trouble yourself to give voice to them.’
‘I won’t,’ she said, standing and shaking out her skirts. ‘I won’t apologise, either. That would be empty words too, I know. I’ve said I don’t mean to marry, at least for a long while; I’ve told you how much I value my new liberty, and exactly why. So I’m certain you won’t take it the wrong way, Major Bartrum, if I say that I would like to kiss you, here on this tree trunk in the gathering darkness. And nobody need ever know. I promiseIwill not tell them.’
The silence that thickened between them after this extraordinary statement was filled with tension. Several different sorts of tension.
‘No, madam,’ he growled. ‘You will excuse me if I appear ungrateful for your very kind offer, but I assure you that pity is the very last thing in the world I require, even if its bitter taste might be sweetened with a kiss.’
‘I’m not offering that. I’ve never kissed anyone out of pity, and I don’t mean to start now. That seems like a most disagreeable and foolish thing for anyone to do.’ Clearly, the ability to speak freely was intoxicating, and could lead to all sorts of unexpected consequences. Cecilia wasn’t quite sure what was going to happen next, but suddenly, she knew exactly what she wanted, and would state it aloud. To hell with caution and proper behaviour and everything that had constrained her life up to this date. Could she not claim a little pleasure for herself?
‘I am a free woman of two and twenty, obligated or bound to nobody in the whole wide world, certainly to no man. My mother is a hundred miles away, we are alone here in the night, and I would very much like to kiss you. But I perfectly understand if you don’t want me to, Major, as is your right, and shall bid you goodnight.’
25
Alistair could not believe she’d said it. Any of it. But she was standing looking at him, regarding him fearlessly in the face, just as if his appearance did not disgust her in the least, and he was not such a chuckle-head as to let her walk away from him, unkissed, after making such an extraordinary proposition. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that was likely to happen more than once, or not to him, at any rate.
‘Do you make a habit of kissing people, Miss Constantine?’ A foolish thing to say, perhaps, but it was all he could manage in the moment. And it might be useful to know, after all.
Her fascinating smile curved up the corners of her lips – her eminently kissable lips. ‘Not ahabit. Not like brushing my teeth, or washing, or changing my book at the subscription library. But it’s been known to happen. Once or twice. I did say I’d had several Seasons, I believe. They would have been excessively dull, otherwise.’
‘I always knew London was a hotbed of vice,’ he murmured, though his words were more like a groan that he’d have wished in an ideal situation, and then he reached for her.
‘Oh, no,’ she said, taking his hands in hers but stilling them, close to her breasts but not, in his humble opinion, quite close enough. ‘You’re not going to kiss me. I’m going to kiss you. If you are quite positive you want me to, of course.’
‘Why?’ he asked. Why, indeed? Why was hetalking?
‘Because if you kiss me, and I merely let you, even if I participate, you will convince yourself afterwards that I was not fully willing. You will torment yourself with the silly notion that you somehow forced yourself on me, like the great ogre you plainly consider yourself to be. Whereas if I kiss you, and you merely… receive it, you will not afterwards be able to persuade yourself, even with your very feeble man’s brain, that I was anything other than entirely enthusiastic. Will you?’
‘I suppose I won’t. Very well,’ he said. ‘Do your worst, Miss Constantine. I would say be gentle, but actually?—’
Her lips were on his, warm and wonderful, and the sentence remained forever unfinished. She took his face confidently between her hands and deepened the kiss, and he, who’d never been passive in such a situation in his life but was realising with astonishing swiftness that he might easily grow to like it, no, to love it, opened his mouth a little and let her.
