by Mary Balogh
She was all softness and subtle fragrance. And her hands were on his shoulders, her thumbs against the skin of his neck. Her dark eyes looked inquiringly into his. He swallowed and knew that his bobbing Adam’s apple would reveal his nervousness.
“And of course I wish to,” he said, and he lowered his head and laid his lips against hers again, keeping them there for a few self-indulgent moments and noting with shock the unfamiliar effects of the embrace on his body— the breathlessness, the rush of heat, the tightening in his groin. He lifted his head.
“Oh, Robert,” she said with a sigh, “you can have no idea how tiresome it is to be fifteen. Or can you? Do you remember what it was like? Though it is entirely different for a boy, of course. I am still expected to behave like a child, when I am not a child. I must be quiet and prim, and welcome the company of your father and mother—no, the marchioness is not your mother, is she?—and of my own papa. And I am to be denied the company of the young people who are at present dancing and enjoying themselves in the drawing room. How will I endure it here for another whole week?”
He wished he could pluck some stars from the sky and lay them at her feet. He wished that the music would continue for a week so that he could dance with her and kiss her and help see her to the end of the boredom of an unwelcome visit to the country.
“I will be here too,” he said with a shrug,
She looked up at him eagerly—the top of her head reached barely to his shoulder. “Yes,” she said. “I shall steal away and spend time with you, Robert. It will be fun and my maid is very easy to escape. She is lazy, but I never complain to Papa because sometimes it is an advantage to have a lazy maid.” She laughed her light infectious laugh. “You are very handsome. Will you take me to the ruins tomorrow? We went there two days ago, but the marchioness would not let me explore them lest I hurt myself. All I could do was look and listen to your father tell the history of the old castle.”
“I will take you,” he said. But he noted the fact that she had spoken of stealing away to be with him. And of course she was right. It was not at all the thing for the two of them even to have met. They certainly should never have talked or danced. Or kissed. There would be all hell to pay if he were caught taking her to the ruins. He should explain that to her more clearly. But he was seventeen years old, and the realities of life were new to him. He still thought it possible to fight against them, or at least to ignore them.
“Will you?” she asked eagerly, clasping her hands to her slender, budding bosom. “After luncheon? I shall go to my room for a rest, as the marchioness is always urging me to do. Where shall I meet you?”
“The other side of the stables,” he said, pointing. “It is almost a mile to the ruins. Will you be able to walk that far?”
“Of course I can walk there,” she said scornfully. “And climb. I want to climb up the tower.”
“It is dangerous,” he said. “Some of the stairs have crumbled away.”
“But you have climbed it, have you not?” she said.
“Of course.”
“Then I shall climb it too,” she said. “Is there a good view from the top?”
“You can see to the village and beyond,” he said.
The music was playing a quadrille in the drawing room.
“Tomorrow,” she said. “After luncheon. At last there will be a day to look forward to. Good night, Robert.”
She held out one slim hand to him. He took it and realized in some confusion that she meant him to kiss it. He raised it to his lips and felt foolish and flattered and wonderful.
“Good night, Miss Morisette,” he said.
She laughed up at him. “You are a courtier after all,” she said. “You have just made me feel at least eighteen years old. It is Jeanne, Robert. Jeanne the French way and Robert the English way.”
“Good night, Jeanne,” he said, and he was glad of the darkness, which hid his blushes.
She turned and tripped lightly over the cobbles of the terrace and around to the side of the house. She had, he realized, come out through the servants’ entrance and was returning the same way. He wondered if she had come out merely for the fresh air or if she had seen him from an upstairs window. The window of her bedchamber overlooked the terrace and the fountain.
He liked to believe that it was his presence out there that had drawn her. She had called him tall. She had not commented on his thinness, only on his height. And she had called the blondness of his hair lovely and had approved of the fact that he liked to wear it overlong. She had called him handsome—very handsome. And she had asked him to kiss her. She had asked him to take her to the ruins the next day. She had said that at last there would be a day to look forward to.
He was no longer merely attracted to her slim dark beauty, he realized, the sounds of music and gaiety from the drawing room forgotten. He was deeply, irrevocably in love with Jeanne Morisette.
* * *
She had caught sight of him several times since her arrival at Haddington Hall, though she had not been formally introduced to him, of course. Her father had explained to her that he was the bastard son of the marquess and that really it was not at all respectable for him to be living at the house. It must be very distressing for the marchioness, her papa had said, especially since the poor woman was apparently barren and had been unable to present the marquess with any legitimate heirs or even any daughters.
Jeanne did not care about the fact that he should not be there at the house. She was glad that he was, and only sorry that it was not possible to be openly friendly with him. She had not met many boys or young men during her life, having had a sheltered upbringing with her father and having been sent to a school where she and her fellow pupils were kept strictly from the wicked male world beyond their walls.
In her boredom and loneliness at Haddington Hall, she had watched him covertly whenever she had had a chance, most notably from the window of her bedchamber. And she had quite fallen in love with his lean and boyish figure and his longish blond hair.
On the night of the ball—though both her father and the marchioness had tried to console her by assuring her that it was not really a ball—she had stood moodily at the window of her room and seen him, at first on the terrace and then disappearing to the far side of the fountain and not reappearing. He must be sitting on the seat there. She had already dismissed her maid for the night. Her breath had come fast and excitement had bubbled in her as she felt the temptation to slip downstairs and outdoors unseen to talk with him.
She had given in to temptation.
She had been dazzled. She had not realized quite how tall he was or how handsome his face with its aquiline nose and firm jaw and very direct eyes. He was seventeen years old, a young man, not the boy she had at first taken him for.
He was the first man she had danced with apart from her dancing master at school, and he was the first man to kiss her, not just that first time in the way her father might have kissed her, but the second time, when his lips had lingered on hers and she had felt delightfully wicked right down to her toes.
She was in love with him before she had finished running lightly upstairs to her room and before she had closed her door behind her and leaned back against it, her eyes closed, and tried to remember just exactly how his mouth had felt. And then she opened her eyes and raced to the window and drew back again half behind the heavy velvet curtains so that she could watch him wander up and down the terrace without herself being seen. But she need not have worried—he did not look up.
She was in love with him—with a tall and slender blond god who was all of seventeen years old. And who had the added attraction of being forbidden fruit.
They had four days together—four afternoons when she was dutifully resting in her room as far as her father and the marquess and marchioness knew. They went to the ruined castle on the first day and he climbed the winding stone stairs o
f the tower ahead of her, turning frequently to point out to her a chipped or crumbled stair where she would have to set her feet carefully. She was more frightened than she would admit and almost squealed with terror when they came out into daylight at the top and she discovered that the parapet had quite fallen away so that there was nothing to protect them from the seemingly endless drop to the grass and ruins below. But she merely shook out her hair—she had disdained to wear a bonnet—and looked boldly about her.
“It is magnificent,” she said, stretching out her arms to the sides. “How wonderful it must have been, Robert, to be the lady of such a castle and to have watched from the battlements for her knight to come riding home.”
“After an absence of seven years or more, doubtless,” he said.
She laughed. “What an unromantic thing to say,” she said. “Anyway, I would not have let him go alone. I would have ridden with him and shared all the discomforts and dangers of the military life with him.”
“You would not have been able to do it,” he said. “You are a woman.”
“Because it would not have been allowed?” she said. “Or because I would not be able to stand the hardships? I would too. I would not care about having to sleep on the hard ground and all that. And as to not being allowed, I should cut off my hair and ride out as my knight’s squire. No one would even know that I was a woman. I would not complain, you see.”
He laughed and she discovered that white teeth and merry blue eyes made him even more handsome in the daylight than he had been in the moonlight the evening before.
She invited him to kiss her again when they reached the bottom. Indeed, she had found coming down to be a far greater ordeal than going up had been. She was glad of an excuse to lean back against a solid wall and to rest her arms along his reassuringly sturdy shoulders. He felt strong despite his leanness.
His arms slid about her waist as his lips rested against hers and her arms wrapped themselves about his neck. She tried pouting her lips against his and felt their pressure increase. She was being kissed by a man, she told herself, by a tall and handsome young man. And she was in love with him. It felt wonderful to be in love.
“I will have to go back,” she said, “or they will be sending up to my room to see why I am sleeping so long.”
“Yes,” he said making no attempt to delay her. “I will take you back as far as the stables.”
For the three afternoons following, they walked—across fields, among the woods, beside the lake a mile distant from the house in the opposite direction from the old castle. The weather was their friend. The sun shone each day from a blue sky, and if there were any clouds, they were small and white and fluffy and merely brought brief moments of welcome shade. They walked with fingers entwined and they talked to each other, sharing thoughts and dreams they had confided to no one before.
His father wanted to buy him a commission in the army when he was eighteen, he told her. But it was not a life he looked forward to. For as long as he had lived with his mother he had assumed that he would always live quietly in the country. It was the kind of life he loved. But he must do something. He realized that. He could not continue to live at Haddington Hall indefinitely, and he was not, of course, his father’s heir.
“But I have no wish to be an officer,” he told her. “I don’t think I could stomach killing anyone.”
She told him that her mother had been English, that her grandparents, the Viscount and Viscountess Kingsley, still lived in Yorkshire. But her papa had allowed her to visit them only twice in all the years they had been in England. Her father wanted her to be French and to live in France. But she wanted to be English and to live in England, she told Robert with a sigh. She wished she did not belong to two countries. It made life complicated.
She told him again of her dream of being old enough to attend balls and theater parties, of meeting and mingling with other young people. Except that the dream did not seem quite so important during those days. She was living a dream more wonderful than any she had ever imagined.
They lay side by side on a shaded bank of the lake during the fourth afternoon, their arms about each other, kissing, smiling at each other, gazing into each other’s eyes. He touched her small breasts lightly and she felt her cheeks flaming, though she did not withdraw her eyes from his or make any protest. His hand felt good there, and right. And then he rested his hand against her waist. It felt warm through the cotton of her chess.
“Robert,” she said, “I love you.”
And she loved the way he had of smiling with his eyes before the smile touched his lips.
“Do you love me?” she asked him. “Tell me that you do.”
“I love you,” he said.
“I am going to marry you,” she said. “Papa will not like it, I know, but if he will not give his consent, I will elope with you.”
He smiled slowly again. “It can never be, Jeanne. You know that,” he said gently. “Let’s not spoil these few days by dreaming of the impossible. Let’s enjoy them.”
“It can be,” she said, wrapping her arm about his lean waist and moving closer against him. “Oh, not yet, of course. I am too young. But when I am seventeen or eighteen and have not changed my mind, Papa will see that I can be happy with no one but you and he will give his consent. And if he does not, then I shall follow the drum with you. I shall ride to war with my knight.”
“Jeanne,” he said, kissing her mouth and her eyes one by one. “Jeanne.”
“Say you will marry me,” she said. “Say you want to. You do want to marry me, Robert?”
“I will love you all my life and even beyond that,” he said. “You will always be my only love.”
“But that is not what I asked you,” she said.
“Sh.” He kissed her again. “We must go back home. We have been away longer than usual. I don’t want you to be missed.”
“Tomorrow,” she said, smiling at him as he got to his feet and reached down a hand to help her up. “Tomorrow I shall get you to admit it, Robert. I always get what I want, you know.”
“Always?” he said.
“Always.” She brushed the grass from her dress and peeped up at him from beneath her eyelashes. He looked adorably handsome with his hair disheveled from the ground.
“I shall come for you on a white charger on your eighteenth birthday, then,” he said, “and we will ride off into the sunset—no, the sunrise; the sunrise would be better—and marry and have a dozen children and live happily ever after. Are you satisfied now?”
She stood on tiptoe, kissed his cheek, and smiled dazzlingly at him. “Utterly,” she said. “I have heard what I want to hear. I told you that I always get what I want, you see.” She laughed merrily. She thought that she had never been so happy in her life, though she knew it was a happiness for the present only. She knew as well as he that they would never marry, that after that particular week was past they would probably never meet again.
But she would always love him, she believed with all the passion of her fifteen years. He was her first love and he would be her last. She would never love another man as she loved Robert.
2
JEANNE’S happiness lasted for an even shorter time than she had expected. She had hoped for three more days. Three more brief days out of eternity. But she was granted only half an hour longer. Her father was waiting for her in her bedchamber when she returned.
“Jeanne? Where have you been?” he asked her in the French he always spoke when they were alone.
She switched to his language. “Out walking,” she said, smiling at him. “It is such a beautiful afternoon.”
“Alone?” he asked.
Her smile broadened. “Madge does not like walking,” she said. “I did not insist that she accompany me.”
“Three would have been a crowd,” he said, not returning her smile.
She looked at hi
m warily.
“He is a bastard, Jeanne,” her father said sternly. “He should not even be housed beneath the same roof as decent people. I would have thought twice about accepting the marquess’s invitation here had I known that you would be subjected to such an indignity. I believe he keeps the boy here only to taunt his wife with her barrenness. You have been meeting him every afternoon while you have been ‘resting’?”
“Yes,” she admitted defiantly. “He is fun to be with, Papa, and there are no other young people here for me. You would not allow me to attend the assembly although I am fifteen years old.”
“Has he touched you?” the count asked, his voice cold and tight.
Jeanne could feel the color drain from her cheeks as she remembered the kisses she had shared with Robert on several occasions and his touching her breasts that afternoon.
“Has he touched you?” her father repeated harshly.
“He has kissed me,” she admitted.
“Kissed you? Is that all? Tell me!” The count took her none too gently by one arm.
“Yes,” she said, feeling guilty about the lie. “That is all.” How could she tell her father that Robert had touched her where no one had touched her since she had begun to blossom into a woman?
He shook her roughly by the one arm. “Fool!” he said. “Madge must go, I see. I must find someone else to look to your virtue, since you cannot seem to look to it yourself. Do you not realize how he must be gloating, girl? Do you not realize how he must be laughing with the servants at his conquest of you?”
She shook her head. “No, Papa,” she said. “He loves me. He is not like that.”
“And I suppose you love him too and have told him so,” he said.
“Yes.” Her chin rose stubbornly. “And I have told him that I will marry him when I am eighteen.”
Her father laughed harshly. “Then I will have to be in my grave first,” he said. “You will not be marrying anyone’s bastard, Jeanne. Or anyone English if I can help it. And if you must know the truth, then I will tell you that I learned of your movements for the past afternoons from a stablehand to whom the bastard has been boasting of his conquests and of his plans to completely ruin you before you leave here.”