Chapter Twenty-Two

 

The carriage moved along the road with a slight jostle, its destination having been kept from Rachel. She gazed out the window at the last of the houses disappearing and the thick clusters of trees replacing them. The day was bright and sunny with not a dot of white to mar the deep blue of the sky. They had been traveling for nearly half an hour, making Rachel wonder if they would soon arrive at Abberton House. However, if that were the case, she had not used this road to visit the Earl’s family home. So perhaps that was not where they were going.

“Will you still keep our destination from me?” Rachel asked. The man had insisted they take this foolish ride and had refused to give her even the smallest of clues as to where they were heading. Although the idea of not knowing caused a small amount of frustration, a larger amount of excitement overrode it.

“I will,” he replied with a sly grin.

Rachel gave him a disgruntled sigh and continued her study of the terrain.

Finally, the carriage began to slow and then turned right. The trees gave way to a large open field with a single oak tree standing tall and alone in the middle of it. When they came to a full stop, Lord Linfield opened the door, set the step on the ground and helped her alight from the carriage. Then he reached in and removed a large basket and a blanket from under the seat before the driver rode off beyond the edge of the forest from where they had just come.

“Please,” Lord Linfield said as he held out his elbow to her, “come with me.”

Rachel stared at his arm for a moment. “You do realize that our engagement party is tomorrow, do you not?” she asked in a demanding tone, although inside she did not feel even the slightest bit angry. “There is still so much to do.”

He chuckled. “Worry not about time,” he said smoothly. “A schedule is nothing to fret over at the moment.” Then he gave her a wink.

Once again, Rachel stared at the man beside her, unsure if he had been replaced by another. Not once had she ever heard Lord Joseph Linfield make such a statement, or any that even resembled such a statement, as the one he had just made. She could not help but smile.

“Who are you, My Lord?” she asked, allowing a small smile to play on her lips. “Where has the man I am meant to marry gone?”

This made him lean his head back and laugh, and she thought she had never heard anything so wondrous in her life. The sound was deep and filled with mirth, a sound she hoped to hear often from this day forward.

Rachel finally took his arm and he led her to a place beneath the oak tree where he spread the blanket on the ground. He offered her his hand and helped her lower herself to the ground, and as she spread her skirts around her, he sat beside her and began unpacking the items in the basket.

“This is a beautiful spot,” Rachel said as she closed her eyes and reveled in the slight movement of the air around her and breathed in the scents of the grass and trees. And that of Lord Linfield, a muskiness with just a hint of bergamot. She found herself surprised that she had never noticed it before.

When she opened her eyes, she was pleasantly surprised when he offered her a glass of wine and kept one for himself. “Indeed, it is quite lovely here,” he replied. “I thought this short excursion would make for a nice break from the hustle and bustle of planning you have been doing and allow us a moment’s peace with no servants, or anyone else, around.”

Rachel held back the giggle. The only other person who had been in constant attendance had been his mother, and she knew better than to agree with him on that point, even if she did. Instead she said, “Well, I think it a marvelous idea.”

He lifted his glass and said, “To us.”

“To us.”

They both sipped the wine, a lovely elderberry, one of Rachel’s favorites. Had he known this?

“Are you looking forward to tomorrow?” he asked.

“I am,” she replied honestly. “I have to admit, however, that I find myself a bit worried. My stomach does continuous flip-flops. What if I make a mistake? I do not want to embarrass you.”

Lord Linfield reached over and took her hand in his. How could such a simple touch make her heart race and her body feel flushed? “You can never embarrass me,” he said, a huskiness to his voice. “Your beauty, your heart, your mind, they are all something to admire.”

Rachel thought her body would ignite and scorch the ground around her. She pulled her hand away and drank from the glass in hopes at cooling the heat that had overtaken her treasonous body. When she felt she could speak without her voice cracking, she said, “The man who sits before me is not the man I thought he was. You have become a man full of confidence, but it is self-owned and comes from within. I must admit, I admire that man.”

He smiled and then opened his jacket. Rachel shook her head to indicate she did not understand what he wished her to see. Then she laughed. “My Lord! Your pocket watch. You have left it behind?”

He belted out that deep laugh once again and closed his coat once again. “It was not needed today, so I left it at home,” he said as if this was a decision he made often. “Yes, the man I was before is now gone, replaced with a man who is, for once, happy. And it is all because of you.”

The heat returned and Rachel almost fanned herself to cool it down. However, she knew only one of two things could do so: either a change in the conversation or allowing the man beside her to pull him into his arms. She knew which she would prefer, but she decided the other would be much more appropriate.

“Tomorrow…” she began to say before he stopped her.

“Tomorrow we celebrate our engagement; however, I believe it is more than that. We celebrate us, two people who…care for each other and foresee a wondrous future together.”

Rachel blinked back tears. “I agree, but there is something more,” she whispered. “From the moment you walked into the Rooster’s Crow, you did something to me here.” She pointed to her breast to indicate her heart. “I did not know what it was, but over the past few weeks, that feeling grew, and now I know what it is.”

He leaned in closer to her. “Tell me,” he said, his voice as quiet as hers.

“That I have come to care very deeply for you.”

“As have I for you,” he replied. Then he leaned in, and all pretense of her attempt to choose conversation over an embrace was gone as his lips touched hers.

Under that mighty oak tree, Rachel shared a kiss with her fiancé, a man she had come to realize she had loved from the moment they first met. This kiss was different from the one they had shared in the drawing room before, for a kiss in love is unlike any other.

Although she did not know how long the kiss lasted, it felt like an eternity had passed when they finally pulled away from each other. They both smiled as they gazed into each other’s eyes. Tomorrow they would confess their love for everyone to hear, but Rachel knew this confession from their heart was much more powerful.