“Are you well?” Tom stepped forward.
Miss Harrow wiped at her eyes and tried to laugh it off. “Yes, quite.”
“You’re crying…”
“Happy tears,” she replied with a weak smile. “The duchess did me a good turn and I was overcome for a moment.”
He glanced around, taking in their isolation as they stood together in the middle of the forested path. “Were you seeking solitude? I can return the way I came…”
“I was, sir,” she admitted. “But your intrusion is not unwelcome.”
He gave a curt nod. A dapple of sunlight filtered down through the trees, landing on her face and illuminating her soft features—dark eyes and porcelain skin. Damn, she was gorgeous. Why did it strike him like this every time? “Shall we continue on this way together?” he offered.
She nodded, turning slightly to make space for him on the path at her side. For a moment they were quiet, Tom listening to the tranquil sounds of the forest.
“Where is Mr. Burke this morning?”
“He went with James into Finchley,” he replied. “And apparently there’s to be music tonight so all the young ladies are determined to practice…I found I needed a moment of peace,” he added with a grin. “The trees called to me, and I answered.”
She smiled. “And does the sea call to you as well? Do you miss your ship, sir?”
“Aye, it can be a hard life to balance between ship and shore,” he replied. “The rules are so different, the daily living…I find myself restless when I’m in the country. To go from such a confined space to such a state of unconfinement is…well, jarring.”
“Is that why you are so prone to walking? Because you feel you must navigate the space around you while you have space in which to move?”
He mused on that with a slow smile. “Perhaps there is something in that, Miss Harrow…like a caged animal set to roam. I fear the day I come to prefer the cage.”
“Speaking as a creature well familiar with life in a cage, I fully comprehend your feelings, sir.”
He paused. “You see yourself as caged?”
She shrugged, letting her bonnet hide her face from him. Damn, he hated when women did that. Men had no such effective shield as part of their attire.
“All women live their lives in a cage, sir. It is our blessing and our curse. A blessing when men fill the cage with comforts and sweets and place the cage with a goodly view of the outside world…a curse when we are left beating our wings against the bars, isolated and alone…with no way out.”
“Christ,” he murmured. “I never thought of it that way. You must despise me for comparing my life at sea to being in a cage.”
“Of course not,” she said with a laugh. “As I said, the situations are indeed similar. I don’t envy you your feelings. Rather, I appreciate that you can understand mine. It is a gift to be understood, is it not?”
“Indeed,” he replied.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, taking a turn in the path that allowed them to spot glimpses of the house and grounds through the trees.
“How goes your wife search?” she said, the hint of a smile in her tone.
Christ, when she said it like that. “You make it sound so despicable.”
She laughed. “That was not my intent, sir. I understand the rules of our society. You are simply making your way in the world. As we all must. Playing the game…”
“I’ve never been much of a game player,” he said, lost in renewed thoughts of Marianne. Could he really sit and wait for her to want him again? How pathetic did that make him on a scale from hopeless to downright pitiable?
“Nor I. Which perhaps accounts for why we are both still unmarried…though your friends seem determined to help you change your status.”
“Yes,” he said with a groan. “Perhaps too determined.” He paused, meeting her gaze. “Listen, Burke told me what he asked of you. I’m sorry for it. He never should have done it.”
He’d spent the night and half the morning pretending that it didn’t matter that she had no interest in flirting with him outside her agreement with Burke. But he was just vain enough to admit that it did bother him. Increasingly, he found he wanted to see her smile and know he was the cause. He glanced over at her. “Miss Harrow?”
She blushed and turned away. “Would it be terribly wrong of me to admit that I was enjoying it?”
“Enjoying what?”
There was a long silence, filled with the sound of leaves rustling on a wind.
“Flirting with you.”
It was the last possible thing he expected her to say. His body responded with a warm feeling that spread from his chest down to his fingertips. He gripped tighter to the top of his walking stick. “I enjoyed it too,” he admitted.
Her smile widened and she glanced his way. He took in the soft blue of her dress, the curve of her neck, half covered by a dark curl of hair come loose from under her bonnet. He wanted to tuck it behind her ear, wanted to run his fingers down the length of her neck, feel the tips brush over her collarbone as she took a gasping breath, his lips on hers…
Fuck. She was talking again. Focus, you arse.
“There is something so freeing about flirting with someone and knowing it will come to nothing,” she said, clearly oblivious to the scenes now flashing through his mind. “How comforting for both of us that we may flirt without fear of unwanted consequence.”
“My thoughts exactly,” he replied.
That was a lie. Those were not his exact thoughts. In fact, his thoughts were the reverse. In this moment, all he seemed to want to do was press her against the nearest obliging tree and imprint her taste on his lips, drinking of her until he was drunk.
The others in this house party may ignore her and dismiss her as that little bird in a cage, but Tom saw Rosalie Harrow. He felt the fire burning inside her and wanted to dance with it. She wasn’t a little starling on a branch. She was a phoenix. He wanted to feel her heartbeat and taste her fire, smell the sweet violets on her skin. Just thinking about holding her made his cock twitch.
“Well, who shall the lucky lady be?” she said brightly. “Have you decided?”
“I suppose I haven’t made a decision,” he replied, still doing everything in his power to cool the fire she’d so suddenly stoked in him. He led the way further down the forested path. “There are many factors to consider…”
Horse shit, crying babies, George’s stupid face. Calm down, Tom.
She hummed a noncommittal response.
He glanced her way again, noting how a soft wind fluttered that loose curl on her shoulder. “Which would you choose, Miss Harrow?”
She gave him a surprised, affronted look. “Sir, I would never dream of commenting. It is not my place to have an opinion on such matters.” A tip of her lip told him there was some secret joke to her comment and he was desperate to be in her confidence.
He gave her a nudge with his shoulder. “And yet, why do I presume myself correct that you are never without a ready opinion?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
He followed the arch of her neck with his eyes, settling on her lips, memorizing the way her upper lip bowed. He took a step closer until he could smell that intoxicating scent of sweet violets and rosemary. He let his breath fan across her neck, noting with pleasure the way she jolted. “I mean to say that the length and breadth of your ready opinions must surely rival the Old Testament.”
They both laughed. It felt strange to be so comfortable in a lady’s presence. The other ladies bored him to death, but laughing with Rosalie felt right. Tom couldn’t remember a time when he felt so at ease. He noticed her shoulders stiffen. “What is it, Miss Harrow? Don’t go silent on me now.”
She glanced up at him through dark lashes. “Sir, may I…may you permit me one of my ready opinions?”
“In this moment, Miss Harrow, I’d enjoy nothing better, and please stop calling me ‘sir.’ I know Burke asked you to be more informal with him. I should appreciate the same.”
“I must admit that your purpose has not gone unnoticed,” she began.
“And?”
“Well, it’s only that…well I can’t help but feel that your heart isn’t really in it.”
He glanced her way, his brow raised slightly, waiting for her to keep going.
“To be perfectly frank, you’ve been flirting with the other ladies with the warmth of feeling of a cold ham.”
The analogy was so ridiculous, so accurate, Tom could do nothing but burst into laughter. Without meaning to, his free hand reached out and gripped her arm at the elbow, giving it a squeeze as he kept laughing. “Perhaps I seek to find that perfect maiden who will indulge my love of jambon à la moutarde.”
God, he loved teasing this woman, seeing her cheeks blush as beautifully pink as the rose in her name. He could make a hobby of finding all the ways to bring that color to her cheeks.
But she didn’t rise to his teasing. Instead, she came to a halt and turned to face him, not caring that his hand was still inexplicably wrapped around her elbow. “You will not turn a lady’s head unless she believes you want it turned,” she said, her tone suddenly serious. “If you want their heads turned, you’ll need to put in more effort. But if there is…some reason why you would not want them turned…I think it would be best to admit that as well.”
He knew exactly what she was implying. She knew about Marianne. Perhaps not about her recent change in circumstance, but enough to know that Tom was still tied to her. Marianne was the albatross he couldn’t escape…yet. But perhaps if he was forced to choose between a dead albatross and a caged phoenix yearning to be free…fuck, this woman did things to his mind he couldn’t understand. He needed space, needed to breathe.
“That’s all I had to say,” she murmured. “And now I’ve said it, and we shall drop the matter. Because, as I said, it is not for me to have an opinion.”
“I have heard your remarks and accept them gladly,” he replied, dropping his hold on her elbow. “I vow to you that I won’t court any woman here in bad faith. Tis true, there is a prior claim on my affections. I know you heard mention of Marianne. The lady was my first love and when she—” He frowned, unsure whether he wanted to reveal the whole truth.
Now it was her turn to reach out and stroke his arm. “She died?”
He blinked, too focused on the feel of her hand on him. “What? No…no she’s alive.”
“Ahh…she jilted you. Which for a man, of course, is worse than if she had died.”
He met her gaze. “What makes you say that?”
She lowered her hand away. “Because if she died, you’d have a clean break. The heart can heal and move on. When one is jilted, it becomes a wound that festers. I see the sickness in you now,” she whispered, those dark eyes narrowed on him.
Her gaze made him uneasy. Where moments before he felt her lust, now he saw only pity, and he hated it.
“I didn’t understand your melancholy before, but I see it now. She’s your sickness.”
It was as if he watched her seal away her emotions behind a mask. Christ, but that was a useful skill to have. The phoenix was carefully back in her cage.
“I will wish you well, sir.” She turned to walk back down the lane in the direction of the house, but paused, glancing over her shoulder. “And if you dare tell anyone I’ve been so forward with my opinions, I shall deny it to St. Peter himself. This never happened,” she added, gesturing between them with a pointed finger.
He smiled. Oh yes it did. She admitted so much in such a little exchange. She admitted with words how she was watching him with the other ladies. She admitted in looks how she wanted him, how her fires burned. She admitted with those steps inching closer to him how easy it might be for him to lure her back out of her cage.
But she also admitted a truth that had him ready to punch the closest tree: she had no interest in continuing to flirt with a man who was lovesick for another woman. As long as Marianne Young was in his life, Rosalie wasn’t going to give him another minute of her time.
