She studied Adam’s profile, the strong chin and the powerful body, and wondered if he truly believed what he had just said. In her experience, platonic love was a female ideal. When a man loved a beautiful woman, romance and passion were inextricably mixed.
Though Adam was lying if he said his feelings for Antonia weren’t romantic, it was a noble lie, born of a generous love. Anyone who had been in the room when Antonia met Simon Launceston would know the result was a foregone conclusion, and Adam was doing his best to deal with that devastating knowledge.
He could have been furious or bitter at the shattering of his hopes. Instead, he was acting with painful gallantry. She wondered if Antonia realized just how much she would lose if she chose a different husband.
Wanting to distract him from his pain, she asked, “What were the circumstances that led you to grow up in the Spenston household? Antonia has never told me.”
“No, she would not have mentioned,” he said. Without looking at his companion, he continued, “I’m baseborn.”
Judith’s eyes widened, understanding now why he’d told Antonia that close association would do her reputation no good. His cousin had replied tartly that no one cared about such things, but Adam was right. There were those who would condemn Antonia for treating a bastard connection with such familiarity. She sighted. “It shouldn’t matter, but in this imperfect world, it does.”
“My father was a loose-screw cousin of Antonia’s father, some kind of political radical.” Adam gaze rested unseeing on the clear water rushing past in the brook. “He ran off with the daughter of a Nonconformist minister, and they lived together in London. He was too radical to believe in marriage, even when his mistress bore a child. Both families cast them off.
“When I was two, he was killed in a carriage accident, leaving my mother to fend for both of us. She worked as a seamstress. I can remember her sewing by the light of a single candle, her eyes red, wearing cotton gloves so that the chilblains on her hands wouldn’t damage the fine ladies’ fabrics.”
He released his breath in a sigh. “By the time I was seven, she was dying, and she knew it. When she asked her father for help, he invited her to burn in hell for eternity. So she wrote to Lord Spenston, whom my father had said was the most approachable of his relations.
“By the time my mother’s letter reached Spenston, she was dead, and the landlady of the house where we lived had sold me to a chimney sweep to be a climbing boy.”
Judith gasped in outrage. “How could she do such a thing?”
“Very easily,” Adam replied dryly. “My mother was unable to work at the end, and our rent was in arrears. The landlady felt entitled to what she could get for the dead woman’s possessions, which included me. Maybe she even thought I was better off with the sweeper, since the alternatives were the parish or living in the streets. At least the sweeper fed his boys, though not much—bad for business if we grew too quickly.
“Lord Spenston had never been close to my father, but he felt some sense of obligation to his cousin’s son. His agents located the sweeper, and Spenston came and bought me after I’d been there about three months. I believe I cost him three pounds, which represented a good profit to the sweeper, who had paid only thirty shillings to the landlady.”
Judith’s mouth tightened at the reality concealed by the flat words. The treatment of climbing boys was a disgrace. Most of them did not live to grow up. It was a form of slavery in the heart of Britain, but in spite of calls for reform, legislation to correct abuses had yet to pass Parliament.
Adam’s tone was unnaturally detached. Perhaps that was essential when speaking of such a past. “The earl took me back to Spenston House. He was going to deposit me in the nursery for the maids to clean up, but it was Tony’s birthday, and a party was in progress in the schoolroom.
“When he brought me in, two dozen perfectly scrubbed, perfectly dressed little sons and daughters of the nobility turned to stare at me. I’ll remember the expressions on their faces until the day I die. They reacted as if I were a rat just crawled from the gutter.”
Judith could imagine the scene perfectly and was not sure if it was the thought of his hurt that caused her throat to tighten, or memories of her own. She was all too familiar with contempt from those who had been born knowing that they belonged. “What happened then?”
“Antonia walked up to me. She looked like a princess, wearing an immaculate white dress and with that incredible hair tied up with blue ribbons. She said, ‘You must be my cousin Adam. I’m so glad you came in time for my party.’
“Then, even though I was covered with soot, fit only for a chimney or a washtub, she kissed me on the cheek, introduced me to every other child in the room, giving the ones who weren’t polite a killing glare, and ended by asking if I wanted an ice. I think her father’s plan had been to clean me up and place me in a foster home or a modest school, but Tony wanted to keep me, as if I were a puppy that had wandered in. So I became part of the household.’’ He finally turned to Judith, his eyes intent. “It should be obvious why I’ve loved her ever since.”
“Antonia does inspire loyalty,” Judith said softly. “She took me in also, when I was newly widowed, penniless, adrift in the world. And she made me not a servant, but a friend.”
Her words made Adam realize how he had come to confide his deepest feelings to Judith Winslow. Her understanding was a healing balm. She, too, loved Antonia; more than that, she had suffered loss, knew what it was to be an outsider.
He had liked Judith from the first time he had met her, but until now he had not realized how attractive she was. He had had eyes only for Antonia, and this moment of unexpected intimacy was like seeing Judith for the first time.
The afternoon sun burnished her thick chestnut hair with auburn highlights. Her slim figure was graceful and feminine, and her delicate features perfectly formed. Strange that he had not noticed her exquisite complexion, so clear it was almost translucent. The fact that she was easily overlooked was a function of her quiet personality. Yet she was not shy; there was no lack of confidence in her fine gray eyes.
He asked, “You’ve been a widow for two years?”
“A bit more than that.” She sighed and turned away to watch the clear water. “To say I am a widow is to engage more sympathy than I deserve. It wasn’t much of a marriage.”
“Your husband was unkind to you?”
“Not really, but he was ill even before we married. I was little more than a servant, except that a servant can give notice. A wife can’t.”
There was a wealth of sadness in those words. “He left you unprovided for?”
“He was a curate, with only his stipend.” She smiled wryly. “I had been acting as an unpaid governess for some cousins. Like you, I had no close family. I was simply a poor relation, an obligation that could be put to work in return for room and board. Mr. Winslow was the curate of the parish church. A pleasant enough man, at least before his illness overcame him. When he asked me to marry him, I thought it would be an improvement.”
“But it wasn’t.”
Her gray eyes met his, her smile more genuine. “If I hadn’t married Mr. Winslow and been widowed, I would still be a governess and Lady Forrester would never have foisted me on Antonia. Since the last two years have been the most rewarding of my life, it is fair to say that everything worked out for the best. In the long run, most things do.”
Adam thought of Antonia and Simon together, and the pain was instant and fierce, stabbing deep inside to where he kept his most secret dreams. But he had never truly believed that Tony could ever be his. She had always been too far above him, both by birth and by her own glorious nature.
In that sense, Simon’s arrival was for the best. God only knew how long Adam would have hovered near Antonia, fearing to speak, waiting for the right moment that would never come.
It was time to stop living for an unattainable dream. Far better to try to match Judith Winslow’s calm good sense. He wondered how he
would have responded to Judith if he had never known Tony, and the answer was immediate. He would have thought her lovely and would have wanted to know her better. He was comfortable with Judith in a way that he had experienced with no other woman save his cousin.
There was nothing to prevent him from furthering his acquaintance with Judith. Her marriage might not have been a good one, but she did not seem embittered. He liked the fact that she was a woman of his own age, who had experienced some of life’s highs and lows. He would have found it impossible to open his heart to a vapid chit from the schoolroom.
Adam stood and offered his hand to assist Judith to her feet. She came up lightly, her small hand trusting within his clasp. “Thank you for listening,” he said quietly, hoping his tone conveyed just how much he meant by the words.
Her smile was gentle and grave. “I am glad I could be here with you. It has been good for both of us.”
Between them lay a faint, sweet sense of possibilities.
Chapter Three
Unmindful of his immaculate riding breeches. Lord Launceston knelt on one knee and poked in the scree of loose stones lying at the base of the cliff. Knowing of his interest in geology, Antonia had brought him to this spot, where she and Adam had found fossils when they were children.
Now, while Simon examined the scree, she was free to admire Simon. Even though it had been a week since his arrival and they had spent almost every waking hour together, she could not get enough of the sight of him.
“We’re in luck,” he said triumphantly, rising and showing his prize to her.
“How lovely!” Antonia reached out and took the fossil from his hand, feeling a quick tingle of pleasure as their fingers touched.
The limestone had shattered along a flat plane, leaving a perfect print of a fern, the delicate tracery of fronds dark against the pale stone. “Once Adam found one similar to this, but it was chipped and weathered, in nowhere near as good condition.” Thinking back, she added, “The best fossil I ever found here showed part of a skeleton. A fish neck, I think.”
“Fish don’t have necks,” Simon said seriously.
Antonia was unable to resist saying with perfect gravity, “Then why do they sell cravats for fish?”
When Simon stared at her, she colored. “I’m sorry, that was an absurd thing to say. My sense of humor is quite deplorable.”
Lord Launceston gave her one of his slow, charming smiles. “The problem is not your sense of humor, but mine. When I am thinking scholarly thoughts, I become most boringly literal.” He examined the fossil in his hand. “This is such a fine specimen that it overwhelmed my ability to appreciate wit.’’
He cast an appreciative glance over the crumbling cliff face and the rubble of rocks. “This place is a geologist’s dream.”
Just as Simon was a maiden’s dream. Savoring his chiseled profile and the inviting way strands of black hair curled on his neck, Antonia found herself smiling.
She knew that she was acting like a besotted fool, and she did not mind in the least. She was twenty-six years old and in love for the first time in her life. As a child she had vaguely assumed that she and Adam would marry someday, but that had been sheer lack of imagination on her part.
Later she’d experienced the usual girlish infatuations, but had never felt that the objects of her fervor were destined to become her life’s companion. She had cherished a secret belief that there would be one special man for her, a man worth waiting for, who would love her as deeply as she loved him.
As the years went by, she lost that certainty. Since girls were raised to be bird-witted romantics, she came to believe that she had been deluding herself. That was why, in a burst of pragmatism, she had accepted an offer from Lord Ramsay. When pragmatism faded, she’d jilted from a growing conviction that marriage to that particular man would be a disastrous error.
As the years passed with ever-increasing speed, she had begun to worry that she had waited too long, that her foolish fantasy would keep her a childless spinster. And then Simon had appeared and her life had snapped into focus.
The moment she saw him, she had known that she had been right to wait. What if she had married Adam, then Simon had come to visit them? To meet the love of her life when she was married to another man for whom she cared deeply… The mere thought of such a tragedy caused her to shudder.
Simon caught her involuntary movement out of the corner of his eye. “Are you cold? I’m a selfish beast for keeping you out here in the wind.’’
She smiled sunnily. “I’m not cold in the least. My guilty secret is that I’m as tough as a cavalryman, without a trace of female delicacy either mental or physical.”
He looked disconcerted before he returned her smile, his blue eyes humorous. “You make it hard for me to admit what a frail fellow I am, Lady Antonia. Will I be utterly sunk in your opinion if I suggest that it is time we ate and that that stone wall will protect my feeble bones from the wind?”
Antonia laughed at how neatly he had maneuvered her to a warmer spot. She had to admit that the breeze was a trifle overfresh. Lifting the skirts of her navy blue riding habit, she collected their al fresco meal from her horse’s saddlebags.
One of the things she loved about Simon was his quiet, self-deprecating humor. Any other man so handsome would be unbearably conceited, but he seemed oblivious to the effect he had on women. Instead, he was almost diffident in the way he treated her, as if not quite believing she welcomed his attentions.
The protected spot by the stone wall was sunny and warm, and commanded a spectacular view north to the rugged hills of the high Peak country. There was a delightful intimacy in sitting so close together on a blanket, sharing wine, pate, cheese, and fresh crusty bread.
After hunger was appeased, Simon leaned back against the stone wall, his long legs crossed at the ankle, a glass of red wine clasped in one hand. “Is one of those hills the Peak?”
She shook her head. “No, in spite of the name, there isn’t any one peak. Even Kinder Scout isn’t a real mountain, though it is the highest point in the district. This country is more like the Scottish Highlands or the Yorkshire moors.”
She studied the prospect, trying to imagine how it looked to someone who had never seen it before. “Some parts are too barren even for grazing, fit only for grouse-hunting. I know it looks bleak to some people, but I find it beautiful, even though almost half of Thornleigh isn’t arable.”
“It is beautiful, and dramatic as well.’’ Simon had a slow, quiet manner of speaking, every syllable clear and considered. “Once this land lay beneath the sea. Marine creatures lived and died, leaving their intricate forms for us to marvel at.
“Later the seas retreated and there were plants like the ferns, perhaps an exotic tropical jungle with creatures we can’t even imagine. Then the earth lifted, the layers of stone folding over on themselves like lengths of velvet.”
He gestured at the valley, his blue eyes dreamy with inner visions. “Powerful forces that we have only the barest inkling of shaped the earth. Now rivers run through the fertile valleys and fields fill the dales, but the peaks still lift their defiant heads to the sky, and the earth still changes, slowly but inexorably.”
He halted and gave her an apologetic smile. “Please stop me when I get carried away like that. I shouldn’t be boring you with such dry stuff.”
“You aren’t boring me,” Antonia said softly, mesmerized by the images he created of her beloved land, and how close his shoulder was to hers. “You make it sound like poetry. In fact,” she confessed in a moment of candor, “I love the way you speak, so slow and thoughtful. I would enjoy listening to you read the most boring sermon ever written.”
“I guess that is a compliment,” he said with amusement, “but one I don’t deserve. I speak the way I do because I had a terrible stutter as a boy, and the only way I could speak at all was to do so slowly. It took years to get the knack of it.”
“How dreadful for you!” Antonia had gone to school with a
girl who had a mild stutter, and had suffered vicarious agonies of embarrassment when her friend couldn’t manage to get her words out. “I suppose you were teased unmercifully.”
“Schoolboys can be horrid little beasts,” he allowed. “I spent much of my childhood buried in books, because then I didn’t have to say anything.”
Antonia didn’t reply for a moment, realizing that Simon had just told her something very important about what made him the way he was. It was easy to imagine him as a shy, sensitive boy turning to books because they wouldn’t taunt him, growing more comfortable with things than people.
That lack of confidence must have been what saved him from the arrogance of beauty. The thought increased her tenderness. “Books proved good friends. Adam says you are considered a brilliant scholar.”
“Adam flatters me,” he demurred. “I’ve written a few articles, but I’ve produced no earth-shattering discoveries or theories.”
He lifted his glass for a sip of wine. She watched the flexing muscles of his throat with fascination as he swallowed. “Adam is the one who is brilliant. He has a great breadth of knowledge. He seems to know something about every topic imaginable. Beyond that, he can take a theory and see its practical applications.”
Antonia drew her legs underneath her, demurely tucking the dark fabric into place. “How did you two meet each other? Adam said something about an observatory.”
“Yes, the East India Company maintains several observatories. I was doing some studies at the one in Bombay when Adam wandered in one night. He had never used a telescope and was curious to examine the heavens. I let him do some viewing and we started talking.” Simon gave his self-deprecatory smile. “If I had realized who he was, I might have been shy about talking to him, but fortunately I didn’t.”
“Knew who he was? What do you mean?”
“Why, every Briton in India has heard of Adam Yorke.” He gave her a surprised look. “He was known as one of the cleverest and most daring merchants in the East, someone who drove a hard bargain but was always impeccably fair. His youth and the speed with which he built his fortune made him something of a legend.”