Yet here he was.
They looked at each other, and he wondered if she was having similar thoughts. But how could she not be? She was not only a woman. She had been the vicar’s wife. Briefly he considered flight.
“Major Westcott,” she said, “will you have a seat?”
He did not move immediately. Then he took off his greatcoat and hung it, with his hat, on an empty hook beside her cloak and turned to look into the room. She had not told him where to sit. He considered one of the chairs, the one that was not hers, but then chose the sofa instead after first stacking the books on the table beside it.
The newer book was a Bible.
He waited to see where she would sit. But the kettle was beginning to hum and she returned to the kitchen.
“I do beg your pardon after just inviting you to be seated,” she called a few moments later, “but would you be good enough to light the fire, Major Westcott? It is made up ready. All it needs is a spark.”
All it needs is a spark. Unfortunate choice of words. And was it really cold enough in here to make a fire necessary? Harry felt quite warm enough. A bit too warm.
He got up to do her bidding. He remained on one knee to make sure the spark had caught the kindling and would spread to the wood. Soon he could feel a thread of warmth against his face. He could hear the clinking of china as she came back in from the kitchen, and he rose to his feet to take the tray from her hands. There was a teapot covered with a knitted cozy and two cups and saucers of fine bone china with a matching milk jug and sugar bowl and two silver spoons. He set the tray down on the low table before the sofa and resumed his seat while she poured their tea, standing on the other side of the table while she did so.
Neither of them spoke—again. Firelight and candlelight flickered behind her.
When she straightened up, she looked at him, her face in shadow, and he was aware that she was hesitating. Her chair was to one side of the hearth behind her. The sofa had only two cushions upon which to sit. It was actually more a love seat than a sofa. Then she came around the table and sat beside him, and half the remaining air went from the room, and that fire had surely warmed to an inferno. Their shoulders did not quite touch, but he felt her closeness as a physical thing. She smelled of a faintly floral soap or perfume. It was an enticing scent, whatever it was.
The dog, which had followed its mistress everywhere, stood in the narrow space between them and the table and eyed Harry through the white fluff that almost hid its eyes before yipping a halfhearted threat and plopping down across one of her slippers. It did so in such a way, however, that it could gaze up at Harry to make sure he behaved himself.
He felt a bit as though there were a chaperon in the house after all—and one who was not about to tolerate any nonsense.
“It is still a little chilly in the evenings without a fire,” Mrs. Tavernor said, breaking the lengthy silence at last. Her voice was stilted and just a bit too loud.
“Yes,” he agreed, his own voice far too hearty. “It is.”
The conversation—what conversation?—threatened to die a well-deserved death.
“Major Westcott—” she began again, arranging her cup and saucer before her.
“It is Harry,” he said.
“Oh.” She turned her head to glance at him before biting her lip and looking away again. “I am Lydia.”
It suited her, he thought. He did not know anyone else of that name.
“Harry,” she said, “I do not know quite what this is about.”
Neither, God help him, did he. Though they both knew only too well. Actually he had no idea why he was behaving so much like a gauche schoolboy.
“Perhaps,” he said, “it would be as well if you were to think of me just as a neighbor whom you have been kind enough to invite inside for a cup of tea before he walks home along a dark, winding drive.”
“Is that what it is?” she asked.
Yet even that would be improper.
“If you choose,” he said. “It can be anything you wish it to be. It could be the beginning of a closer acquaintance than we have yet had. Even a friendship. Or it could be the beginning of something else. Whatever you wish.”
“Something else,” she said, and frowned down into her cup. “What does that mean, Major Westcott?” But she held up a hand, palm out, before he could answer and turned to look fully at him, still frowning. “That was an unfair question. And a stupid one too, for after all I am the one who started all this last week. Whatever all this is. Oh dear, I—”
She stopped and drew a sharp breath.
It was time for some plain speaking.
“You made it clear on that occasion,” he said, “that you do not wish for a second husband. Not yet, at least. You are happy here in this cottage in this village with your freedom and your independence, and I cannot blame you. Sometimes it must be hard to be a woman, or so I would imagine. But there are needs all of us share, men and women alike, cravings it is hard to deny and not so easy to satisfy—especially for an unmarried woman. Perhaps you believe you have detected a kindred spirit in me since I too live alone and am single. Perhaps finding yourself unexpectedly in company with me that night gave you the idea to broach the possibility of a mutual understanding, though you lost your courage before you could be fully specific. I do not believe I misunderstood your meaning, however, Lydia. You want a lover. Perhaps I do too. Perhaps that is why I asked to be invited in tonight and why you did invite me.”
“Did I?” she asked him. But she answered her own question before he could. “Yes, of course I did, but I did not want the responsibility of having done so. I left the gate open.”
Even in the flickering light of the fire and the candles he was aware that her cheeks had flamed red. But to her credit she had admitted the truth and she did not look away from him. Neither did she stop frowning.
“It seemed like such a splendid idea when I was simply dreaming it,” she said. “But when I was presented with the unexpected opportunity to actually say it, I realized how totally outrageous and unthinkable it was. I hoped I had stopped before you understood, but of course I had not. I am mortified. Oh, what a colossal understatement. I am sorry.”
“Sorry you made the suggestion?” he asked her. “Or sorry that I understood it and asked you to invite me in tonight?”
“I—Oh, I really do not know what to say,” she protested— and smiled so unexpectedly that Harry moved his head back an inch. Good God, she looked suddenly vivid and very pretty, that prim, lacy cap notwithstanding. “I keep waiting and hoping to wake up, actually. I am so dreadfully embarrassed.”
“You need not be,” he said. “I am flattered that you focused your dream upon me.”
She laughed and bit her lip again. That wide mouth, he thought, would be lovely to kiss. How the devil had she kept herself so virtually invisible all these years? That it had been at least partly deliberate he no longer doubted.
“I find that hard to believe,” she said.
“Why?” he asked. “Lydia, you must not underestimate yourself. If we are to have an affair, it will be between equals. Neither of us will be condescending to the other. Neither of us will be inferior or beholden to the other. Or superior either and merely conferring a favor.”
“An affair.” She did what he had done a few moments ago. She jerked her head back a fraction and then looked down at the hands spread across her lap, her eyebrows raised. Her vivid smile was long gone. “That sounds awfully … wicked.”