Before Colin started undoing his falls in the very garden, he broke off the kiss.
“I should be leaving, my dear. If I don’t see you tomorrow, you may be assured I’ll be at the card party. I’m prepared to lose a goodly sum, and I’ve secured a promise from no less person than Jonathan Tresham that he’ll do likewise.”
Tresham was a duke’s heir, and a cold, quiet fellow. Colin liked him for keeping his own counsel, though he suspected Tresham’s generosity toward orphans might be an effort to impress Mrs. Bellingham rather than a display of honest charity.
“I don’t want to talk about the card party,” Anwen said, taking Colin by the hand. “In fact, I refuse to air that topic further until after the occasion itself, and do you realize we’ve given no thought to our own wedding?”
Edana and Rhona had sworn that wedding preparations would distract Anwen from her anxiety over the orphanage.
Edana and Rhona had been wrong—thus far.
“I’ve been to a few weddings,” Colin said. “They’ve mostly been modest affairs. The couple speaks their vows, signs the documents, enjoys a fortifying meal with friends, and goes on their wedding journey. What did you have in mind?”
Anwen’s smile was sweet and naughty. “I’ve been more focused on the wedding night. Are you concerned that if the orphanage isn’t sorted out, I won’t want to join you in Scotland?”
Well, hell. “Should I be?”
Colin visually inspected the garden rather than see the hesitation in his intended’s eyes. His gaze fell on the curved back of a wrought-iron bench, which bowed like the top of a symmetric, stylized heart—or like a lady’s cleavage in a snug bodice.
Lately Colin had been seeing cleavage everywhere—in clouds, puddles, bowls of oranges, and most assuredly in his dreams. The center of a flower prompted even more erotic fancies, and he’d forbidden himself to even glance at Anwen’s lips.
“Colin, look at me.”
Not at her lips. He couldn’t risk that, but he could look into her eyes.
“No matter what happens with the orphanage,” she said, “I will marry you, and we will repair to Scotland. I care very much about the boys, but I have promised to marry you, and I keep my promises.”
Colin didn’t want his fiancée speaking her vows out of duty alone, and yet, that Anwen cared for the boys was important to him too.
“Anwen Windham, I promise you that whatever happens, I’ll find a decent situation for each of the twelve boys we have now. MacHugh the publisher can use a few more newsboys. MacHugh the saddle maker will take on an extra apprentice. We won’t turn your boys back out onto the street.”
Not even if MacHugh the distiller had to take the four oldest into his own household.
Anwen studied him for so long, Colin did take notice of the perfect, pink bow of her lips. He’d caught a glimpse of her nipples once by candlelight eleven days ago. They were nearly the same pink as her mouth, one shade more pale perhaps, and the areolae one shade paler than that.
“Colin MacHugh, you are having naughty thoughts.”
“Worshipful thoughts,” he said, stepping closer. “Wedding night thoughts.” He was having wedding night sensations too, directly behind his falls, at every damned hour of the day and night, especially if Anwen was in sight.
She tucked in closely enough that she had to be aware of his arousal. For him, desire had become a constant low hum, like honeybees in a flower garden, droning on and on, never satisfied.
This was different from the occasional flare of interest that in past years had had more to do with boredom and availability than any finer sentiments.
“I love you,” Anwen said. “I’m not sure when this happened. Maybe when you were lecturing the boys about the pleasures of swearing in French, or maybe the first time you kissed me. Maybe it keeps happening. When you stare down Win Montague in a meeting, I love you. When you make grooming a filthy pony an exercise in gentlemanly deportment, I love you. When you hold me, I love you. When you listen to me and take me into your confidence, I am so violently in love with you, I cannot find words to express my sentiments.”
Doves took wing in Colin’s heart, or something equally undignified. This was not the tolerant love of a sibling or the casual affection of extended family. This was passion, and a reassurance that he wasn’t the only member of this couple nearly mad with tender emotion.
“Anwen, you…I love you too.” Inadequate, considering the declarations she’d give him, so Colin tried again. “I will never betray the love you give me, or the trust you place in me. I’d sooner die than disappoint you.”
She sighed in his arms, and he was coming to know what each of her sighs meant. That one had been pleased but weary.
Colin scooped her up and carried her down a short laburnum alley, dipping at his knees so Anwen could open the door to the conservatory.
“I adore the scent of this place,” she said. “To me this is the fragrance of peace and privacy. Nobody has ever found me when I’ve sought sanctuary in here. I can read by the hour, or knit, or kiss you, and it’s as if this is my kingdom, safe from any outside disturbance.”
“Ye should no’ be telling me that, my heart, not after what you said in the garden.”
They hadn’t even set a date, much less dealt with settlements, announcements, or wedding plans, but Colin had purchased a special license, because surely, surely, they’d be married in the next six months.
He settled Anwen onto a sofa tucked under the lemon tree and flanked by a pair of potted orange trees.
“If you run off now, Colin MacHugh, I will hunt you down and kiss you within an inch of your wits.” She toed off her slippers and tucked her feet up beside her.
Colin permitted himself one peek at her ankles, though it was a lengthy peek, as peeks went. Perhaps more of a longing glance.
“You stole my wits three weeks ago, madam, and I haven’t seen them since.”
She twitched at her skirts so a hint of pale ankle showed below her hem.
Most women, especially in temperate weather, wore nothing beneath their skirts. That fact ricocheted around in Colin’s mind as he studied a bunch of violets overgrowing their pottery three feet away. Violets symbolized modesty, but the soft, tangled greenery put Colin in mind of other soft, tangled textures in shadowy locations he ached to revisit.
“I kissed you within an inch of your wits three weeks ago?” Anwen asked. “Then what about last week, in the saddle room, and the week before, in the music room?”
Those memories had sprung up aching eons ago, and were as close as Colin’s next daydream. He turned his back on Anwen, lest she notice that his breeches had developed an awkward fit.
“Those were lovely occasions. I have a special license, you know, in case you’d like to be married right here, in your conservatory.”
In the next five minutes would have suited Colin wonderfully.
“That is a lovely, lovely thought. I’ve had a lovely thought too.”
He risked a glance over his shoulder. The picture Anwen made on the sofa—another article of furniture designed to replicate female charms—was lovely, though with her feet bare, and one red curl brushing her shoulder, also erotic.
A man who found clouds, puddles, and sofa backs a trial was a pathetic creature.
“If your idea is about the card party,” Colin replied, plucking a lone violet, “you said we weren’t to speak of that for two days.” A fine idea. He wished he’d thought of it himself.
“My lovely thought is this: We have not announced our engagement, though we certainly have an understanding in the eyes of my family. I’d like to consummate that engagement, Colin.”
He had been dreaming of consummation for three straight weeks. He knelt before the sofa and tucked the violet into Anwen’s décolletage.
“Couples do,” he said, brushing the errant curl behind her ear. “Couples who are in love. It’s not a step to be taken lightly.” Oh, that sounded quite rational, quite awfully stupid. “Shall we plan an outing to Richmond next week, a wander in the woods? You’ll notice I’m not capable of arguing with your suggestion.”
She brushed a hand over his hair and Colin felt her caress in impossible places.
“I notice we have privacy right here, right now, your lordship.”
He settled his arms around her and laid his cheek against her hair. “Right here, right now.”
Colin searched his motivations for selfishness and found some. He desired Anwen in every way a man desires a woman, physically, madly, passionately. Another emotion crowded close behind the pawing of the male beast, though.
He wanted to please her, to cherish her, to give himself to her, in the most intimate way a man could surrender himself to his beloved. On that thought he rose, locked all available doors, pulled down three shades, and tugged off his boots.
He slipped the violet from Anwen’s bodice, set the flower aside, tossed a cushion onto the rug, and resumed his place on his knees before her.
* * *
“Inviting all the lads to that infernal charity card game when MacHugh knows the lot of us are pockets to let was the outside of too much,” Win declared.
Rosalyn should not have insisted that Win take her to the modiste’s in his present mood, or perhaps—she liked this notion better—Win should not have been sulking when she had a new bonnet to pick up.
The thought of that bonnet had cheered her through the interminable purgatory of today’s meeting at the orphanage.
Lately, nothing appeared to cheer poor Winthrop.
Rosalyn did so enjoy tooling about beside him in his phaeton, though. “You’re the chairman of the House of Urchins board of directors. You have to be at this party even if you aren’t my escort, which you most assuredly will be, Winthrop. What do you care if Twilly and Pointy lose a few more groats? They’ll come around when they get their quarterly allowances.”
Rosalyn never got a quarterly allowance. She received pin money, which dear Papa hadn’t increased since her come out. Thank heavens she could sell last year’s wardrobe and otherwise contrive on her own.
“You don’t understand, Rosalyn. MacHugh paid every last bill immediately, and that’s insult enough. He hasn’t complained, he hasn’t muttered, he hasn’t so much as grumbled. Now he’s rubbing all of our faces in his filthy lucre by insisting we turn out for this damned charity do. Even MacHugh grasps that one doesn’t refuse an invitation from the Duchess of Moreland.”
Lord Colin hadn’t paid a call on Win or stood up with Rosalyn for the past month. She’d seen him turning down the room with Anwen Windham and her sisters, but that was to be expected, given the family connection.
Maybe Anwen had tried to win his lordship’s favor and failed, poor thing.
“I’m confused, Win. When a man pays bills he doesn’t owe and keeps silent about his ill-usage, that’s not the done thing?”
She should not be baiting him, but really, somebody had to save Win from making a complete cake of himself.
“I don’t expect you to understand the finer points of gentlemanly honor, but no, it’s not the done thing as MacHugh has gone about it. He’s insulted every one of us, and now we’re to contribute to his infernal charity, regardless of whether we can afford such a pointless gesture. I’ve half a mind to let on to the others that MacHugh excused thievery by one of the boys.”
Win had to pause in his diatribe to watch Mrs. Bellingham drive by. He couldn’t acknowledge such a creature with Rosalyn sitting right beside him, but he could admire her.
And for what? Because Mrs. Bellingham had pretty ways, and had tossed her virtue into the ditch? Sometimes, Rosalyn wanted to smack all men with her parasol, though that would hardly be ladylike and might ruin a fine article of fashion.
“Win, I sympathize with your exasperation where Lord Colin is concerned, but you are the director. If one of the boys is committing crimes, might that not have unpleasant consequences for you as well as the other children?”
“Those boys will be back on the streets by Michaelmas. The sooner the orphanage closes its doors, the better. False hope is cruelty by another name.”
“I agree entirely. If I didn’t enjoy a good hand of whist above all things, I’d not be going to this card party either.” Bad enough Anwen expected Rosalyn to beg yarn from her friends, bad enough Rosalyn had had to sell her favorite pink muslin from last year to afford the bonnet at her feet.
Life was full of trials.
“I confess I have an ulterior motive for being so tolerant where MacHugh is concerned,” Win said as he turned the horses onto the quieter residential streets.
“Besides your inherent gentlemanly nature?” Which hadn’t stopped Win from complaining at every turn, of course.
“Besides that. I’m considering offering for Anwen Windham. She has nothing better to do than fret and fuss over that silly orphanage, which has at least given me an opportunity to consider her attributes somewhere other than a ballroom. She’s quiet, not at all troublesome, and not awful looking, if I can ignore that hair and the incessant knitting. I could give her babies, so she’d not be reduced to meddling in doomed charities.”
Oh, dear. Roslyn herself had suggested this very possibility to him, though half in jest and weeks ago. Dear Winthrop’s financial situation must be desperate.
“You’d overlook Anwen’s unfortunate hair in the interests of getting your hands on her settlements, Win. I admire your pragmatism, so you needn’t splutter about tender sentiments. You’d be doing Anwen a favor.”
If Anwen accepted him. If she rejected him and brought Lord Colin up to scratch, war would break out in the clubs on St. James’s Street.
“She’s already your friend,” Win said, as if Rosalyn didn’t know half the ladies in Mayfair. “Makes strengthening the connection between families that much easier. Too bad Anwen hasn’t any brothers to take an interest in you. You’re good to befriend her, Roz.”
Because the streets were all but empty of traffic, Rosalyn spoke honestly. “I associate with some women because their company makes my own attributes more obvious. My favor does nothing to hurt the other young lady’s standing, but I choose my acquaintances with a certain practicality. I like Anwen, and I think you would make her a wonderful husband, but one shouldn’t contract marriage as a charitable undertaking, Win. Anwen’s not at all your style.”
Win would be an adequate husband until the money ran out.
Rosalyn did not envy a younger son his lot. Much easier to be a daughter, passed from papa to husband for care and cosseting until widowhood gave a lady the freedom to cosset herself.
And thank God that Winthrop was the sort of brother one could be honest with.
For the most part.
“A woman’s lot isn’t easy,” Win said, propping a shiny boot on the fender. “Miss Anwen must be quite impatient to marry, waiting for her older sisters to dodder off to spinsterhood. I think she fancies me, to the extent such a creature is capable of fancying anything save her workbasket and her cat.”
The Monthaven townhouse came into view, one of the few set back from the street enough to allow a shallow curve of a drive where coaches could pull over. All was swept walkways, and cheerful red salvia in symmetrically spaced pots. Rosalyn had made a game of hiding those pots as a girl, putting them where the gardener would never think to look for them.
The idea still tempted her, though her gloves might get dirty.
“Anwen hasn’t the confidence to hold aspirations in your direction, Winthrop. I suggested to her the other day that Lord Colin might do for her. He and Anwen already have a familial relationship, and they share that unfortunate red hair.”
Win sent her a peevish look. “You pushed her at Lord Colin?”
“I wouldn’t say pushed. A woman in Anwen’s position—without airs and graces, without a title, without much beauty—can’t be choosy.” A woman with those attributes could be choosy—lovely notion. “She wasn’t singing his praises, mind you. I think the appropriate term would be, she is considering settling. Women do, I suppose some men must as well.”
“Do we ever. Miss Anwen doesn’t have to marry a damned presuming Scot. I can preserve her from that sorry fate.”
“Very noble of you, though a bit of courtship might be called for. Anwen’s uncle is a duke, and so is Lord Colin’s brother.”
“Why do you think I’ve bothered to maintain my place on the orphanage board? Why do you think I’ll spend half the card party doting on her? I’ll take her driving a few times, steal a kiss, go down on bended knee, the whole bit. Least I can do for my future wife. Besides, Lord Colin’s brother is only a Scottish duke and they hardly count.”
Except in the order or precedence, where any duke counted for rather a lot. “You’ll steal from Lord Colin a chance to marry as well as his brother did. Very clever of you, Winthrop.”
Win brought the horses to a halt before the house. “There is that. Can’t be helped, if the lady prefers the better offer.” He smiled beatifically, bringing out every aspect of his handsome visage—blue eyes, perfect teeth, and the aristocratic bone structure Rosalyn saw echoed in her own mirror.
“Go carefully,” Rosalyn said as a footman emerged from the house. “I would hate to see anything bad happen to my favorite brother, and Lord Colin has foiled your schemes before.”
“Fool me once,” Win said as the footman aided Rosalyn to alight. “I’m off to the clubs. See you at supper.”
How his mood had improved for contemplating holy matrimony—and revenge.
Rosalyn passed the hatbox to the footman and shooed him into the house. “Wellington will be at the card party, Winthrop. If you can manage it, I’d like a chance to play against him.”
“I’ve been kept away from the details, sister dear. You be careful. His Grace can be quite competitive.”
Rosalyn twiddled her fingers at her brother. “So can I. Until supper.” She sashayed up the walk while Win rattled off in his fine equipage, though she spared a prayer for dear Winthrop and his friends.
They were commoners for the most part, and excessive debt could land any one of them in the sponging houses. Fortunately, Rosalyn’s papa would never allow such a fate to befall her, one of the many benefits of being an earl’s well-cared-for daughter.
* * *
In the leafy privacy of the conservatory, Anwen wrapped her arms around Colin and rejoiced.
This was right. This ultimate intimacy was what came next when two people were in love, committed to each other, and desired each other deeply.
And yet, Anwen hadn’t a clue how to go on.
“Does this work like the other times?” she asked, scooting closer to the man on his knees before her. “You bring me rainbows first?”
Colin had other names for the pleasure he brought her, names in French, Gaelic, and naughty cant, but Anwen’s description was as close as she could come in English to naming the experience.
“Ye’ll have rainbows today,” he said, tracing his finger over the swell of her bodice, “and we go on as we please. Perhaps you have a suggestion.”
The fit with Colin on his knees before the low sofa was comfortable, provided a lady was willing to spread her knees.
Anwen unknotted Colin’s cravat and used it to tug him closer. “Don’t be nervous. Megan told me it gets better with practice. If my practices with you get any better, I will expire of bliss.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Thank you for those reassurances. I’d rather neither one of us expired just yet.”
Anwen was nervous, and clearly Colin knew it. The warmth in his gaze, the way he scooped her closer, said she needn’t be. He’d bring her rainbows, sunrises, and joys without number simply because she’d asked him to.
When she might have started babbling, he kissed her. This kiss was different, both carnal and solemn, an odd combination that unsettled Anwen’s insides. She worked at unbuttoning Colin’s shirt, though one or two buttons might have got the worst of her haste.
“Ye’ll not be rushing this,” he said, untying the bow at the top of her bodice. “We’ll make a race of it if ye like some other day, but I want this time to savor you.”
Anwen had worn two shifts rather than jumps or stays, and both shifts tied at the front. Colin eased both bows open but made no move to touch her breasts. Instead, he wrapped a hand around each ankle, and nudged her skirts up with a caress to her calves.
The quiet became profound, as if the very trees were keeping silent in honor of the moment. Cloth whispered against skin as Colin kissed Anwen’s shoulder, and a feeling close to panic gripped her.
“Hurry, please.”
He cupped her jaw and kissed her, another open-mouthed, possessive intimacy that gave Anwen a focus for the urgency uncoiling inside her. She kissed him back, tangling her tongue with his, fisting her hands in his hair.
“Enough of that now. Lie back, Anwen.”
“I can’t kiss you if I’m lying—”
Colin shoved a pillow behind her. “Please.”
Anwen flopped back, out of breath, out of sorts, out of patience. “I want rainbows, Colin MacHugh, big, colorful, rainbows with sparkly—”
He peeled aside the layers of silk and cotton covering her breasts.
“With my body,” he whispered, “and with all the rainbows you can withstand, I thee worship.”
With his mouth, he drove her barmy, kissing, nuzzling, drawing on her gently, caressing with a maddening sense of what was not quite enough, then not quite too much. These pleasures were new for Anwen, though she also sensed Colin was enjoying himself, indulging in fantasies long anticipated, and so she mustered the ability to relax into his caresses.
“That’s better,” he said, resting his cheek against the slope her of breast. “I didn’t want to neglect the color pink, ye see. Part of every self-respecting rainbow.”
Anwen flexed her hips in response to that nonsense and Colin drew in a sharp breath.
“Right,” he said, straightening. “Now comes the sparkly part.” He unbuttoned his falls and Anwen sat up enough to watch him.
“More pink,” she said, glossing her finger over intimate male flesh. “Maybe this is where the color maiden’s blush truly originates.”
Colin’s hands fell to his sides, and for a few quiet moments, Anwen explored his contours.
“If ye keep that up, lass, ye’ll make me blush.”
“I’ll bring you rainbows.” That her touch pleased Colin was a heady realization, for all the strangeness Anwen yet felt to see him aroused. “I’ve seen a replica of the Apollo Belvedere, and your proportions and his are very close—except here.”
“Apollo didn’t have you to inspire him, poor sod.”
Anwen wrapped her hand around Colin’s shaft. “Let’s inspire each other.” Wasn’t that what a strong marriage should be? A source of mutual inspiration?
Colin kissed her back onto the pillow, and she let go of him. The next part was curious, sweet, and breath-stealing. Colin took himself in hand and teased at her sex. The sensations were similar to what he’d inspired on previous occasions, but…more.
“We’ll take this slowly,” he said. “Your word on it, Anwen.”
“Slowly,” she said, “and soon.”
He pushed inside her, and her body eased around him. She was slick with desire, though Colin was maddeningly—excruciatingly—patient. Tendrils of yearning wrapped Anwen more tightly the more deeply he joined them, until she cast off into a pleasure so profound it nearly replaced consciousness.
“You’ve a short fuse,” he panted, going still.
Anwen assembled his words into a fragment of meaning. “That was marvelous.” More marvelous than anything they’d done previously. “Are we finished?”
“No, love. We’re barely getting started.”
Oh, my. “I’m not sure I have another rainbow in me.” She felt as if light had burst through every part of her, as if she’d found a small piece of the sun to carry in her heart forevermore. The tenderness was as overwhelming as the joy and the pleasure.
“You’ve endless rainbows left,” Colin said, moving as if to withdraw. “I’ll prove it to you.”
Anwen locked her ankles at the small of his back, certain that unjoining from him would kill her, but there was no need. He eased forward in a slow, sure thrust that made her want to laugh and weep—and move.
“Oh, you…” Colin whispered, as Anwen caught his rhythm.
She lost track of time, place, everything except Colin, and making love with him in her favorite place in the world. He was patient, inventive, and devious, and when he finally withdrew from her, Anwen wanted to call him back, rather than endure the sense of being parted from him.
He produced a handkerchief, rested his cheek against her thigh, and in a few strokes, spent his seed. While Anwen sprawled in a heap on the sofa, Colin’s breath warmed her leg, and green branches stirred minutely in the conservatory’s unseen breezes.
He patted her knee. “All right, then?”
Anwen stroked her fingers over his hair, the only place she could reach him without moving.
“I feel different.” Changed, exposed, enlightened, a trifle sore, but something lay beneath even those emotions.
Colin knelt up, righted his clothes, and joined her on the sofa, cuddling her against his side. “Tell me.”
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Like I could conquer the world for you, after a good nap. Thank you, Anwen. Under Scottish law, we’d be married by now, and in my heart, we are.”
Oh, what a lovely man he was. “Mine too. Maybe that’s part of how I feel—married.”
“Is there more?”
This resting in each other’s arms, talking quietly, marveling together, was so precious, and yet, Anwen still had to hedge her bets.
“You won’t laugh?”
“I might laugh with you, never at you, at least not until we’re married.”
She smacked his arm. “I feel healthy.”
He kissed her temple. “How d’ye mean?”
“What we did was physical, vigorous, wonderful. I made love with you. As your wife, I’ll do that with you a lot, and bear your children, I hope. I feel ready for all of it, eager for it. I’m in excellent health and ready to enjoy being married to you.”
She was doing a poor job of explaining to him the sense of bodily joy that making love had brought her. Irrespective of rainbows and cuddling, she felt good in her bones, and glad to be alive in a way she hadn’t since early childhood.
That was her last waking thought, until Colin roused her from her nap by brushing a violet across her lips, and bidding her a reluctant and very affectionate farewell.