A Lady's Dream Come True - Grace Burrowes Page 0,27
make a fool of myself either,” Oak said. “An artist can be the subject of a caricature, a bon vivant who lives for pleasure, respects no authority, and dies young and disgraced, his potential never fulfilled. I refuse to be that fool, but I am…”
He nuzzled Vera’s cheek.
“Tempted, Oak?” He was also aroused, enough for Vera to know that she wasn’t the only one affected by an experimental kiss.
“I am lonely.”
Whatever she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that. Men did not admit to loneliness. They made jocular references to their humors being out of balance, they flirted, or they sat in dim corners over-imbibing late at night. Dirk had had many, many lonely friends.
“Loneliness is part of being a widow.” Vera had never admitted that to herself, though it should have been obvious. “Maybe the worst part.” Loneliness could also—alas—be part of a marriage, even a fairly good marriage.
“I am from a large family,” Oak said, speaking quietly, his hands moving gently on her back. “My brothers are my best friends, and they are lately scattered to the four winds. I am happy for them, but I hadn’t thought… I am expressing myself poorly. I do better with paints.”
Vera took his hand and led him to an old sofa draped in a Holland cover. “Had you never left Dorset before?”
She had missed home terribly as a new bride, only slowly coming to realize the enormity of the step she’d taken when she’d spoken her vows.
“I’ve left Dorset many times. I went up to university, took courses at the Royal Academy, accompanied my father on his botanical jaunts all over Britain. He even traveled with me to Paris during the Peace of Amiens, and I’ve longed to return.”
Vera took the place immediately beside him, hip to hip, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“But it’s different, isn’t it,” she said, cuddling into his side, “when you realize that the next time you go back to the place where you grew up, the place you love so well, you will go back as a guest.”
They remained curled up together on the old sofa for a long, sad, sweet moment. The sheer bliss of adult affection blended with a touch of homesickness, and Vera felt tears threaten. Dirk would have told her to cry and be done with it, for surely joy would follow, but Dirk hadn’t always been right.
Sometimes, heartache followed heartache, a winter that never ended.
Oak kissed her cheek, an invitation for Vera to turn her head and kiss him back. She did, and that somehow resulted in her being on her back, one foot on the floor, Oak crouched over her.
“I want your weight,” she said. Wanted the feel of a healthy male lying between her legs, his arousal pressing against her sex through a frustrating abundance of clothing.
Oak rested his forehead against hers, then sat up and offered Vera a hand so she might do likewise.
“We must not be precipitous,” he said.
Inspiring Oak Dorning to precipitous passion sprang up as Vera’s dearest wish. “You sound as dazed as I feel,” she replied, smoothing down his hair. “And you look a bit precipitous.” He looked more than a bit luscious, slightly flushed, a tad undone.
He smiled crookedly. “I found treasure in your attic, Mrs. Channing.”
Naughty man. “So did I. Frolicking won’t solve loneliness, Oak.”
“Maybe not, but I suspect one can find distraction from loneliness in a friendly frolic, and maybe passing relief, if one’s expectations are reasonable and one chooses one’s company carefully.”
Vera patted the tumescence disarranging his falls. “One, one, one. What are you sketching around, Oak?”
He took her hand, kissed her knuckles, and laced his fingers with hers. “I cannot offer you much. I will certainly do the work you’ve hired me to do. I will instruct the children. Other than that, I plan on leaving for London in the autumn, there to pursue my artistic ambitions. I do not foresee that my path will bring me back to Hampshire in the near future.”
“This honesty business can be taken too far, you know.”
“Until I leave for London, might we be friends, Vera? Friends and lovers? Either status would be a significant honor and a pleasure, but you aren’t looking for a mere bedroom convenience, and I don’t see myself serving in that capacity very comfortably. But a discreet liaison, a friendship that includes passing intimacy while I’m at Merlin Hall… Does that suit?”
She could not tell if he was talking himself into such an arrangement, or