prolonged contacts. Now she could feel the muscles of his arm through the thickness of his greatcoat, and her shoulder rested against his upper arm. She felt small and fragile again, as she had when they had become lovers. And she wanted above everything else to close her eyes and lay her head against his shoulder and trust to his strength to bear all her burdens.
She had very nearly cracked back there in the drawing room. One moment more and she would have been screaming with fury at poor Mr. Simms and Lord Harding. And over what? Just a small matter of playing the pianoforte and singing. It was too ghastly a thought to bear contemplation. She would have horribly embarrassed both herself and everyone else present. But more serious than that, she might have jeopardized Emily's chances with Lord Harding. He might not want a bride with a sister who could so lose all sense of propriety. Though soon enough he would know anyway. William had saved her on this occasion. There could be no doubt that he had sensed her mood and had done what he could to avert trouble. She had to feel some gratitude.
They walked in silence for several minutes, threading their way slowly among the graveled walks of the formal gardens that stretched for several hundred yards before the house. He was the first to speak.
'What is it, Nell?' he said quietly. 'What is it that is making you so very miserable?'
She wanted to give him a tart answer. She opened her mouth to do so. But the words would not come. The fight had gone completely out of her for the present. She hung her head and said nothing.
'Is it me?' he asked. 'Have I caused all this change? I can hardly recognize in you the carefree little wood nymph that I once knew.'
'Don't,' she murmured.
'What?'
'Don't,' she repeated. 'Don't, don't!' She tried to pull her hand free of his arm, but he would not let her go-
'Nell, you are not crying, are you?' he asked, turning to her and trying to see into her face.
'No,' she said, but her voice came out on such a quaver that she gulped and made matters worse.
'You
'There is nothing,' she said into the cloth of his coat. He had to bend his ear closer to hear the words between her sobs. 'There is nothing you can do for me, William. Neither of us is quite the person I thought, and it is too late now to change that. There is nothing you can do. Take me back, please.'
'You are in such pain,' he said, laying his cheek against the top of her head. 'And you have been like this since I met you here. I have to do something, Nell. I cannot see you destroy yourself like this. Will it help if I tell you something about myself and why I left you as I did in the summer?'
'No, it would not help at all,' she said, pulling her head away from his coat, though he still held her firmly against him. 'I do not want to talk about that.'
'Would you believe me if I told you that I was planning to leave for Yorkshire to find you and ask you to be my wife before ever I met you here and discovered who you really were?'
'Oh, no,' she said wildly. 'Don't say that. Don't lie, William. I have little enough to admire you for as it is.'
'You have cast me in the part of the villain, I see,' he said sadly, 'and I can say nothing to redeem myself in your eyes, Nell.' He reached up a hand and put behind her ear a lock of wayward hair that had worked loose from her braids. 'We were friends once.'
She stared back at him, feeling more miserable than she could ever remember feeling. He could be so convincing when one was close to him. She was suffocated by regrets for what might have been.
And then he was kissing her. And she was quite powerless to resist him. She was too tired and too weak to do anything but put one arm up on his broad and strong shoulder and thread the fingers of the other hand through his wind-ruffled hair. And she relaxed her body full against his and surrendered to his embrace. He was so much bigger than she, so much stronger. His hand on the back of her head was warm and steady. His mouth covered hers with firm assurance, and his tongue gently caressed her lips before taking warm possession of her mouth. In a moment she would begin to think… in a moment she would push away from him.
'Nell,' he said, his lips against her throat, 'let us put the past behind us. Let it be as if we met but today. We will start anew and I shall court you as I should. Let us forgive and forget. Shall we?'
The words were hypnotic. More than anything else in the world she wanted to agree with him, to look up and abandon herself to her love for him. But she could not, dared not trust him again. He could not love her. He wanted to do what was proper because she was Lady Helen Wade. She hardened her heart.
Helen pulled her head back from him so that they were looking into each other's eyes. Hers were clear again. Gone was the languor of a few moments before. 'The past is with us whether we wish it to be or not, William,' she said. 'I at least can never be free of it. And I can neither forgive nor forget. I did not meet you today. I met you several months ago and I know too much about you to wish for any courtship.'
He took a deep breath. 'I see you are inflexible,' he said. 'You want someone perfect, Nell, and perfection does not exist in this life. Can you not make allowances for my weakness when you have been weak yourself?'
Her eyes flashed. 'My only weakness was to be deceived by a man like you,' she said.
'No,' he said. They were standing facing each other now, no longer touching. 'Your upbringing must have taught you that even to be alone with a man without your parents' close chaperonage was unacceptable behavior. Yet you did not avoid a second private meeting with me. You did not try to prevent me from kissing you, and when I gave you the chance to avoid lying with me, you did not take it. You quite knowingly gave me your virginity, Nell. You did wrong according to the code by which our society lives. A serious wrong. Can you not, then, have more sympathy with me?'
'How dare you stand there and point out my transgressions!' Helen said, her eyes blazing. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides again. 'You sinned equally, sir. You sought me out a second time and you chose to kiss me. You chose to come back yet again and… and m-make love to me. I believe we are equal on that score. It is not for that that I have come to hate you. What I cannot forgive is your dishonesty and cowardice. You could not face me and tell me that you had grown tired of me, that you felt no responsibility for a girl of my apparent station in life.'
'Dishonesty!' he said. His face was very grim. 'I do not believe I have any monopoly on dishonesty, ma'am. I do not believe I am too hard of understanding, but it seems to me that you spoke not one word to suggest your real identity. Indeed, I am convinced that you deliberately set out to deceive me. Even your voice was different. You did not speak there as you do here, in the voice of an educated and cultured woman. How could you have allowed me to go on believing a lie when we had become lovers? I felt close to you. I thought there were no barriers between us.'
'Obviously there were,' she said. 'You did not know I was living a lie, and I did not know that you were merely using me because you thought me a girl of no account.'
He made an impatient gesture. 'Do you know,' he said, 'I am glad now that you did not accept my offer. I do not think I would want a wife who believes only she has the right to err, and who has no tolerance at all for the failings of others. I would not want such a woman to be the mother of my children.'
'Ohhh!' she cried. It came out on a long wail. 'Oh, how could you? How could you!' She began to sob again, loud uncontrolled sobs, which sounded almost as if they were tearing her apart.
Mainwaring reached out for her. She was clearly beside herself. But she slapped his hands away and turned from him.
'Nell,' he said.
'Leave me alone!' she cried. 'Oh, how could you! I'll kill myself. I swear I'll kill myself.'
He reached for her again, in real alarm this time. But she tore her arm out of his grasp and started to run toward the house. She stumbled once, but she picked herself up before she fell completely to the ground, and continued to run. Mainwaring stayed where he was, watching her panicked departure and listening to her sobs. Finally, as she disappeared through the door, he began to hurry and then to run after her.
