by Mary Balogh
How envious she was of Wren, Countess of Riverdale.
“I have never known women, Harry,” she said. “At least, not until very recently. I have a few friends here now and value them greatly. I enjoy their company. Until this past year all my living was done from within the world of men. Fortunately for me, none of them were violent men. I stay hidden now because I feel as though I am holding my breath and clinging on to my newfound freedom while I wait for someone to snatch it away. And while I try to discover if I really do have wings and can spread them and fly.”
“You have wings, Lydia,” he said. “And you will fly if you truly want to.”
She felt tears spring to her eyes before she could look away. All the men in her life so far had been strong and assertive. Even now her father and brothers wanted to come and take her home with them so they could look after her. Harry had been a soldier, a military officer, and she did not doubt that he too was strong and firm of character and had been ruthless in the performance of his duty. But it was kindness that most characterized him now. It was kindness that made him smile almost constantly, that made him amiable to everyone, old and young alike, of the lower class and his own upper class alike, men and women alike. She had thought of his smile very recently as a kind of mask, and in a way it was, because she did not doubt there was the weight of darkness inside him. Not the darkness of evil, but that of suffering. It was kindness upon which he had chosen to base his daily life, however, and the willingness to listen and empathize and comfort. It had bothered him to know that he had dismissed her as a mere shadow until very recently.
It would be awfully easy, and a terrible mistake, to fall in love with Major Harry Westcott.
She swiped away her tears with two fingers.
“I have made you sad,” he said. “Our conversation has turned somber, and the fault is entirely mine. Instead of asking why you have always chosen to hide, I ought to have told you how glad I am that you have gifted me with a glimpse of the real Lydia, even down to the absence of a cap this evening. Whenever I meet you from now on I will know you are someone whose friendship I would welcome.”
“You are very kind,” she said.
He got to his feet suddenly. “It is time I leave,” he said. “I will take care not to be seen, Lydia, and you will have your quiet independence back, with not the slightest stain upon your reputation. Nor will I upon mine, for that matter. I wish we could be closer friends, though perhaps we can at least settle for being friendlier acquaintances in the future than we have been in the past?” He smiled down at her.
“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps we can.”
She stayed where she was as he crossed the room and donned his cloak and took his hat in one hand. He would not even have to light his lantern. There was still a grayness visible through the curtains. It was not quite dark. He had not been here long at all. Far less than an hour.
He turned toward her, presumably to say good night. He was no longer smiling. And he did not immediately say the words.
Neither did she.
They merely gazed at each other, half a room apart.
Lydia got to her feet but hesitated even as she considered going to hold the door open for him and watching him leave.
“Lydia,” Harry said softly.
“Harry.” Her voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched. And she took one hesitant step toward him.
He set his hat down on the table beside the door without watching what he did and took one step toward her.
And then somehow they were in each other’s arms.
Nine
Harry closed his eyes and held her to him, breathing in the scent of her hair and her skin, feeling the slender, shapely lines of her body, warm and supple against his, allowing desire to wash over him, feeling an answering longing in her. And longing was just what it was. It was more than lust, more than simple desire.
He murmured her name against her ear, pressed his lips to her temple, and feathered kisses down her cheek until she tipped back her head and looked at him, her eyes huge with dreams and yearning. “Lydia?”
“Don’t leave.” Her arms were about him beneath his cloak. She was pressed to him from shoulders to knees. She would be able to feel the evidence of his desire. “Harry, don’t leave. Stay.”
He kissed her, parted her lips with his own, pressed his tongue deep into her mouth, drew the tip across the roof of her mouth, urged on by the shudder that ran through her and the sound she made deep in her throat. He was not totally mindless, however. He could still wonder if she was going to regret this. If he was. He looked into her eyes again, their faces mere inches apart.
“Will you regret this?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “But I must let you know,” she said, “that I have never done this—”
He stopped her words with his mouth. “I know,” he said. “I know you are not a woman of loose morals, Lydia. It does not need to be said.”
She gazed at him for a few moments longer, drew breath as though to say more, but then shook her head slowly. “I do not want you to go.”
And so he stayed. He unbuttoned his cloak, flung it over the back of the sofa, noticed that the fire, though it had burned low, was not out, and went to set the fireguard about the hearth. The dog had got up and trotted into the kitchen to lap water from her bowl. He took up one of the candles from the mantel and turned back to Lydia. She was standing where he had left her, but she turned without a word and led the way into her bedchamber. He followed her, shut the door, and set the candlestick down on the dressing table.
It was not a large room. There was just space enough for the bed and dressing table, and a small chest of drawers on one side of the bed. Another door probably led to a dressing room. It was a feminine chamber, though not frilly. It suited her. The cotton curtains had a cheerful floral design, and the bedspread looked as if it had been hand embroidered with flowers to match the curtains.
Lydia turned in to his arms, and he knew as soon as she kissed him again that she had not changed her mind, that her eagerness for this had not waned but rather intensified. She was hot and yielding. And it was evident that her slim shapeliness owed everything to nature and nothing to stays. She wore none. He unfastened the two buttons at the back of her dress, high enough that she would be able to reach them herself without the services of a maid, and eased the dress down over her shoulders and down her arms and body. She allowed it to drop to the floor.
His fingers dispensed with the pins that held the bulk of her hair in a knot on the back of her head, and it came cascading about her shoulders and down her back, a dark cloud of unruly glory. He combed his fingers through it, held her head cupped between his hands, gazed into her eyes, and kissed her again, both of them openmouthed now.
Both hot.
“Harry.”
Her hands were unbuttoning his coat and then his waistcoat and pushing them off his shoulders so when he straightened his arms they landed on the floor behind him. He dispensed with his neckcloth, dragged his shirt free of his waistband, pulled it off over his head, and sent it to join his coat. He heard her inhale slowly as he set his hands at her waist and held her at arm’s length while he gazed at her, wearing only a cotton shift now, which ended just above her knees, and her stockings and slippers.
How had it ever been possible for her to render herself invisible?
She was nothing short of gorgeous.
He went down on one knee, rolled down her stockings one at a time, and drew each off her foot after first removing the slipper. Then he stood, slid the straps of her shift off her shoulders, and let it slide down her body to pool about her bare feet. He stood back again to look at her. And she gazed steadily back at him, though the flickering light of the candle from the dressing table showed him that her cheeks were rosy with color.
“You are so very beautiful,” he told her.
S
he spread her fingers briefly in front of herself before curling them into her palms. She had been going to unbutton him at the waist but had lost the courage. He removed the rest of his clothes himself while she sank her teeth into her lower lip.
“Harry,” she said, and reached out a hand to touch the seam of the worst of his old saber wounds, which slashed across his left hip. His body looked very much like an old battleground. “I came so close to never knowing you at all, did I not?”
She came into his arms again, all soft, hot, naked perfection.
He hoped he was going to be able to impose some control, some discipline, upon himself. It had been a long time. He wanted to make it perfect. For both of them. She had been a long time without too. But this was not just the lust of a long hunger. He could not recall ever wanting a woman as he wanted Lydia at this moment. She had crept up on him in her quiet, near-invisible way like all the dreams of love and perfection he had ever dreamed rolled into one. Yet she was no dream. This was no dream.
He drew back the bedcovers and she lay down and reached for him. It was only after he followed her that he thought of the candle, its flame multiplied several times in the wings of the mirror over the dressing table. He had not asked if she would prefer darkness. He did not ask now. He wanted to see her, and her eyes were feasting upon him, scars and all.
His control was put to the test. She was all panting need as she pressed herself to him, moved against him, and kissed him, murmuring his name. Her skin was warm and smooth, her breasts small and firm, her nipples hard, her waist narrow, her hips flaring, her legs smooth, the place between her thighs hot and moist. He felt them all with his palms, his fingers, his lips, his tongue. But there was little or no rousing to be done. She was ready for him, open to him, eager, reaching, hot, and repeating his name.
He moved on top of her, spread her legs with his knees, slid his hands beneath her to lift her and hold her steady, positioned himself, and entered her. Slowly. She was tight, and he remembered again that it had been a long time for her. But so tight. And then almost impossible. Until she flinched slightly and he slid with sudden ease to his full length deep inside her.
He lay still on her for a moment, savoring the tight, soft heat that encased him, and wondering, a bit startled, if . . . Considering an impossibility, shaking it off as absurd, but holding back the urge to begin moving so she could adjust to the feel of him. Then he slid his hands free, took some of his weight onto his forearms, withdrew, and pressed inward, once, twice, and again and again in the rhythm of sex. Slowly, while he watched her face so close to his own, her eyes shut tight, her teeth biting her lip. Her body was tense. She opened her eyes after a while and gazed into his, and he could feel her body relax even as her inner muscles tightened and then let go and tightened again as she learned his rhythm and matched it. She had stopped biting her lip. He kissed her.
Oh, God, this was . . . But there were no words. This was sex as it was meant to be. For she was not just a woman. She was Lydia. She was his woman. Though not that either, for it suggested ownership, a one-sided thing. She was not his anything, just as he was not her anything. She was the completion of him, just as he hoped he was the completion of her. They were they. But he was not thinking these things in sentences or even words.
There were no words.
He took her hands in his, palm to palm, raised them to her pillow, on either side of her head, laced their fingers, and lowered his weight onto her again before increasing the rhythm and the depth of his strokes until the need to spill into her roared like a torrent in his ears and set his heart pounding and his loins flaming. He waited for her, waited . . . But then could wait no longer.
He released deep into her, and heard her sigh against his ear. A warm, satisfied sigh. Surely, even though he had not felt an answering release. She whispered his name.
After a minute or two he moved off her to lie at her side. He slid an arm beneath her neck and she turned to him, nestling her head on his shoulder. She smiled and closed her eyes.
And he was left wondering. Not knowing for sure. And hesitant to ask. What an idiot he would make of himself if she looked at him in amazed incredulity. It was impossible anyway. Surely. Of course it was. She had been married for six years. To a young, vigorous, handsome man with whom she had fallen headlong in love and married two months after she met him. Unless Tavernor had been impotent. Or preferred men. Both of which seemed highly unlikely.
No, it was stupid even to be wondering. It was impossible that she had been a virgin until a few minutes ago.
He ran his fingertips lightly along her arm to where it bent at the elbow and then down over her hip. He was warm and satiated. He could easily fall asleep—and perhaps sleep through until morning. That would not be wise. Although the candle was behind her and threw her face into shadow, he could see that her eyes were open again. When he kissed her, her lips were soft and relaxed.
“When dreams come true . . . ,” she murmured. But she left it at that. She did not make a complete sentence out of it. She had dreamed of a lover. Of him. And she had just had him.
He kissed her, their lips lingering on each other’s, soft and warm. She sighed.
He would not let himself get hard again. Just in case . . . Even though it was impossible. And he must not let himself fall asleep.
He sighed too and kissed the top of her head. “I had better go,” he said. “It would not do for me to spend the whole night here.”
“No, it would not.” But she sounded regretful. “Thank you for staying, Harry. I am terribly weak willed. I was determined to turn you away, but I could not do it. You must not blame yourself, as I daresay you will try to do tomorrow. I asked—no, I begged—and you stayed. Thank you.”
He slid his arm free and got out of bed. He got dressed as she watched, leaned over the bed to kiss her good night, sliding his arms beneath her while she wrapped her own about his neck, and then left the bedchamber.
He lit the candle by the door after donning his cloak and then lit his lantern from it. He took up his hat while Snowball came to be petted. When he straightened up after scratching her back, he realized Lydia was standing behind the sofa. She was barefoot, though she was wearing a dressing gown, which she held across herself with both arms. She had hooked her hair back behind her ears. She was not smiling.
“Good night, Lydia,” he said.
“Good night,” she said, then drew an audible breath. “This cannot continue now, Harry. You must not come again. I am sorry. I really am. I am not sorry you stayed, but . . .” She shrugged. “I am sorry I have sent such muddled and mixed messages tonight. I—” She stopped and shrugged again, and he realized she was on the verge of tears.
He was not surprised. And he was not going to argue. For he knew now he was not in the market for an affair. And she was not in the market for a husband. So this must be the end, whether he was happy about it or not. He must see her again, however. In private. For he had thought of something he had assumed he did not have to worry about.
“I will call tomorrow,” he said. “Not to stay long, though. I must ask you something.” Now, tonight, was not the right time.
“I am going to Eastleigh tomorrow with the Reverend and Mrs. Bailey,” she told him.
“The day after tomorrow, then,” he said.
“Perhaps.” She looked very unhappy. She was biting her lip again, and blinking rather a lot.
“Good night, then,” he said again, and let himself out of the house. He closed the door quietly behind him, looked cautiously both ways when he reached the gate, and hurried across the road onto his own drive. Yet he felt as though eyes were upon him, now when all was over between them and it would be particularly disastrous to be seen slinking away in the dark. He felt prickles across his shoulder blades and all down his spine. The consequences of guilt. For of course this really must be the end. He must honor her decision to be free. He
must do nothing further to endanger her reputation in the eyes of her friends and neighbors.
All his previous lovers had been experienced women. All of them during his military years, without exception, had been widows from among the camp followers, a few of them widows several times over. All of them had known a thing or two about keeping themselves unencumbered while they followed the armies about under all conditions, making themselves useful, doing what they could to make life possible for a vast army on the move in a country not their own. They had all known how to keep themselves clean and free of disease. They had all known how to prevent conception.
Because Lydia Tavernor had been married for a number of years, and because she was childless, he had assumed without—admittedly—giving the matter much thought, that she knew how to stop herself from getting with child. But what if she really had been a virgin until tonight? What if she knew nothing? What if she had not even considered the possibility that a real lover as opposed to a dream one might get her with child?
But no. He had to have been mistaken. It would be just too bizarre . . .
But what if . . . ?
He sighed as he climbed the steps to his front door. If only when Tom had offered to walk her home that night, he had kept his mouth firmly shut. And if only after she had said good night to him on that occasion, he had not insisted upon following her through the gate and all the way to her door. If only his heart were not feeling a bit bruised tonight. More than a bit, actually.
If only, if only, and if only . . .
* * *
* * *
Lydia washed herself with shaking hands. She pulled on a flannel nightgown and then her dressing gown over it. She went back into the living room, took the guard away from the fire, and saw that it was out with not an ember still glowing. She did not bother to build a new one. She sat on her chair, her bare feet and legs curled up beneath her, pulled the cushion from behind her, and clasped it to her bosom with both arms. She slid her hands under the loose sleeves of her dressing gown to warm them.