Chapter 12

The lake was calm and a deep blue as it had been two days before. A few fluffy clouds were floating in the sky. There was a suggestion of warmth in the air, early as the season was. For perhaps one hour he was going to forget everything but his surroundings and his companion, the Earl of Wetherby thought, reaching up his arms to lift her from her saddle.

He deliberately slid her down along the length of his body, feeling her warmth and her slimness. He kissed her briefly on the lips and watched her mouth curve into a slight smile. They had not exchanged a word since turning off to the lake, but he knew by a medium deeper than words that she had made the same decision as he about the next hour.

He tethered their horses and took her by the hand. They strolled to the water’s edge—the bank was low at that point— and stood gazing across.

“Let’s sit down,’’ he said, breaking the silence between them at last. And he drew her down into the shade of an oak tree, setting his back against the trunk. She did not resist when he put one arm about her shoulders. She unpinned her riding hat from her hair, set it down on the grass beside her, and nestled her head against his shoulder.

“Spring has always been my favorite season,” she said. “Everything is springing to new life and nothing seems impossible. Last year especially it was in the spring that I began to throw off my gloom. I filled the house with spring flowers and put crocuses and primroses on Leonard’s grave.”

He rubbed his cheek against the top of her head. “Are your daffodils still blooming?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. And after a small hesitation, “I have pressed one of them.”

“Have you?” he said.

They lapsed into silence and he rested his cheek against her hair and stared out over the water, trying to impress the memory of the moment on his mind. He tried to draw comfort and peace from it and the strength to face life again after it,

“A flower can be pressed and kept forever,” he said. “A snow angel can’t.”

She laughed softly. “You made more of a snow devil of yours, didn’t you?” she said. “Did the head stay on my snowman?”

“It was off before you left,” he said. “You took your prize under false pretenses.”

“And you did not put it back?” she said. “How ungallant of you.”

“I had not the heart for it,” he said, and they were silent again.

“Justin,” she said, reaching up a hand and tracing lightly the line of his jaw, “if you could go back and change everything—if you could have stayed in London or not insisted on taking me up or taken me farther along the road to find Dennis that first day. If you could change anything, would you?”

He took her hand in his and kissed the palm. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would.” He paused. “Would you?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “What would have happened if we had met as strangers this week? Anything?”

“No, nothing,” he said. “I would have been merely your niece’s betrothed. You would have been merely her aunt. It would have been far better so, Rosamund.”

“Yes,” she said.

But it could not have been so. He surely could not have met her this week and felt nothing at all for her. Surely even if they had been total strangers, he would have recognized her.

Recognized her? As what? As someone he could find irresistibly attractive? As someone he felt drawn to as iron to a magnet? As someone he could fall in love with? As the love of his life? The missing part of his life?

And would he change the past if he could? In order to rid himself of the pain of the present and the awkwardness of the future, would he change the past? Would he be without those few days at Price’s hunting box? Without those minutes in their little piece of wilderness two days before? Without this hour?

“No, it’s not true,” she said. “I would not change even one small detail, Justin. I wouldn’t.”

She fit so comfortably against his side, he thought, almost as if she had been made to be there. There were dozens of unseen birds singing around them, one repeating the same persistent call over and over again. There was a breeze fanning his right cheek. The air was fresh—not warm but not chill, either. It was a moment to be remembered and hoarded for a lifetime.

He hunched his shoulder so that he could see into her face. And yet he could find no words to express all he wanted to say to her. So many words were forbidden to him, and the others would not even form into coherent thoughts in his mind. He could only gaze into her eyes and tell her with his own all that words and thoughts could not express.

And she gazed back and her own eyes softened and smiled.

When he kissed her, he did so lightly, warmly, without passion, stroking the smooth skin beneath her chin with one knuckle. And she kissed him back, parting her lips beneath his, touching him with her tongue, sucking gently on his, drawing it into her mouth. He kissed her cheeks, her temples, her closed eyelids, her mouth again. And he smoothed back the hair at the side of her face, smiling at her once more.

“Do other men kiss like that?” she asked him, her fingers lightly stroking through his hair. “I had no idea until I met you.”

“I don’t know,” he said, grinning at her. “I have never kissed another man.”

She grimaced and laughed softly.

He undid the buttons of her velvet riding jacket and ran his hands over the warm silk blouse beneath. He cupped one breast in his hand, felt the soft tip with his thumb. And he began to undo the buttons of her blouse.

“Don’t,” she said when the job was half done.

“I just want to touch you,” he said, his mouth against hers. “I want to touch your breasts, Rosamund.”

“No,” she said. “If you do that, Justin, we will both want a little more and a little more until we end up making love. ” 

He swallowed. “And that would be so wrong?” he said. 

“You know it would.” She burrowed her head against his shoulder again, nudged his hand aside with her own, and began to do up the buttons again.

“And it was wrong a month ago?” he said. “Yet you just said that you would not change a moment of it.”

“That was a little different,” she said. “For both of us. We can’t do it now, Justin. Not on the marquess’s land when you are here to betroth yourself to Annabelle. We should not even be here.”

He took her hand when it had finished buttoning the blouse, and squeezed it very tightly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You are quite right, of course. I’m sorry, Rosamund. Just don’t leave me yet, please. Sit with me here for a while.”

He set his head back against the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes. He could feel every heartbeat like a hammerblow against his chest. He breathed slowly and evenly and willed her not to move. Not like this. He did not want it to end like this when both of them were agitated. He had genuinely wanted to bring her here so that they could win some peace together.

What a mad hope that had been!

“Justin,” she said, her voice light, almost teasing, “did your mistress recover from her cold?”

“Jude?” he said. “She was bubbling with high spirits when I got back to London. She could not resist showing me the emerald brooch my successor had already bought her, though she swore to me that she had remained faithful to me until my return.”

“Did you give her the trunk?” she asked.

He hesitated. “The diamond bracelet, yes,” he said. “She almost gobbled it up. I believe she even forgot the brooch for a few moments. Nothing else.”

He did not tell her that he had found himself quite unable to give Jude the clothes that Rosamund had worn or touched or the perfumes with which she had enticed him.

“So you have said good-bye to her?” she said. “Were you sad?”

He had not even slept with Jude after his return, though she had clearly expected that such a service would be required of her in return for the bracelet and the large money settlement he had made on her. She had been wearing a red nightgown that hid nothing of her very generous curves, and the perfume that had used to drive him wild.

But he had still been feeling almost sick with longing for a certain snow angel who had melted out of his life apparently forever.

“No,” he said. “Didn’t your father or your brother or your husband teach you that you do not discuss a man’s mistresses with him, Rosamund?”

“But Papa and Dennis and Leonard never had mistresses,” she said. “I am as sure as I can be with Papa and Dennis, and I actually asked Leonard.”

“I hope he blistered you with his tongue,” he said.

“He laughed,” she said. “Perhaps he would not have if there really had been a mistress, but there wasn’t, you see. ”

“So I am the first depraved gentleman you have known,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “It is rather funny that Dennis has been warning me against Josh, isn’t it? He is supposed to be a rake. Are you? Have you had many mistresses, Justin?”

“That is too outrageous a question,” he said. “I refuse to answer.”

“On the grounds that the answer may incriminate you? Or that I will think you are boasting if you mention the actual number? Or can you not count that high? I think you must have had many,” she said. “You certainly have a large number of skills. Leonard did not know half as much.”

“Are you doing this deliberately?” he asked, nudging her head away from him again and looking at her laughing face with sudden suspicion. “You are, aren’t you? To lighten the atmosphere?”

“Well, you must admit,” she said, “that it did need lightening.”

Her eyes were dancing and her whole face was animated, the way he remembered from his first day with her. But how familiar and how very dear the sight of her had grown since then. He cupped her face with his hands.

“Yes, it did,” he said. “I suppose we should be getting back now, shouldn’t we? Are we worse off or better off for having come here? Was it very wrong of me to suggest it?”

“If it was,” she said, “then it was equally wrong of me to agree. Don’t let’s add guilt to everything else. It has been an hour I would not wish to erase.”

“Me, neither,” he said, kissing her once more, warmly on the lips.

She turned her head sharply before he was finished, and they both looked over her shoulder to where Lord Beresford was standing thirty feet away, a startled look on his face . . .

Rosamund got to her feet unassisted and brushed at the grass that clung to her velvet skirt. She kept her eyes on what she was doing and resisted the urge to launch into a speech of self-defense. Lord Wetherby had got to his feet, too.

“If I could,” Lord Beresford said, “I would have slunk away unseen. Unfortunately you took me by surprise.”

His voice was rather grim, Rosamund thought. She had only ever heard it light and teasing.

The earl bent down to retrieve her hat and handed it to her.

“Under the circumstances,” Lord Beresford said, “I suppose I should be thankful things were not a great deal more embarrassing than they were. This is not bad after a three-day acquaintance, Justin. You have got farther than I. And I thought my only competition was Strangelove.”

“We have been acquainted for longer than three days,” the earl said.

“I believe your next words are supposed to be something to the effect that this is not quite what it seems,” Lord Beresford said.

Rosamund pinned her hat to her hair, keeping her eyes on the ground. She too had been expecting Justin to say those words and had been willing him not to.

“I don’t believe either Rosamund or I owe you an explanation, Josh,” the earl said. “I just hope you don’t go blurting this out back at the house and causing a lot of pain.”

“I am on foot,” Lord Beresford said. “If I just had two sound legs, I would go tearing off to tell tales to Annabelle and then go rushing off to find Dennis and my great-uncle. It would be just the sort of thing to bring me amusement.”

“Sorry,” Lord Wetherby said. “My words were foolish.”

Lord Beresford turned his eyes on Rosamund. “I expected better of you, Rosamund,” he said. “This is not exactly in good taste, is it?”

She looked back into the good-humored, handsome face-now pale and tight-lipped—of her girlhood companion and saw herself through his eyes. It was not a pleasant image. She lowered her eyes and walked toward the tethered horses.

“Let her go alone,” Lord Beresford said from behind her.

“I’ll be all right,” she said, turning. “I can find my own way back, Justin.”

He followed her wordlessly and helped her into the saddle.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his back to Lord Beresford, looking up at her with troubled eyes. “I’m so sorry, Rosamund.”

She tried to smile back at him before turning her horse’s head for the house a mile away. She had to concentrate on moving carefully through the trees so that she would not be struck across the face by a twig or branch. But she did so entirely by instinct. She saw nothing and heard nothing about her.

She saw only herself from the outside, as Josh would have seen her, sitting on the grass by the lake with Annabelle’s suitor, kissing him.

It was a sordid image, indeed. The past hour had been all wrong, every self-indulgent moment of it. She had gone there to the lake with him and sat close beside him, her head on his shoulder. She had allowed him to kiss her and had returned his kisses. She had allowed him to touch her.

Oh, she had shown a good deal of sense and restraint by stopping him from unclothing her. It was quite unexceptionable to allow another woman’s betrothed to fondle her through the silk of her blouse, she had seemed to be saying, though the depths of immorality to allow his hand on her naked breast. She could feel proud of herself for drawing such a firm line between what was right and what was wrong.

The truth was that she had indulged herself with a man who was forbidden to her. She might as well have allowed him to lift her skirts, as he undoubtedly would have done eventually if she had not stopped him when she had, and come right inside her. She was just as guilty as if she had allowed that ultimate intimacy. And perhaps a little more of a hypocrite.

One thing was sure: she was not going to change her mind about leaving Brookfield the morning after the ball. And she was going to find some way to avoid the wedding and all future meetings with Annabelle and her husband. In the meantime she was going to avoid him at all costs.

And she was going to throw away her pressed daffodil as soon as she had stabled her horse and gone to her room. It was over. It was a pleasant episode from her past, one to be held firmly there and forgotten about as soon as possible. No longer would she indulge herself by drawing out the memories for present enjoyment and nostalgia—not even at night.

It was over. As surely as her marriage was over. He was dead to her as effectively as Leonard was dead.

She dismounted from her horse in the stables while a groom was still hurrying toward her.

“Well,” Lord Beresford said as the earl watched Rosamund ride out of sight, “do I plant you a facer now and be done with it, or is there some sort of explanation for this?”

Lord Wetherby turned to look at his friend. “I don’t owe you any explanation, Josh,” he said.

“I heard you had cast Jude off,” the other said. “I was impressed, I must say. But I suppose there are limits even to your energy. Annabelle to get your heirs on, her aunt to play with. Who would need a mistress too?”

“I don’t need this, Josh,” the earl said wearily. “Not from you of all people.”

“I of all people happen to be Annabelle’s cousin,” Lord Beresford said. “And I intend to see that she gets a fair deal.” 

“Her second cousin,” Lord Wetherby corrected. “Since when have you been so interested in her?”

“Since always,” the other said. “I might even have thought of marrying her myself if it hadn’t been for you. But there was always you from the time she was a child. And the poor chit has been loyal to you ever since. I know the sort of life you have led, Justin, and I can’t criticize because it is much the same as the life I am leading. But wives and mistresses don’t mix in my vocabulary, especially when the wife happens to be Annabelle and the mistress Rosamund.”

“Well.” Lord Wetherby strolled toward his friend, who was standing with his feet apart, fists clenched at his sides. “Since you seem to have a genuine concern, Josh, I will say this: in a few days’ time this betrothal will finally be official and there will be no other woman but Annabelle for the rest of my life. Does that satisfy you?”

“When did you meet Rosamund?” Lord Beresford asked. “She has been in Lincolnshire for years and only recently came back, so I have heard.”

“We met recently,” the earl said.

“Have you had her?” the other asked quietly.

“Oh, no.” Lord Wetherby shook his head. “That is none of your concern, my friend. What are you doing out here alone, anyway?”

“Just be thankful that I am alone,” Lord Beresford said. “My great-uncle beat me twice at billiards, Strangelove was not there to give me the benefit of his superior conversation, and Rosamund was not there to be flirted with. Besides, I had something on my mind. Annabelle, actually.”

“Annabelle?”

“Did she tell you that I kissed her yesterday and she smacked my face?” Lord Beresford asked. “No, I can see she didn’t. I didn’t think she had, or you would doubtless have felt obliged to slap a glove in my face. I was teasing her, as I have done all my life, but she wasn’t amused. You need to look to her, Justin. You need to find out why she doesn’t ever smile. She doesn’t know about you and Rosamund, does she?”

“No,” Lord Wetherby said. He looked closely and consideringly at his friend. “And I’m not blind, either, Josh, or insensitive. I know she is unhappy. Have you always flirted with her?”

“Flirted?” His friend laughed. “She has been a child until very recently.”

“Except that girls are not children as long as we are,” the earl said.

“Well, anyway,” Lord Beresford said, “I felt badly about it and came out here to think. And look what I found. I’m only thankful that you didn’t have her mounted.”

“Don’t blame Rosamund,” Lord Wetherby said. “I persuaded her to come out here with me after the marchioness and Strangelove between them forced us into each other’s company. And she was the one who kept a cool head and saved you from major embarrassment.”

“You would have had her, then,” the other said, his jaw setting into a hard line, his hands in fists again. “You would have done that to Annabelle.” He lifted one of his fists suddenly and hit Lord Wetherby a powerful hook to the jaw with it, the whole of his weight behind it. The earl fell heavily.

“Get up,” Lord Beresford said, standing over him, “and fight like a man.”

The earl got to his feet slowly, touching his jaw gingerly and working it from side to side, half-expecting that it was broken.

“No, I don’t think I will, Josh,” he said. “I have the feeling I rather deserved that,”

The fight went out of his friend. “You love her, don’t you?” he said. “Damn it, you love Rosamund and are going to marry Annabelle.”

“I’ll make her a good husband,” Lord Wetherby said.

“Over my dead body!” Lord Beresford turned without another word and made his way back through the trees the way he had come. His limp, Lord Wetherby noticed, was more pronounced than usual.

And the earl was left to nurse his smarting jaw and bathe it with cold lake water and know that he had indeed deserved it, and more. It would have served him right if Josh had beaten him to a pulp. And he could probably have done it, too. He had been a soldier and even now spent far more time at Jackson’s Boxing Saloon than the earl did, though he was by no means unfit. But if Josh had wanted to fight it out, Lord Wetherby was afraid that his heart would not have been in defeating him.

It was true. He had deliberately brought Rosamund out there, knowing full well that it was wrong to do so. And he had held her and kissed her and done nothing to struggle against his feelings for her. He would have made love to her if she had given him the smallest encouragement. It was pointless to deny that it was so.

What he had done was in the worst of bad taste, to say the very least. It would have been grossly unfair to Rosamund and he would have risked impregnating her. If the time had been wrong five weeks before, it was quite possibly right now. And it would have been unfair to Annabelle even if she had never known of it. If he could not control himself now, would he be able to do so for the rest of his life as her husband?

He stooped down beside the water, soaked his handkerchief, and pressed it against his jaw. He had not let her go at all, had he? Almost five weeks had passed since he had watched his carriage take her out of his life—as he had thought. But every day since, every night, he had clung to the memory of her. He had wanted her with every breath he drew. And now that she was back in his life, he did not seem to have the will to shake himself free of her.

He had never known anything like it, would never have thought it possible. Although for years he had kept mistresses for varying lengths of time and remained faithful to them for as long as they were in his keeping, he had always believed that changing his affections was something he could do at will.

He was not sure it was possible with Rosamund. Or rather he was sure. He was sure that it was impossible.

Josh must be right, he thought, getting to his feet and squeezing the moisture out of his handkerchief. He must love Rosamund.

And he noticed instantly how his thinking had undergone a subtle change. He had wondered before if he were in love with her, had even conceded that he probably was and would remain so until time wore off the feeling. Now he wondered no longer. He knew. And he was not in love with her.

He loved her.

His hands, he noticed as he folded his handkerchief and put it away in an outer pocket, were shaking.