Chapter 16

It was immediately obvious to the Earl of Wetherby that all the house guests knew. As soon as he set foot in the drawing room before dinner, everyone treated him with almost exaggerated heartiness.

He was drawn into a group that included the marchioness, Lady Carver, and Sir Patrick Newton. Annabelle, he could see, was with her mother and Lady Newton, and Josh with Lord Carver and the Reverend Strangelove.

He had to be careful. He felt as if he were on display all evening. He had to make a special effort to converse at table as if nothing momentous had just happened in his life, and when the ball began, he had to dance with as many ladies as possible and smile and converse.

He even danced once with Annabelle, who kept her eyes lowered through much of the set. But there was a strain of courage in the girl, as he had found that afternoon. She looked determinedly up at him before the dance came to an end.

“Have I caused you terrible embarrassment tonight?” she asked him. “Are you very angry with me?”

“No on both counts,” he said smiling at her and feeling other eyes on them. “I would have been angry had I discovered much later that you had left Josh unhappy and made yourself miserable by doing what you thought proper. I sincerely wish you well, Annabelle. Josh is a friend of mine, you know.”

“You are very kind,” she said. “And I am so very sorry.”

She did not dance with Josh. But, then, of course, Josh never did dance a great deal because of his leg. Not that he allowed his handicap to curtail many activities.

He had to be careful, the earl felt. So many people were watching, even the neighbors who had come from miles around. Clearly word had leaked out about the announcement that was to have been made. Whether those people were still waiting for the announcement or had already heard that it was not after all to be made, he did not know. But he had that very uncomfortable feeling of being on display.

He would not dance with Rosamund or even stand beside her between sets to talk with her. He would not even look at her deliberately. He would not open his feelings for her to the interested scrutiny of half a county.

And he was afraid to dance with her or talk with her. For as long as she had been forbidden to him he could dream of what might have been if only he had been free. He could dream that her feelings matched his own. Now he was free, and he was afraid to put those dreams to the test of reality.

And so suppertime came and he led Christobel in and seated them with Michael Weaver and Valerie Newton and with Lord Carver and a local beauty. And he participated quite as much as anyone else in the conversation that developed and was aware with some amusement of the blushing glances darted his way by Carver’s beauty.

And every moment he was aware of Rosamund at quite the other side of the room with Strangelove and Marion and David and an unknown couple. She was to leave the next day. Should he let her go without a word? Find her out at a later date, perhaps, when the present family embarrassment had dimmed in memory? Should he try to find the opportunity of a private word with her the next morning before she left? Or should he let her go and forget about her, preserve the memory of his snow angel and their brief affair and not risk having the sweetness of that memory melt before his eyes?

He smiled as everyone else in his group laughed at one of Lord Carver’s anecdotes.

And then he became aware out of the corner of his eye of Rosamund’s getting to her feet with Strangelove, who made her a bow and raised her hand to his lips. David and the other gentleman also rose, and Rosamund turned away and left the room alone.

“Excuse me,” Lord Wetherby said. “Carver, will you escort your sister to the ballroom when supper is over?” He got to his feet and made for the door. He did not particularly care whether people watched him or not.

Rosamund knew as soon as she entered the drawing room on her brother’s arm. She could not have expected him to rush across the room to take her into his arms, of course. She could not even have expected a special look or smile. But there would have been something, something unmistakable if there had been any hope.

As it was, there was nothing. She doubted he even noticed her entrance. And all through dinner, though they were seated at no great distance from each other, there was not so much as a glance. In the ballroom later, though she was frequently free until the music was about to begin, he did not once ask her to dance. He did not once speak with her or look at her.

It was as if she were not there at all. For days she had felt his awareness of her as if it were a tangible thing. And yet now, when that awareness was no longer a forbidden thing, there was nothing.

The lure of the forbidden—that was all she had been to him. She had known it deep down, of course, but hope is sometimes a stubborn beast.

It was lowering. She felt humiliated. She supposed that when she was finally alone, she would feel far more painful things than humiliation, but that was quite bad enough.

He was probably feeling some anxiety, she thought, wondering if she were about to make claims on him that he now had no excuse to avoid. But, no, the Earl of Wetherby was doubtless quite adept at warding off hopeful females— of which number she had become one for a brief and unwilling moment a few hours before. It was humiliating.

She danced and smiled and talked. She smiled so dazzlingly and talked with such animation to the Reverend Strangelove that she feared perhaps he felt encouraged to renew his addresses. Certainly he assured her, as he led her into a vigorous country dance, that he did not feel it at all inconsistent with his calling to kick up his heels on occasion in order to dance with a lovely lady.

Somehow, she thought, smiling at him, one could not quite imagine Toby kicking up his heels.

But she need not have feared that she had raised his hopes again. Whenever the pattern of the dance brought them together, he told her about a lovely and modest young cousin of his patron, a lady whose character quite made up for the fact that she was impoverished. The patron, it seemed, had hinted at his willingness to arrange a match between his cousin and his pastor. Toby was in the process of persuading himself that he would be doing both the young lady and himself a favor by agreeing.

It was the supper dance. Rosamund sat at supper with the Reverend Strangelove and two other couples and felt that the evening must surely have been three nights long already. The noise level was high—all the guests seemed to be enjoying themselves and everyone drank a toast to the marquess with great heartiness.

Annabelle, who had not danced with Lord Beresford all evening, was now sitting beside him. They were holding hands beneath the cover of the tablecloth, Rosamund saw with a fleeting smile.

And Justin was sitting across the room, smiling charmingly and talking as he had all evening. Looking breath-takingly handsome in his formal evening clothes. Looking so achingly familiar that she found it hard to swallow the food she had put on her plate. And as unaware of her as if they had never been so much as introduced.

“I am afraid I must retire,” she said suddenly. “I am so very tired, and I have a long journey to make tomorrow.”

“But of course, my dear Rosamund,” the Reverend Strangelove said, scraping back his chair to rise with her, and bowing and raising her hand to his lips. “I shall do myself the honor of escorting you to your door.”

“Please don’t,” she said. “I shall just slip away unnoticed. Good night.” She included all the occupants of the table in her greeting and smile.

Lord Sitwell and Mr. Cathcart also got to their feet to make her a bow and she turned and fled from the room, willing herself to walk, not to break into a panicked run.

There was air in the hallway, air that would blessedly fill her lungs. She paused briefly, closed her eyes, and drew in a deep breath of it. And then she hurried to the stairs and up them. But she was only halfway up when there was a buzz of noise as the dining-room doors were opened again, and quietness as they were closed.

“Rosamund?” a voice said.

She closed her eyes and stood where she was.

“Where are you going?” He stood looking up at her.

“To bed,” she said. “I am tired and I have a journey to make tomorrow.”

But instead of continuing on her way up the stairs, she looked down into his blue eyes. He could not have had his hair cut since they were in Northamptonshire, she thought irrelevantly. It was now decidedly longer than was fashionable. Her knees felt rather as if they were made of jelly.

She had no idea how long the silence between them lasted. But finally he moved. He rounded the bottom of the staircase and vaulted up the stairs two at a time until he was level with her.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Dress warmly and come out with me.”

“Justin ...” she said.

“I’ll knock on your door in ten minutes’ time,” he said. He stood beside her, one foot on the stair above, looking very directly into her eyes.

She felt enormously weary. He had but to crook a beckoning finger and she would come running. It had been that way from the start. “I want to make love to you, Rosamund,” he had said, and she had taken him into her bed. And now he wanted to take her out into the darkness to tumble her once more before sending her on her way.

Had she no pride?

No conception of the pain she was inviting all over again when she left him again the next day?

“Please, Rosamund?” He touched the back of one of her hands with his fingertips.

“Ten minutes?” she said.

“Yes.”

She nodded and continued on her way up the stairs and along the corridor to her room without looking at him again.

And she stood inside her room, her hands behind her on the knob of the closed door, her eyes tightly closed for a whole minute before crossing to the wardrobe and pulling out a long-sleeved woolen dress and her warmest cloak and hood.

It had been a warm day for early March. The night was cool, but not cold. The Earl of Wetherby took Rosamund’s hand in his as the doors of the house closed behind them, and turned her in the direction of the lake.

They had not spoken a word since he had tapped on the door of her bedchamber and she had stepped outside, wearing the same cloak as she had worn when he first saw her trudging along a snowy highway with red cheeks and nose and chattering teeth.

And they continued to say nothing, though the silence between them was not uncomfortable.

He had acted impulsively. It had been bad-mannered to leave the young lady he had led in to supper, and reckless to leave a ball at which he had been unwillingly the focus of much curious attention. It had been unwise to invite Rosamund out of doors. It might have been better, under the circumstances, to invite her into the library or some other room not in use that evening.

What was he proving by bringing her outside and taking her to the lake—was that where he was taking her? She had known and he had known that he was asking her just as badly as he had asked her at Price’s hunting box to come and make love with him. It was a purely physical relationship, she had said a few days before. It had certainly been that at the start. Was it to end that way, too?

Was there to be nothing else between them? Could they express their mutual attraction only through their bodies? He was afraid to hope for more. It was a foolish fear, he supposed. Without undue conceit he could still say that over the past eight or nine years he might have had almost any bride he had cared to offer for. He had his land and his title and his fortune. Rosamund, he was well aware, was on the fringes of poverty, only her position as daughter of a viscount and widow of a baronet making her eligible.

But he was afraid. Afraid to take anything for granted and therefore afraid to hope at all.

He should have taken her into the library and made her a formal offer and been done with it.

Rosamund, walking silently at his side, assumed they were on their way to the lake, probably to the very spot where Josh had surprised them together a few days before. There they would do what they had both wanted to do on that occasion.

And then, what? Would one encounter satisfy his appetite for her? Would he want her to go away with him for a few weeks? And would she go?

She would not! She could not so demean herself. Tonight was different. Tonight was the end of an affair, a final goodbye. But not the beginning of anything. Not the beginning of a sordid affair. And certainly not the beginning of anything else. He had ignored her all evening.

“Cold?” he asked her.

She shook her head and smiled at him, but he set an arm about her shoulders anyway and drew her against his side. She rested her head on his shoulder as they walked on.

“Ah,” he said.

And he needed to say no more. The moon was shining across the water of the lake. They stood still on the bank just a few feet from the oak tree beneath which they had sat.

“It’s lovely,” she said. “I’ll remember it this way all my life.”

“Will you?” He looked down at her and laid a cheek against the top of her head for a brief moment. “And that I was with you here?”

“Yes,” she said.

She waited to be taken to the tree. She waited for him to make love to her. And she yearned for the moment and regretted that it had come so soon and would soon be over. So much living to be done in the next few minutes. So many memories to be stored.

She was going to be happy. She was going to allow herself to be fully and finally happy. For happiness, she had learned in her twenty-six years, was never eternal—at least not in this life—but came in brief and glorious moments.

It was not right, he thought. There would be something almost sordid in coupling with her beneath the tree where they had been caught together. He was not sure he was going to be able to make love to her at all. It was not quite what he wanted. He did not want a brief moment of sensual satisfaction with her. He wanted a lifetime of total satisfaction.

And yet he could not speak to her. He was afraid to speak. He was afraid of ending something before he was ready to let it go.

He looked along the bank to the boathouse, where the two boats were kept. And he knew at last. There was a little piece of wilderness that would mean nothing at all to anyone else except the two of them. It was their piece of wilderness, visible from the house, but quite unremarkable except to two people who had stood there together and had wanted to remain there together forever, forgotten by the world and forgetful of it.

“I’ll get one of the boats,” he said, and he knew by the way she turned with him toward the boathouse and by the fact that she did not protest being taken boating in the middle of a March night that she understood.

And he knew finally his own foolishness. He knew that she could not be the other half of his soul unless he were the other half of hers. And he knew that such a feeling would be impossible unless she shared it. For the first time that night he relaxed and was happy. He kissed her briefly on the lips before going alone to launch one of the boats.

Rosamund sat idle in the boat a few minutes later, trailing one hand in the water until its coldness threatened to turn her fingers numb. And she glanced in wonder at the man who rowed the boat, the capes of his greatcoat making him look even more broad-shouldered than usual, his eyes smiling at her.

What had changed? Was it the calm water and the moonlight? When had peace taken the place of anxiety? When had she known beyond any doubt that their minds, their very souls, were in as great a harmony as their bodies?

Was she deluding herself? Was she being foolish in the extreme, not fortifying herself against pain to come?

But, no. She knew where they were going. And there was only one possible reason why he would take her there.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, gazing out across the lake, aware that she was repeating herself.

“Yes, you are,” he said softly, and they smiled at each other.

“The daffodils are still in bloom,” she said in some wonder. They were standing hand in hand at the top of the rise from which they had looked to the house on a previous occasion.

“Of course they are,” he said. “It has been less than a week.”

“Has it?” she said. “It seems like forever ago.”

“But most of them are closed up for the night,” he said. “And their color is not so apparent in the moonlight. I wonder if Wordsworth ever saw his ten thousand daffodils at night.”

“Daylight, moonlight, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “It is an enchanted place.”

“Our own little piece of wilderness,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Have you ever made love among daffodils?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Me neither,” he said. “It will be a new experience for both of us.”

“Justin ...” she said.

But he hushed her and stooped down to lift her into his arms, her knees resting on the blanket he carried. And he took her down into the clearing and twirled once about with her before setting her down on her feet.

“You see? There is no breeze down here. It is almost warm.” And when she smiled, he said, “Well, we can pretend it is almost warm.”

“Justin ...” she said.

“My snow angel was far more talkative than this,” he said.

“Your snow angel?”

“She chattered and played and laughed—and cried,” he said.

“She was happy,” she said. “For two days and two nights she was utterly happy.”

“Was she?” He turned from her to spread the blanket on the grass among the flowers and drew her down to lie beside him, her head on the crook of his arm. “Can it be recaptured, that happiness?”

“It already has been,” she said. “Now, at this moment, I am happy, Justin. And I don’t care about anything else but this moment. Nothing else exists. All we ever have is the moment.”

“And the hope of many more beyond it,” he said, his hand parting her cloak to touch her beneath it. “As many moments as there are, Rosamund. I want them all. I never said I was not greedy, did I?”

“Justin ...” She turned her face in to his neck as his hand found one breast and fondled it and then moved behind her back to undo the buttons of her dress. Her own hands began to open the buttons of his greatcoat.

“I want you,” he said against her mouth. “You understand me, don't you? I don’t mean just this and now. I want you, all of you for all time.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.” And she waited for his hands to slide her dress from her shoulders and down her arms before opening his coat and putting herself inside it.

“Tell me you want me too,” he said, his hand raising her skirt, smoothing over her warm thighs.

“I want you,” she said.

“But not just in this way, Rosamund?”

“No,” she said, “not only in this way, Justin.”

And she was inside his coat and his waistcoat and his shirt, her hands and her breasts against the firm muscles and rough hairs of his chest, and his mouth was wide over hers and his tongue moist and seeking against her own, and his hand found her beneath the warm bunching of her skirt.

“Make love to me,” she said. “Please make love to me, Justin.”

Smiling eyes looked down into hers. “That’s what I am doing, love,” he said. “Haven’t we had this conversation before? Where do you want me to love you? Here?”

“Yes, there,” she said. “There. Please, Justin.”

He had intended to take longer. He had wanted to touch her, to play with her all night if possible before the final consummation. But she was right. This was not play. This was love. And he needed union with her as much as she needed it with him.

The moon was bright in a clear sky, the air crisp. They were surrounded by long grass and daffodils and the scents of spring. And the woman beneath him was hot and welcoming and moaned for him when he came into her.

All the glory of a spring night was above her. Her face was bathed in moonlight and starlight. The night air was cool on her bare legs. But the man above her and in her, his hands beneath her cushioning her as his body thrust her against the hard ground, was warm and heavy and wonderful.

They cried out together and clung to each other as the moonlight streamed down and the daffodils at the upper edges of the clearing waved in the breeze.

“I should have asked,” he said, his voice husky, feathering kisses over her face as he held her warmly against him many minutes later, his greatcoat and her cloak wrapped about them both. “Is there any chance that I have got you with child?” 

“Yes,” she said.

“Ah. ” He kissed her mouth. “It will have to be by special license, then, and not by banns and betrothal parties and the gathering of trousseaux and St. George’s and all that. Will you mind?”

“What will have to be by special license?” she asked, running a finger along his jaw. “Have I missed something?” 

“No,” he said. “That was not only your body you just gave me, Rosamund. It was yourself. Do you think I did not feel that? Do you want me to ask you formally?” 

“Yes,” she said.

“Not on one knee, I hope,” he said. “You will get cold if I have to get up.”

“We will dispense with the bended knee, then,” she said. 

“Will you marry me, Rosamund?”

"Yes,” she said.

“Will you mind it being by special license?”

She shook her head.

“Will you mind too much if I have got you with child?” She shook her head.

“Mute again?” he said, nudging her head away from his shoulder so that he could look down into her face. “What are you thinking?”

“Of what Leonard used to say,” she said. “That one day I would know what real love is. That the second time I must marry for love.”

“You think he would approve of me, then?” he asked.

“Yes.” She smiled at him.

“That is important to you, isn’t it?” he said. “I do not have an easy act to follow, do I?”

“I loved him,” she said. “I always will, Justin, just as I will always love Papa. But Leonard was right. There was another kind of love, a greater love. It’s what I feel for you.” 

“And I for you,” he said. He smiled. “I seem to remember telling you not so long ago that there was no such thing as love, only a physical craving. They seem very foolish words now. It seems that your Leonard knew a thing or two.” 

“He was wise and wonderful,” she said.

“I had to leave Northamptonshire before your snow angel disappeared,” he said. “It would have been too painful to watch all trace of you melt away. But I know now that it was right for it to melt. You and all that you were to me were not meant to be frozen into memory. We were meant to move on here to find that there was after all a way for us to have a living, breathing love. I can still hardly believe that it was possible, that it has happened.”

She was lying with closed eyes, a smile on her face, he saw when he looked down at her again.

“What are you thinking now?” he asked her, touching her upper lip, which had always intrigued him.

“That you did a great deal of rowing to get us here,” she said. “And that I have not thanked you.”

“You think I need thanking?” he said, grinning at her as she looked up at him. “Rewarding, maybe?” 

“Definitely,” she said.

“Ah,” he said, “this sounds promising. What is my reward to be?”

“The usual,” she said.

“You will pour my next cup of tea?”

She put an arm about his neck and drew his head down to hers. “No,” she whispered to him, laughing against his mouth, “the other usual.”

“Ah,” he said, drawing her more closely to him. “And this is my reward, to be taken in my own way?”

“What exactly did you have in mind?” she asked. 

“Oh, I’ll be sure to show you,” he said. “It may take a while because I can be a dreadful slowtop when making love, but I’ll certainly show you.”

“Mm,” she said, the sound almost a purr of pleasure. 

And he began to claim his reward in thorough and leisurely fashion.