Helping herself to a glass, she shook her head. “You are adorable. Mr Miggens thinks you adorable.” She pointed a finger. “In fact, was it Mr Miggens who tore your laces?”
“Tamsyn! No, he hasn’t… He’s most… Only a kiss… Oh, Tam, he says he admires me so!”
Gosh.
Tonight, they were supposed to be dining upon cold meats left over from the picnic followed by some pleasant reading and an early night, but they’d quaffed a tipple to steady the nerves of the day, and then before she’d known it, half the bottle had been emptied – damn pesky piskies.
Now they both lounged on the chaise, feet up, shoes and stockings abandoned to the sultry evening.
“There is nothing to stop you–”
“He’s a valet!”
Well, there was that. Lowdy, for all her reduced circumstances, was still a lady by society’s judgement and Mr Miggens was…a valet.
Tamsyn wrinkled her lips and tapped her fingers. Yet her companion wasn’t so narrow-minded and such unions did occur once in a blue moon.
Something was smoky. Something Lowdy wasn’t telling her.
“The tide is out,” lamented her companion, presenting an empty glass.
Good grief, Lowdy would be three sheets to the wind soon, but she complied, refilling her glass before they fell silent, each drifting into their own thoughts.
Today, in Lowarn cove, alone and paddling in the shimmering sea, Tamsyn had realised something.
For the first time in a long while, she’d felt…alive. Content. Both with herself and the past.
Calmly, she’d touched the boulder where Jonathan had once kissed her upon the cheek, and pleasant memories had flooded her, tinged with the sadness of what might have been.
Peacefully, she’d entered the cave and perused its salt-encrusted walls and craggy fissures. Nothing remained of her terror, nature having cleansed the past.
For so long she had been silent, letting the world talk around her, live around her. Oh, she had heard and seen but she’d not participated, not lived.For too long, she had not enjoyed life. The simple things: colourful gowns, the lap of waves, sand in her toes…a kiss.
Of course, she was aware she still led a privileged life, but she’d let the past scar more than just her body. Even when she’d finally found the strength to overcome her scourge and scream, so afraid for Lowdy’s life in that cold water of the lake, she’d continued to hide in the shadows, grey and non-descript.
And so when Jack had kissed her and then…apologised for kissing her, she hadn’t felt incensed or unwanted but accepting of the beautiful day and the beautiful rogue whohad desired her.
She understood his rationale for stepping back, and his exact honesty about himself was immensely appealing – probably why he was so successful as a rake, although that wasn’t to say he lacked depth. She had a feeling he was as bottomless as Dozmary Pool.
“I’m not a virgin!”
“I beg your pardon?” So lost was Tamsyn in thoughts, she hadn’t realised her companion was now sobbing, glass trembling on her teeth, fat tears rolling like rain. “Lowdy?”
“I’m… I’m not a virgin. And…and Oliver’s so kind and decent,” she bewailed. “He’d never forgive me and…”
Tamsyn hugged her close, rocking her quaking form. “Oh, Lowdy. Why have you never told me? Was it the earl?”
“I thought myself so lucky,” she cried. “I thought he loved me. I thought… I thought I’d found a home. I did everything for his mother, even fed that vicious hound, and the earl…granted me attention.”
“You mean seduced you,” she muttered, stroking Lowdy’s hair.
“I worked so hard, dinners, balls. I thought he was preparing me to be his bride… Foolish clumsy Lowdy! What would he want with a dumpy girl like me?”
“Oh, Lowdy, no. He’s a cork-brained beast.”
“Then I heard he was to marry Lady Margery, the perfect debutante, seventeen and pretty as a picture, and they told me to find another position. Oliver found me crying and he was so k-kind to me.”
Tamsyn raised a brow. “Kind?”
