A Kiss To Remember | Herophine

Chapter Two - The Oak Woods

Hero

It seems an eternity since I last laid eyes on your sweet face....

Hero Fiennes Tiffin was going home. When he had summoned Felix's butler and ordered his mount to be readied that morning, he would have sworn he was simply going for a ride in Hyde Park.

He truly believed he had no more pressing expectations for his day than to flash a lazy smile and tip his hat as he engaged in a series of mild flirtations with any lady who happened to catch his eye. That was to have been followed, as it invariably was, by a hearty lunch, an afternoon nap, and a night of gaming with Porter at the tables of White's or Watier's. Which didn't explain why he had driven his horse into a feverish canter and was already leaving the congested alleys of London behind for the open country lanes.

The hedgerows and stone fences flew past, framed by the ripe green of the rolling meadows beyond. The summer sky was a dazzling blue with clouds grazing like fluffy lambs across a field of azure. Fresh air flooded his lungs, driving out the city soot, and making him feel drunk and more than a little dangerous. He rode hard for nearly an hour before he recognized the emotion seething through him.

He was angry. Angry as hell. Shocked by the discovery, he slowed the mare to a trot. He'd had twenty-one years to perfect the chill detachment suitable for a man of his station. And it had taken one sanctimonious country miss two minutes to destroy it.

He had tucked her letter away in the drawer of  Mercy's desk three days ago, never to be seen or read again. But her voice still echoed through his head- prim and waspish in its attempt to prick a conscience deliberately dulled by years of indifference. Although you chose to ignore her repeated pleas for reconciliation over the past few years, she died with your name on her lips. I trust the news will not cause you any undue distress. Hero snorted.

How difficult was it for Miss Josephine Langford to appoint herself his mother's champion? After all, his mother had given her a home. She had cast him out of one. It was only too easy to imagine the self-righteous little prig ensconced in the cozy drawing room of Arden Manor.

She had probably sat at the rosewood secretaire to write the missive, tucking the pen between her pursed lips while she searched for a scathing turn of phrase with which to damn him. He could even see her smug siblings hovering at her elbow, begging her to read the letter aloud so they could make sport of him.

Perhaps after she'd sealed the letter with a tidy wafer of wax, they had all gathered around his mother's beloved pianoforte in the gentle glow of the lamplight to sing hymns and thank God for making them so morally superior to an unforgiving wretch like him.

The image brought him yet another astonishing realization. He was jealous. Ridiculously, pathetically, ragingly jealous. The emotion was utterly foreign to him. While he might covet a beautiful woman or a fine piece of horseflesh that belonged to another man, he had never suffered any particular hardship on those rare occasions when he was denied what he admired.

But he was jealous of the children who lived in the house that had once been his home. He hadn't even allowed himself to think of Arden Manor for years, but suddenly he could almost feel the prick of the thorns on the tangle of roses climbing up the whitewashed bricks. He could smell the piquant tang of his mother's herb garden and see a fat yellow cat drowsing on the back stoop in the noonday sun.

He felt a pang in his chest, uncomfortably close to his heart. Hero dug his heels into his mount's flanks, urging her into a gallop. They traveled several leagues at that grueling pace before he slowed the horse to a sedate canter. It wouldn't do to kill a loyal horse over a woman. His mouth tightened. Especially a woman like Josephine Langford.