Persuasion (The Wild and Wanton Edition) (17 page)

The smile faded, however, when Anne spied Louisa walking much too close to Captain Wentworth. Everything now marked out Louisa for Captain Wentworth; nothing could be plainer; and where many divisions were necessary, or even where they were not, they walked side by side nearly as much as the other two. In a long strip of meadow land, where there was ample space for all, they were thus divided, forming three distinct parties; and to that party of the three which boasted least animation, and least complaisance, Anne necessarily belonged. She joined Charles and Mary, and was tired enough to be very glad of Charles’s other arm; but Charles, though in very good humour with her, was out of temper with his wife. Mary had shewn herself disobliging to him, and was now to reap the consequence, which consequence was his dropping her arm almost every moment to cut off the heads of some nettles in the hedge with his switch; and when Mary began to complain of it, and lament her being ill-used, according to custom, in being on the hedge side, while Anne was never incommoded on the other, he dropped the arms of both to hunt after a weasel which he had a momentary glance of, and they could hardly get him along at all.

This long meadow bordered a lane, which their footpath, at the end of it was to cross, and when the party had all reached the gate of exit, the carriage advancing in the same direction, which had been some time heard, was just coming up, and proved to be Admiral Croft’s gig. He and his wife had taken their intended drive, and were returning home. Upon hearing how long a walk the young people had engaged in, they kindly offered a seat to any lady who might be particularly tired; it would save her a full mile, and they were going through Uppercross. The invitation was general, and generally declined. The Miss Musgroves were not at all tired, and Mary was either offended, by not being asked before any of the others, or what Louisa called the Elliot pride could not endure to make a third in a one horse chaise.

The walking party had crossed the lane, and were surmounting an opposite stile, and the Admiral was putting his horse in motion again, when Captain Wentworth cleared the hedge in a moment with an athletic leap that stretched his breeches across his backside most tantalizingly, to say something to his sister. The something might be guessed by its effects.

“Miss Elliot, I am sure
you
are tired,” cried Mrs. Croft. “Do let us have the pleasure of taking you home. Here is excellent room for three, I assure you. If we were all like you, I believe we might sit four. You must, indeed, you must.”

Anne was still in the lane; and though instinctively beginning to decline, she was not allowed to proceed. The Admiral’s kind urgency came in support of his wife’s; they would not be refused; they compressed themselves into the smallest possible space to leave her a corner. The sight of the small space only made Anne more frantic. She could not bear to inconvenience them so. She heard a rustle of clothing to her right, and Captain Wentworth, without saying a word, turned to her, and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage.

“You can sit in the back without putting either of them out,” he whispered lowly to her, somehow guessing the root behind her reticence. Without waiting for her response, his fingers grasped her elbow, and he began to steer her toward the back of the carriage. His fingers scorched her skin through the fabric of her dress, and Anne heard herself gasp as she tripped like a child over every rock and pebble in the road.

As it became apparent that Captain Wentworth was leading her to the small perch at the back of the carriage, Mrs. Croft objected. “Frederick, no. She will be horribly bounced around back there.”

“She will be fine, sister,” he said with a pointed look that had Mrs. Croft snapping her mouth shut in an almost comical fashion.

In the next moment, the carriage hid Frederick and Anne from the eyes of the rest of their party, and Anne felt the exhaustion — both emotional and physical — she had been holding at bay sweep through her without giving quarter. She nearly sagged within Frederick’s grasp, and he must have instinctively known so, because his grip tightened slightly, and he moved closer to her side as though he intended to catch her should she fall.

They arrived at their destination, and Frederick’s hand fell away. Anne felt an unwelcome wave of disappointment that was quickly cut off when he gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him.

Her breath stalled in her lungs as she looked up and up into his beautiful face to find his eyes serious and searching. They darted over every feature of Anne’s face, pausing at her eyes, her nose, her mouth. The fingers upon her shoulders flexed, and his lips parted.

He was so close. All of Anne’s surroundings faded away to be replaced by the magnificent presence that was Frederick Wentworth. His scent — that mix of open air, sunshine, and sea — had remained unchanged through the years, and it filled her lungs now that she’d ceased to breathe. She forced it from her lungs with a loud whoosh of air and studiously refused to take another breath, but now that his scent had been expelled, her other senses took over. His chest was so near, she could feel the heat of it wafting over her neck and the exposed skin above her bodice. She witnessed his Adam’s apple bob up and down, and heard his breathing take on a labourious slant that only brought his chest swelling ever nearer as he seemed to struggle to take air.

Anne could no longer meet his eyes, and soon found herself staring at the hollow of his throat, a tantalizingly bare stretch of skin that was revealed by his scandalously loosened cravat. It was the most beautiful patch of skin she had ever seen, and the irrational desire to press her parted lips upon it nearly overtook her.

The fingers on her shoulders began to move. They headed downward, almost lovingly caressing her upper arms, before moving inward and grasping Anne around her ribcage. He squeezed gently. “Up you go,” he whispered hoarsely, his voice so deep she could feel the vibrations in her own chest.

It was the only warning Anne had before the world moved as he lifted her effortlessly into the air to place her upon the small seat. Anne’s hands flew up, seeking purchase, only to land upon Frederick’s shoulders as they flexed and bulged beneath the slight burden of her weight. Her bottom landed softly upon the seat, and she was secure, but neither of them released the other.

They remained there for several heartbeats, his hands resting just beneath her breasts, hers upon his shoulders. Heat seemed to scorch from his touch straight into her heart, and she resisted as long as she could before she allowed her hands to explore the different layout of the muscles beneath her palms. Her fingers dug in slightly, and in response, Frederick’s eyelids drooped in the most provocative fashion. His breaths increased even more, and he visibly hesitated a moment before the hands around her ribcage rotated. Anne was certain she was dreaming when she felt his thumbs firmly stroke the bottom swells of her breasts.

The area between Anne’s thighs clenched with need, and she could not control the way her back arched into the caress, nor the wanton whimper that fell from her lips.

Captain Wentworth’s eyes widened suddenly, and he dropped his hands from her body as though he had been burnt by the very fires of hell. He stepped back so quickly Anne nearly fell forward and off of the carriage when the shoulders she had been leaning on disappeared from beneath her hands. She scrambled to catch herself, and he did not even reach for her to make sure she staid safe.

His head jerked downward, and she heard him curse beneath his breath as he hurriedly moved his jacket around so that it hid the very obvious bulge marring the fall of fabric across the front of his breeches. Her flare of joy that she had brought him to such a state was abruptly cut off as his eyes met hers once more, this time carrying accusation. “Why do you keep doing this to me?” he muttered in a nearly lost voice.

Anne did not know what to say; did not know how she would even respond to such a thing.
She
do this to
him
? He was not the one squirming in uncomfortably damp drawers. Nevertheless, the people-pleasing side of her had her attempting apology. “I am — ”

He cut her off with an impatient jerk of his head. “No,” he said softly. “That was unfair of me.” The harsh light in his eyes belied the words he forced from between taut lips. He looked to an area over her head and projected his voice. “She is secure.”

Without another word, he turned to the side and stalked off. She heard a distant, sharp order to the horses from directly behind her, and then the carriage was lurching forward and swayed back and forth with the cadence of the horse. They crested the top of a hill, and she glimpsed the rigid contours of Captain Wentworth’s back as he rejoined the party.

Conflicting emotions warred within her. Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition towards her, which all these things made apparent. But then there was the other matter. It was the height of foolishness for them to have touched each other, even casually, for touch never staid casual with them; they both knew this. This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling.

Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief; still he could not pass up the opportunity to touch her when it presented itself. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart; and undeniable proof that he was male, and therefore opportunistic when it came to the opposite sex, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed, though if the devastated feeling within her was any indication, pain was rallying at the moment.

It was not long before her companions attempted to converse with her, and though Anne wished for the distraction with all of her being, her answers to the kindness and the remarks of her companions were at first unconsciously given. They had travelled half their way along the rough lane, before she was quite awake to what they said. She then found them talking of “Frederick.”

“He certainly means to have one or other of those two girls, Sophy,” said the Admiral; “but there is no saying which. He has been running after them, too, long enough, one would think, to make up his mind. Ay, this comes of the peace. If it were war now, he would have settled it long ago. We sailors, Miss Elliot, cannot afford to make long courtships in time of war. How many days was it, my dear, between the first time of my seeing you and our sitting down together in our lodgings at North Yarmouth?”

Anne had turned slightly in her seat to better hear the conversation that was muffled by the creaking of the carriage and by space, but her eye spied Admiral Croft’s hand sneaking through the distance between him and his wife and tunneling beneath the blanket that lay in Mrs. Croft’s lap. With a flash of amusement, jealousy, and slight embarrassment Anne quickly turned around again, but not before she saw Mrs. Croft press his hand closer for an instant before bringing it to her lips and then placing it back on the reins with a breathless, chiding laugh.

“We had better not talk about it, my dear,” replied Mrs. Croft, pleasantly; “for if Miss Elliot were to hear how soon we came to an understanding, she would never be persuaded that we could be happy together. I had known you by character, however, long before.”

“Well, and I had heard of you as a very pretty girl, and what were we to wait for besides? I do not like having such things so long in hand. I wish Frederick would spread a little more canvass, and bring us home one of these young ladies to Kellynch. Then there would always be company for them. And very nice young ladies they both are; I hardly know one from the other.”

“Very good humoured, unaffected girls, indeed,” said Mrs. Croft, in a tone of calmer praise, such as made Anne suspect that her keener powers might not consider either of them as quite worthy of her brother; “and a very respectable family. One could not be connected with better people.” Mrs. Croft gasped, and Anne turned quickly to see what was the matter. “My dear Admiral, that post! we shall certainly take that post.”

The Admiral scrambled to pull his hand back from where it had returned beneath Mrs. Croft’s blanket, but she merely chuckled and grabbed the reins from her husband.

By coolly giving the reins a better direction herself they happily passed the danger; and by once afterwards judiciously putting out her hand they neither fell into a rut, nor ran foul of a dung-cart; and Anne, with some amusement at their style of driving that involved the Admiral touching his wife as much as possible while she chuckled and confidently steered the carriage, which she imagined no bad representation of the general guidance of their affairs, found herself safely deposited by them at the Cottage.

The time now approached for Lady Russell’s return: the day was even fixed; and Anne, being engaged to join her as soon as she was resettled, was looking forward to an early removal to Kellynch, and beginning to think how her own comfort was likely to be affected by it.

It would place her in the same village with Captain Wentworth, within half a mile of him; they would have to frequent the same church, and there must be intercourse between the two families. This was against her; but on the other hand, he spent so much of his time at Uppercross, that in removing thence she might be considered rather as leaving him behind, than as going towards him; and, upon the whole, she believed she must, on this interesting question, be the gainer, almost as certainly as in her change of domestic society, in leaving poor Mary for Lady Russell.