Margo Maguire (16 page)

Lilly pulled away slightly. “Samuel…”

He trembled at the sound of his name on her lips, the touch of her breath on his mouth.

“Are you…” He saw her throat move as she
swallowed thickly, then whispered, “Perhaps we should…go slowly.”

Like a man starved for too long, Sam could think of nothing but putting his tongue on the throbbing pulse in Lilly’s neck, of tearing the delicate blouse away from her shoulders and burying his face between her breasts.

He wanted her fast and hard.

Yet the familiar feelings of aversion had not abated entirely.

He trembled from the conflict pounding at his heart and mind. He felt his hands go damp, his mouth go dry, and heard the blood rush through his head as he reached for Lilly.

The soft heat of her body shocked him as he cupped her shoulders. Gently he touched her, his fingers savoring the sensation of warm feminine flesh. She made a small sound when he slid his hands down her back, barely touching her, and encircled her waist.

It was sheer heaven, but agony, too.

Lilly kept her hands bunched in her skirts. She was afraid to move, afraid to touch Samuel for fear that he would stop what he was doing. A fierce expression burned in his eyes, and Lilly had no doubt that he desired her. But it was a struggle for him to touch her.

She heard her last words echoing in her mind, sensed that any move she made would send him away. But she longed to thread her fingers through his hair, to press her lips to his in a much more ardent kiss than he’d given her. She wanted to feel
his body against hers, to make all that had happened on Penny Top a reality.

It was mad, she knew. No decent woman would intentionally seduce a man.

But Samuel was not just any man. He was the man she had fallen in love with, the only one with whom she would ever experience intimacy. Once he was gone from Ravenwell, she would go on as she had before, making ghosts appear, and taking care of her guests.

But there would be a hole in her heart that no magic could fill.

S
am didn’t like to think he’d run away from Lilly, but that was the truth of it. Feeling inept and agitated, he’d left her in the sun parlor and sought refuge at the hive.

The desire to touch Lilly had been equal to the desire to be touched. Sam could not bear it. Passion and apprehension warred within him, but his fears prevailed. He’d left the most beautiful woman alone and wanting.

He took the field glasses from Charlotte, who’d joined him, and raised them to his eyes, but could only gaze blindly into the meadow. He saw Lilly wherever he looked—the bewilderment in her exquisite eyes when he’d left her, the slump of disappointment in her shoulders.

He’d made not only himself miserable, but Lilly, too. If only he could take her to his room and make love to her the way he’d dreamed…

It was pointless. She was tied to Charlotte and Ravenwell, and if Sam had been able to touch her, to make a life with her here, then he’d be able to
leave England and return to the work he’d always meant to do.

Charlotte tapped his arm, and he looked up from the binoculars. When she pointed to the southern edge of the field, he raised the glasses to his eyes again and saw what had made her curious. A large swarm of bees appeared to be making a nest there, in the ground.

“They’re swarming,” he said, but he knew she wouldn’t understand. He searched for a way to demonstrate the process by which an old queen took part of the hive away to make a new nest, and after a number of elaborate hand signals, he finally seemed to make Charlotte understand.

“Stay clear of the area,” he said, miming what he said. “The new hive is on the ground somewhere, but it won’t be easily seen. You could get stung.”

One sting was not usually a problem, but if an entire cadre of guard bees was threatened, the intruder could suffer multiple stings. Sam didn’t want that to happen to Charlotte.

Dusk began to fall and Sam realized that she would be needed back at Ravenwell. He pointed to his pocket watch and indicated that she should return to the inn. She nodded and asked him if he was coming along.

Sam shook his head. He could not face Lilly so soon after their encounter in the parlor. He’d behaved like a coward, unable to overcome his irrational fears even for the woman he loved.

The realization that he loved Lilly hit him like a blow. It stole his breath and made him slightly light-headed. He was hardly aware of Charlotte turning away, until she tripped over a rock and nearly fell.

Sam’s hand shot out and caught her arm before she hit the ground.

Bewildered, Charlotte looked up at him, while Sam gaped at the hand that had hold of her arm. Sure enough, his own fingers were biting into her flesh, his knuckles white with tension.

Sam let her go as if her arm had turned to nettles. He expected a sting of pain, the stab of nausea, the familiar, penetrating panic to incapacitate him. But none of those things occurred. There was no reaction at all.

He looked down at his hand. “You touched me. Earlier, when you handed me the field glasses, you touched my arm,” he said, more to himself than to Charlotte. He did not understand how it had happened, but his horror of physical contact had receded. Charlotte had tapped his arm, but somehow, his abhorrence to touch was gone.

It was because of Lilly. Sam was sure of it. He’d imagined her touch so often that he’d actually become accustomed to it. And this afternoon when he’d kissed her, she had allowed him the distance he needed. He’d been able to outstrip the inhibitions resulting from his months in captivity.

Sam stood unmoving and watched Charlotte disappear up the path to Ravenwell. He swallowed, then shoved his fingers through his hair.

Everything had changed.

If he could touch Charlotte, what else might he do? Walk through a crowd of people without feeling the crush of bodies closing in on him? Tolerate the odors of a foreign marketplace? Leave the civilized shores of England?

Join Phipson’s expedition in Bombay?

He ought to walk up to Ravenwell and see if it was true—if he could shake hands with Darius Payton and the rest of his company…if he could take beautiful Lilly by the hand and lead her into the dark garden, where they could watch the sky and perhaps conjure a shower of shooting stars.

Turning on his heel, he headed toward the lake instead.

He was not ready to face the possibility that it was all a mistake, that somehow he’d managed to keep Charlotte from falling, but might never be able to touch someone again.

Charlotte had something she wanted to tell Lilly, but the supper hour had been so chaotic, there hadn’t been time for Lilly to stop and pay attention to her.

Lilly had taken the place of one of the serving girls, who was ill, and had managed to thwart one of Mr. Clive’s full-blown tantrums. The Ravenwell chef was truly gifted in the kitchen, but if he kept up his temperamental behavior, Lilly would have no choice but to replace him.

By the time Mrs. Bainbridge left the inn for the night, Lilly was left to deal with questions about the ghosts, and guests who had come to Ravenwell for the primary purpose of seeing them.

It had been several days since there had been an apparition, but she was too preoccupied to deal with one now. None of her guests were scheduled to leave Ravenwell tomorrow, or even the next day. So she had at least two nights to provide what they’d come to see.

She kept watch for Samuel, but he never came in for supper, and she didn’t see him enter the inn to
go to his room. It was possible that he was still at work in the meadow, but more likely, he was down at the beach.

He had to be just as puzzled as she was by what had happened between them in the sun parlor. She couldn’t have been mistaken about Samuel’s reticence to be touched. And she wondered if his desire for her had overcome it.

That was a stirring thought.

Lilly wandered through the rooms on the main floor, hoping to find him, yet sure that he wouldn’t be anywhere inside. Instead, she suffered that odd sensation of being watched by someone in the shadows, even though no one was there.

Agitated now, she removed her apron, folded it and stored it under the reception desk, then entered the apartment, where she found Charlotte playing trumps with Tom, just as the three of them had done as children.

“You two look quite comfortable,” Lilly said irritably.

Charlotte put the playing cards aside and started to tell Lilly about an incident that had occurred earlier in the meadow.

“I thought she might have been mistaken,” Tom said when she’d finished. “But she’s adamant. Mr. Temple took hold of her arm to keep her from falling. And when Charlotte forgot herself and touched his sleeve, he didn’t draw back from her.”

The walls of the sitting room seemed to close around Lilly. If what Charlotte had said was true…

Lilly knew that if she didn’t get outdoors, she would not be able to catch her breath. She heard
Tom calling her name as she reeled out through the office, and stopped to face him.

“I’m just going out for some air,” she said.

“Lilly—”

“I’m all right, Tom. I’ll be in soon.”

She turned away and kept moving until she reached a door that led to the back gardens.

Samuel would be free to leave now. His need to stay in Cumbria was past. Lilly should be pleased for him, but all she could feel was a sharp sense of loss.

“Miss Tearwater, are you all right?”

She whirled at the sound of a voice and saw Alan Graham approaching her from the side of the building.

“Yes, of course,” she said, pressing one hand to her breast, as if that would help contain her pounding heart.

“You seem to be… Well.” He cleared his throat and handed her a package. “I’ve, er, come to call.”

Blindly, Lilly accepted it. She felt her eyes fill with tears of misery. She did not want a gift from Alan.

“Perhaps we could sit out here,” he said. “It’s a pleasant evening.”

Lilly swallowed back her tears and followed him to one of the tables, but did not take the seat he offered. “Alan, I—”

“Open it…the gift I brought.”

Lilly bit her lip and did as he asked, pulling pink silk ribbon from a box wrapped in flowered paper. She barely noticed that it was pretty and feminine. It held no appeal for her.

“They’re chocolates,” Alan said. “And other sweets. My mother said that ladies like sweets.”

Lilly gave a short nod. She should have felt flattered by the attentions of this man. Handsome and well-bred, Alan Graham was the perfect suitor. Had Lilly cared for him, she would have sat right down and enjoyed a sample of his extravagant gift. But she could not. Unmindful of her rudeness, she muttered some excuse and slipped away, taking the path that would lead through the woods and down to the lake.

She heard Alan following, calling her name, but he gave up before long, and she was soon alone.

It was late and the beach was deserted. Lilly sat down on the rock she’d once shared with Samuel, and looked up at the sky. She supposed it was possible that Charlotte was mistaken about him, that he hadn’t actually grabbed her friend’s arm. But she knew that wasn’t true, not after what had transpired in the sun parlor that very afternoon.

She’d had hopes…

What hopes she’d had were utterly foolish. Lilly’s responsibility was to Charlotte. She had no business falling in love with Samuel and dreaming of what might have been had he not been hobbled by the fears resulting from his imprisonment.

Lilly wondered if Samuel had already started packing. He would need daylight to gather the equipment stored in the meadow, but it would not take long to pack up the crates he’d brought. He could be on the afternoon train to London tomorrow.

She took a deep, shuddering breath and thought of Alan. The vicar had likely returned to the inn, puzzled at her strange behavior. He’d made it clear
over the past week that he was looking for a wife, and that he favored Lilly.

Alan had met Charlotte, and seemed to understand that she was Lilly’s responsibility. But Lilly didn’t know how he would feel about taking on the considerable debt that Maude had incurred in the few years before her death. He’d made it clear that he thought Ravenwell should be closed, but how would they pay off the loans with the income from the vicarage?

And how would she manage to live with the intimacy he would be sure to expect of a wife?

Stricken with dread, Lilly stood.

She paced across the sand, wringing her hands together. There was no law that required her to marry, just because a man had expressed his interest. Lilly was content at Ravenwell. She and Charlotte fared much better than most women who lived without a man’s protection, especially now that Lilly’s ghosts appeared regularly.

There was no reason for her to submit to marriage—and to an unwelcome intimacy—with Alan.

Lilly knew she could never share a marriage bed with the young vicar. He might possess the comeliest face in all of England, but there was only one man Lilly would ever love.

And if she were ever to know intimacy with a man, it would be with Samuel.

Lilly stopped in her tracks and gazed up at the sliver of moon that hung in the sky, directly over the lake. A few early stars glittered nearby, and the barn owls that nested at Mrs. Webster’s farm hooted in the distance. The peaceful night could not have been a greater contrast to the turmoil going on inside her.

Samuel would be leaving tomorrow, which meant she had one chance to share all that she could give to him.

She was certainly no lady for even contemplating what she was about to do, but if she had only this one opportunity to experience all that Samuel could give, she would take it.

Squaring her shoulders, she returned to Ravenwell. Fortunately, Alan was nowhere to be seen. The reception area was quiet and it was dark in her apartment. Tom was gone, and Charlotte was in her room, presumably asleep.

Without hesitation, Lilly went into her small kitchen and gathered a plateful of food, then covered it with a linen cloth. She left again through the office, making her way to the staircase, where she climbed to the second floor. Davy had already turned down the gaslights and locked up for the night, so Lilly encountered no one as she went down the hall to Samuel’s room.

Then it struck her. She wasn’t quite sure what she would say, or do, once she arrived.

Taking a deep breath, she tapped lightly on his door.

When she heard the sound of his chair scraping the floor, Lilly experienced her first doubts. She should have changed into fresh clothes. Combed her hair. Pinched her cheeks.

It wasn’t too late. It would take only a few minutes to put on something pretty and—

His door opened. “Lilly?”

She turned to face him, then swallowed and forced the words to come. “I—I brought your supper.”

He didn’t even look at the plate in her hands. “Come in.”

His shirt was partially open, and he’d pushed the sleeves up to his elbows, leaving his strong, muscular forearms bare. He’d pulled off his suspenders and they hung at his sides, bracketing his hips. In one hand was a pen and a blot of black ink stained one finger.

Lilly wondered if he would touch her.

She set the plate on his desk and noticed the letter he’d apparently been writing—to a Mr. Phipson in Bombay.
India!
A quick glance at the letter made his intentions clear to her, and Lilly strengthened her resolve not to let this moment pass.

“Everything’s changed,” she said.

He nodded. A lock of hair fell over his forehead, and Lilly’s fingers ached to smooth it back.

She forced her voice to remain steady. “When will you leave?”

“Soon. Tomorrow.”

Lilly bit her lip to keep it from trembling. She raised one hand and lightly touched the lock of hair that so tempted her. He did not recoil.

Leaning closer, she slid her hand to the back of his neck, and was encouraged when he closed his eyes and made a low, feral sound.

They would have only this night. A few short hours for Lilly to experience a true physical bond with the man she loved, and not just the passionate imaginings of a lonely spinster. “Samuel…”