He could not know, of course, the pang his words had caused her. She had always believed that her father would have preferred a son to a daughter. He had never been actively unkind to her. Indeed, he had always shown her unfailing affection whenever they were together. But he had very rarely offered to do things with her.
The thought flashed suddenly through her mind that perhaps it was an unconscious memory of his neglect that had helped her to say no last evening. She knew very well what it was like not to have the fully committed love of a man she adored-and a man upon whom she was dependent and to whom she owed allegiance and obedience.
“You do not need to imagine it,” she said as he brought her hand up to his lips and then held the back of it against his cheek. “You do not need to bear other people’s burdens. Only the person concerned can do that. I bore my own burden, and I am still here. I have survived-and rather well, I believe.”
He closed his eyes and bowed his head, their clasped hands back on her lap, his other arm still hugging her close to him.
“Why did you run away?” he asked.
“They would not let me see him,” she said, “and they were going to bury him outside the churchyard. They did not know what to do with me. I was a burden to them. I did not belong to them, after all-or to anyone else for that matter. They were going to send me away. I preferred to go without waiting. I preferred to have some control over my own fate.”
“What makes you believe,” he asked her, “that they would have turned you away, that they saw you as a burden?”
“I heard Lady Markham say so,” she said. “I did not mishear and I did not misunderstand. A burden is simply that-an unwanted load. And that is what she called me. She said I could not stay there.”
“And yet,” he said, “they searched and searched for you long after you had vanished.”
“Is that what Theodore told you?” she asked him.
“Theo was away at school,” he said, “as I was. It was Lady Markham herself who told me, and Edith. This morning.”
She stiffened and then relaxed against him again, setting her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes.
“Ah,” she said. “You did see them, then. Or they saw you. Did you tell them where I live?”
“No,” he said. “It was not my secret to divulge-if it is a secret.”
“I do not wish to see them,” she said.
“Were they not kind to you at all, then?” he asked.
“They were very kind,” she said. “Perhaps too kind. I made the mistake of believing that I belonged to them. Sometimes when Edith would climb onto her mother’s lap, I would climb up there too-and she would never turn me away no matter how strange she must have thought it. Edith was as dear to me as any sister could have been. Sometimes children do not realize by how fragile a thread their security hangs. Perhaps it is as well they do not-most of them grow up before the thread can be broken. But I don’t want to talk about this any longer. I wanted simply to enjoy the afternoon.”
“I am sorry,” he said with a sigh. “I really am sorry.”
They lapsed into silence for a while and she thought how comforting a man’s arm could be about her shoulders and his broad shoulder beneath her cheek and his hand clasping hers. She could get used to such comfort, such dependence. How lovely it would feel to be able to transfer all one’s burdens onto a man’s capable shoulders and curl into the safety of his protection.
And how easy it was to allow one’s mind to slip into fiction and to imagine that there was something desirable about giving up one’s autonomy, one’s very self.
As if there were such a thing as happily-ever-after and no more effort to make in life.
She turned her face against his shoulder and wished life were as simple as a young girl’s dreams-a young girl before the age of twelve and the suicide of her father.
His hand left hers and undid the ribbons beneath her chin. She did not lift her face as he drew her bonnet off and set it down on the seat beside her. And then his hand came beneath her chin, cupping it in the hollow between his thumb and forefinger, and lifting her face until their eyes met.
“Susanna,” he murmured. “Ah, my sweet, strong Susanna.”
She felt anything but strong. Her lips were trembling when his own covered them, warm, parted, wonderfully comforting-and strangely familiar, as if she were somehow coming home. She leaned into him, her one hand spreading over his chest, her other arm twining about his neck to draw him closer. She opened her mouth and felt all the heat and strength of him-all the essence of him-as his tongue came inside.
Passion flared between them, and she moaned at his touch as his hand came beneath her cloak to caress her breasts, to trace the hollow of her waist, the flare of a hip. She kissed him back with a sort of wild abandon, and heat seared them both.
But it was not an entirely mindless embrace. They were at the center of a maze in the middle of a probably deserted park. But it was, nevertheless, possible that they could be interrupted at any moment. And there was more than just that. They had behaved indiscreetly and unwisely at Barclay Court, and they had both suffered as a result.
When she drew back her head, touched her forehead to his, and closed her eyes, he withdrew his hand from inside her cloak and made no attempt to continue the embrace.
“Susanna,” he said after a few moments, “I wish you would reconsider-”
But she set two fingers against his lips and lifted her forehead away from his to look into his eyes. They gazed back into her own, darkly violet in the sunlight. He did not attempt to finish what he had begun to say.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered.
“Like what?” He took her by the wrist and moved her hand away from his mouth.
“With pity and compassion in your eyes.” She was suddenly and inexplicably angry as she drew free of him and jumped to her feet. “You are forever wanting to give, to comfort, to protect. Do you never want to take, to demand, to assert your own wishes? I do not need your pity.”
And what on earth was she talking about? She turned her back on him, took a few steps away to the other side of the clearing at the center of the maze.
His silence was as accusing as words. She knew she had hurt him, but she was powerless now to unsay the words.
“Should I take you again here, then, to slake my desire-but by force this time?” he asked her, his voice horribly quiet-why did he not rage at her? “Should I demand that you marry me so that my honor can be restored? Should I assert myself as a man and a wealthy, titled man at that and take whatever my heart desires from all who stand in my way? Especially women? Is that what you want of me, Susanna? I did not understand. I am sorry-I cannot be such a man.”
“Oh, Peter.” She turned to look at him. He was still sitting on the seat, his shoulders slightly slumped, his forearms resting on his thighs, his hands dangling between his knees. “I did not mean it that way.”
“What did you mean, then?” he asked.
She opened her mouth and drew breath and then could not think of anything to say. She did not know quite what she had meant. She had told him last night that he needed to learn to like himself. That had not been quite it either. And she had once told him that he needed a dragon to slay. She was not even sure what she had meant by that.
She wanted him to…
To move heaven and earth.
For her. For himself.
She wanted him to love her.
How foolish! As if that would make any difference to anything.
“You cannot answer, can you?” he said. “Because you did mean what you said. I think perhaps I do like myself well enough. It is you who do not.”