Chapter 5

It was not a night for sleep. If Rosamund had expected him to return to his own bedchamber once it was finished, she was soon to learn differently. The candles gradually burned themselves out and the fire died down. He drew the blankets up around them and held her snugly in his arms.

They talked . . . about nothing in particular. She could never remember afterward what they had talked of that could have filled so many hours. And they kissed warmly, lazily, between times, and smiled at each other while there was light to smile by, and even after that.

“I have never lived through such an uncomfortable day as today,” he told her. “Or do I mean yesterday?”

“Me neither,” she said.

“I learned something, anyway, which I thought I had always known,” he said. “Billiards is not a game for women.”

“But I won,” she said. “Don’t you like losing, Justin?"

“No more than anyone else, I suppose,” he said. “But it is not that. It has something to do with the female body bending over a billiard table.”

“Oh,” she said.

“Yes, precisely,” he said. “Oh.”

“What are you going to do with your life, Rosamund?” he asked her somewhat later. “Are you going to marry again?”

“I suppose so," she said with a sigh. “Leonard left me as much as he could, but it is not enough for a total independence. And I hate the thought of living as a dependent on either his nephew or Dennis.”

“Do you have anyone in mind?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I was only seventeen when I married, and I have been living in the country ever since. Dennis has someone in mind, though.”

“You do not sound pleased,” he said.

“I knew him when I was growing up,” she said, “and he used to pay me silly, flowery compliments even then. Now he is ordained and has an influential patron—though he is wealthy in his own right—and has expressed a renewed interest in me. Dennis thinks it would be a good match.”

“Perhaps it would, too,” he said, stroking his fingers through her hair. “You have not seen him for how many years? Nine? Ten? Doubtless he has grown up just as you have.”

“Yes, probably,” she said.

“But you must not marry him just because you think you ought,” he said. “You will have many offers, Rosamund Hunter.”

“Is that a compliment?” she asked, smiling. “Thank you.”

“It is the simple truth,” he said.

They made love four more times in the course of the night. And Rosamund, who had thought the first time that she had been touched in every way it was possible to be touched, learned that it was not so, that sensual pleasures were as many as the stars in the sky.

By the time they drowsed at some time before the late dawn, it already seemed to her that one more day and one more night were precious little time. But she would not think of it, she decided. She would feel now and think later.

The Earl of Wetherby was having much the same thought as he dressed in his own room later that morning. One more day—already cut short by their sleeping late—and one more night were very little time, indeed.

He rather thought his good-bye to freedom was going to be more reluctant than he had expected. A week of lusty beddings with Jude was what he had planned and then a simple good-bye when they returned to London. She knew that this was to be the end. There would have been no tears— not from Jude. She had already chosen his successor and had talked to him quite freely and cheerfully about the man.

He would have been rather sad at knowing that one phase of his life was at an end, but he was resigned to the fact. He had always known that one day he would settle down to respectability and one woman.

But now things were going to be a little more difficult. Perhaps if he could have had Rosamund for a full week instead of just two nights and one day . . . But, no. That was not it at all.

Not at all. It must be because she was a lady and something of an innocent. It must be because she had given herself so sweetly and so totally, even though she had been almost as ignorant and every bit as frightened as a virgin.

It must be something!

All he did know for sure was that bedding her had not been simply a matter of taking and giving sexual pleasure, as it always had been with him. He could not quite explain to himself what else it had been, but it definitely had been something else.

Perhaps a continuation of the tension of the day before would have been better, he thought. At least then he would have been looking forward to the following day with some eagerness. He would have been relieved beyond words to see her on her way. But now? He preferred not to think of the next day. And the next day it would be, he thought with a glance toward the window. It was cloudy outside, but the clouds were high. There would be no more snow.

Mrs. Reeves would probably be wondering why they were both so late for breakfast, he thought, striding resolutely across to the door of his room. Or perhaps she would guess. Indeed, she would have to be unusually obtuse not to guess.

There was a strange breathless nervousness about sitting at the breakfast table, watching him enter the room and stride across to take her hand and lift it to his lips and smile at her and bid her good morning. And a strange formality, too. But then Mrs. Reeves was in the room.

And there was wonder in the knowledge that this man, dressed so impeccably in his well-fitting green superfine coat and white linen, and form-fitting biscuit-colored pantaloons and black Hessians, that this man with his longish fair hair and blue-eyed smile was the man she had lain with all night, the man whose body held no secrets from her and who knew her far more intimately after just one night than Leonard had in eight years.

She felt like a bride the morning after her wedding night. Except that the comparison was quite inappropriate. She was merely his makeshift mistress. And it was a self-chosen role. She was quite happy with it.

“What do we have left to talk about?” he asked with a smile after Mrs. Reeves had left the room. “Have we exhausted every possible topic?”

They had sat in silence for a couple of minutes. But unlike the day before, it had not been an uncomfortable silence.

“Leonard took me to Scotland for a month four years ago,” she said. “Did I tell you that?”

“No,” he said. “You have been keeping secrets from me, Rosamund. Tell all.”

He laughed through much of her lengthy account of her travels. Leonard had always laughed at her too when she had launched into speech. And he had always hugged her hard and called her the delight of his life.

“Rosamund,” the earl said, “I wonder if the people who meet you realize how closely you are observing all their little foibles. It makes me shudder to think of how you will describe me later. Though your observations are never malicious, I must confess.”

“I will never talk about you,” she said.

His expression sobered and he reached out a hand for one of hers and squeezed it before releasing it again.

“I went to Europe last year,” he said. “A sort of belated Grand Tour once the Continent was safe again.”

“Italy?” she asked eagerly. “Did you go to Rome?”

“How could I go to Europe and not go to Rome?” he said.

“Tell me all about it,” she said. “Oh, I do envy you. Leonard was going to take me traveling, but he was already failing in health when the Battle of Waterloo was fought.”

He told her about Paris and Vienna and Florence and Venice and Rome while she sat gazing at him, her chin in her hand, her second cup of coffee growing cold.

“How I envy you,” she said again when he had finished.

“Perhaps the Reverend So-and-so will take you abroad on your wedding trip,” he said, grinning at her.

But she looked down at the tablecloth and reached for her cup. She put it down again when she found that the coffee was cold.

“How are we going to spend the day?” he asked briskly, getting to his feet and reaching out a hand for hers.

She flushed for no reason that she could fathom.

He laughed. “We can’t do that all day as well as all last night and all tonight,” he said. “We would suffer total exhaustion, Rosamund.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling herself blush more hotly. “How horrid you are. I was not thinking of that at all.”

“Liar,” he said.

“You are no gentleman, sir,” she said, on her dignity.

He laughed again and drew her across the room to the window. “Ah,” he said, “drips from the eaves. There should be enough melting today to allow travel tomorrow.”

“Yes,” she said.

He set an arm about her shoulders and drew her to his side. His free hand reached across to lift her chin so that he could kiss her mouth. “We will have to make the most of today, then, won’t we?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Any regrets, Rosamund?” he asked.

She shook her head and rested it on his shoulder.

“Shall we go outside?” he asked. “Shall we see if I can beat you again at snowballs?”

“Yes, let’s go out,” she said. “But no snowballs, please. I have always had lamentably poor aim, whereas you are despicably accurate.”

“You don’t like losing?” he asked.

“No more than you,” she said. “I will not insist on billiards today if you will not insist on snowballs.”

“Agreed,” he said, “though it would be worth all the humiliation of losing just to see you concentrating over the billiard table, Rosamund.”

She straightened up. “You are no gentleman, sir,” she said again. But this time she laughed with him.

The snow was somewhat crisper than it had been the day before. By the afternoon it would probably be quite wet and heavy.

“It is perfect for building snowmen,” the earl said. “Shall we be unabashed children today, Rosamund? Shall we see who can build the larger snowman?”

“What is the prize to be?” she asked.

“The usual,” he said.

“The loser pours the tea?”

He looked sidelong at her. “No,” he said, “the other usual.”

“Ah,” she said, “an incentive, indeed. ” And she stooped down and set to the building of her snowman with a will.

Hers was tall and thin so that by the time she was molding its shoulders she had to stand on tiptoe. His was squat and very fat with a squat, fat head. He was finished and standing with folded arms watching her as she rolled the head into the shape she wanted.

“Oh, dear,” she said, looking back to her snowman.

“I was wondering when it would strike you,” he said.

“I wonder,” she said after frowning and thinking for a few moments. “A chair from the house, do you think?”

“No,” he said. “The legs would skid in the snow and you would break your neck. I could take you up on my shoulder. ”

“Yes,” she said, “that might work. Why are you laughing?”

“I will wager another kiss that you cannot even lift that head,” he said, “let alone balance on my shoulder with it and lift it into place.”

“Oh, dear,” she said.

“Do you concede defeat?”

“Not by any means,” she said. “With the head on, mine would be larger than yours.”

“But mine makes up in girth for what yours has in height,” he said.

“If you were a gentleman,” she said accusingly, “you would lift the head into place for me.”

He laughed. “I might ruin my back for all time,” he said, stooping and hoisting the large ball of snow into his arms and up to rest on the high shoulders. “Now if we turn our backs very quickly, we may not see it roll off again.” “It will not do so,” she said with dignity. “I hollowed out the shoulders so that it would not fall.”

“Ah,” he said.

“Do you admit I have won?” she asked, looking brightly up at him.

He looked assessingly at both snowmen. “I will never hear the end of it if I don’t, I suppose,” he said. “Come and get your prize, then.”

She came.

More than a minute later he caught at her wrist as she smiled and drew away.

“You owe me,” he said. “You could not lift that head, remember?”

“And so I couldn’t,” she said.

“Very well, then,” he said, drawing her back into his arms. “This is my reward and can be done my way. Right?” “Right,” she said warily.

And this time he plunged his tongue into her mouth and took full value for his winnings.

“They look rather naked, don’t they, poor snowmen?” he said when it was over. “Wait here.”

He was back a couple of minutes later with two carrots and several small pieces of coal. Soon both snowmen had orange noses, black eyes, and an array of black buttons. Lord Wetherby and Rosamund stood together, hand in hand, laughing and admiring their handiwork.

“The Reeveses and your coachman will think we are mad,” Rosamund said.

“Aren’t we?” he said. “And there aren’t any angels yet. I want you to make me one.”

“No sooner said than done,” she said, and she fell backward into the snow, swished her arms and legs carefully out to the sides, and got up slowly. “You see? A perfect white angel. Let’s see if you can make one too.”

“I don’t think I’m angel material,” he said.

“Are you afraid of losing a little of your dignity?” she asked.

He looked at her sidelong again and threw himself back into the snow. He copied her movements.

“But you are not supposed to whip up a blizzard,” she said, laughing. “Gently!”

She was standing close to his feet. He reached out with one booted foot suddenly, and before she realized what he was about to do, he caught her behind one knee with it. She toppled with a shriek on top of him.

“You weren’t by any chance making fun of me, were you?” he asked, his arms going about her.

She looked down into his face and giggled. “Never,” she said.

“Or taunting my clumsiness?”

“What clumsiness?”

“Or asking to be punished?”

“What is the punishment?”

“A thorough kissing.”

“Oh,” she said, still laughing. “Perhaps I am a little guilty then, Justin.”

“The jury agrees with you,” he said. “The judge has passed sentence. Two minutes at least.”

“Oh.”

“As soon as you have stopped giggling."

She giggled.

“Three if you won’t stop,” he said. “Contempt of court.”

She giggled.

And was forced to serve the full sentence.

“Rosamund,” he said, looking up into her face, which he held above his with both hands. They were both serious and gazing into each other’s eyes. “You aren’t sorry, are you?”

“About making fun of you?” she said. “No, not at all.”

He smiled fleetingly. “About this,” he said. “About this time out of time.”

She shook her head,

“I’m glad,” he said. “I would hate you to leave here convinced that you had done something unforgivably immoral or something like that.”

“No,” she said. “I won’t. I will always remember with pleasure, Justin."

"And I,” he said.

They smiled at each other.

“I must say it’s deuced cold lying here,” he said. “I could think of far cozier places in which to be making love to you without even having to tax my brain.”

“It was your idea to make angels,” she said.

“And yours to make fun of me,” he said, rolling her to one side and dumping her into the snow. He got to his feet, brushed himself off quickly, and reached down a hand for hers. “Let’s go and see if luncheon is ready, shall we?”

“That’s the best idea you have had yet today,” she said, turning as he slapped the snow from her cloak.

“I promise to come up with a better one after luncheon,” he said. “Far better, in fact.”

She was lying asleep in the crook of his arm. They were snug in his bed with a cheerful fire crackling in the hearth and the sun streaming through the window. The clouds had finally moved right off an hour before.

He was feeling pleasantly drowsy, too. He would sleep soon and make up a little for two almost sleepless nights— and prepare for the one ahead. He turned his head and smiled down at Rosamund's sleeping face. She had fallen asleep even before he had lifted himself off her. She had merely made sleepy protests when he had done so.

He hoped she had been telling the truth about the unlikelihood of becoming pregnant. God, he hoped he was not getting her with child. Not that he would ever know, of course. She would do the suffering all alone. But he cared too much to be concerned about only his own good name.

He cared too damned much. He should have instructed his coachman to keep on going two days before. Her brother would probably have found her. Or someone else would have taken her up. Or she would have found some other habitation. Or having taken her up and brought her here, he should have fought his baser instincts much harder than he had. He should have brought that book of sermons to this room and locked himself in.

But what had happened in the last day that was so earth-shattering? Nothing really. They had become lovers, to the mutual satisfaction of both. He was a man looking for a last fling before settling down to a respectable betrothal. She was a widow looking for a brief interlude of excitement. They had found what they wanted in each other.

They had shared six thoroughly satisfactory beddings and were likely to share as many more before she left the next day. Thoroughly satisfactory. She had shouted out his name a few minutes before so that he had been afraid for one moment that Reeves would come rushing upstairs to see if he were murdering her.

In two nights and one day he was having far more pleasure than he would have had in a week with Jude. But by tomorrow he would be exhausted. It would be time for her to go even if she did not have to do so.

He would have thoroughly pleasant memories of her—as she would of him, she had said outside that morning. Thoroughly pleasant. It was a great good-bye to youth and freedom.

He tipped his head sideways and rubbed his cheek across her soft dark hair.

Except that he cared too damned much. He felt something like panic when he thought of the next day.

“Was I sleeping?” She turned over onto her side suddenly and smiled drowsily up at him.

“Mhm,” he said. “Very wise of you, and very flattering.”

“Flattering?”

“I believe it was my lovemaking that put you to sleep,” he said.

“Do you?” She closed her eyes and smiled. “The fact that I scarcely slept last night would not have anything to do with it?”

“What stopped you from sleeping last night?” he asked.

Her smile broadened. “Your lovemaking,” she said.

“Precisely,” he said, kissing her nose and then her mouth. “Go back to sleep.”

“Is that an order?” she asked.

“Very definitely,” he said. “I am going to sleep too. I intend to give you another sleepless night tonight.”

“Mm,” she said.

“Does that express approval or disapproval?” he asked.

“Sh,” she said. “I am obeying orders.”

He kissed her nose again.

The tension of the evening before had disappeared. But a new tension had taken its place—a tension of some desperation. All they had left, Rosamund thought as they played a hand of cards after dinner, was this evening and the night ahead. Reeves and Justin’s coachman had already given it as their opinion that it would be possible to travel by late the following morning.

So little time. It was really just as well, of course. If she stayed much longer, he would grow tired of her . . . and she would fall in love with him. She had already conceded that it would be altogether possible to do so. But it was just because he was the first man to show her that physical love could be more—far more—than the wifely duty she had performed quite cheerfully for seven years.

She wondered fleetingly if Leonard had known. Perhaps he did but considered such behavior inappropriate with a wife. But he had had no mistresses. She knew because she had asked him after a few months of marriage and he had laughed at her and told her she should not talk of such things. But he had said that he would be a greedy man indeed if a lovely young wife like her did not satisfy him. No, he had told her, he had no mistress and never would have. She had believed him.

Perhaps Leonard had not known.

“Are you going to play a card, Rosamund, or are you going to continue staring through them?” the earl asked.

“What?” She looked up at him vacantly.

He smiled and laid down his cards, faceup. “I can see that I am going to win handily, anyway,” he said. “Why prolong the agony? Do you want to play?”

She shook her head.

“Let’s sit by the fire, then,” he said.

He took the chair he had sat in the evening before, but he caught her by the wrist when she made for the chair opposite, and drew her down to sit on his lap. She curled up gratefully there and laid her head on his shoulder.

And somehow—she did not know how the topic got started—she found herself telling him about that last painful year with Leonard, when she had watched him lose weight and hide his pain behind smiles. When she had sat on a stool at his feet many times and held his hand and talked and talked endlessly on any topic that came into her head. When she had lain beside him on top of the covers of his bed countless times, his head sometimes on her arm, very still because she had learned that even her hand smoothing over his head could cause him distress. And talking and talking.

“What did I ever do to deserve you, dearest?’’ he had asked her once. And he had told her that when he was dead he wanted her to marry again as soon as possible. “For love, dearest. And for children. I want you to think of having children and being happy.”

“I am happy with you,” she had told him. “I’m happy with you, Leonard.”

“Incredibly, I think you are,” he had said. “But you will find a greater happiness, dearest, and a greater love. A different kind of love. You will know one day.”

She believed, though she had never questioned him, that he and his first wife had shared a very special kind of love. Sometimes she had even felt a little jealous of the long-dead Dorothy.

“Sometimes,” he had told her once, only a week or so before his death, “I think you are the daughter we never had, dearest. You have been the delight of my life.” He had been very weak, lying with closed eyes, pale and gaunt against his pillows. He had mentioned his first wife by name for the only time in their eight-year relationship. She did not believe he had really known what he said. “Dorothy would have loved you, too.”

“He fell asleep,” she said, “and he never woke up. He died three days later. And during those days, I sat by him, willing him to wake up because there was so much I still wanted to say to him and had left too late.”

“He knew,” Lord Wetherby said. Somehow the pins had been removed from her hair and it was loose about her shoulders. “He knew, Rosamund. You loved him dearly, didn’t you?”

“I don’t think I loved even Papa more,” she said.

“He knew,” he said. “He was well-blessed, your husband. To have had his Dorothy first and then you. No, don’t hold back.”

“I feel so stupid,” she said. “It was more than a year ago.”

“But you were married to him for eight years,” he said, “and loved him dearly. Grief does not end when mourning is put off.”

And so she hid her face against his shoulder, took the handkerchief he put into her hand, and cried and cried as she had not done since the day of the funeral. She cried until her ribs hurt.

“He was a well-blessed man,” the earl said against the side of her face, “to have had a woman like you, Rosamund.”

"I’m sorry,” she said, sitting up on his lap and blowing her nose loudly and resolutely into his handkerchief, “to subject you to this.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “I feel privileged.”

“There,” she said more brightly, looking about her and setting the handkerchief down on a side table, “the sad story of my life. It was about this time last evening I moved over to that stool, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” He smiled.

“I must look frightful,” she said.

“A little red about the eyes and nose,” he admitted, studying her. “Rather beautiful, actually. Do you want me to repeat what I said last night?”

She nodded.

“I want to make love to you, Rosamund,” he said.

She looked back at him, unsmiling. “Yes,” she said. “I want that, too, Justin.”

He put one side of her hair back behind her ear. “I’ll come up with you tonight,” he said. "I want to undress you. May I?”

She nodded and got to her feet and reached out a hand for his.