love, passion, an undying, innocent romance—or two young people being thoughtless? She had built a castle in the air and inhabited it with her perfect knight, her gallant soldier, and hadn’t the wit to think through the likely consequences of sleeping with a man off to a battlefield in the near future. And Piers had not fought hard enough to behave like a gentleman and not a randy young soldier.
More than time to let go of girlish fantasies. There was no such thing as undying love or she wouldn’t feel so much as a twinge of desire for Avery Falconer. And Avery was guilty of nothing more than a strong sense of family duty and an honourable obligation to the child of a cousin he was probably very fond of. He had taken Alice for Piers’s sake.
Mab eyed her warily, braced, no doubt, for a blistering retort about the impudence of maidservants daring to speak their mind, or floods of tears. ‘Thank you, Mab. You are quite right.’ Not that it didn’t hurt or was shaming to have the truth pointed out so bluntly, but it was probably like lancing a boil, she’d be glad later when the agony subsided.
‘And you are quite right about today, too. I’ll walk up to the Manor now. It is foolish to waste a minute with Alice.’
* * *
I will be pleasant and friendly and make it quite clear I want neither flirtation nor kisses, she resolved half an hour later as she negotiated the steps up the ha-ha and tackled the sloping lawn. Halfway she met Jackson, the footman, his hands full of a dew-wet hoop and ball.
‘Miss Alice forgets her toys, ma’am,’ he said with his friendly grin. ‘Were you coming to see her? Only Miss Blackstock’s taken her off to Hemel Hempstead in the gig to buy new shoes. You’ve just missed them.’
The disappointment was ridiculously sharp, not less for it being her own fault. If she hadn’t been sulking over Avery she might have been in time to have joined the shopping expedition. ‘I will just say good morning to Lord Wykeham, in that case,’ she said, summoning a smile.
‘He’s in the Blue Sitting Room, ma’am. The window’s open if you can manage the step.’ He pointed. ‘Or I can go in and announce you?’
‘No, you continue your search for the contents of the toy box, Jackson. I can find my own way.’
Her footsteps were silent on the smooth flagstones. Laura stooped to look into the unfamiliar room and saw Avery. He was half-seated on the edge of a desk, his long legs out in front crossed at the ankles, his hands behind, bracing him. His head was down as though he was deep in thought. Laura hesitated, her hand on the window frame for balance, then caught her breath as he looked up, his face stark and naked as she had never seen it.
He must have heard her involuntary gasp, for he turned, his expression under control so fast she wondered if she had imagined the pain. ‘Caroline. I was not expecting you today.’
‘I know. I have missed Alice, haven’t I?’ She stepped down into the room. ‘Avery, what is wrong?’ The shadow of that inner agony was still on his face, now she knew to look for it. ‘My dear man...’ She went towards him, her hands held out and he stood, pushed away from the table and she was in his arms.
He said nothing before he kissed her, his mouth urgent and demanding, his tongue tangling with hers as she responded, opened to him as though they were old lovers who knew each other’s bodies with utter familiarity. She knew how he would taste, how he would feel in her arms. She knew, as she kissed him back, how he would angle his head, how he would explore her mouth, how she would melt into him. He was everything her restless night-time imaginings had promised he would be and more. And he is this man, not another, not Piers.
He had turned as he kissed her and she felt the hard edge of the table press into her buttocks, the hard ridge of his arousal press into her belly. Desperate for air so that she could kiss him again, Laura dragged her mouth free. His eyes were dark and fierce and wild, the eyes of a man whose control was always perfect—until now.
‘Caroline.’ It was a growl, a statement, not a question.
Caroline? Who? Laura froze. Caroline was not her. Caroline was a lie and she could not be like this with a man she was lying to. ‘Avery.’ She slid her hands down so they rested on his chest. Under her palms his heartbeat thudded. He stared down at her and slowly the darkness of passion faded out of his eyes.
‘Avery,’ she said again. ‘I cannot—’
‘Hell. No, of course you cannot.’ She blinked, confused. How could he know what she was going to say? ‘I apologise. That was outrageous. I had no right to touch you. I’ll leave.’
‘No.’ Of course, he thought she was saying she could not make love to him. He was not a mind reader. But thank goodness he had stopped before things had gone any further. ‘You do not need to do that. It takes two to be as imprudent as we have just been. I take responsibility for my actions. And reactions,’ she added with a smile in the hope of easing the tension that showed in his jaw and clenched hands. Yes, this time, I will take responsibility and I will think of the consequences.
‘Thank you.’ Avery turned and ran one hand through his hair. ‘I was feeling a trifle blue devilled, not that it is any excuse for attempting to ravish you on the desk.’
She was never sure afterwards what she had intended to say to him. Laura looked up and saw the portrait on the wall behind him and the words simply dried in her mouth. Piers.
Avery turned to follow her gaze. ‘That is my cousin Piers Falconer,’ he said. ‘I inherited this estate from him. I do not wonder that you look surprised. It is uncanny, is it not? People often take it for a picture of me and remark that they hadn’t realised I had ever been in the army.’ He did not appear to find it amusing.
Laura looked into the clear green eyes in the youthful, unlined face in the painting and her feet took her, with no conscious volition, to stand on the hearth where she could reach up and touch the hilt of the sword. Go away, she willed Avery, but he did not move. ‘He was killed in battle?’ She knew the answer, but she had to say something.
‘A stupid, unnecessary skirmish with the enemy where they were not supposed to be because of a failure in communications. Ironic that a man who dreamed of glory and great epic battles should die defending a ford over a stream that shouldn’t even have needed defending.’
‘Ironic indeed.’ That was what you left me for, Piers, she thought. I was so angry with you. ‘He was a romantic about war?’ Her fingers slid off the leather of the hilt, still too new to have lost its grooves or to have softened and moulded to the hand of its owner.
‘Piers was army-mad. But he was an only child, the heir. His father died when he was seventeen and I became his trustee, although I was not that much older—four years. I pointed out that he could not join, that he had responsibilities, that his mother would be desperately anxious, but he only laughed. She would be proud, he said, and of course he would not be killed. He thought himself immortal, I suppose. He was very young in some ways.’ Avery sounded bone-weary, perhaps with the memory of endless arguments.
‘But he joined anyway.’
‘Oh, yes. As soon as he was twenty and came into some money from his godfather he went to London and bought himself a commission. There was nothing I could do and his mother, who had always indulged him, hid her fear. She died six months later. I suppose I cannot blame him for it, he never knew Aunt Alice’s heart was weak.’ Avery had wandered across to the window and stood leaning his shoulder against the frame, staring out over the parkland. ‘He came back to England on sick leave. A combination of a minor wound and a fever. They gave him three months to recover and to settle affairs after his mother’s death, although I’d handled that already.’ He shrugged one shoulder as if to push away the memory. ‘She was more like a mother to me than an aunt.’
‘That is why Alice is named as she is.’ Piers had never told her his mother’s name or that she had died such a short