A Spinster by the Sea Page 8

  “That is sour grapes talking,” Helen said, tucking the invitation into her reticule. “You have not been widowed, Anne. You’ve never faced years of nights made lonelier because you know what comfort a wife can derive from a husband’s friendly companionship—or his affection. Your innocence spares you awareness of what you’re missing. In another five years, you might see the whole situation differently.”

  In another five years, Anne would very likely be living the life of a confirmed spinster, dwelling in a pretty cottage in the Midlands, and reading Shakespeare to her pets. She knew, though, the pleasure and affection a woman could find in the arms of a husband.

  Or, more accurately, a lover.

  “Why not set your cap for Tindale?” Helen asked, getting to her feet. “He isn’t a bad sort, despite the talk. They’re all just men when the candles are out.”

  Anne watched the sea shining painfully bright under the morning sun. Down at the beach, gulls wheeled over whitecaps, and the roar and retreat of the surf lured the senses. That reasoning—they’re all just men—had been part of the foolishness that had led her to accept Lord Corbett’s suit.

  They were individual people, with dreams, unique humor, strengths, and failings.

  “Tindale will have to establish himself in Society,” Anne said. “He must vote his seat, host the right entertainments, attend the right gatherings, bow over the right hands in the carriage parade, and never put a foot wrong. Even with all that effort, years from now, he will still be the upstart duke, the presuming mushroom. Received everywhere, but included nowhere. His duchess will face a constant battle. To be what he needs, she must be nothing less than a paragon, which I do not aspire to be.”

  For once, Anne wished Helen would point out the weaknesses of Anne’s logic. Instead, Helen pulled on a pair of blue gloves.

  “None of that would matter if he was the man you loved, Anne, not that dukes typically make love matches. I’m off to Brighton’s better shops for a spot of shopping. I’ve sent to London for some dresses suitable for the final ball—don’t bother to thank me—but I’m in want of the right fripperies to set off my finery. Tindale’s coach will be at the inn in a quarter hour, and I thought to perhaps see a little of the countryside too. Shall you come with me?”

  Thank God for Helen’s love of shopping. “You asked for the loan of the duke’s coach?”

  “I did, and Lord Bertram will accompany me.” That announcement was made a shade too casually, and Anne was abruptly ashamed of herself. Lady Deschamps’s house party was not exactly a romp across the village green for Helen either.

  “Enjoy your day out, Cousin. Heaven knows you’ve earned it. Tryst with Lord Bertram halfway to Land’s End and back, dazzle him with your wit, and know that if he’s your choice, I will do all in my power to support the match as you have always supported me. You deserve to be happy, and so does his lordship.”

  Helen became absorbed with organizing the strings of her reticule. “It’s merely a day of shopping, and maybe a picnic on some scenic bluff.”

  “If that’s all it is, Lord Bertram is a slow top indeed.” Anne hugged her cousin, feeling an odd sense of roles reversing. “No need to hurry back. I’ll have a tray sent down from the inn for supper. Do send a note if a carriage accident necessitates spending the night in some quaint hostelry ten miles down the coast.”

  Helen hugged her tight. “You are wicked, Anne Baxter. Wicked, wicked, wicked. Also my favorite cousin.”

  “Away with you. Choosing the right fripperies takes time and thought.”

  “Too true, too true.” Helen all but scampered into the cottage, and five minutes later, Anne heard the front door close.

  Tallyho, Cousin Helen. Perhaps Anne should have been jealous, but she instead wished Helen and his lordship a lovely day of stolen pleasure, or affectionate friendship, or courting. Whatever the two of them wanted to make of an unforeseen opportunity.

  Anne resumed her place at the table, knowing she ought to fetch a hat. The tide was out, meaning the morning would be an opportunity to hunt for shells, build sandcastles, and simply watch the waves.

  While she planned her excursion, a lone figure emerged from the path at the western end of the beach. Tall, dark-haired, bareheaded, striding along the packed sand near the water’s edge. Anne already knew Tindale from his walk, and when he shaded his eyes to peer up at the cottage, she waved.

  He waved back and motioned her to come down to the water.

  She ought not. She ought to leave him to enjoy the beach in solitude. Instead, she blew Tindale a kiss and hurried to fetch her hat.

  Chapter Six

  The pleasure Augustus took at Anne’s greeting was ridiculous. He’d come down to the beach, hoping to find her, and seen only the empty expanse of sand. Then a flutter of pale blue on the promontory had caught his eye, and his heart had leaped up.

  He met her on the path, took the hat from her hand, and put it on her head. “You did not go shopping.”

  “By now, news of my disgrace—my latest disgrace—is all over Brighton,” Anne said. “Why on earth would I give that crowd a chance to gawk at me when I can instead be here?”

  With you. She did not need to add those words, because her bashful smile said them clearly.

  “Then you weren’t staying here merely to give Lord Bertram a chance to woo the fair Helen?” Augustus asked.

  “The fair Helen has designs of her own on his lordship. Lady Deschamps’s gathering has resulted in at least one happy pairing.”

  Not two? “Shall we wander by the water, Anne?”

  She glanced back at the cottage. “Would you be shocked if I proposed another destination?”

  A wave crashed against the shore, its force suggesting an incoming tide. “That depends on the destination.”

  Anne took Augustus by the hand and led him up the path. All manner of emotions accompanied Augustus as he and Anne approached the little stone cottage. Hope, because she intended to be private with him. Dismay, because he hadn’t yet established an understanding with her, and joy, because this was Anne, and he was happy simply to spend time with her.

  They reached the front steps, and she kept right on going, towing him inside her temporary abode. The cottage itself was shielded from view on the inn side by a stand of majestic elms. The beach had been deserted, and thus the risk of discovery was minimal.

  And yet, Augustus hesitated just inside the door. “Are we courting, Anne?” He wanted to court her, but did she want to become his duchess?

  “We are enjoying a day of unlooked-for privacy.” She took off her hat and tossed it onto the sofa. “If you are willing?”

  Augustus took the hat from the sofa and hung it over a peg by the door. He called upon his solicitor’s training, sorting options, risks, and strategies. To reject Anne’s invitation would hurt her. To press her for some sort of commitment at this point—given her tirade about the horrors of Society marriage—would fail.

  Where was the harm in indulging their passion, if it brought them closer to sharing their lives?

  Augustus examined that question from all sides while Anne stood by the window, gazing out at the sea.

  “If there’s a child,” he said, “we will marry, Anne. Promise me that.”

  “The time is wrong for me to conceive.”

  She would take the steps necessary to educate herself in that regard, regardless of how desperately society tried to keep young ladies in ignorance.

  “And if we cause a scandal?” Augustus did not dare move close enough to take her in his arms, or this necessary cross-examination would descend into kissing. “We were spied on once before.”

  “Then I will be ruined, which will honestly be a relief.”

  Augustus’s mentors as he’d read law had pounded one notion in particular into his head as he’d memorized cases and statutes: If your opponent at the bargaining table appears to have blundered, to have made an offer too good to be true without realizing it, assume his blunder is not a mistake, but a brilliant ploy. Assume that taking advantage of his apparent mistake will expose you to grievous harm. Puzzle out what the harm might be before making the next move.

  He could hear his old mentors railing at him now.

  “Do you seek to be ruined, Anne? If that’s the case, you need not bed me to see that accomplished. We can play a few games of chess, a hand or two of cribbage. Anything that keeps us private for more than five minutes will do, provided that privacy has witnesses.”

  Though Augustus most assuredly did not like this plan of hers, if a plan it was.

  She turned from the window to glower at him. “In the first place, do you find it so difficult to imagine that I could seek to share some pleasure with you, Tindale? If the notion surprises, then you have a sad lack of appreciation for your own keen mind, nimble wit, fine form, and impressive kisses. In the second place, if I sought ruin at your hands, that would—albeit temporarily—redound to your discredit, and you are the last man I would ask to take on such a burden. In the third place…”

  She turned back to the window.

  “In the third place…?”

  “I forget what’s in the third place, because seeing you here, under this roof, knowing nobody will disturb us for the whole day parts me from my wits. My bedroom is through that door,” she said, gesturing across the room. “Do we stand here arguing like barristers, or start tearing each other’s clothes off?”

  She was so dear when she was bungling a seduction. “Neither,” Augustus said, prowling closer. “I prefer a leisurely prelude to my pleasures, as best I can recall. What about you?”

  Anne patted his lapel when he’d come within embracing distance. “We’re to discuss our lovemaking?”

  He caught her hand and kissed her fingers. “I delight in our conversations, and it seems to me, lovemaking will be more enjoyable for a little parleying. Do you prefer to be on top or on the bottom, for example? A pillow beneath your hips? Your back to the wall? With you, Anne Baxter, my imagination runs riot.”

  She bundled close, not fast enough to hide her blush. “I have no established preferences, Tindale. I simply want to be close to you. I want to share this day with you. Intimately.”

  Her honesty obliterated Augustus’s store of seductive banter. He stroked her hair and realized that trysting with Anne would not be a mere romp stolen along the way to enticing her to the altar. This intimacy she craved would be on her terms, a closeness of body, mind, and heart, rather than a maneuver in service to some strategic objective.

  He could not be the duke with her, and he could not be the solicitor either. She demanded that he come to her purely as her lover. A terrifying prospect, which left Augustus questioning his own protestations that the title was merely a pesky nuisance.

  “I want to be close to you too,” he said. “Intimately close.”

  Anne eased away and led him into a tidy, unassuming bedroom. Two chairs were arranged by the window, and a vase of daffodils stood on a table between the chairs. The bed lacked a canopy, and the quilt—doves and roses—was worn soft. Braided rugs covered most of the flagstone floor, and the far wall included a door that might have led to a dressing closet. A chest, likely cedar lined, sat at the foot of the bed.

  “Not quite spartan,” Augustus observed. “I like it, though in winter the lack of a fireplace might make it chilly.”

  “I suspect the hearth in the next room is enough to heat the whole cottage,” Anne said, unclasping a locket from her neck and putting it on the bedside table.

  The gesture was simple and graceful and should not have been arousing. It wasn’t, truly, but something inside Augustus shifted at the sight. He sat on the chest and pulled off his boots.

  “Do you suppose Lord Bertram has aspirations in your cousin’s direction?” he asked.

  Anne sat on the other end of the chest and raised her skirts enough to untie her garters. “I hope he does. Helen likes to manage, and her children will soon require less of her in that regard. She misses having a husband, though Bertram’s finances do not recommend him as a spouse.”

  She toed off her slippers and peeled out of her stockings, starting a pile of clothing between them on the chest.

  “If she’s comfortably well-off, his finances need not come into it.”

  “She seems well situated, but I have never asked her for particulars. Would you mind undoing my hooks?” Anne turned and swept her hair off her nape.

  That something shifting inside Augustus lurched again. He tended to her hooks—not too many, thank heavens, because this was a day dress—and then untied her laces.

  “You have a freckle,” he said, touching a finger to her nape. “Pale, but I suspect in want of kissing.” So he kissed that freckle, and Anne shivered.

  She rose and slanted a smile at him over her shoulder. “The washstand is in the dressing closet. Feel free to borrow my toothbrush, though I will go first if you don’t mind.” She disappeared into the dressing closet, while Augustus was left to ponder his reactions.

  He was in a state of pleasant sexual anticipation, not roaringly aroused, and feelings other than mere desire were afoot in this modest bedroom. He liked the quiet chatting. He liked the unassuming business of assisting Anne with her hooks and stays. He liked knowing she had a lone freckle on the back of her neck. He liked… her. Desired her, had fallen in love with her, and liked her.

  He was still musing on that development when Anne emerged from the dressing closet, wearing a brown velvet dressing gown.

  “Your turn, Tindale.”

  He’d shed his cravat, coat, waistcoat, boots, and stockings. “Might you call me Augustus?”

  She picked up his coat from the pile on the chest and draped it over the back of one of the chairs. “Augustus. That suits you. Shall I await you in bed?”

  She draped his waistcoat over the coat, then laid his cravat over that waistcoat. All orderly and neat. Wifely, one might say.

  “You shall do as you please.” Augustus rose and stretched. “You can watch me wash, climb beneath the covers, or kiss me this very moment. You might be surprised to learn that my sexual adventures have been few and tame, Anne. I had no time for entanglements as a solicitor, and men of the law are prone to gossip and scandalmongering when they aren’t supporting the pillars of justice.”

  She tucked up against him. “Were you lonely?”

  Not a question Augustus would have even understood as he was trying to establish his practice. “Terribly.”

  “And hard work helped,” Anne said, patting his bum and easing away. “Tend to your ablutions, Augustus. I’m for bed.”

  That sweet little pat to his backside, her use of his name, that tone of gentle command… The last of Augustus’s hesitation about this encounter wafted away on the shore breeze. Anne would take a prodigious amount of wooing. Her trust had been abused, her dreams trampled, but Augustus had developed a reputation as a solicitor of last resort.

  He had worked harder, prepared longer, and persisted in the face of more obstacles than his colleagues had thought wise. The result had been success in some very challenging cases and a reputation to be proud of in the legal community.

  As he shed more clothing, scrubbed himself, and brushed his teeth, he realized that much of his hard work had been—exactly as Anne had surmised—an attempt to combat loneliness.

  If Anne Baxter was not the next Duchess of Tindale, mere loneliness would be the least of Augustus’s heartaches.

  Bond Street did not create fine clothing so much as it created heroic costumes. A fellow with narrow shoulders was given the padding he needed to cut a more imposing figure. A portly man could be equipped with a corset before stepping into breeches sewn to fit his artificially trimmer waist. The subterfuges were endless and skillful, and thus Anne was prepared for Tindale to be slightly less imposing in the flesh, as she doubtless was.

  More fool her.

  He emerged from the dressing closet, his hair damp-combed, his shirt off. He wore only his breeches, unbuttoned at the knee, one flap of his falls half undone, and the result was… To say Anne’s breath was stolen was an understatement.

  Here was the strutting male beast in his prime. Muscle rippled and flexed when Tindale bent to step out of his breeches, and every proportion begged Anne to measure it with touch and taste.

  “I ride,” he said, draping his breeches over the chest at the foot of the bed. “I fence. I like to go for long walks when I’m ruminating on a problem. The result is…”

  “Good health,” Anne said, glad she was sitting on the bed. “Grand good health.”

  He was also aroused, and that was a grand occasion as well, though Tindale didn’t seem to take notice of his own rampant erection.

  He was darker above the waist than below, suggesting he occasionally labored in the sun with his shirt off. Something only a wife, lover, or close friend would know about him. He took the place beside Anne on the bed and looped an arm around her waist.

  “No second thoughts, Anne?”

  “Barely any thoughts at all, you make such a powerful impression.”

  He kissed her temple. “You are thinking of your first love, the one with consumption. Sad thoughts.”

  How did he know that? “Yes and no. Sad thoughts, because he should not have died so young, but fierce thoughts too. At least he and I knew some pleasure before he surrendered to illness, at least we tried for some happiness. He had lovely memories to savor on that distant island.”

  Another kiss, this one to her cheek. “You think like a duchess.”

  “You’re on close terms with many duchesses?” He smelled good, of Anne’s rose-scented soap and something spicier—cedar, perhaps. Rosemary?

  “My late cousin’s wife, Eugenia, is quite the duchess. You’d like her, and I can assure you on the strength of my acquaintance with her and her friends that duchesses are very fierce. Also sweet and pragmatic. Let’s get beneath the covers, shall we?”

  “Yes.” Anne had kept her robe and chemise on. She draped the robe over Tindale’s discarded breeches and scooted beneath the quilts. When she’d imagined trysting with Tindale—which she had, at length—she’d never seen them being intimate in daylight.