Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,74

of poetry.”

“My mother would quite disagree with you,” she said with a small, but appreciative, smile for the other woman’s defense. Faye settled on a poem, and began to read.

“Wh-when the melancholy fit shall fall,” she began. Her voice trembled slightly at the attention now directed her way. Or mayhap it was just having Tynan’s gaze trained so upon her. His gaze burned like the hottest fire upon her skin. She paused and coughed quietly into her fist and then resumed.

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

When she finished, silence lingered in the room.

“I daresay you and my brother are a perfect pair,” the young woman said, then added, “when it comes to poetry.”

“I should have chosen something happier. Forgive me,” Faye said quickly, flipping through the pages.

Sara leaned over and laid a staying hand upon hers. “Nonsense. It was lovely. You have given me another way of looking at such works.” A mischievous sparkle lit the pretty young woman’s eyes as she looked to her brother. “Though it leaves me bereft having to admit my mournful-poem-loving brother may have indeed been correct.”

“Come,” he scoffed, extending his long legs out and looping them at the ankles. “I am not all serious when it comes to poetry.” He waggled his eyebrows and recited,

There was a young poet in Oxford,

whose love of wagering offended all the men and women who knew him.

So … they took all his dice, and stole all his cards, and ground the young bard’s most prized possessions into lard,

putting an end to his whim of playing.

A startled laugh burst from Faye’s lips, and her shoulders shook with her amusement as she clapped. “Brava!”

With a flourishing sweep of his hand at his brow, Tynan tipped his head in teasing acceptance of that praise.

“You did not say you are also a poet, Mr. Wylie,” she accused. Even as she said it, she realized he wouldn’t have. Their relationship had begun as adversarial, focused wholly on her desire to bring down the criminal lords and ladies in London, while he’d resisted her goals because of the risks they posed. To him and, now she realized, his sister.

“Oh, he is quite good at limericks,” his sister answered for him with that same sisterly devotion that Faye knew all too well. “Do another, Tynan!”

He waved his hand. “Come, Miss Poplar doesn’t wish to hear my poor attempts—”

“She does!” Faye blurted. “I do.”

They went on that way, with time blending and blurring together in a moment she didn’t want to end. In a visit she wanted to go on forever. This joy, this lightness that flourished in this household, had once existed in her own, with she and her siblings filling the household with jests and teasing and laughter and so much love. All of that had changed. Oh, not because of the absence of love. Never that. Rather, a bleakness had invaded the fabric of the family as Faye and her siblings each had reckoned with their family’s ugliest sin. Of course, they still knew joy in one another’s presence, but they were also adults who’d gone their own ways. Tristan had a wife and children of his own. Christina, now widowed, was a young mother to three. And Claire had snuck off to wed a stranger and had made a new home someplace else.

“Miss Poplar?”

Sara Wylie’s gently spoken question pulled Faye away from her melancholy musings and back to the moment.

She stole a glance at the window. “Forgive me.” Faye came reluctantly to her feet. “I must be returning home.” No one there would miss her. The maids and staff would all assume she was off with Daria. Otherwise, the household was largely empty and quiet.

Sara jumped up, and coming around the table, she caught Faye’s hands in her own. “Oh, you must return. I’ve had ever such a splendid time.” She glanced past Faye at Tynan. “You must allow her to visit me. I shan’t forgive you, if you don’t.”

“I…” She wanted to. She’d become so accustomed to being shunned by all except Daria Kearsley that she’d not believed to know such kindness in anyone else. The truth remained, however, that she wasn’t really welcome here. Her