Page 62 of The Cornish Bride

But he could see it wasn’t.

To fill the now gaping silence, he poured their tea and passed Ysella hers. As she took it, their fingers brushed, a current of electricity surging up Sam’s arm. She started. Had she felt it as well? Was it to do with what he’d let slip? Thoughtless fool that he was. Their eyes met.

Ysella’s lips parted and her bosom rose and fell as though she were finding it hard to catch her breath. Was this still just embarrassment? Or did she want to say something?

Sam couldn’t tear his eyes away from her.

The moment seemed to stretch on forever, then she took the cup, her gaze dropped, and she leaned back in her seat, studious disinterest on her face as the color faded.

Sam hesitated before picking up his own tea, afraid that with his hand shaking so badly he would spill it, or give himself away by letting it rattle.

“I think I’d like to have my bedroom decorated,” Ysella said, a little awkwardly. Was her voice strained and tense, and if so, why?

Sam struggled to regain his composure, convinced he hadn’t been mistaken in her reaction. “What color do you fancy?”

The moment of tension between them dissipated, melting away into the cold air of the drawing room. Lost but not forgotten.

For a while, then, they talked of their plans for the house and gardens, and Sam told her about the tenant farms he’d visited and the plans he had for innovation on them to help with production levels. All things he’d learned from books and shared with Kit at Ormonde. He expounded for a while on how more modern machinery, and specially bred stock, could make a farmer and his farm more efficient, which in itself could produce more revenue for the farmer, and perhaps higher rent for the landlord. He forbore from mentioning the veiled hostility with which he’d been met at nearly every farm, the suspicious glances, the resentment of his presence.

She listened to him with a rapt attention that seemed quite out of character for her. Surely, she wasn’t interested in harrows and seed drills and broadcasting and different breeds of sheep? But it filled what could have been an awkwardness between them, and he was glad of her pretended interest.

They drank their tea, called for more, and eventually, with night drawing in, it was time to retire to bed.

Ysella rose, her hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn. She must be tired with all the time she was spending out of doors in the fresh sea air, walking with Jem. A further pang of jealousy assaulted Sam. She should be walking with him down the quiet, wildflower-strewn lanes. He should be picking flowers for her to add to her bouquets. Not a simple farm boy, who, regardless of his extreme youth, was undoubtedly smitten by his young mistress. Sam shook himself, angry that he could feel jealous of a child.

He held out his arm, and Ysella took it, the touch of her fingers gossamer light through the broadcloth of his workaday coat. Out of the drawing room, across the hall, up the stairs, turn right at the half-landing and into the gallery. Ysella’s room lay at the far end, his, two doors down. No interconnecting doors for them, as Ysella’s parents had had.

He walked to her door with her.

She stopped and turned towards him, a questioning look in her eyes, her face serious. What did she want? Might she be about to say something? Was that an invitation in her eyes or was he imagining it?

“Thank you, Sam,” she said, slipping her hand off his arm. “Thank you for making Carlyon more of a home for me.”

Sam gazed down at her, captivated by everything about her. “It’s been a pleasure for me to do so.” He reached out and caught her hand. Even through the thin silk of her glove he could feel the warmth of her skin. A shiver of excitement ran down his back. Might she be softening towards him? Might this be the night she invited him into her bedroom? And if she did, would he go? No. She didn’t love him. If she invited him, it would be from pity, or some other such emotion. Would he let her give herself to him knowing it wasn’t out of love?

“That makes me very happy,” she whispered, her voice low and clear in the quiet of the upper gallery.

“My only wish is to see you happy.”

She bowed her head, looking down at their joined hands. “I know.” She paused. “And for that I feel… a little guilty.”

He squeezed her hand. “Never feel like that.”

She shook her head, still not looking up. “I feel you have received the bad end of the bargain. You have a wife, but you do not have a lover.”

If he hadn’t known her so well, he would have been shocked. “Ysella,” he whispered, his whole body stiff with tension. “I did not marry you to take you as my lover. I married you because… because of how much I care for you. I know you don’t love me. I know you never can. I would never make a demand of you that you did not truly wish to fulfill. You have not in any way discomposed me. I assure you.”

Only that wasn’t true. He wanted nothing more right now than to take her in his embrace and kiss her lips, her eyes, her cheeks, her throat. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and carry her into her bedroom, banging the door shut behind them and shutting out the world that held Oliver Featherstone. He wanted to love her so much that she’d never think of Featherstone again.

“A pretty speech,” Ysella said, and slid her hand out of his with gentle firmness. “I bid you goodnight, dear husband.” She raised her head, stared into his eyes for a long moment, then, on tiptoe, kissed him on the cheek. “Good night.” A chaste and friendly kiss only. A sister’s kiss for a beloved brother.

She pushed open the door and went inside her bedroom.

Sam stood outside the closed door, one hand to his cheek, touching the spot she’d kissed. She’d never done that before. Was that an indication of her changing feelings? Did he really mean what he’d said to her?