Loving Lady Marcia Page 2

  Lord Chadwick stopped and turned to face her, his expression inscrutable.

  “You adjourn to your room early,” she continued unabashedly, “to look at account books rather than stay up late and tell stories by the fire. And right now you don’t even seem to notice how breathtaking the sunset is. Someday you’ll be sorry you were ever so smug. And someday I’ll prove to you there is such a thing as a perfect love.”

  He looked over the railing at the bloodred sun, then back at her. “There is no perfect love, nor a perfect life,” he said, his dark gaze boring into hers. “So give up wishing, will you? It would be a shame to see you hurt. Good evening, Lady Marcia.”

  And he resumed walking.

  Oh, if only she could throw him overboard!

  Finn appeared at the prow, thank God, a few moments later. “What’s wrong?”

  Instantly, she felt better. “Your brother—he tried to—”

  “Tried to what?” The concern in his eyes made her care for him all the more.

  “He tried to warn me against you. He said … he said you’re sharpening your skills of flirtation rather than working on your obligations.” She felt some of her anger dissipate when he pulled her into his arms.

  She’d been dreaming of such a moment.

  “What man wouldn’t fall head over heels for you?” he said into her hair. “And put aside work to be with you?”

  “You’re kind to say so,” she said, daring to remain in his arms.

  “I’m not kind; I’m truthful.” He pulled back to look at her, his hands leaving fire where he touched her shoulders. “I’m sorry Duncan was rude.”

  Night was close. No one was looking. Amazing how on a small packet, one could get away with so much.

  “If it means we’ll do this”—she leaned against his chest—“I hope he’ll be rude to me again.”

  “Marcia,” Finnian whispered.

  “Finn,” she whispered back, and closed her eyes, reveling in the knowledge that she could both feel and hear his beating heart.

  He pulled back and lifted her chin. “I don’t know how it happened so fast.”

  “I don’t, either.” She saw that yearning in his eyes, the same one she’d seen in other boys and men in the village in Surrey and on her school trips to Brighton and London. It was a mystery to her no more. She knew it was desire.

  But she wanted him just as much. Wanted him to hold her, to kiss her.

  Please, she thought.

  “I’m falling in love with you.” His voice was rough.

  “And I with you,” she answered.

  She already had. Everything was Finn. Except for that one, small corner of her mind where she saw his brother telling her not to get attached. And then walking away as if she were a nuisance he was glad to leave.

  Duncan Lattimore obviously liked to ruin things. But she wouldn’t let him ruin this.

  The arc of the wind-filled jib sail obscured her and Finnian from view. She put a tentative hand on the side of his face. He leaned into her palm, caressing it with his jaw, an act so tender, her eyes began to sting. And then he drew her hand down, clutched it in his own, and kissed her.

  It was perfect. So perfect she knew in that moment that love was hers for the taking.

  “I must see you as often as possible,” Finn said, as if she were the greatest treasure on earth.

  “I’m leaving my school,” she replied without preamble. “I must be in London. Near you.”

  “Yes. I like London. Much better than the estate in Kent. Or Oxford.” He kissed her again, a possessive, lingering seal of their mutual promise.

  This time his hand came so close to the underside of her breast, and she shivered.

  The words she’d thrown like a gauntlet to Lord Chadwick came back to her: And someday I’ll prove to you there is such a thing as a perfect love.

  With Finn, Marcia knew it could be so.

  It was so.

  Already.

  * * *

  It had been a whirlwind two weeks in Dublin. She’d spent every possible moment she could with Finn. Janice was completely oblivious to her strong feelings for him, caught up as she was in the excitement of being in Dublin with two of her oldest and best friends.

  And now it was the night of Marcia’s sixteenth birthday.

  Her family had rented a private residence on Dublin’s southside with a beautiful conservatory attached. Long after the rest of the family had gone to bed, in the deepest, stillest part of the night, she and Finn lay on their backs, cradled in each other’s arms, and looked up through the glass ceiling at the stars barely visible—“but still there,” Finn insisted—through the clouds.

  “You only have to be sixteen to marry in Scotland,” he murmured against her hair.

  She almost stopped breathing. “Really?”

  “Yes,” he said, and ran his hand down her flank. “When we get back to England, we’re going to run away. To Gretna Green.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, and held tighter to him, suddenly feeling small.

  This was genuine, their love. All too genuine. And although most of the time, she embraced it bravely and with great joy, like a feather dancing in the wind, at the moment she felt its all-consuming power, its potential to sweep her away to parts unknown.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered back, and kissed her, his mouth tender upon her own.

  No. She wouldn’t be.

  He pulled her ties loose at her back, gently pushing her sleeves and bodice down while he murmured sweet nothings in her ear.

  That night, Marcia let love take her where it would. She gave Finn everything. Everything.

  In the dark, their coupling was awkward. Fast. The fear of discovery was strong between them. And then much to Marcia’s surprise, there had been pain. Blood.

  More awkwardness.

  But as was typical with Finn, he didn’t dwell on unpleasantness.

  After she’d fumbled about and restored herself to order, he merely pulled her close again. “Right,” he said, and released a long sigh.

  She waited a few seconds. They’d given themselves to each other. It was a profound moment. But when Finn didn’t speak, she realized he might be nervous. Her father and mother slept nearby, as did her siblings. If they were discovered, there’d be hell to pay.

  “I love you,” she reassured him and snuggled close. “You’re the one and only man I will ever love.”

  He stroked her hair a few moments. “We’re splendid together,” he said after a few seconds. “More than splendid.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “We’re perfect,” she sighed, and looked up at him with a grin.

  He grinned back and kissed her once more—a long, lingering kiss—then pulled her to her feet from the extremely crude bed they’d made of pillows stolen from a few chairs.

  “And now I must go,” he said, sounding nervous, as she’d guessed he must be. “We can’t be found out.”

  “I know.” She clung to him. “But I wish you didn’t have to go.”

  This was their last night together. Tomorrow, she’d be off to Ballybrook, and he’d travel to Cork with Lord Chadwick to visit friends and then take a packet back across the Irish Sea to England.

  Soon, though, they’d be together forever.

  “Where and when will we meet to go to Gretna?” she asked him.

  “I’ll plan it all out when I get back to England and write you a letter, of course.” He pinched her cheek. “Silly.” And then he laughed.

  She did, too. She couldn’t help it. Seeing him laugh made her happier than anything else in the world.

  She was still brimming over with it when the next morning dawned cold and gray. Her first thought wasn’t even a thought—it was a feeling that ran like a slow, lazy, warm, wonderful river through her body: Love.

  Love, love, love.

  She smiled at the ceiling, rubbed her lips together, remembering how Finn had kissed her. Ran her hands over her belly, and lower. He’d been there. He’d
been everywhere.

  He was a part of her now.

  But then tears blurred her vision when she remembered that she wouldn’t be seeing him that day. She wouldn’t be seeing him for weeks. She lingered in her room, feigning a headache—utterly miserable, ready to snap at anyone who dared speak to her, almost hoping she could, because then she could cry openly, and everyone would think it was because she was sorry for being a shrew. But that wouldn’t be why she’d be crying. Oh, no. She’d be crying because she didn’t belong anywhere Finn wasn’t.

  She was in the midst of packing for the journey to Ballybrook—as if she cared anymore about the new wing Daddy had designed!—when she received a note from Finn.

  Finn.

  Finn, Finn, Finn.

  She wanted to hug the servant who’d brought the stiff envelope. She sniffed it. It smelled of him. Suddenly, her world was sunshiny again.

  She pressed the paper over her heart and seated herself at her dressing table, luxuriating in the knowledge that she was Finn’s and that a message had come from her beloved.

  It would be a love note to tide her over until she got back to her school in Surrey, a missive she’d keep under her pillow. And perhaps in the letter he’d write about when they could next … be together. Perhaps he had a plan for that. Gretna couldn’t come soon enough. She could hardly breathe, thinking of the risks they were taking.

  Being in love, she decided, was not for the fainthearted.

  When she finished the note, she stared at her reflection in the looking glass. The woman that she’d become overnight looked back at her. But whereas moments ago, that woman had been flush with love, her heart brimming over with it, in fact, the person looking back at her now was an empty shell.

  Finn had written that he was shocked to hear he’d be sailing not back to England from Ireland but to America—in accordance with his brother’s wishes.

  “He’s sending me to a property of ours in Virginia for an apprenticeship in land management,” Finn wrote, “but I know the real reason I’m going. He wants to keep us apart.”

  There was a blob of ink, as if he’d forgotten to sign it—as if his hectoring sibling were standing at his bedchamber door with an open trunk demanding that Finn throw his breeches and cravats into it then and there.

  It was the last note Marcia would ever receive from him.

  Chapter Two

  1819

  Duncan stopped abruptly on the London pavement. There she was. Across the street in the window of the modiste’s shop. His own girl-on-the-prow.

  Lady Marcia Sherwood.

  He was surprised how visceral his reaction to her was. One minute he’d been discussing the merits of the latest corn laws with his cousin and the next, he couldn’t think quite straight. “Excuse me, Richard.”

  Richard, after Finn the next in line for the earldom, stopped alongside him. “What is it?”

  Duncan was astounded at how the young girl, who’d been sweetly pretty, had blossomed into an extraordinarily beautiful woman. What a lovely surprise.

  “I know her,” he said, taking in the limited view he had of the female who, during his most memorable moment in her company, had unleashed a torrent of words at him. More than words, really—she’d been a veritable hurricane on the high seas, all at the tender age of fifteen.

  “Lady Marcia Sherwood?” Richard craned his neck to get a better view. “Daughter of the Irish peer—and an elusive beauty?”

  “Yes.” And Duncan had a sudden desire to see her. Girl become woman. Beloved become … unbeloved.

  Oh, but that was long ago. Surely her schoolgirl’s heart had recovered from Finn’s decision to leave for America from Ireland a whole year before Duncan had planned to send him. It had turned out to be nothing more than a calculated escape, Duncan knew now. Lady Marcia and all the young women of England with hearts to lose were better off without his charming, golden-haired brother, whether they knew it or not.

  No doubt she’d been romantically involved again since, many times over. She was beautiful, highly ranked, wealthy, and passionate. Perhaps one of the bucks about Town had already convinced her to marry him. He wouldn’t know. He’d avoided London until recently, choosing instead to wrestle the mess that had been his father’s earldom back into shape from their floundering country estate in Kent.

  “Helen says she’s a schoolteacher now. Someplace in Surrey.” Richard pulled on his ear. “I could be wrong. Helen could be wrong. Her nose for gossip isn’t as reliable as it once was.”

  “It’s what happens when you’re distracted by the impending arrival of a newborn.” Duncan grinned. “Joe and I shall visit her soon, shall we? With a bouquet and her favorite chocolates. He thinks that if he bribes her with those, she’ll have a boy for certain.”

  “Wouldn’t that be splendid for him,” Richard said with a grin. “And for me, too.”

  It was good to have family who supported you no matter what, Duncan thought, when he sprang into action and entered the street, risking life and limb between two fast-moving hackneys to reach the other side. What Richard had given him with his unceasing loyalty, Duncan had vowed to pass on to his own brother from afar. He couldn’t say it had been terribly easy to do. Finn rarely corresponded with him, and when he did, it was to ask for extra money, never to ask how things were going for his brother on this side of the Atlantic.

  Duncan negotiated his way about a crowd of boys surrounding a spotted brown-and-white dog doing tricks, then pulled open the door to Madame Perot’s modiste shop.

  Lady Marcia glanced up from a bolt of fabric and saw him, her face instantly turning scarlet.

  An ache ran through him when their eyes met. Nostalgia. Surely that’s what it was. She reminded him of those painful early days of his earldom, when the world had seemed so heavy on his shoulders.

  She’d been a bright spot, hadn’t she? He hadn’t realized it until now. Beneath a sunshine-yellow sweep of hair, her eyes were a vivid blue, like a glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea.

  She embodied the perfect afternoon.

  Her plain dress, so unusual for a young lady of such high rank in the haute ton, took nothing away from her beauty, although he noted the modest attire was a new development. The younger girl had been fashionably dressed, so elegant and striking at the Dublin wedding that other girls her age had hovered around her as if she were the fairy queen and they were her attendants.

  Now her silk bonnet was well made but had no frills or flowers. Her gown was cut beautifully but of a nondescript straw hue that did nothing for her English-rose complexion. She wore a matching spencer buttoned to her throat, which he’d wager was the same one she probably slung on a hook near the back door for quick retrieval were she to take a stroll in her kitchen garden.

  “Good afternoon—” he began, removing his hat.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said, and backed away before he could complete his sentence, right into a dressmaker’s dummy.

  It tilted crazily, and she set it aright with fluttering hands.

  He could swear she swore under her breath. But she quickly recovered, lifted her skirts, and made a beeline for the shop door. She stole one glance back at him.

  He kept his face expressionless, but the truth was, she’d never failed to amuse him. Not her little misstep but her general manner. She couldn’t be false if she tried, and he liked that about her.

  Her eyes gleamed with something like annoyance when she flung the door open and hurried out.

  He put his hat back on and went after her, not caring that three other fashionably dressed women in the shop were watching, enthralled.

  “Lady Marcia!” he called down the street, quite as if he were ten years old and calling her to play.

  She was with her maid, who hung back when Lady Marcia stopped—reluctantly, it seemed—and turned around. “Yes?”

  “Perhaps you don’t recognize me,” he said. “I’m Lord Chadwick. We traveled to a wedding in Dublin together.” Which included a memorable vo
yage across the Irish Sea. “My brother”—dare he say it?—“is Finnian Lattimore.”

  Several laborers carrying buckets and brooms brushed by him and blocked his view of her for a moment.

  When he saw her again, her face was like stone. “I remember,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m going somewhere”—she hitched a shoulder northward—“I need to be.”

  And she continued on her way as if she were a very serious-minded explorer with an extremely sensitive compass that must be followed so she would reach shelter by nightfall—or die.

  He hated to admit it: He felt a deep disappointment at her dismissive reception of him. Yes, she’d had a short-lived, whirlwind romance with his brother, but who hadn’t experienced young love and its subsequent dashed affections?

  He’d have thought that his going through the exact same several weeks of travel with her as Finn, travel which had included a horrible day with a broken carriage wheel and his—dare he say it?—semiheroic efforts to extricate them from that uncomfortable situation, stood for something when it came to civil versus friendly greetings.

  Of course, it had all been years ago. Water under the proverbial bridge. So he wouldn’t bother worrying either way. There was now, and she was pretty. Intriguing.

  And he was bored. He hadn’t realized it until this moment.

  With renewed optimism, he caught up with her. She flicked him a brief glance but kept walking toward that unnamed point.

  “I haven’t seen you in Town,” he said easily. “I’m not here as often as I’d like, so I miss out on a great deal of news. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but my impression is that you never joined the social scene and left many gentlemen bereft at your absence. Are you finally here to take your place as a diamond of the first water?”

  “No, not at all. But thank you for the compliment.” She was as unreachable as a star, her face smooth and inscrutable, her words polite—but nothing more.

  His mild curiosity about her increased to outright fascination. “It’s been years since we last spoke.”

  “Yes, it has been.”

  Such control. It hadn’t been part of her repertoire as a young girl. He suddenly missed that girl. Very much.