That Summer: A Novel by Lauren Willig

Author:Lauren Willig [Willig, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781466851474
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Herne Hill, 1849

Imogen’s words stopped Gavin in his tracks, clenching around his heart like a fist.

Her voice behind him was unsteady, shaking. “How can you simply turn and walk away after that?”

Gavin knew he shouldn’t turn around. Leaving and leaving quickly was the only option open to him. But he turned anyway.

“After that,” he said, his voice low, “how could I stay?”

Imogen’s face was very pale, but for two patches of color high on her cheeks. “So you’ll just take the coward’s way out? Speak and run and leave me here behind?”

Frustration crackled through him. “And if I were to stay, what then? Tea cakes and polite conversation?”

Imogen made an impatient gesture. “I thought you liked the tea cakes!”

“I do!” Good Lord, were they really arguing about tea cakes? They stood facing each other, panting as if they’d just gone a round in the ring. Or a bout in bed. Gavin pressed the heels of his hands against his temples. “It’s not the bloody tea cakes.”

He saw her eyes widen. Had no one sworn before her before? Good. Let her see what he really was and be warned. He wasn’t one of her polished gentlemen; he’d come from a place where people grabbed and scrabbled.

“For the love of God, Imogen—” He hadn’t meant to call her by her name. It just slipped out. Gavin ground determinedly on. “I don’t see any other way. To sit here and be near you and see you smile and yet not be able to touch you— It’s more than flesh can bear. It’s more than I can bear.”

He didn’t know how else to say it, how to make her understand. His feelings for her weren’t honorable and courtly. They were messy and raw and very, very carnal.

“I don’t trust myself with you,” he said. “You shouldn’t trust me with you.”

Instead of moving away, Imogen took a step towards him, the wide skirts of her gown brushing against the toes of his boots. Her face was pale and set, her eyes dark and wide.

“I do not want to lose you,” she said.

Gavin pressed his eyes shut, hating himself for hurting her, hating himself all the more for not being able to simply walk away. He had thought to spare them both pain, but this only made it worse.

“You will forget me,” he said in a constricted voice. “The portrait will hang on your wall and become dingy with soot and you will forget all about the man who wielded the brush.”

Even as he said it, he knew he lied. He didn’t want her to forget him. He wasn’t noble enough for that. He wanted her to long for him as he longed for her, to dream of him at night, restless and unsatisfied.

“Can you really believe that?” Imogen’s skirts swished against her legs as she moved in agitated circles around the summerhouse. “You cannot know, you cannot imagine, how much these past months have meant to me, to know, every Monday, that you would be here.

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