On Bended Knee, page 18
part #6 of Wicked Worthingtons Series
Had he never before experienced the silken air of a spring evening? Had he never before heard the creak of wood and iron and the rolling of cart wheels on a rocky road? The worn leather of the reins between his fingers became warm and supple in his hands and he felt it.
The wall that Gemma had slowly and patiently undermined had lost all integrity, crumbling faster throughout the day, the mortar flaked away by the purity of the air, the foundation shattered by the peaceful vistas, and then—
The entire barrier incinerated to windswept dust by the kiss.
He'd kissed a woman before, but it was only a means to an end, the first step of many.
Gemma's kiss had been a single unmatched moment in time. He had begun his life when her lips touched his. He had flown when he'd dared to kiss her back. He had floated down to stand with his feet firmly, finally, planted on the ground when she'd drawn back with the stroke of her fingertips on his cheek as she'd slipped her hand from his hair.
Oh, here I am.
I am here.
With her.
THE NEXT MORNING GEMMA, stood in the kitchen looking down at the brown-glazed pottery bowl that sat on the table, heaped full of eggs. A downy feather stuck to one of the shells and she watched it flutter as she breathed.
She had fallen asleep last night still enfolded in a sweet haze, swept away by a beautiful day and a marvelous kiss. This morning before she'd even opened her eyes, the voice in her head spoke, the one that always reminded her that she wasn't an actual doctor.
You kissed your patient.
Shock and shame engulfed her at once. Patient. Lysander Worthington was a deeply troubled man, a damaged soul! And she had flirted as irresponsibly as a reckless girl. How could she have done such an foolish thing?
And what on earth was she to do now?
There was only one thing to be done. She must be very clear with him. She'd been unprofessional and they must return their relationship to a much less familiar level.
It made excellent sense. Very rational.
You're afraid. After all, Edmund died and abandoned you. He left you twice. You couldn't help him, though you knew him so well. What if this beautiful, damaged man abandons you too?
Gemma was afraid. She feared for them both. What would happen to him if she became too involved to be of use to him?
She flinched slightly and closed her eyes when she heard Mr. Worthington's footfalls in the hall. She must nip this mysterious, tempting bloom in the bud immediately. Furthermore, she should do it before Mr. Worthington could become any more attached to her.
When he entered the kitchen, she turned with a crisp smile. "Good morning, Mr. Worthington. I thought I'd see about making breakfast myself today." She held up her wrist to show him. "I'm ever so much better now."
She saw him stop short and despite her resolve, she ached inside to see the wary shadows settle over his dark gaze. He said nothing. Of course not. She knew that no matter what she said to him, he would take the blow as though it were no more than he deserved. God, how could she have made such a dreadful error? This unfortunate, battle-shocked man had trusted her and she had played coy little games — and that kiss!
No, it was really best not to think about that kiss.
"Yesterday was a charming holiday but there is much work to be done," she told him. Her voice sounded hideously false. She was only trying to move matters back to a more formal status, but how? What could she possibly say?
What in the world would not simply make this worse?
In his sensitive way, he saw that she was horribly uncomfortable and of course, he tried to ease her way.
"You wish to take it back. I understand."
"I — " Did she wish to take it back? Of course! Yes, definitely. Or possibly not.
She nodded. "If only that were possible." She looked down to realize that her hands were wringing tightly within her apron, causing her wrist to ache. "It was not fair of me. I indulged a silly whimsy and I fear I gave you —" false hopes? Why did that feel like a lie? In panic, she cleared her throat twice. Anything to buy time. Her mind raced ahead. "I fear I overstepped the boundaries of our relationship." Yes, that felt true. Achingly unfortunate, but true.
Mr. Worthington held completely still. "I know that I am not … not what I was. But I would never hurt you." Then his gaze dropped to her hands and the way she rubbed her wrist. "You don't believe that. I understand."
Gemma swallowed against the twisting feelings at odds inside her. No. She had taken responsibility for healing this man! It was impossible that he would be ready for any such emotional entanglement.
And he is not the only one, is he?
She shoved that thought aside, packing it away swiftly. "I'm very sorry." Not good enough, blast it. She raised her gaze to meet his and looked into those shadowy eyes. "I have failed you. I wanted to help you and I thought I had —"
"I am better, but not yet real and whole." He stepped back once and then again. She felt something tear inside her as the light in his eyes began to go out.
She wanted to run to him, to tell them that she believed he could do it, that he could come back from where he had been.
To come to where she was.
She would never be that unfair to him. She could not promise that she would be waiting for him once he healed. If he healed.
LYSANDER WATCHED GEMMA OAKES give up on him.
It hurt. Pain found places that he'd forgotten existed inside him. All hope dimmed. Stiffly, he waited for the ice and distance. He waited for the barrier to rise again. It wasn't there. He remained as raw and open as a recent wound.
There was only Gemma, looking at him with shame and regret brimming in her solemn gaze.
He should leave her presence. Lysander turned on his heel and walked from the room. He hesitated in the hall, unsure of where to go.
The outdoors called to him. That wide, wild sky. Those stunning, unoccupied hills. The colors of stone and grass and blue eternity above. The light. The sweet, cleansing air.
He mechanically took off his frock coat and hung it on a hook, changing it for the sturdy canvas work coat that Gemma had loaned him. As he thrust his arms into the sleeves, he realized for the first time it had been her husband's coat. Dr. Oakes had been a tall man, close to Lysander's size. A handsome man? A man she had loved?
Did he look like her husband? Did he remind her of him? Had yesterday been a fantasy of some sort, a play upon her past, of a man she had cared for and lost?
I don't suppose it matters now.
He tugged the coat snug and stepped out into the morning. There were chores to be done and Bing needed the help, but most importantly Lysander needed to check on Icarus. If the swelling in the thoroughbred's foreleg had subsided entirely, he could take Icarus to the smithy and replace the shoe today.
He could be on his way by nightfall. It was past time, for there were urgent matters at home to tend to. He felt another different shaft of pain, this one older, something worn into his very bones.
He needed to get back to Worthington House. To his family and to Iris. This was not his home.
Clearly, it never would be.
He should go.
You should stay.
He shoved his cold hands into the pockets of the farm coat and stood there, paralyzed between the house and the stable. Leave or stay? London or the Dales?
What would Dade do? Lysander's eldest brother took care of them all, a fatherly role that Archie Worthington was constitutionally unsuited to perform. Yet Dade had a rather medieval code of nobility. He might well feel honor-bound to stay and rescue the damsel he had endangered.
It was no good trying to predict what his brother would do. This time Lysander could not allow his family to direct his course. He must decide for himself.
The past, or a shining possible future?
Gemma.
Lysander cursed his own wooden tongue. He remembered that there had been a time where he'd swiftly dismantled a woman's resistance with glib charm and easy familiarity. He simply hadn't a clue how he done it.
Furthermore, Gemma was no Society widow looking for a dalliance with a handsome young ne'er-do-well. Gemma was ….
She was Gemma. She was so much more than any woman he'd ever known. He understood now how his twin brothers Castor and Pollux had come to blows over the delicate Miranda. He would pummel Daedalus himself for Gemma if he must. Yet how could he battle her own common sense? She was so right about him — and yet she'd got it all wrong.
She thought his soul was in hiding from what had been done to him. She thought him sunken, besieged.
Broken. Well, there was no denying something had snapped inside him. But Lysander did not live in fear, unless it was of what lurked within him. He was not fragile. He was pent, trapped, stuck behind the wall of his own halting speech, dragged down by the shackles of the darkness inside him. There was a thing in a locked room, that scratched on the door, patiently and pitilessly. A wolf who had eternity on its hands.
Gemma thought him inappropriately attached, that he'd imprinted upon her. As if he was one of the chicks in the pen, swirling in a yellow flood around her ankles as she cast the morning seed.
A dependent. A tragic, leechlike well of need.
He stopped and closed his eyes, his fists clenched tightly in his pockets, and asked himself that question.
What is she to me? Was Gemma merely a line thrown to save a drowning man? Was she shelter from the storm? Benevolent mother to a broken child?
No. No it wasn't so, it wasn't! Gemma was fine and beautiful, kind, brave and clever. She astonished him. Her strength and independence impressed him. But he had changed. For her.
Gemma did not make him feel dependent or needful.
She made him want to grow, to expand, to build a new man with a new character and a whole mind — a man who deserved her. A man she could depend upon, trust and lean upon, a man who believed in her mission to help the dale and stood by her side as she achieved it.
There had been a time in his life where people had said of Lysander Worthington that "You'd best not stand in his way, for once he has his eye on something, he'll climb the bell tower of St. Paul's itself to get it!"
He remembered that man now. He felt him. For the first time in so long, there was something in life that Lysander wanted.
He wanted to be the right man for Gemma Oakes.
Best not stand in his way.
Chapter 19
ON THE GREAT ROAD that ran like an artery between Edinburgh and London, two luxurious carriages moved at a fast pace, northern-bound.
Poll woke from a slight doze at a sharp pain to his shin. "Attie!" He growled in warning as he rubbed at his shinbone through his boot. He'd been very comfortable riding in the splendid carriage loaned by his good friend, the Duke of Camberton. Very unlike the suffering he'd endured over the past year or so, traveling the roads of England with his theatrical troupe. The troupe's carts and wagons were stripped of their minimal comforts — which had been discarded or sold whenever financial matters grew ever more grim — and broke down more or less daily in turn.
Attie sat across from him now, an unrepentant scowl on her bony, freckled features. "I'm bored."
"Recite pi."
She rolled her eyes. "I've already done that. Forward. Backward. Set to the tune of 'God Save the King."
"You can't recite pi backward. There is no end with which to begin."
She shrugged. "Maybe you can't."
Poll didn't push the point. He was sharp as a tack himself, but there was really no comparison. "Hamlet?"
Attie didn't even bother to glower at that entirely worthless suggestion. They'd all been dead sick of Hamlet by the time they grew old enough to open the front door unassisted and make a run for freedom.
"I know!" she exclaimed with deceptive sweetness. "We can debate the pros and cons of my joining your troupe!"
Poll swallowed nervously. Good heavens, he might as well set fire to his wagons himself! At least that way, he could be sure everyone would make it out alive.
"You can't." She really couldn't, he realized with great relief. "Because I will not take you. And you'll never find them without me."
Her eyes narrowed in eerie challenge. "I think I could."
Poll leaned forward. "No, you really couldn't." He had to keep her from trying it. "And you're not wanted."
They glared at each other for a long moment. Then Poll felt his stomach drop at the site of a single tear trembling on the lower lashes of her eye.
Attie? Crying? The world but fair to turned itself inside out. What was next? Green sky and blue grass? Rain falling upward?
Miranda declaring that she'd made a terrible mistake and flinging herself into Poll's arms instead?
And then he recalled Elektra at that age. The tears, the tempests. Perhaps Attie had more in common with ordinary girls than any of them had realized.
"Oh, you wretched little beast," he whispered tenderly. "What's wrong?"
She stayed very still, only weaving slightly in her seat with the swaying of the carriage. Her green eyes burned like foxfire in the shadow of her seat.
Her lips parted and for a moment Poll almost expected his little sister to spill out all her thoughts, to open up her soul and let go of her tightfisted grip on years of rage and precociousness and the pain caused by knowing far more than a child should ever have to understand about the world.
Silly Poll. He been gone too long, it seemed. He'd forgotten.
Attie leaped to stand on Poll's seat and bang her skinny fist on the driver's trapdoor. "Stop! I want out of this carriage now!"
IN THE SMALLER BUT vastly more pretentious carriage rolling behind the first, Button and Cabot rode in an awkward silence. Unlike the shop, the carriage was too small, to intimate for them to operate with the same unruffled distance.
There had been a desultory commentary on the changing landscape, but that was sparse conversational fare after so many miles. Button had delivered every scrap of cheerful gossip he could dredge from his memory, even though he suspected that Cabot already knew it all. Cabot always knew what everyone was up to. He had many friends, some high, some low, some very unusual indeed.
Button meticulously arranged every fold of lace dripping from the frankly ridiculous cuffs of his favorite shirt. They were too much. Everything about him was buoyantly, flagrantly too much — which was just the way he liked to present himself. "Part of my mystique," he would remind himself. "We must sell the mystery, mustn't we?"
Yet there was no one to play to on this journey. There was no one to entertain, to confabulate, to misdirect and astound. There was only the man riding opposite him.
Beautiful, astonishing Cabot.
Button had always managed to convince himself that his feelings for Cabot were purely the pride of the mentor for an exceptional protégé. The master to an excellent student.
His age made him immune to Cabot's devastating good looks, of course. Cabot was an incredible help. Cabot smoothed the tedious road of business, leaving Button free to invest his time and joy into the creation of beautiful gowns. Cabot impressed the clientele. It was an excellent business partnership. Button had even convinced himself of it.
And then Cabot had left.
An remarkable opportunity had come Cabot's way — to be the personal arbiter of style to the Prince Regent himself! Button had fixed a proud smile upon his face and blithely urged Cabot to accept.
The pain that had followed Cabot's departure hardly bore thinking about. As much as Button tried, he could not excuse it as the inconvenience of losing a capable assistant. He could not reconcile the aching loneliness as simply missing Cabot's unerringly tasteful input.
He missed Cabot. Not simply the companionship. Not the effortless creative flow unfettered by receipts and billing.
He missed the sound of Cabot's voice, the beauty of his lean, athletic body as he went about the business of his day, and the sharp communication of his breathtaking eyes.
The shop smelled empty without the subtle woodsy scent of Cabot's cologne. Button's soul felt hollow without Cabot nearby.
Then an adventure involving the Worthingtons had brought them together again, a team in stylish action once more. Afterward, with no discussion whatsoever, Cabot had simply relocated back to the apartment above Lementeur and showed up in Button's work room with a tray of tea and cakes as if he had never left.
Button, although perishing to know how the Prince Regent had reacted to this desertion, had never asked. At first tentative and self-conscious, the working relationship had gradually returned to its former satisfying ease.
Yet Button could no longer ignore the fact that his façade of avuncular pride in a fine assistant had been lastingly revealed to him as a self-delusion.
“You are not an age. You simply are, as I simply am, and age is what we make of it.” Cabot had said it once, just once, before he had left. Button had tried to dismiss it, tried to forget it. He had told himself it was a meaningless moment in a singularly difficult time.
The fact was that when Button sat alone in his perfect little house before his perfect fire, he would take those words out of the past and turn them over and over in his thoughts until they were polished as smooth as river stones.
That was why he — the great meddler, the matchmaker, the schemer -– had never even asked Cabot why he had left. And more importantly, why he had come back.
Quite frankly, Button did not dare.
Now, he sat in the dim luxury of his borrowed carriage and tried very hard not to look at Cabot.
He could ask now. It was a simple enough question, was it not?
Abruptly, the carriage slowed and rolled to a stop. Before either Button or Cabot could signal the driver to inquire the circumstances, the door to their carriage opened and Miss Atalanta Worthington scrambled inside.
"Poll is boring." She looked sharply back and forth between them. "What are you two doing?"
