by Mary Balogh
Claudia returned to Lindsey Hall without Lizzie. By the time the Marquess of Attingsborough returned to his room, she was fast asleep and it seemed very possible that she would sleep all night if left undisturbed. Lady Ravensberg offered to have a truckle bed set up for him in the dressing room. He also insisted upon escorting Claudia back to Lindsey Hall in his own carriage—the guests from there had returned home long ago, of course. The viscountess, Anne, and Susanna all promised to watch Lizzie until his return. Claudia tried to insist upon going alone, but he would not hear of it. Neither would Anne and Susanna, who reminded her that it was now evening. And heaven help her, Claudia thought as they descended the staircase together and stepped out onto the terrace, where the carriage awaited them, she was not going to argue the point. Viscount and Viscountess Ravensberg were out there, as was Lady Redfield. “Miss Martin,” the countess said, “I hope you will disregard everything that Lady Sutton and Miss Hunt said earlier. My husband and I have been delighted to entertain both you and the girls from your school—including Lizzie Pickford—and you were not neglecting your duties by walking with your childhood friend, the Duke of McLeith. We were all watching her and so we were all responsible for letting her wander away.” “Miss Martin was certainly not to blame,” the Marquess of Attingsborough said. “When she went walking I was playing with Lizzie. She had every reason to believe that I would keep her safe.” He handed Claudia into the carriage and climbed in after her. “Miss Martin,” the viscountess said, leaning into the carriage before the door was closed, “you will come to the anniversary ball tomorrow, will you not?” Claudia could think of nothing she would like less. “Perhaps it would be better,” she said, “if I were to stay away.” “You must not,” the viscountess said. “You would thereby suggest to some of our guests that they have more power to decide who is welcome at our home than we have.” “Lauren is quite right, Miss Martin. Please come,” the countess said. Her eyes twinkled. “You do not look to me like a lady who lacks courage.” The viscount, when Claudia caught his eye, winked. “You are all most kind,” Claudia said. “Very well, then, I will come.” What she really wanted to do, she thought, was return to Lindsey Hall alone, pack her bags, and leave at first light. As the door closed and the carriage moved forward, she thought of the last time she had left Lindsey Hall. How she would love to repeat that exit! The carriage suddenly seemed to be filled with just the two of them—the very same carriage in which he had taken refuge from the rain on the road from Bath when she had been uncomfortably aware of his masculinity. She was aware again, though of far more than just that. And she remembered what—incredibly—she had almost forgotten in the emotional turmoil of the past hour or so. While they had been sitting on the bed in that little hut in the woods he had spoken to her without any sound—with only lip movements. But she had heard loudly and clearly. I love you, he had told her. Heartache, she thought, was very likely to turn to heartbreak before this was all over. And that was an optimistic assessment of the future. It would turn to heartbreak. Indeed, it already had. “Miss Hunt has broken off our engagement,” he said as the carriage wheels rumbled onto the Palladian bridge. Sometimes even a short sentence did not have the power to impress itself upon the mind all at once. It was as if she heard the words separately and needed a few moments to piece them together and know what he was telling her. “Irrevocably?” she asked. “She told me,” he said, “that she cannot imagine anything that would cause her to change her mind.” “Because you have an illegitimate child?” she asked. “Apparently,” he said, “that is not the reason at all. She does not care if I have any number of mistresses and children. Indeed, she seems to expect it of me—as she expects it of all men. It is the fact that I broke one of the cardinal rules of polite society by acknowledging Lizzie’s relationship to me that has offended her. My refusal to have her removed from Alvesley tonight and Lindsey Hall tomorrow and never to mention her ever again is what caused her to inform me that she could not marry me.” “Perhaps,” she said, “on cooler reflection she will change her mind.” “Perhaps,” he agreed. They did not speak for a while. “What next, then?” she asked. “What will happen to Lizzie? Eleanor and I are agreed that she is educable and adaptable and eager to learn. It would be a pleasure to take on the challenge of having her at the school. However, I am not sure it is what Lizzie wants even though I know she had been enjoying the company and the activities.” “What I have wanted to do from the moment of Sonia’s death,” he said, “is move Lizzie to Willowgreen, my home in Gloucestershire. It has always seemed an impossible dream, but maybe now I can make it a reality. The secret is out after all, and I find that I do not care the snap of two fingers what society thinks of me. And society is often not half the villain we sometimes expect it to be. Anne and Sydnam Butler have her son with them at Alvesley. He was born out of wedlock nine years before they met each other—but of course, you know all about that. David Jewell is treated here no differently from all the other children.” “Oh,” Claudia said, “I think Willowgreen—the country—would be perfect for Lizzie.” She felt a nameless longing—which would not remain nameless if she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it. “What provision would you make for her education?” she asked. “I would hire a companion and governess for her,” he said. “But I would be able to spend a great deal of my own time with her. I would teach her about the countryside, about plants and animals, about England, about history. I would hire someone to teach her to play the pianoforte or the violin or the flute. Perhaps in a year or two’s time she would be more ready for school than she is now. In the meantime I would be able to remain at home for far longer spells than I have been able to do with her in London. I would be less idle, more meaningfully employed. You might even come to approve of me.” She turned her head to look at him. The carriage was just drawing clear of the trees at the bottom of the driveway and passing through the gates. His face was lit by the slanting rays of the sun, which was low in the sky. She noticed that he spoke hypothetically, as if he did not really believe in his freedom. “Yes,” she said, “perhaps I might.” He smiled slowly at her. “Though I already do approve of you,” she said. “You have not spent so much time in London for frivolous reasons. You have done it for love. There is no nobler motive. And now you have acknowledged your daughter publicly. I approve of that too.” “You look,” he said, “like the prim schoolteacher who first greeted me in Bath.” “That,” she said, folding her hands in her lap, “is who I am.” “Was it not you,” he said, “who told my daughter just a short while ago that no one can be summed up by labels alone?” “I have a rich life, Lord Attingsborough,” she told him. “I have made it myself, and I am happy with it. It is as different from the life I have lived during the past few weeks as it could possibly be. And I cannot wait to return to it.” She had turned her head away to look out through the window. “I am sorry,” he said, “for the turmoil I have brought into your life, Claudia.” “You have brought nothing that I have not allowed,” she told him. They lapsed into silence after that, a silence that was fraught with tension and yet was curiously companionable too. The tension, of course, was sexual. Claudia was well aware of that. But it was not lust. It was not just the desire to embrace and perhaps go beyond mere embraces. Love lent a comforting touch to the atmosphere, and yet it was a love that might yet be tragic. Miss Hunt might yet change her mind. And if she did not? But Claudia’s mind could not move beyond that stumbling block. The Duke and Duchess of Bewcastle stepped out through the front doors of Lindsey Hall as the carriage rounded the great fountain and drew to a halt. “Oh,” the duchess said when the coachman had opened the door and let down the steps, “the Marquess of Attingsborough has accompanied you, Miss Martin. I am so glad. We have worried about you coming alone. But Lizzie is not with you?” “She is sleeping,” the marquess explained to her as he stepped out and turned to hand Claudia down. “I thought it best not to disturb her. I will take her away from there tomorrow—to another destination if you wish.” “Other
than Lindsey Hall, you mean?” the duchess said. “I most certainly hope not. This is where she belongs until Eleanor and Miss Martin leave for Bath. I invited her here.” “I have thought that perhaps I ought to leave tomorrow too,” Claudia said. “Miss Martin.” It was the duke who spoke. “You are not planning to leave us in the manner you chose last time, it is to be hoped? It is true that Freyja credits the chagrin and guilt she felt at that time with turning her into a tolerable human being, but I could draw no such comfort from the incident—especially after I had heard that Redfield took you and your heavy valise up in his carriage because you would not take mine.” He spoke haughtily and somewhat languidly, and his hand closed about the handle of his quizzing glass and half raised it to his eye. The duchess laughed. “I wish I could have seen that,” she said. “Freyja was telling us about it during the drive back from Alvesley. But, come inside, both of you, and join everyone else in the drawing room. And if you are afraid, Lord Attingsborough, that you will meet disapproving frowns there, then you do not know the Bedwyn family—or their spouses. Does he, Wulfric?” “Indeed,” the duke said, raising his eyebrows. “I will not come in,” the marquess said. “I must return to Alvesley soon. Miss Martin, would you care to take a stroll with me first?” “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.” She was aware of the duchess smiling warmly at them as she took the duke’s arm and turned to go back into the house with him.
Joseph was not well acquainted with the park about Lindsey Hall. He turned in the direction of the lake, where the dog had led Lizzie almost a week ago. They walked in silence, he with his hands at his back, she with her hands clasped at her waist. They stopped when they came to the water’s edge, close to where he had shown Lizzie how to hurl pebbles so that she could hear them plop into the lake. The remains of the sunset made the water luminous. The sky stretched above, light at the horizon, darker overhead. Stars were already visible. “It is altogether possible that my father and my sister will persuade Portia that it is not in her best interests to end her betrothal,” he said. “Yes.” “Though she did say nothing could change her mind,” he added, “and I will not compromise. Lizzie will remain a visible part of my life. But it is a terrible thing for a lady to end an engagement—especially twice. She may reconsider.” “Yes.” “I cannot make you any promises,” he told her. “I do not ask for any,” she said. “Even apart from the one obstacle, there are others. There can be no promises, no future.” He was not at all sure he agreed with her, but there was no point in raising any arguments now, was there? The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed to him that his father and Wilma between them would persuade Portia to resume her plans to marry him. “No future,” he said softly. “Only the present. At present I am free.” “Yes.” When he reached out a hand to her, she set her own in it, and he laced his fingers with hers, drew her closer to his side, and strolled onward, following the bank of the lake. Up ahead he could see a forest of trees stretching down almost to the water’s edge. They stopped when they were in the darkness of the shade provided by the trees. The grass was rather long and soft underfoot. He turned to face her, lacing the fingers of their other hands too and drawing them partway around his back so that she stood against him, touching him with her breasts, her abdomen, and her thighs. Her head was tipped back, though he could no longer see her face clearly. “I intend more than kisses,” he said, leaning over her. “Yes,” she said. “So do I.” He smiled in the darkness. She sounded fierce and prim, her voice at variance with her words and the yielding warmth of her body. “Claudia,” he murmured. “Joseph.” He smiled again. He felt that he had already been caressed with intimacy. She had never spoken his name before. And then he leaned closer and touched his lips to hers. It had still not ceased to amaze him that of all the women he might have possessed or loved during the last fifteen years or so of his life, she should be the one his heart had chosen. Even Barbara faded into insignificance beside her. He yearned for this strong, intelligent, disciplined woman more than he had longed for anything or anyone else in his life. They explored each other’s mouths with lips and tongues and teeth, their hands clasped together behind his back. Her mouth was hot and wet and welcoming, and he stroked into it with his tongue, sliding over surfaces until she moaned and sucked it deeper. He drew his head back and smiled at her again. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. She was smiling back, her expression dreamy and sensual. He released her hands and shrugged out of his coat. He went down on one knee and spread it on the grass, then reached up for her hand. She took his and then came down onto her knees too and lay down, her head and her back on his coat. This, he was very aware, might be the only time ever. Tomorrow all might have changed again. She knew it too. She reached up her arms to him. “I don’t care about the past or the future,” she said. “We allow them far too much power over our lives. I care for the present moment. I care for now.” He lowered his head and kissed her again and eased himself down until he was lying beside her. It had been eighteen years for her, almost three for him. He could feel her hunger and tried to put some sort of brake on his own. But sometimes passion would obey no commands beyond its own fierce needs. He kissed her mouth, ravished it with his tongue. He explored her with urgent hands, discovering a body that was shapely and alluring. He drew her skirt up and pushed her stockings down, caressing the firm smoothness of her legs until hands were not enough. He bent his head, feathered kisses from her ankles to her knees, kissed the backs of her knees and licked them until she gasped and her fingers tightened in his hair. He found the buttons at the back of her dress and unfastened them one by one until he could draw the garment off her shoulders with her chemise and expose her breasts. “I am not beautiful,” she said. “Let me be the judge of that,” he told her. He caressed her breasts with his hands, ran his lips over them, licked her taut nipples with his tongue until she was panting again. But she did not lie passive. She moved to his touch, and her hands roamed over him and beneath his waistcoat. They dragged his shirt free of his pantaloons and caressed their way upward over his bare back to his shoulders. And then one hand came free and moved down between them to cover his erection through his pantaloons. He took her firmly by the wrist, moved the hand away, and laced her fingers with his. “Mercy, woman,” he said against her lips, “I have very little control remaining as it is.” “I have none,” she said. He chuckled, and his hand went beneath her skirt again and up along her warm inner thighs to the junction between them. She was hot and wet. She moaned. He fumbled with the buttons at his waist, moved over her, pressing her thighs wide with his own, slid his hands beneath her to cushion her against the hard ground, and pressed firmly into her until he was deep and felt her muscles clench about him. She raised her knees and braced her feet on the grass. She tilted to him to take him deeper yet, and he drew a slow breath, his face against the side of hers. “Claudia,” he said into her ear. It had been a long, long time—an eternity. And he knew he could not prolong what was about to happen. But he needed to remember that this was Claudia, that this was more than sex. “Joseph,” she said, her voice low and throaty. He withdrew from her and thrust inward, and the rhythm of love caught them both in its urgent crescendo until everything burst into glory and he spilled into her. Far too soon, he thought regretfully as his body relaxed into satiety. “Like an overexcited schoolboy,” he murmured to her. She laughed softly and turned her head to kiss his lips briefly. “You do not feel like one,” she said. He rolled off her, bringing her with him until they were both lying on their sides. She was quite right. Nothing had been wrong. On the contrary, everything had been right—perfect. And for now it was enough. Now might be all they had. He hugged the moment to himself as he hugged her and willed the moment to become an endless eternity. He saw the moonlight overhead, felt the cool breeze, felt the soft, relaxed warmth of the woman he held, and allowed himself to feel happiness.