The Last Killiney by J. Jay Kamp

Author:J. Jay Kamp [Kamp, J. Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B006AJQ3GU
Published: 2011-11-18T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

When they left London the next morning, Paul was elated. He’d gotten virtually no sleep, but he didn’t care. Having spent the night alone with his racing thoughts, he’d been happy to stumble outside in the predawn stillness, eyes blurry, head aching, yet completely content when at last he was able to take Ravenna’s hand.

Does she even know what she’s done t’me? That she’s changed m’point of view?

Helping her into the carriage, Paul wondered if she could imagine as much—that in her eager, inexperienced kiss he’d found something altogether deeper than passion. He’d lost himself in her innocence. He’d soaked up her hurry, her trusting nature, even her bewilderment in her own responses, and seeing that love in her eyes as their carriage rattled out of Charing Cross, Paul felt changed.

And yet he couldn’t tell her. He wanted to. Indeed, all night he’d been able to think of nothing else. But as much as he craved wrapping her in his arms, whispering those things he’d realized in the hours they’d been apart, still he didn’t, for he’d noticed something strange in the last few days.

James and Sarah never showed affection.

Paul couldn’t figure it out. Even in the carriage that morning, when no one but themselves were likely to see, James and Sarah acted the same. They didn’t whisper. They didn’t kiss. In fact, James wouldn’t even sit next to the maid, much less hold her hand. The pair did talk, but no more amongst themselves than with Paul or Ravenna. If he hadn’t already been told as much, Paul would have never even guessed the two were lovers.

Not that he cared what James and Sarah did. It was only that Paul reckoned he ought to be following the guy’s lead, behaving the way an eighteenth-century nobleman behaved. If that meant he didn’t sit with Ravenna as he wished he could, if James thought it proper to chaperone or whatever, then Paul should go along, yeah?

So he made a vow in the darkness that morning: Keep your hands t’yourself. Maybe James didn’t have a problem with it, public affection and all that, but Paul wasn’t about to start a row in the midst of a three-day carriage ride.

Even so, when the light strengthened and he was able to see Ravenna more clearly, he found himself straying. Where she leaned against the window, gazing at him with wistful eyes, she seemed delicate, fragile. She obviously was thinking about last night at the church, and this, along with the snug fit of her blouse, that pout to her lips so suggestive of things she’d never even heard of, let alone done…Paul could hardly stand it. He had to be near her. The memory of their kiss burned in his mind, and he seriously considered ignoring James’s example then, scooping her up in a rough embrace, searching the contours of her soft little mouth.

This he didn’t do.

Behaving himself all the way to Yeovil, Paul kept to his side of the carriage. He asked

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