Page 21 of Entertaining the Earl (Vows in Vauxhall Gardens #2)
S usannah turned the final page of the novel she had been devouring that week, and let out a sigh of delight. She loved when everything was satisfyingly tied up at the end of the novel, a conclusion which real life seemed to so often be lacking.
The fire in the grate had almost died out, and the house was quiet.
Her mother and father had gone to bed over an hour earlier, and she had promised she wasn’t far behind—but it was too tempting to stay in the comfortable chair she had been occupying in the parlor and finish her book, even though her eyelids were beginning to droop.
The novel— The Mysteries of Udolhpo —had given her more ideas for stories that she wished to pen herself.
Feeling inspired, she hurried over to the bureau in the corner, took out a sheet of parchment from a stack which her mother kept there for corresponding, and a quill and ink, and began to scribble furiously.
The market day scene she wrote was something she had witnessed many times before, except she had added a twist: an orphaned girl was about to be kidnapped, and her life set on a very different path.
She wondered if her scribblings—which were locked away in the drawer of her bureau, for she would have been mortified if anyone had ever discovered them and read them—would be more interesting if she had lived a more exciting life.
If she had traveled, and seen some of the world, as Lord Bourne had done, then perhaps the settings for her stories would not simply be London, or the English countryside .
But she hadn’t ever even been to Scotland, and she doubted she would travel any further than her aunt’s home in Peterborough, which they occasionally visited, unless she somehow ended up marrying a man from further afield.
Or marrying at all.
The candle at the bureau flickered and guttered, and she stopped writing as the room grew dark.
The light from the dying fire was not enough to see by, and she knew she ought to go to bed, and not light another one, as much as her imagination was fired up.
They were to call on her mother’s friends in the morning, and though it would not be a particularly early start, her mother would be able to tell if she had stayed up too late reading or writing.
She always could, somehow. And then Susannah wouldn’t hear the end of it.
She blew on the parchment, hoping to dry the ink quicker so it would not run, and then folded it before padding from the room. The candles in the sconces were still burning, and so she knew not all the staff had gone to bed, but the hallway was deserted.
The library door had been left ajar, and she could see a fire had been lit in there, too, and was presumably dying out now like her own in the parlor. She passed the door, thinking how tired she suddenly felt, when she heard humming, and froze.
Who was still up?
And why was she so drawn to the sound? She knew the answers to both questions of course: Lord Bourne. He was awake as he had been before, and it was he whose humming she heard.
Without thinking about whether it was a good idea, she pushed the door open and found the Earl of Bourne sitting before the fireplace, humming to himself with his eyes closed.
He clearly hadn’t heard her enter and for a moment she just watched him.
She had been struck by how handsome he was on the very first day he had entered the parlor, but relaxed like this, he was almost beautiful.
His head was tilted back, leaving the column of his neck exposed to her gaze, lit by the firelight.
His lips were slightly parted, reminding her of their kiss and his taste.
An unexpected urge to run her own lips over the hard angle of his jaw and chin, over the masculine ridge of his Adam’s apple and down to the soft hollow of his throat struck her, though she didn’t know why that was so appealing, nor why the thought of it made her breath catch or her knees weak.
She knew she shouldn’t be there. That they should not be alone together. That standing and staring at him as the shadows from the fire danced across his face was very inappropriate behavior indeed.
But she couldn’t help herself.
Nor could she stop the unexpected sneeze which came upon her without warning. She tried to quell it, but doing so only made it louder, and when she opened her eyes, his own were open too, and staring at her in shock.
“I’m sorry,” she squeaked, gripping the folded piece of parchment in her hand tightly. “I didn’t mean—”
“I thought everyone was asleep,” he said, sitting upright but not standing.
“I was just finishing my book. I…heard you humming.”
He screwed up his face a little. “Was I?”
She nodded. “I didn’t recognize the tune…”
His eyes glazed over, as if trying to remember. “I can’t even continue the tune. I didn’t realize I was doing it.”
Feeling a little silly, she nevertheless found herself still standing in the doorway, attempting to hum the same tune which had drawn her into the room.
His face softened, and his eyes filled with emotion.
“I haven’t heard that in a long time. I didn’t realize I still remembered it…”
She stepped into the room and then pushed the library door closed, telling herself it was as inappropriate as staring at him, but that it needed to be done to keep the heat from the fire in the room—even though it hadn’t needed to be done initially, for she’d been standing in an open doorway after all.
She pushed such logical thoughts aside. She was tired of thinking, of always doing what was expected.
Tonight was a night for doing the unexpected.
So she asked, “Where is it from?” before walking a little closer, so she could speak without raising her voice.
“My mother used to sing it to me, when I was a child,” he said, the ghost of a smile passing across his face. “I cannot remember the lyrics, but the tune is unmistakable.”
She smiled and took a step closer. She knew she ought to go to bed, to remove herself from being alone in his presence. Just look at what had happened the last time.
But no one knew about it. And they had pretended like nothing had happened.
So she needed to make sure nothing happened again.
Even if she secretly rather wanted it to.
They had not spoken without an awkward air surrounding them since she had heard him loudly proclaim he would never marry her, and she found she missed the easy conversations. She missed him…which she didn’t think made much sense, since she had only known him a few short weeks.
But in spite of all of that, she did miss him. And the urge to sit and converse with him, just for a short while, without anyone around to judge them or what they said, or how they behaved was too great to ignore.