Page 58 of Mending the Baron's Sins
It made him imagine other ways he could make her gasp, perhaps beneath him on that bed behind them.
“I am well physically,” he assured her. “Better than I have been in a long time, but my mind will not settle after this appalling night.”
Her hand tightened through his. He thought she might pull back, but she didn’t. Instead, she stepped toward him. His breath caught in his throat.
“Take a walk with me outside,” he pleaded. “I think it might do my nerves some good.”
He didn’t add his other motivation.
I want to keep you by my side for a little longer yet tonight.
Chapter 17
I should have said no.
Yet Orla hadn’t. She had gladly pulled on a spencer jacket and come out with Horace, braving the cold weather and the night, to give him what he wanted.
They stepped out of the back door of the house together, the cool wind bristling their hair. Horace walked forward, and Orla raced to catch up with him. Stunned, she stared down at his long steps and the pace he was setting.
“My Lord?”
“Yes.” He turned to face her, an eagerness in his expression.
“Look at how you are walking,” she said with a great smile. “Look what strength you have.”
“Ah, yes.” His expression altered, contorting for a second. She wondered if he had hoped she would say something else, but then he smiled all the same. “I have you to thank for this. I am sure of it, Orla.” He walked on again and she walked at his side. Her fingers itched to take hold of his hand, but she stopped herself.
This meeting is as clandestine enough without blurring anymore of the boundaries between us.
“Tonight was a poor night then,” she whispered softly.
“It was dreadful.” He sighed and looked up at the starry sky.
“You can confide in me, you know. What you say to me, I would never repeat to another.”
“A healer’s confidence, eh?” he said, glancing at her with an amused smile.
“A friend’s confidence,” she corrected. His smile grew warmer still. They both stopped walking, staring at one another. Her breath hitched, and she inhaled sharply, too. The tension was palpable. Then he looked away and groaned.
“Your friendship is more important to me than you could know.” He brushed a hand through his coppery hair, making it wild, then he walked on, and she hurried to follow him. “It was a dreadful night for many reasons. For one, Miss Bonneville is making eyes at me when my friend, Walter, has designs on her. Quite frankly, a bumblebee would interest me more as a bedfellow than she would.”
Orla laughed softly at the words. Talking of bedfellows made her walk closer to him still. They passed from the paths full of twiggy bushes toward the end of the garden, where snowdrops were poking their heads through the ice. At the end of the path was a rotunda that the baron seemed to be directing his steps toward.
“I talked to Walter too about the conditions in our cotton mills. When I said I think it’s high time we made a change, he just…” Words failed him, and he shook his head.
“What?” she urged him on, walking closer to his side still. When he said nothing, she slipped her arm through his, giving into the temptation of wanting to touch him. He looked down at her hand, their pace slowing a little.
“He mocked me,” he whispered. “Reminded me of all the awful things I said in my youth. All the sins I have done.” His eyes flicked up to meet hers as they hesitated in the doorway of the rotunda. “Do you think some men are too condemned?”
“How do you mean?”
“That we have sinned so much, we cannot possibly redeem ourselves?” His voice was strained.
The vulnerability and pain in his voice made her want to fling her arms around him. She longed to pull him into the rotunda,to show him through kiss and touch, exactly what she thought of him.
“Redemption, I do not believe, comes from without. It comes from within.” Softly, she raised her other hand and placed it in the center of his chest. The corner of his lips flickered up in a smile when he breathed deeply.
Is he indulging in that touch?
