For Your Arms Only by Linden, Caroline (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

pad where she’d been making her notes on it. Back to Portsmouth…Her eyes flitted around the conservatory. Away from Penford. She got up and walked slowly through the house. Her mind reeled. Callie and Tom, to be married! It was wonderful that two people so dear to her could find happiness together; it was everything she had hoped for…but it was also a thunderous crack in her world. For so long they had all been together as a family, but now they really would be family—and Cressida knew with a creeping discomfort that it would be strange to see Tom married to her sister. They would set up house together. They might have children. They would sit by the fire at nights together, and then they would go to bed together. And Cressida, the spinster sister, would be left sitting by the fire with Granny.

She was not jealous. She was not. Cressida refused to be jealous when she really was truly happy. It was demeaning to herself and unfair to Callie, who deserved love and happiness, and to Tom, who had loved her so long and so patiently without hope. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she wrestled with her wildly irrational emotions, and before she knew it she was standing in front of Alec’s study door.

John Hayes opened the door when she knocked. Cressida wet her lips. “I beg pardon. I didn’t wish to interrupt—”

“We were finished,” Mr. Hayes said. He glanced over his shoulder at Alec, who stood behind his desk. “Were we not?”

“We were. Please, come in.” Alec beckoned with one hand for her to enter. Mr. Hayes bowed his head politely as he held the door for her, then let himself out.

Suddenly she felt like a fool, running to unburden herself to Alec when he clearly had worries of his own, and had shouldered some of hers as well in his search for Papa. What was she to say? That her sister was getting married and it made her heart writhe with longing to be the one someone loved beyond all reason? It was jealousy, small and petty, and Cressida hated herself for feeling it. But he came around the desk and held out one hand to the sofa. “You look distressed,” he said. “Has something happened?”

“Yes.” She shook her head, sitting at one end of the sofa. “But a very happy thing. Mr. Webb has proposed to my sister and she has accepted.”

“Ah.” His gaze swept her face. “I wish them both very happy. I suspected he harbored hopes in that direction.”

She gave an embarrassed laugh. Of course Alec would have noticed even what she had not seen in years of living with Tom and Callie both. “Yes, I think he has done for some time. My father…I think Papa would not approve…” She stopped, concentrating on stilling her hands in her lap. “No, I must be honest with you,” she said in a low voice. “Papa knew Tom loved her, and he warned Tom away. He even…he even married Callie to that horrid Mr. Phillips to prevent Tom from marrying her.” Alec said nothing. Cressida swallowed. “So Callie truly deserves to be loved, and I think Tom will make her happy. I cannot imagine a finer man.”

“Indeed,” he murmured.

For a moment it was silent as Cressida sat picking at a loose thread at the edge of her apron and not looking at him. What had she expected him to say? “They plan to return to Portsmouth,” she said to fill the void. “Granny will go with them, I am sure. She was born and raised in Portsmouth, and now that we’ve lost Brighampton, there’s no reason for her to stay here.” The loose thread had begun to unravel in earnest under her restless fingers. She forced herself to stop and clasped her hands.

“I will speak to Webb, then,” he said. “He’ll want wagons for the journey.”

Cressida nodded once. “That is very kind of you.” But not what she longed to hear. Had he assumed she was going with them as well? What had she hoped he would say? That he wanted her to stay, to argue with him more and question his every move and insist on being included in his trips to find her father when her presence only complicated his efforts? That he wanted to hold her up against the wall as he had done that day in the library and press his lips to the back of her neck in earnest, and discover how little it would take to melt her reserve?

“And do you go with them?”

She looked up and met his gaze. Her heart thudded and her white-knuckled fingers trembled. She should say yes, because Callie had invited her to live with them and she had no reason or excuse not to go with her family. She wanted to say no, because she didn’t want to leave Penford and him and the uncommon connection she felt between them. Instead she sat there staring into Alec’s fathomless blue eyes and said nothing at all.

An eternity seemed to pass. Cressida knew her only thought must be written on her face, but she was helpless to hide it. Perhaps she shouldn’t even try. Perhaps he would make the decision for her. He was too honorable to trifle with her. Surely he would be merciful and wish her well with her family in Portsmouth if he cared nothing for her, or knew there was no future for them. Because Cressida, who always had a smart answer and who never shied from speaking bluntly, was completely tongue-tied by the realization that she did want him to ask her to stay, for any reason at all.

Abruptly he surged to his feet. “Would you walk with me?”

Dumbly she nodded. She stood and went out the door when he opened it, walked with him through the house and out into the garden. Past the gardenias and the roses, past the wildflowers that carpeted the lawn just behind