A Season for Honour

Chapter 13

Alex went to the kitchen, leaving Octavia in the library, sitting comfortably, wrapped up in a blanket, in the leather chair by the fire. He had to leave for a few minutes just to compose himself and reorder the chaotic jumble of thoughts that were in his mind. If he had stayed with her in the same room, all the resolve that he had managed to build up since he had pulled away from their embrace, would vanish. The thought of him having developed a conscience made him smile wryly to himself. Over the past four years, he had no thought of anyone, not even himself. Why then, just after one kiss, had that suddenly changed?

When he arrived in the kitchen, he was grateful to find that there was no one there. He soon found some leftover milk in a churn in the pantry, and he also discovered a small pan hanging on a hook on the wall. Once he had poured a little of the milk into the pan, he placed it on the top of the still warm iron stove. The kitchen at Northleigh had been recently renovated, and all the latest in modern technology had been installed. It was easy for Alex to add a little more fuel to the heart of the stove, and the warming plate soon became hot. After stirring the milk with a spoon, Alex went back to the larder to retrieve a jar of honey he had spotted earlier. As he took the honey off the shelf, he also discovered a bottle of rum that had been so carefully concealed, that it had escaped his notice earlier that day. Once he had brought both the jar and bottle into the kitchen, he added a couple of teaspoons of honey to the now warm milk and stirred it again.

Just as the milk was about to boil over onto the plate, Alex removed it from the heat and poured it into two large cups that had recently been washed and placed on the draining board. To one of the cups, he added a generous splash of rum, and then placed both of them onto a small tray.

As Alex carried the tray to the library, he began to contemplate the myriad emotions he had felt when he had kissed Octavia. The intensity of the kiss that she initiated, had taken him by surprise and he could barely contain the passion that it had released within him. Even when the situation was starting to spiral out of their control, she had not made any effort to stop him. In fact, he knew from her reaction to his touch, that she had wanted him as much as he wanted her. She was, after all, a beautiful and desirable woman, and he had wanted to make her his mistress since his arrival at Northleigh. Then why had he stopped when she had been so willing to give herself fully to him?

But during the kiss, he had begun to feel something for her that he did not fully understand. And even after the kiss, he was finding it difficult to describe exactly what it was he felt. It was an emotion he had never experienced before. When she had told him about Katie and the death of her child, he had felt a compassion for her that had taken him by surprise. Since he had been imprisoned, he rarely thought of anyone but himself; even his own family, whom he loved dearly. But, there was something else, something that went beyond the empathy he was experiencing. It went deeper than any sympathetic feelings he vaguely recognised from long ago. Whatever it was, it reached down into the very depths of his soul and affected him deeply.

He had a suspicion, even before the kiss, that this was not going to just be a casual dalliance with a bored widow. An affair that would be over when both parties inevitably tired of each other. But, the alternative frightened him: could it be love? He did not know as he had never experienced the complex and emotional stirrings of a romantic attachment that had been formed out of love. Even before he had been a prisoner, and he still had the capacity to feel emotions, he had never been in love with a woman.

When Alex returned to the library, carrying the two cups of warm milk, he had still not answered his question. But when he entered the library and saw Octavia sitting on the floor by the fire with her back propped up against a chair, he was glad that he had not dishonoured her. If he had made love to her, he knew that she would have lived to regret what she had done. And he could not risk losing the fragile trust that he had begun to cultivate with her that evening. He suspected that she just wanted to be comforted and reassured, and he could do that without taking away her virtue.