Tender Wings of Desire Read online

  What waswrong with her? How could something like this happen? Madeline was cautious. Madeline did not know what love was, so how could she know what it meant now?

  “Madeline,” he said, his voice like a melody. She would listen to him say it for hours if he would be willing to. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  “No, you haven’t!” she burst out. “You haven’t been in in two weeks!”

  He raised an amused eyebrow. “So, you’ve been counting.”

  Madeline wished that she could melt into the wood of the docks below her feet, such was her level of mortification. However, he merely smiled at her reassuringly and walked over to her.

  “I’d like to ask if you’d do me the pleasure of going for a walk with me.”

  It was such a late hour that Madeline wasn’t even sure what time it was. She narrowed her eyes.

  “I am not one of those kinds of ladies,” she said, although she wasn’t too convinced of that fact. Harland chuckled.

  “It is not that kind of walk.”

  “How am I to know that? I barely know you, I’ve only met you once.”

  “And I’ve only met you once, and yet I haven’t been able to stop thinking of you since I’ve been at sea.”

  Madeline’s mouth went dry. She did not know what to say.

  “That is where I was, by the way,” he added. “At sea.”

  “Um,” Madeline replied eloquently. She felt like kicking herself after every syllable she spoke to the man.

  “I promise, I’ll be a complete gentleman.”

  Something in her gave and she nodded, causing his face to light up in happiness. He offered her the crook of his arm, and she took it, her heart almost exploding with delight and anticipation as her skin touched his. What was wrong with her? Cautious and careful Madeline? Her heart could not stop pounding; she felt dizzy. She felt sick. If Caoimhe was right and this was love,she thought that it wasawful.

  He led her away from the docks, away from the shouts of drunken sailors and the cooing of certain women of the night. They walked the winding streets of Mistle-Thrush-by-the-Sea, showing Madeline places that she had not yet found the time to see. Work was busy for her, especially because she was so unaccustomed to it, and she had yet to properly explore the town that was her own.

  “There’s Kaity’s,” Harland said, pointing to a darkened shop that looked like it sold various sweets. “The greatest taffy you’ve ever eaten.”

  “I’ve never eaten taffy,” Madeline admitted. Her mother could never abide sweets once Madeline and Victoria reached a certain age. Once the thin and pale waifish look had become fashionable, her mother had striven for her girls to match it. Both ladies were lucky in that they were naturally thin, but she still longed for the taste of a peppermint stick every once in a while.

  “It is a seaside tradition, I suppose,” Harland said. “I did not eat it much growing up as a boy, either. I lived too far away.”

  Madeline knew she could have asked him where he grew up. She tried again to place his strange accent. Perhaps he had been gifted with some schooling and then ran off to be a sailor when he grew old enough to realize that there was more to life than what he was living. Madeline did not want to know anymore, because Madeline did not want to be asked what she was doing here, or who she had been. At this point, Madeline was sick of who she had been, and it hung over her head like a ghost.

  If he was surprised at her lack of interest in his life, he did not show it, and instead they walked for a while in silence, enjoying each other’s company. Madeline could not help but feel surprised, about what she did not exactly know, but once they reached the docks again she turned to him, her heart bursting with the desire to figure out what was burning in her stomach.

  “What is this?” she asked him, the words exploding out of her as though she could not hold them in for one moment. “Why is it that whenever I am around you I feel so…so…”

  “Alive?” Harland asked.

  “Perhaps,” she replied. “Something like that, how did you know?”

  “Because I feel it too.”

  She stopped walking then and they stood for a long time simply looking at each other. Madeline’s heart was pounding so heavily in her chest that she did not think she would be able to breathe; perhaps she would die like this. It would be terribly romantic, would it not? To be killed by such a longing.

  They were in that moment—something that Madeline had never experienced but instinctively understood. That terrible and wonderful moment where either of them would take that step, break through the invisible barrier that people constructed around themselves, and stop it all with a kiss. She could do it, she wanted to do it. She wantedhim to do it, but at the point of no return, she found herself taking a step back, distancing herself from him.

  This wasn’t her; she wasn’t this person. She did not fall in love at first sight, she wasn’t the kind of person who eloped or ran off or died for love. That wasn’t Madeline. All of this—the connection, the handsome man taking her for a walk, the moment of the kiss—that wasn’t who she was and it never would be.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I…I can’t.”

  Harland’s face crumpled into confusion. “You cannot say that. I’ve never met a woman like you. We’re standing here and we have everything at our fingertips and you are going to walk away?”

  Her heart was pounding, reacting to the notion that he was attempting to fight for her. He reached out a hand and gently touched her cheek. She leaned into it as though she never wanted him to stop touching her.

  “I am sorry,” she said, taking another step back.

  “Do not be.”

  There was such a gentleness in his voice that she looked up at him in alarm. He seemed sad, a little frustrated, a little sick himself, and the way he looked in the moonlight was so striking that Madeline ended up closing that distance and pulling him in for a kiss.

  It was electric. It was everything, and whatever sickness Madeline believed she had from her infatuation with him melted away at the touch of his lips. Her entire body felt as though it were on fire, her heart beating wildly in her chest. He felt so warm, and his arms circled around her waist to pull her closer.

  This was the closest she had ever been to a man, and she would not want it any other way. She felt as if she were a woman on fire, feverish in the best way possible, and something seemed to take her over when he deepened the kiss.

  She had no idea that it could be like this—all of her thoughts and furtive fantasies about what it might be like had never prepared her for this. Of course, she had tried to imagine it, tried to picture what it would be like kissing a boy, but she had never been able to imagine it feeling quite like this. When she tried to picture kissing Reginald, it had been like kissing the back of her hand. She never imagined that it would feel like fire and ice and ecstasy all rolled together in one.

  She was breathless when they parted, and as she looked up at him, she saw an entirely new and strange aspect of her future unfold. Unfettered by the life that was expected of her, she was technically unfettered from the expectations of her place in society. No longer did she have to maintain her modesty; on the contrary, she was free to be with whomever she desired, regardless of whether they were going to end up being her husband.

  Madeline had to admit the idea of it all scared her, for she had grown up with the understanding that lovemaking was entirely in the hands of her future husband, and that it was her duty to submit to him. One night when she was 15, she had playfully discovered a few secret novels that her maid had hidden. They spoke of fire and passion, of wanting, and although the thought of it thrilled Madeline, she was old enough to believe that such a thing could never happen to her. But she had taken comfort in the idea that it existed. Now, as she stood panting and looking upon this man, she realized that if she were so inclined, she could make him her love.

  “Would you like to come back to my room with me?” she asked boldly.

 
In another world, perhaps he would have cracked a joke; he would have said something or backed away from the feeling, but she watched the want and need in his eyes. She watched the connection that neither of them could really deny even if they wanted to.

  “Yes,” he told her, and she could hear in his voice that he, beyond a shadow of a doubt, wanted her as much as she wanted him. She reached for his hand and she took it, feeling the buzz of the connection between them, and she quietly brought him up the stairs to the small apartment above the tavern.

  Caoimhe was most likely asleep, so they snuck as quietly as possible down the hall into her room.

  This was something Madeline had never considered. Although she knew well enough what went on between a man and a woman, for a moment she thought that she might swoon in his arms.

  They kissed again and again, Madeline’s heart pounding desperately with the excitement of the feeling. As she lie in his arms, she could not help but feel as though she finally belonged somewhere, tosomeone, and she knew in that moment exactly what it meant to feel love.

  “Where have you come from?” Harland murmured into her hair once they were finished with their kisses. She wrapped her arms around him before finally saying it.

  “A manor house,” she replied. He raised his head to study her face, the expression on his own too hard to see in the dark.

  “Were you a maid?” he asked her, and she shook her head.

  “I was a lady.” Admitting such a thing felt like a great burden had been removed from her chest. So many people so far had already basically guessed who she was, most likely from her posture and the fact that she had started working at The Admiral’s Arms with the softest hands anyone had ever seen. “I suppose it does not come as much of a surprise.”

  “Perhaps not…but you arehere. What happened? Were you orphaned? I mean that’s…”

  Madeline turned to look at the ceiling. “No, I just ran away.”

  “Why?”

  She explained everything to him then, knowing that out of everyone she had met since the day she walked out of her parents’ house, he was the one who deserved to know the most. If they were going to be lovers, she wanted him to know exactly who he was spending his time kissing. She told him about Reginald, about the engagement, about how she had run like a thief in the night from the idea of being the wife of a duke. Harland listened to all of it with a quiet, contemplative look on his face. She did not know what that meant.

  “I’ve terrified you now, haven’t I?”

  He chuckled in the darkness. “No,” he replied. “I was just surprised, is all. Come here.”

  Harland pulled her close and she laid her head on his chest. With his arms around her, she did not feel like her past. She did not feel like much of anything.

  Kissing a man who wasn’t her betrothed was supposed to imply that she was tainted in some way, as though she had been spoiled for her future husband. Perhaps that might have been true, but as she drifted off to sleep, the only thing she could think was that she felt free. She felt in charge. She felt as though she were finally coming face to face with the wonder of her destiny.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In the harsh light of morning, Madeline expected to feel mortified, but instead she felt rather pleasant. Her lips were chapped, but it was merely a delightful reminder of his kisses the night before. She half expected Harland to be gone, leaving Madeline behind as the product of some terrible rake. As she opened her eyes and realized that she was alone in her bed, it seemed as though her expectations were coming true.

  It was a strange feeling, to be sure, mostly because if he did love her and leave her, she probably would just go on living. She had expected, in a way, to be spoiled, but she did not feel that way at all. She simply felt like a woman who had lived through an experience, an enjoyable one. She was a woman who had embraced an attraction to a beautiful man and now was free to go on with her life.

  Of course, despite looking on the bright side, she still rolled on her side, closing her eyes and breathing in his scent from the pillow. He smelled like the ocean. The only regret she had in this moment was the fact that she would not have the chance to get to know him further; she felt as though she would have liked that, all things considered.

  “Did I wake you?” a soft voice asked from across the room, and it dragged her out of her self-empowering reverie. Harland sat in a chair across the room, watching her with eyes that she could not read at the moment. Was he sad? Happy? She remembered her father making jokes about the mysterious emotions of women, but men simply did not know that they too carried mysteries.

  “I thought you’d be long gone by now,” she told him, feeling vaguely silly for saying something such as that. His lips ticked up in a smile as he stood and made his way to her side, tilting her head up and kissing her again.

  “I do not think I want to be going anywhere.”

  She blushed, pulling the blanket up to cover herself, although he had already seen her in her nightgown. He smiled at her and stroked her cheeks, and Madeline felt those burning, icy butterflies begin to move in her stomach once again.

  “You are very kind,” she said, once again cursing herself for her choice of words.

  He grinned. “There’s no kindness about it. I just want to be seeing more of you, every day, for the foreseeable future.”

  Madeline blushed brightly but turned to meet his gaze. As much as she believed that she was some liberated woman who could take a lover and then leave him without caring, she was happy to hear that this one was going to stay.

  Of course, since daylight had broken, Madeline wasn’t sure she would be able to get him past Caoimhe or whether that would even be necessary. She did not want her new roommate to believe she was a woman of loose morals (although, Madeline supposed, she technically was now), so when it was time for Harland to leave, she peeked outside and saw nothing.

  “Come on,” she whispered, reaching for his hand. He took it, and she led him out of her bedroom and into the sitting room that she shared with Caoimhe. The rooms were silent—so silent that she could hear the beating of her own nervous heart, and she practically pulled Harland through the rooms and out the door.

  As quietly as they could, they descended the stairs and arrived once more in front of the tavern, where she had first seen him waiting for her. In broad daylight, she pulled him close and kissed him as though he were going out to sea again. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, kissing her deeply. When they parted, he laid a final kiss on her forehead.

  “I am going to see you again!” he swore.

  “You know where to find me,” she replied.

  “Good.” He gave her one last kiss, a quick one this time, and turned to stroll down the docks, whistling a jaunty tune and looking as though the entire world had been laid at his feet. Madeline watched him as he went, feeling like every love song she had ever listened to was real to her now; they were all singing for her. Her heart pounded in a lovely rhythm, and she wished that she could write and tell Victoria that she finally understood her younger sister’s preoccupation with love. Love was splendid, love was magical! Oh, if only Victoria could have the luxury of finding it for herself! It did not need to be with some high-ranking member of the gentry. Love wasn’t supposed to trap a womaninto a life of dully planning parties and wearing beautiful dresses all the time. Love could beanything.

  It broke her heart a little to realize that she had to run away from her home and everything she had known to truly understand that—that her family’s love came with so much obligation that she never would have figured this out on her own. She allowed herself the small relief of knowing that, no matter what she was doing now, she was on the path to finding out who she was. She never knew that she could possibly stumble into a life like this. It cheered her.

  Once he had disappeared from her line of vision, she turned to walk back up the stairs. It was early enough that she could probably sleep a little longer, and the idea of stretching out in the
bed that was hers, earned after a long day’s work, made it feel better than any feather mattress she had ever laid in.

  Entering the rooms, she was a little surprised to see Caoimhe standing in the doorway of her own room. The look on her face showed she was a little less than impressed with Madeline’s actions, and for a moment she felt the same kind of embarrassment she had felt when her mother used to catch her doing something wrong. However, that quickly vanished under the weight of her own stubborn conviction.

  Madeline held her head high, knowing exactly what she looked like. Clad in a nightgown, her hair all disheveled, she looked freshly kissed, and Caoimhe was not so innocent in this world to believe anything else. Caoimhe crossed her arms over her chest, her dark eyes burning like coals in the middle of her pale face. There was horror there, Madeline noticed, but as far as she could tell there wasn’t any disappointment. She did not know if she could handle the disappointment of her new friend.

  “I should have known,” Caoimhe said. “A young woman, a young innocent, comes to this place and immediately takes up with the first rake she sees.”

  “That is not what happened,” Madeline said calmly. In fact, she was completely surprised by her own calmness. “I made my own choice, I respect my own choice. It is okay, Caoimhe, I took a lover, I wasn’t taken.”

  Caoimhe played nervously with the end of her braid as Madeline went over to the tiny wood stove to put the kettle on for tea. The two women sat in uneasy silence as they waited for the water to boil, but once cups of tea were in their hands, Caoimhe took a deep breath.

  “When I first arrived here, there was a man. His name was Freddie, or at least that was the name he gave me.”