“For a London gentleman, Wyn, you certainly seem very comfortable in a barn.”
“This is a stable, Diantha, and I have told you that I am not from London.” He drew a stool close to the side of the big brownish red and white cow.
“Not from London.” She dangled the empty bucket against the knee of her pin-striped skirt. The stained muslin was more suited to farm tasks than the blue gown from the attic, and it didn’t smell like camphor. “But you spend a great deal of time there, don’t you?”
“There and elsewhere.” He took the bucket from her.
“Where elsewhere?”
“I believe this is an occasion when if you persist in prying I may rely upon evasion.” He sat on the low stool and placed the bucket beneath the cow’s heavy udder, and Diantha stared quite unashamedly. It did not feel wrong to look at him overlong. It felt right.
She licked her lips. “Do you believe in Destiny?”
“No.” He drew off his coat and deposited it on a bench, his white shirt stretching tight across his shoulders. “But I have absolutely no doubt that you do.”
“Why?”
“A Grand Plan . . .” He unbuttoned his cuffs and folded the linen up his forearms.
“Oh.” It was difficult to manage more words. If God had invented a sight to set her entire body aquiver, Wyn Yale removing his clothes was it. She gripped the stall door for steadiness. “But I suspect destiny would tend to disturb any plans a person made,” she mumbled, “so it is complicated.”
“I daresay.”
She moved closer to him. He drew her like this, from that first day. It might have something to do with the way his shirt pulled at his shoulders, or the strength in his arms revealed by the cuffed sleeves. She could not breathe properly. Not to be wondered at. He’d put his hands on the cow’s teats and they were strong and sinewy too, and although it was perfectly ridiculous and a little peculiar she could not help remembering them on her teats. And then for the hundredth time she thought about his mouth there and how he had touched her and what he’d said to her.
“What about Reincarnation? Do you believe in that?”
“Probably not.” The muscles in his hands and arms flexed, and jets of milk squirted into the bucket with tinny clangs. “Are we to engage in a discussion of world philosophies today, Miss Lucas?” he said with a slight smile.
She believed in Reincarnation. At this moment she was certain she had been here before, with him. Not milking a cow, of course. But together like this doing mundane tasks. Alone together. Her heart felt it, and it was incredibly disconcerting because she didn’t believe in any of that heart nonsense. But Reincarnation seemed another thing altogether.
“I’ve been reading a lot these past few days,” she managed. “I always thought my stepfather’s collection of archeological journals and scholarly what-have-you peculiar enough. But the library here is very curious. A remarkable selection for a lady, really.”
“Perhaps the lady did not live here alone.”
“You may be right. Yesterday I came across a book on the religions of the East Indies.”
“Thus Reincarnation.”
“The day before that I found a book on a man named Buddha who often went about without a shirt, apparently. There were picture plates.” She stared at Wyn’s muscle-corded arms and thought perhaps Annie could not be blamed for having run off with the farmhand after all. Every time Wyn’s hand flexed, a muscle strained the cuff above his elbow. It made her agitated inside. “It seems that Buddha started an entire religion, quite an interesting one with some truly marvelous ideas.”
“You read this book?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
He smiled. It made her warm, rather low. She wanted him to touch her again. There. “I didn’t understand the half of it, really.” Her voice was foolishly breathy. The milk was making a light splashing sound now. “You are very good at that.”
“I have recently had practice. Will you come over here or shall I bring the cow to you?”
He gave up the stool to crouch in the straw beside her. The cow turned its head and stared at her with wide-set eyes.
“Is this any easier than smoking a cigar?”
“About the same level of difficulty, I should say. Like putting on one’s shoes or sweeping a stoop. I imagine you will be able to manage it.”
“Have you swept stoops?”
“In my day, I did it all. Are you actually interested in milking this cow? Because—”
“I am!” She grasped a teat. It was warm and soft. She tugged. “Nothing is happening.”
“It is not a bellpull, minx. You cannot summon a maid with it.”
“You are very droll, Mr. Yale.”
“That is what they say, Miss Lucas.”
Her delight deflated. “Who? All the ladies in London?”
“No.” He reached forward and surrounded her hand with his, and all the ladies in London simply vanished. His palm was large and wonderfully warm, and she wanted to sit here holding hands with him forever. He repositioned her fingers, but she could barely attend. He was so close now, at her shoulder, as close as he’d been when he assisted her down from the tree and she had almost planted her mouth on his.
“Then who?” she asked a little thinly.
His hand cupped hers. “All the gentlemen in London, of course. Apply pressure in this manner.” His voice sounded husky. It was not only her, then. He felt this too, this thing that made her heart thud and body weak with anticipation. He must.
If she did not divert her thoughts she would be begging him for kisses in moments. “Do you think it would be naïve for a person to believe in Destiny and Reincarnation at once?” she uttered.
“I have never felt the need to insist upon a man confining his most cherished beliefs to the parameters of a system devised by others.”
Her hand, guided by his, caught the rhythm. Then she was sorry she’d learned so swiftly because he released her.
“But you do believe in God.” She felt light-headed. “Don’t you?”
“I admit that I am not entirely convinced.”
“Then what do you believe in?”
“Good manners, the faculty of human reason, and hell.” The words fell starkly into the straw-scented air.
Diantha’s fingers ceased moving of their own accord. The urge to weep beset her.
In a clear, quiet voice he added, “And, lately, hope.”
Her hand slipped away from the teat and she swiveled around to face him. There was no bleakness in his face. Desire lit his silvery eyes and something else she did not understand but it dashed away all thought of weeping. A muscle in his jaw flexed and she saw him take a breath, heard it in the stillness surrounded by the soft sounds of animals and the mad chatter of birds in the hedge without.
His gaze dipped to her mouth and there was nothing more she wanted than to be kissed by him. Nothing in the world.
She could not prevent herself; she leaned forward. He leaned forward. Their breaths mingled, an intimacy for which she was thoroughly unprepared.
He closed the space between them. It was a mere brushing of lips, the most innocent caress.
And then it was not. Then it became more.
His hand came around the back of her neck and secured her mouth against his and he kissed her like she’d dreamed every night for endless nights, like there was nothing more he wanted than to be kissing her, feeling her like she felt him in every part of her body. He tasted her, used the tip of his tongue to part her lips, and she succumbed. She allowed him into her mouth, to touch her like he had touched her before, but this was not the same. Now the caress of his mouth recalled her to his hands on her body, and to his body when she’d held him in the midst of fever, and she knew it was all different. She wanted even more than kisses. She wanted him. She ached with wanting him.