Chapter 3

Rosamund was sitting on her bed, her knees drawn up against her, her arms encircling them. She felt quite snug and warm with a coal fire blazing in the hearth and one of Mrs. Reeves’ voluminous nightgowns covering her from chin to toes.

He had planned to be here with his mistress. In this room. In this bed. She was to have worn one of those nightgowns— for a few minutes. Rosamund felt uncomfortably warm suddenly and plucked the linen away from her, shaking it to create a cool draft.

She wished for perhaps the hundredth time since her arrival that afternoon that he were not so handsome. Although he was very easy to talk to and she could forget herself when they were talking, there were occasional silences—and very uncomfortable they were, too.

They had played cards until nearly midnight—a half-hour before—and spoken scarcely a word, concentrating on the games. At least he had been concentrating. She had lost all but one hand quite ignominiously despite the boast she had made at the start.

She had been too busy being aware of him to be able to concentrate fully, particularly his long-fingered, well-manicured hands. She had kept imagining them stroking over that white lace—for a few minutes. And moving beneath that lace after a few minutes. The trouble was that she had not only seen them doing so in her mind, but had also felt them doing so.

It was hard to concentrate on cards when one was having such lascivious thoughts about one’s opponent, unwilling though they had been.

And she was not the only one. Oh, he must have been concentrating harder than she to have won most of the games so handily. But he had not been indifferent to her presence either. His eyes had been on her almost every time she had found the courage to peep up at him—lazy, heavy-lidded, very blue.

It really was a very awkward situation she had found herself in, Rosamund thought, plucking at the nightgown again. And why was she sitting on the bed instead of lying in it at almost half-past midnight? She knew why. Was she going to do it? If so, she might as well get on with it. If not, she might as well blow out the candles and climb beneath the bedclothes and go to sleep. That was what she would do, in fact.

But when she stepped off the bed, she did not pull back the blankets and climb between the sheets as any virtuous and sensible young lady would have done. She crossed the room to the trunk and opened the lid. And drew out the white lace nightgown. She would just look at it.

But looking was not enough. She found herself one minute later undoing the buttons of the flannel nightgown with reluctant, hesitant fingers, drawing the garment off her shoulders and letting it fall in a heap at her feet. She fingered the white lace again, picked the garment up from the bed, and lifted it over her head.

It felt like gentle fingers sliding down her body. She looked down at herself, her face burning hot. She swallowed. She should not. She really should not. But of course she would. She stepped across to the other side of the room, where there was a full-length mirror.

She had always been embarrassed to look at herself naked. She never did so when she stepped out of the bathtub. She was not naked now, of course, but she could see herself clearly through the white lace. It clung to her breasts, half-covering them, narrow straps passing over her shoulders. It fell shimmering to the floor. Her hair, brushed loose down her back, looked very dark in contrast.

Rosamund swallowed again and turned sharply away. Two minutes later the nightgown was folded neatly in the trunk again, the flannel had been donned once again, the candles had been blown out, and Rosamund was in bed, the blankets drawn up about her ears.

She must not do that again.

It was a very naughty garment, she had told him at dinner, and he had agreed. He had chosen it with care, he had said. For how many minutes would his mistress have worn it? she wondered. And when he removed it, would it have been beneath the bedclothes or standing beside the bed? She really did not want to know the answer, she thought, pulling the blankets even higher.

What would it be like to be touched by Mr. Halliday? she found herself wondering a few moments later, totally unable to shut off her mind and address herself to sleep. To have those long, sensitive fingers on her shoulders and arms, in her hair? To be kissed by those well-formed lips? Held against that slim, firmly muscled body? Rosamund shivered even though the fire still burned cheerfully.

She had begun to wonder about younger men several years before, and had always ruthlessly suppressed the thoughts. She had been too young when she had gone to Bath, and too naive: she had never been beyond the neighborhood where she had grown up and to Brookfield, the Marquess of Gilmore’s home. She had been frightened by the attentions of young men. And she had still been missing her father even though he had been dead for seven years. She was unhappy with Dennis, not because he had ever treated her badly or ever given any indication that she was not welcome in his home, but because he was not her father and had tried to act as if he were.

She had wanted a father, one of the right age and appearance and demeanor. She had chosen Leonard to be her father. Oh, she had not consciously done so, of course. She had taken him as a husband. But she had realized some time after their marriage, when she had grown up a little, that that was what she had done. And he had been a good father to her: kind, indulgent, always willing to listen to her and advise her, always loving.

Of course, he had been a husband, too. They had had a real marriage. He had come to her every Tuesday and Friday nights, when her monthly cycle would allow, and occasionally on Sundays, too. She had not minded. She had never found what he did to her distasteful or repulsive. But she had always been embarrassed by it, even after seven years— he had been too ill in the last year to come to her at all.

It had always seemed like the only shared activity in which they were not together, although it had been the most intimate of all. She had always felt as if he were a million miles away from her in mind. He had always breathed very heavily, sometimes grunting, until he was finished with her. Sometimes, during the seventh year, it had taken him a very long time to be finished.

She had never minded because he was her husband and she knew she gave him pleasure. But she had always been embarrassed. It had not seemed right. It had seemed almost incestuous.

She had begun to wonder about younger men—slimmer men, more-hard-muscled men, more virile men. Men like Mr. Halliday. She pulled the blankets all the way over her head.

Oh, dear, she ought not have got out of Dennis’ carriage. What a very foolish and childish thing it was to have done. And what disastrous results it was having. She was stranded alone with a man who was supposed to be with his mistress. And she was having thoughts about him that were making her blush down to her toenails.

She hoped the snow would have stopped and the sun would be shining by morning.

The snow was falling thicker than ever the following morning.

“Lord love us,” Mrs. Reeves said as she served breakfast, “it’s like as if we have to get a whole winter’s worth of snow in two days, I was only saying to Reeves last week, I was, that it looked as if we weren’t going to get any this winter, after all. And now look at it.”

Lord Wetherby had spent a great deal of time looking at it from the window of his bedchamber that morning. It was impossible to tell where the driveway and the road were.

“It’s a good thing you was planning to stay a week, sir,” Mrs. Reeves added. “I don’t know as how you would be able to get away even if you wanted.”

The earl smiled at Rosamund when they were alone. “Are you still worried about your brother?” he asked. “Don’t be. There were a coachman and a footman traveling with him, you say? Servants are invariably sensible people. They would not have risked their skins even if he was prepared to risk his. He is shut up inside some inn, fuming at the discomfort and the delay, you may be sure.

“And worrying his head off about me,” she said. “Poor Dennis. I always gave him a great deal of grief. He must have been very relieved when Leonard took me off his hands. And now, as soon as he has resumed responsibility of me, I have caused him this monumental worry. I ought not to have got out of that carriage yesterday, should I?”

“We do not always behave rationally when angry,” he said. “I’m sure that at the time it seemed the only possible thing to do.”

“I have a bad temper, only with Dennis,” she said. “I was never angry with Leonard. We never quarreled at all.” Silence fell at the table so that Lord Wetherby could hear himself crunching his toast.

“When do you think the—” she began.

“What do you like to do—” he said at the same moment. She smiled. “What do I like to do?” she asked.

“On snowy days,” he said, finishing his sentence.

“Sit and watch it,” she said. “Walk in it when it has stopped falling. Make snow angels. I love snow. It is so rarely that we have a good fall. It’s ironic that we should have one of the best at this particular time, is it not? When do you think it will stop and begin to melt?”

“For your sake, I hope soon,” he said. And for his own sake, too. After a night of restless tossing and turning, he had expected the morning to be easier. One’s mind did not so readily turn to women and beddings in the early light of day, and the chances were that she would wear something less alluring than that orange gown of the evening before.

She was wearing her own pale-blue woolen dress, and her hair was dressed rather severely at the back of her head. But wool was a good fabric for a slender woman. It clung enticingly. And that particular shade of blue looked good with her coloring.

Perhaps even so he could have been reasonably comfortable with her if she had not chosen to wear one of the perfumes he had bought for Jude. It was the one he had chosen with the most care. He had even imagined, inhaling it, exactly where he would dab it on her body and exactly when. It did nothing for his peace of mind to find it wafting delicately across the breakfast table from Mrs. Hunter’s person.

“I’m afraid there is not much in the house here with which to entertain a lady,” he said, “except cards. We cannot play cards all day long, though, can we?”

She leaned across the table toward him as she had done a few times the evening before, her face eager. “What would you have done if your mistress had been here?” she asked, and instantly turned poppy-red.

He grinned at her. “I know just how it feels,” he said, “to realize what you are saying only when the words are already escaping your mouth, Mrs. Hunter. I’m sure you have a good-enough imagination to know just how I would have spent this day with Jude. But you are not my mistress, I did say there was not much here to entertain a lady.” 

“That was the stuff of nightmares,” she said. “I shall be waking up for the next several months shaking my head and grimacing over that one.” She helped herself to another piece of toast and spooned a generous pile of lemon curd onto it.

The earl watched her in some amusement. Life must never be dull with Rosamund Hunter around.

“Now, if you were a gentleman,” he said, taking mercy on her after watching her for several seconds as she spread and respread the lemon curd on her toast, “we could play billiards. But you are not, so we can’t. Price did say there were some books here somewhere, though I have not yet found any.”

She set her knife down and looked eagerly across at him. “Oh, but I do play billiards,” she said. “I asked Leonard to teach me, and he did, though he laughed at me a good deal. I never could beat him, but then no one else could either, and I would never let him humor me and allow me to win. He was very good.”

The earl raised his eyebrows. “Then billiards it will be for this morning,” he said. “Perhaps the snow will have stopped falling by this afternoon and we can get some fresh air. You can make some snow angels for me.”

She laughed. “Oh, but there are no children here,” she said. “One can do that and build snowmen and throw snowballs only when there are children to entertain, or someone is sure to accuse one of being childish.”

“I promise not to accuse you of that,” he said, raising his right hand with mock solemnity. “And snowballs, did you say? I know a thing or two about snowballs.”

She laughed.

She was a widow, one part of his mind was thinking. The young widow of an older man who had been dead for more than a year and of a man who had been ill for three years before that. An attractive widow. Perhaps she would not be averse . . .

He shook himself free of the thought and sipped on his second cup of coffee.

A little flirtation, perhaps? But under the present circumstances, a little flirtation would be impossible. If he once touched her and she did not slap his hand away, he would take her up to his bed and make of his life a hopelessly complicated business. She was a lady.

No, better to forget the whole thing before it took root in his mind.

“Shall we find the billiard room?” he asked when it became obvious that she was not going to eat the toast on her plate.

Billiards seemed safe enough. It was a masculine game, a slow and rather dull one. Something that could be made to last through the morning. And Mrs. Hunter obviously took it seriously. She concentrated on making her shots and really played quite well.

But the Earl of Wetherby discovered something new about billiards. It was perhaps the most erotic game invented by man. If he stood at the opposite side of the table as she readied her cue, his eyes were drawn to her breasts, brushing the table, one sometimes flattened against the rim. He was only thankful that the neckline of her dress was high. If he stood behind her, he could not keep his eyes from a rounded and very feminine derriere as she leaned over the table and the wool of her dress clung to her.

Before the morning was half over, he had to resist the urge to tear at his cravat and rush out into the falling snow to cool himself off. He would find those books before luncheon, he swore to himself, and they would spend the afternoon in the sitting room, one at either side of the fire, reading, like an elderly and comfortable married couple.

“I win,” she said, turning to him with a bright smile.

“So you do,” he said. “You had a good teacher, I see. Did we decide on a prize?”

“No,” she said, laughing. “It was always a kiss with Leonard and me. But since we kissed each other whoever won—though it was always him, of course—it was rather silly, as I used to tell him.” She suddenly turned that poppy-red shade again.

“Well, then,” he said, hearing his words even before they came from his mouth but quite unable to change them, “a kiss it will be.”

She looked up at him in shock and embarrassment and caught her lower lip between her teeth. Her upper lip gave more than ever the impression of being upturned.

He took her face between his hands, watched her release her lower lip, and lowered his mouth to hers. He did not part his lips, but kissed her lightly, feeling the softness of her, the warmth, the moistness of her lower lip. He did not hurry. His nostrils were teased by that seductive scent.

“Mm,” he said, raising his head and looking down into a pair of large dark eyes, “your husband was a very sensible man. Having to give such prizes would console any man for losing a game.”

She swallowed awkwardly. “It was just nonsense,” she said, “as I always used to tell him.”

If he just touched her once, he had thought at breakfast. He still had her face cupped between his hands.

“May I call you Rosamund?” he asked. And he certainly had not planned those words in advance.

“Yes,” she said, turning sharply away and fishing a couple of balls out of a side pocket of the table, “if you wish.”

“Will you call me Justin?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said again, moving around the table to another pocket, “if you wish.”

He strolled to the window and tried to persuade his heart to slow down. “I do believe the snow is easing a little,” he said. “I could use some fresh air after luncheon, couldn’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, sounding as eager for cool air and open spaces as he was feeling.

If the snow had not eased off enough for them to go outside, Rosamund thought later when she was upstairs pulling on boots and gloves and fastening her cloak warmly about her throat, she would have had to go outside anyway. If she had to remain inside the house for one more hour, she would surely burst.

The air had positively pulsed between them all morning and through both meals. And surely it could not be all one-sided. She could not be so overpoweringly aware of him while he felt nothing. Surely he felt as she did.

A most disconcerting thought!

Leonard had always said she had a positive gift for opening her mouth and ramming her foot inside. He had found that gift quite endearing and had always hugged her and kissed her smackingly and laughed heartily when it happened. But it was one thing to say alarmingly embarrassing things when there was just Leonard to hear her, and quite another to say them in front of Mr. Halliday . . . Justin,

She must close her mind to the morning’s examples, she thought, turning resolutely to the door of her room, or she would lose the courage to go back downstairs to face him again. But her hand paused on the knob and she closed her eyes.

Asking him what he would have done with his mistress today, indeed! She had had sudden and vivid images of a girl spread on her bed clad only in the black nightgown and of him about to remove it. On top of the covers and not beneath them. Oh, it was most mortifying. Women of her class were not even supposed to know about such creatures as mistresses.

And then telling him that a kiss had always been the prize claimed by Leonard when they had played billiards. How could she have! Rosamund shuddered. Just as if she were issuing an open invitation.

That kiss! She still felt a tightening of her breasts and a weakening in her womb and her knees when she thought of it. Why, oh, why, had she got out of Dennis’ carriage the day before?

She opened the door resolutely, and went downstairs, pulling up her hood over her hair as she did so.

“The snow is very deep,” the earl said. “Will your boots keep it out?”

“For a little while,” she said, looking down at her half-boots. He was surely wearing the same topboots and the same caped greatcoat that he had been wearing the day before.

She had not really noticed then how very large and virile they made him look. She noticed now.

But this is foolish, she thought, giving herself a mental shake and striding toward the front door.

A world of white magic greeted them outside. The sky was still gray and heavy and promised more snow later on, and there was a chill breeze to whip up air that was already very cold. But it was a magical world anyway. The trees were hung with snow, and the ground beneath them was an unbroken white carpet. Rosamund stood on the steps, the only area that Reeves had swept off, and drew in a deep breath.

“Oh, beautiful,” she said. “Isn’t it beautiful?” She turned to the man who was standing silently beside her.

“Magical,” he said, echoing her thoughts. He went down the steps and into snow that reached almost to the top of his boots. “Are you coming down here, Rosamund, or is snow only to be looked at?”

She laughed. “It is so deep,” she said, taking his hand and stepping down into it. “I have never seen snow so deep. Oh, Justin, isn’t it lovely? What I would not have given to have had snow like this when I was a child.”

“There is a child in all of us,” he said as they waded slowly along what they thought to be the driveway. “If you want to shriek and frolic, don’t hold back on my account. I may even join you.”

“I would have made a whole army of snowmen,” she said, “and been begging Cook for a whole bag of carrots for their noses. But alas, I am not a child any longer.” She smiled at him. “It would be lovely to have children, wouldn’t it?”

And there, she had done it again, she thought as she bent to pick up a handful of snow to mold into a ball in her hands. How embarrassing!

“I must admit I have never felt the urge,” he said, sounding amused. “You never had children?”

“No,” she said. “Leonard’s first wife did not have any either. We would have liked one.”

“Well,” he said, “there is lots of time. You are young yet. In the meanwhile, what about that angel?”

“Oh, no,” she said, dropping the ball she had molded. “I would feel remarkably foolish.”

“A pity,” he said. “How about a snowball fight?”

She looked at him warily. “A fight?” she said. “You and me? Oh, no.”

“You’re afraid of losing,” he said.

“I am not,” she said.

“Yes you are,” he said. “Or afraid of getting snow in your face or losing some of your dignity. You are a coward.”

“Oh, I am not,” she said indignantly, bending quickly and grabbing up a handful of snow to take him off his guard. But when she whirled on him, a shower of snow hit her squarely on the nose and his laughter mingled with her sputtering gasp.

“You might as well throw it, since you have it,” he said. But he ducked as soon as she released her snowball and it sailed harmlessly over his shoulder. “The first round goes to me.”

A breathless, laughing, giggling snowball fight occupied the next five minutes as they stood twenty feet apart recklessly hurling the soft snow at each other. Justin Halliday had a far surer aim than she had, Rosamund decided almost immediately. Her hood had blown off her head, and snow was dripping down her face and inside her collar. And she could not seem to stop giggling.

“Are you prepared to hoist the white flag?” he asked a moment before releasing a snowball directly at her right cheek and hitting his mark dead on.

“Never,” she said breathlessly, but as she moved to scoop up more snow, her feet skidded awkwardly and she sprawled sideways right into the thick of it.

He was laughing when he came over to help her up. “Poor Rosamund,” he said, hauling her to her feet with a firm hand. “You look rather like an angel, you know-all white. Except that angels are not supposed to spit snow and mutter expletives that are on the verge of being unladylike. Do you admit defeat now?”

“I had better,” she said, “since I believe I have as much snow inside my clothes as outside. You win, Justin.”

“I’ll give you a rematch tomorrow,” he said. “What is my prize to be?”

“Not a kiss,” she said hastily.

“And glad I am to hear it,” he said. “It would be a somewhat icy kiss, I fear. You can pour tea for me after you have changed. How does that sound?”

“Fair enough,” she said.

Altogether, she thought, cheerful despite her cold and discomfort as they made their way back to the house, the hour outdoors had lightened the tension between them considerably. She would be able to handle the rest of the day with ease.

Good sense and sanity had been restored.

“I shall pour your tea as soon as I have changed and warmed up,” she said to him when they were on their way upstairs. “Perhaps even two cups, if you are very good.”

“Really?” he said. “And what constitutes being very good, Rosamund?”

He was smiling when she looked across at him, just as he had been all the time they were outside. His face was reddened by the cold. His blue eyes were twinkling.

But her tongue delayed just a moment too long over a glib reply. And his smile faded just a little, and his words hung in the space between them, and his eyes dropped for just a moment to her lips.

“Drinking the first cup without spilling a drop,” she said. But she said it too late.

Oh, dear, she thought a minute later, standing with her back against the closed door of her bedchamber. Oh, dear. Dennis should have chained her to the seat of his carriage the day before. He really should have.