A Lady's Dream Come True - Grace Burrowes Page 0,56
his waist, and her cheek was pillowed against his chest.
“You are such a gentleman. I have no wish to end our intimate dealings, but as of shortly before supper, I am indisposed.”
He embraced her without conscious thought. “Indisposed. As women are regularly indisposed?”
She nodded, and Oak would have bet his dog whelk shell she was blushing. He let the sketchbook fall to the wing chair and stroked her hair, all of his frustration muting into a peculiar tenderness.
Women paid a high price for the ability to bring forth new life. Unfairly high, often mortally high. “Are you in pain?”
“Crampy. Nothing of significance.”
He wanted to cosset and cuddle her, bring her tisanes and rub her back—or whatever a devoted swain did in such circumstances.
“I am not well versed in the miseries that afflict women of childbearing age,” he said. “My sisters delighted in inflicting upon their brothers more awareness of lunation than any boy can bear, but about the details… you must enlighten me.”
“I am fortunate that the indisposition is usually of only four or five days’ duration and rarely more than a nuisance in terms of discomfort.”
She was minimizing her pain as Miss Diggory had tried to minimize Catherine’s. “What helps?”
“Nothing… Well, a touch of the poppy if matters grow dire, but then one has a headache and a muzzy mind, and it’s easier simply to endure. That feels good.”
Oak rubbed her back, wanting to gather her in his arms and take on her pain for himself. He was being ridiculous, of course, but maybe Vera hadn’t had anybody to be ridiculous on her behalf before.
“Shall I carry you up to your bed?”
She drew back and smiled. “Gallant of you, but I’m quite capable of walking. Will you light me up?”
“I will.” He retrieved his sketch pad and took up the remaining candelabra. When they reached Vera’s apartment, he came into her parlor with her and went so far as to light the candles in her bedroom.
“Shall I undo your hooks?”
The offer pleased her, if her smile was any indication. “You shall. How was Catherine’s drawing lesson?”
“She is immensely observant, more observant than the average bothersomely astute adolescent. I suspect she has quite a bit of talent.”
Oak assisted Vera to undress, a service made more intimate by the fact that he was simply trying to be helpful rather than hasten a woman from her clothes in the interests of sexual expedience. That insight occurred to him as he passed Vera her dressing gown and watched her belt it—loosely—about her waist.
“I have neglected Catherine’s artistic education,” Vera said, taking a seat at her vanity. “Perhaps your lessons will help address that oversight.”
Oak began searching through Vera’s hair for pins. “Have you considered a finishing school for her? Some of them have very competent drawing masters.” He set the pins in a green ormer shell on Vera’s vanity. The mother-of-pearl lining the shell’s inner surface caught the candlelight and cast a bright reflection into Vera’s folding mirror.
Oh Lord, the compositions that came to mind when he was with her.
“I have not thought that far ahead,” she said. “I hate to think of Catherine leaving Merlin Hall.”
Oak found the last pin, and Vera’s braid slipped down over her shoulders. “She’s young. You have a few years to consider other options.” He set about undoing the braid and tucked her hair ribbon—lavender, a mourning color, but one that suited her—into his pocket.
He spent the next few minutes brushing out and rebraiding her hair, then using the warmer on the sheets while she made use of the privacy screen. The excuses to linger were used up one by one, and the poor woman likely needed her rest more than usual. When Vera climbed under the covers, Oak hung the dressing gown on the bedpost, kissed her brow, and drew the quilts up around her shoulders.
“Sweet dreams, Vera.”
“To you too.”
He picked up the branch of candles and prepared to leave, but her voice stopped him at the door. “Thank you, Oak.”
“For?”
She sat up, her braid a rope over her shoulder in the dim shadows. “For pinning back Jeremy Forester’s ears at breakfast, for noticing Catherine’s talent, for not being horrified by my biology. Or by my moods. For being you.”
“The pleasure is mine.” He bowed, carefully, because he held the candles, and withdrew.
The corridor was blessedly quiet, as was the whole house. Oak made his way to his rooms, oddly at peace with the day. Somewhere behind a locked door, Jeremy Forester and Tamsin Diggory were