“We’ll go there tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t want to exhaust you today.”
Her joyous expression vanished. She looked down at the fish again, her eyelashes shadowing her eyes. He frowned, wondered what had dismayed her.
“Oh,” he said. “I see. The comment about not wanting to exhaust you today? Don’t worry, it had no double meaning. It is our wedding night. But if you don’t want to begin our marriage tonight in earnest, or in the marriage bed,” he added, smiling, “we can wait. We have after all, forever. Or at least as long as it takes for you to invite me to join you in pleasure.”
She looked up at him in surprise. Her first husband had taken her away with him the moment the prison ship’s captain had finished reciting the wedding service. Tanner had laughed, grabbed her hand, dragged her to his cabin, tossed her on his bunk, flipped up her skirt, thrown himself on her, and done it. The act had taken much less time than the wedding ceremony and had terrified her even more. Leland expected her to invite him to do that? She sighed. She supposed she’d have to. But at least he was giving her time.
“Thank you,” she said. “I would like to get to know you better.”
“Now that,” he said, offering her his arm again, “is brave of you. Come, I’ll show you the prize of my home.”
He walked her down a path and up another, and then paused. She looked across a stream and another long lawn, and clapped her hands in glee. “A maze!” she cried. “How wonderful! I’ve read about them and never seen one.”
“So you shall,” he said comfortably. “I love it if only because it proves that my ancestors were just such frippery fellows as myself. My father was such a grim, dour, humorless man that I often wondered if my dear mama had got me off someone else, as she did Daffyd. But, alas, no. I resemble my late papa, in features, at least. He didn’t care for the maze at all. Spending a fortune to erect and then maintain it down through the centuries? He considered it wasteful and unproductive. It didn’t produce vegetables, fruit, or wood, and you couldn’t hunt or graze animals on it. He didn’t understand the reason for a maze because the word ‘play’ was alien to him. But luckily he was too conservative to destroy it. I’m very pleased that he didn’t; it’s the only living link I have to anyone in my family who remotely resembles me.”
“Your mother didn’t appreciate it?” Daisy asked.
“My mother didn’t appreciate anything but attention, and though I suppose she could get that if she pretended to get lost in the maze with a handsome stranger, she had no use for it otherwise. My brother Martin is bored by it, maybe because he knows he’s not heir to it and he’s only interested in what is his. Daffyd’s amused by it. Would you like to go in and see why?”
“Yes!” she said eagerly.
The maze was dark green, some twelve feet high, and made of ancient, thickly woven, manicured shrubs. Once they entered the doorway cut into the hedge, the air became closer and the heavy green smell of freshly cut vegetation was strong. The pebbled paths were so narrow, they had to walk close together, and it amused Leland to let Daisy decide the turnings they should take. After a while, she stopped, put her hands on her hips, and looked up at him.
“You are much too amused,” she said crossly. “And I’m much too smart to keep walking in circles. I’ll never find my way out without help.”
“The point is,” he said gently, “to find your way in,” he said, as they began to walk again, taking what seemed like casual left and right turns at random openings in the hedges. “My ancestors would have parties and award prizes to whomever found the heart of the maze first. No one knows the secret path to it but the heir-and my brothers and your friend Geoff, of course. And no doubt, my mama. And the head gardener, and I suppose his helpers, and my butler and housekeeper as well.
“A secret just isn’t what it used to be,” he said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. “I can feel the weight of my ancestor’s disapproval for sharing it so freely. But what if I came in one day and expired on the spot? It would take centuries for me to be found if someone didn’t know the way in. Ah, here we are. What do you think?”
Daisy stepped through another doorway in the hedge and stared. The sun shone brightly on the center circle, a clearing of some twenty feet all around. The centerpiece was a larger-than-life-sized statue of a nude Venus being held by an equally nude and obviously passionate Mars. They were ringed and applauded by a host of nude cherubs. It was so grandly presented, it was hard to equate with the fact that it was positively pornographic.
The statue was framed by four curved marble benches placed at equal distances at the side of the circle, the perimeter was solid hedge, and above them, a clear blue sky.
“It is,” Daisy said carefully, “certainly not conservative.” And then she put her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles.
“Yes,” Leland said, sounding very pleased. “It drove my poor father mad, I understand. He wanted to take it down, but venerated his heritage too much to touch it. Lucky me. I mean, of course, lucky us. Would you care to sit down a while before we go on?”
He led her to a marble bench, waited until she was seated, and then sat beside her. He stretched out his long legs and gazed up at the sky. “The idea behind the centerpiece, of course,” he said casually, “was that it would inspire whatever lovely creature my ancestor brought in here with him to romance, or a reasonable version of it. After all, she couldn’t leave until he told her how she could. So I suppose he made it a forfeit. And I understand, from ancestral memoirs, that this was a very popular place. Well, but they were freer with morals in those days,” he murmured. Then he turned his head and looked down at her. “Inspired?” he asked with interest.
He was so close that one of his lean, well-muscled thighs almost touched hers. She felt he was even closer. She smelled lavender and lemon, and something else, something intangible, something of sunlight and darkness, sweet and thrilling, which was his very essence. Her body thrummed, knowing he was so near.
He wasn’t a handsome man, not remotely so. But he was compelling, which was fascinating. His eyes were truly beautiful, though, she thought irrelevantly: a different, darker, more intense blue than the sky, filled with intelligence and… desire. She’d recognize that anywhere. His skin was clear, his mouth was well shaped, and he was vital and real, and waiting here beside her. And now he was her husband.
She swallowed hard.
He looked at her lips, then her eyes. He hesitated, and then sighed. “No,” he said with sorrow. “You’re not inspired. Ah, too bad. I suppose you’re listening to the cautions of the ghosts of too many foolish ladies who were lured here. So am I. It was a bad notion. Forget it and forgive me. I don’t want to remember them, either. Well, rested? Ready to go on?”
“To what?” she asked nervously.
“Not to heights of sensual bliss, alas,” he said with such mock sadness, she had to smile. “That’s clear. No, we should go back to the house. The sun is sinking; it will be twilight before long. On the way I’ll show you a lovely brook, and the home wood. There’s a doe that comes to the edge of the wood at sundown; I confess I encourage her to. I carry a small block of salt in my pocket whenever I’m here, and the silly beast thinks it tastes better than anything in the whole wide meadow she grazes in.”