by Mary Balogh
His dislike of Lionel had grown into something resembling hatred. Certainly he despised him heartily. And he had heard a garbled version of how Lionel had locked horns with the present Thornhill after the latter returned from Switzerland, leaving his stepmother behind. Somehow Lionel had tricked Thornhill into marrying his lady. She had been betrothed to Lionel himself at the time. But the marquess could not believe that Lionel had won any great victory there. Thornhill’s lady was well rid of the blackguard, and there could be little doubt that her marriage to Thornhill was now a love match, however it had started.
He would have been happy if he could have avoided all contact with Lionel, now the Earl of Rushford, for the rest of his life.
SAMANTHA NEWMAN WAS WALTZING with Lionel.
The Marquess of Carew’s blood ran cold.
His one hand was splayed against her delicately arched back while the other held hers. Her left hand was on his shoulder.
Suddenly the waltz seemed the most obscenely intimate dance ever invented.
They were beautiful together. Quite spectacularly, heart-stoppingly beautiful.
The devil and his prey.
The marquess had not even heard that Lionel was back in England. Yet there he was, obviously using his considerable charm—and succeeding. She was smiling and not looking about her as many of the other dancers were. She seemed totally absorbed in her partner, though she was not talking to him or he to her. An ominous sign. Were they well acquainted, then? So well acquainted that they did not even feel the need to make conversation?
His heart sank like lead within him. He could remember being with her himself in companionable silence.
And now she was with Lionel.
Instinct told him to get out of there. Out of the ballroom and out of the Rochester mansion. To go back to his town house. Back to Highmoor. To forget about her. He must forget about her. He had been foolish to come after her like a lovesick puppy.
But he could not move. Even though his attention was focused on the waltzing couple, he was not unaware of the curious glances he was receiving from some people close to him and of some nudging elbows and murmuring voices. He did not want to walk away—limp away—in their sight. Besides, he had the foolish notion that she might need him. He could not leave her alone with Lionel—alone with him and a few hundred other people, he thought in self-mockery.
But he could not leave her alone. Perhaps she did not know about Lionel—though she was Lady Thornhill’s cousin. Perhaps she was being charmed. Perhaps she would be the next to disappear to Switzerland. His left hand balled into a fist at his side.
And so he remained where he was, watching her, watching him, torturing himself with the possibility that they were an item, a couple, that perhaps at the age of thirty-one and with the weight of an earl’s title on his shoulders, Lionel was at last in search of a bride. And what lovelier bride could he choose than Samantha Newman?
It was an interminable half hour. Half an hour of excruciating torture. When the music came to an end, he watched Lionel escort her to a group of young people—the marquess recognized only Lord Francis Kneller, whom he had met a few times at Chalcote. He was a friend of Thornhill’s, a pleasant if somewhat dandified fellow. Lionel bowed over her hand and took his leave of her.
Perhaps after all, then, it was not as bad as he had feared. Perhaps they were merely distant acquaintances who had shared a dance. That was what a ball was for, after all.
But he felt no wish to stay longer. He did not want to see her dance with any other gentleman. He did not wish for her to see him. He looked about for his two friends, but they were both deep in conversation—Bridge with Muir while Muir’s pretty daughter hovered close by—at the far side of the ballroom. He would leave without them. He would walk home. It was no great distance.
But when he reached the doorway, he could not resist one last look back. She was no longer with the group. His searching eyes found her making her way rather slowly through the crowd toward the door, smiling, exchanging greetings with several people as she passed. She was coming in his direction, though he did not believe she had seen him.
He took several steps back so that he was no longer in the ballroom but was on the landing beyond. He was about to turn to flee as fast as he could down the stairs before she reached the doors herself and saw him. But he stopped. What would be the harm in greeting her himself, in seeing recognition in her eyes, in being the recipient of her smile once more? One last time. Tomorrow he would start on his return journey to Yorkshire. He should never have left.
He stopped and waited for her.
She came through the doors in a rush. She looked a little bewildered, dazzled perhaps by the dancing and the crowds. She had not seen him, though she was only feet away from him. He stepped into her path. For a moment he thought she was going to move around him without even looking at him, but she did look.
And stopped in her tracks.
And her face lit up with such bright and total delight that all else about him faded into oblivion.
“Mr. Wade!” Her voice was all astonishment and warm welcome. “How wonderful. Oh, how happy I am to see you.” She stretched out both hands to him.
He took them, noticed fleetingly that she did not flinch at all from the touch of his right hand in its silk glove, and found himself grinning foolishly back at her.
“Hello, Miss Newman,” he said.
SHE COULD SCARCELY BELIEVE the evidence of her own eyes. What was he doing here? Did he know someone who had somehow wangled him an invitation? He was smartly though conservatively dressed in brown and dull gold and white. But it did not matter how the miracle had happened. What was important was that it had. If there was anyone she could have hoped would be waiting for her beyond the ballroom doors, it would have been he.
She did not stop to ponder that strange thought.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. But she did not wait for his answer. “I never dreamed … You are the last person … Oh, but this is so wonderful. I am so happy to see you again.”
She had been distraught over the encounter with Lionel. All that pent-up emotion now came bursting out of her as happiness in seeing her dearest friend, when she had thought never to see him again. And just at the moment when she most needed him.
“It is so hot in here and so stuffy and so crowded,” she said. “Come outside for a moment? Come and stroll with me.” She had never felt a greater need to get away from the gathered ton.
“It will be my pleasure,” he said, offering her his left arm and favoring her with that dear smile of the eyes that always warmed her right down to her toes.
Despite the miles they had walked together at Highmoor, this was the first time, she realized, that she had taken his arm. She was far more aware than she had been at Highmoor of his heavy limp and rather slow progress. They had to descend the stairs to reach the door to the garden. He steadied himself against the banister with the outside of his right wrist.
He was drawing some attention. Curious eyes looked at him and then looked hastily away again. A few gentlemen nodded to him in recognition. One of them, she noticed, then proceeded to whisper into his wife’s ear.
She had her right arm linked through his. She rested her left hand on his arm, too, feeling a tender sort of protectiveness toward him. Maybe he was a nobody in the eyes of the ton and many people would feel that he had no business being here, but he was her dear friend. Let any of them just try to say something to him. They would have her to contend with.
The garden had been lit for the occasion with colored lanterns strung in the trees and lamps lit on the terrace. It was a small garden, but it had been cleverly landscaped to look larger and deceptively secluded. It was hard to believe that they were in the middle of the largest and busiest city in England. Perhaps in all the world, for all she knew.
She had a sudden thought and laughed softly. “Did you landscape this garden, by any chance?” she asked.
“I did, actually.�
�� He laughed too. “It was several years ago, one of my first projects. I drew up the plans for the old baron, the present Rochester’s father. He completed the work only just before his death.”
She laughed again. “I might have known,” she said. “And so that is how you came by your invitation. But you did not tell me you were planning to come to London. How unkind of you! Were you hoping that I would not see you and never know? And I thought we were friends.”
She spoke lightly, but there was a heavy feeling deep inside, a fear that perhaps that was exactly it.
“I did not know I was coming here until very recently,” he said. “And I did hope to see you. I came tonight with the intention of saying hello to you and discovering if you remembered me or not.”
“Did you?” She was strangely touched that he would take time away from whatever job had brought him here just to say hello to her. And even if he had landscaped this garden, he had still been only an employee of a man now dead. It must not have been easy to wangle an invitation to this ball. He was a gentleman, but that fact alone did not ensure him entrée to ton events. “Of course I remember you. Those afternoons were among the loveliest I have ever spent.”
They were, too. If she cast her mind back over all the picnics and excursions and Venetian breakfasts and garden parties she had ever attended, none of them had left her with such warm memories as those four afternoons spent at Highmoor.
There were not many people in the garden. It was not a cold evening, but neither was it warm. It felt wonderfully refreshing to Samantha. She breathed in fresh air and closed her eyes. And stopped walking. They were beneath the low boughs of a beech tree.
“I could almost imagine that we were back in the country,” she said. “I was never more reluctant to come back to town than I was this spring.”
“The early springtime was unusually lovely at Highmoor this year,” he said.
She felt a wave of intense nostalgia for those afternoons. She thought of seeing Lionel in the park yesterday and of the dread his appreciative look had aroused in her—a dread that he would try to renew their acquaintance, a dread that she would somehow respond. And she thought of waltzing with him just a short while ago and of his impudent, seductive words. And of the desire and horror she had felt. She felt them again now, both coiled and throbbing deep in her womb.
“I have missed you so much,” she heard herself say in a thin, distressed voice. She felt instant embarrassment—and the need for arms to hold her.
She was never sure afterward whether he had felt her need and responded to it or whether she had moved to satisfy her own need. But his arms were there where she wanted and needed them. They were about her and holding her comfortingly against his surprisingly strong and well-muscled body. His left arm was tight about her waist.
She rested her cheek against his shoulder as her arms wrapped themselves about his waist, and she breathed in the smell of—what? Not cologne. Soap. A comforting, clean smell. She felt sheltered, comforted. Wonderfully comforted. She fit against him much more cozily than she did against any of the beaux she had allowed to embrace her. She was usually so much smaller than the gentlemen who escorted her.
Another thing she was never sure of afterward. Did he nudge his shoulder in order to get her to raise her head? Or did she raise it for herself? In all truth she thought it must have been the latter. But however it was, neither loosened their hold on the other, and so they looked into each other’s eyes with no more than a few inches separating them. His gray eyes looked kindly and seriously back into hers.
“Kiss me.” It was a whisper, but in an unmistakably feminine voice. That at least was quite embarrassingly clear in her memory afterward.
His kiss surprised her. Most men of her experience kissed with closed lips, only the pressure against her own denoting their ardor. Those few who had dared to part their lips had done so with lascivious intent and had all been swiftly put in their places—all except Lionel.
Mr. Wade kissed with parted lips. She felt the warmth and moisture of his mouth against her own. But he kissed gently, softly, almost tenderly. He kissed wonderfully. She kissed him back in the same way and felt relaxation and a healing sort of peace seep back into her body and into her soul.
He was very dear to her, she thought. A very dear friend. Not that they should be kissing—especially with mouths rather than lips. Friends did not kiss, not like this anyway. But she had needed his arms and even his mouth to take away the rawness of the injury Lionel had inflicted on her. And he had felt her need and was giving her comfort in the way she needed it.
That was what friends were for.
She turned her head when the kiss was over and nestled her cheek against his shoulder. His right arm was lightly about her. His left hand was gently massaging the back of her head. Her hair was going to be disheveled, she thought, without caring in the least.
She sighed with contentment. “Oh, I do love you so very, very much,” she said. And froze. Had she really said those exact words? But she could hear the echo of them as clearly as if they were still being spoken. How mortifying in the extreme. He would think she had windmills in her head.
She whipped her head up and dropped her arms from about his waist. Whatever was she doing, clinging to him and kissing him and telling him she loved him, just as if he were her lover?
She looked at him in confusion. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I did not mean … Whatever will you think …”
But he set one finger against her lips and pressed. His eyes were smiling. He shook his head. “You need not be embarrassed,” he said, his voice so gentle and so sane that she relaxed instantly. That was another good thing about friends. One could utter any idiocy and they would understand. “I think I had better take you back inside.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I have promised this set. It must have started already. How unspeakably ill-mannered of me.”
But she turned to him when they were indoors and at the top of the staircase again. She could both see and hear that the set had indeed begun. It would be impossible now to join it. The next set was free. She must sit with Mr. Hancock through what remained of this and ask if she might grant him the next set instead.
“Will I see you later?” she asked. “I have a few sets free after supper.”
“I must leave,” he said. “I have another engagement.”
“Oh.” She was disappointed. She wanted to ask him when she would see him again, but she had been inexcusably forward in her behavior to him more than once already this evening. She did not ask the question and he did not volunteer the information. “Good night, then. Thank you. Thank you for …” For holding her? And kissing her? “I am glad you came.”
“So am I,” he said. “Good night.”
He waited until she had turned away. She hurried back into the ballroom to find and make her apologies to Mr. Hancock. She felt better, she thought, except that she did not know when or even if she would ever see him again.
The wonder of it struck her. Had he really been here? Had she walked with him and talked with him and been comforted by his arms and his kiss?
There was a certain panic in the thought that she might never see him again.
The first person she saw when she returned to the ballroom was Lionel, Earl of Rushford. He was looking at her with appreciative and lustful eyes across the width of the ballroom.
She wished she had gone with Mr. Wade. Anywhere with him.
She was afraid again.
9
IT WAS A LONG WALK HOME, ESPECIALLY FOR ONE who did not walk easily. It was a chilly evening. And a dark one, for a gentleman walking the streets of London unaccompanied and unarmed.
He did not think of any of it. He hardly even noticed his surroundings. He entered his town house, handed his cloak, hat, and gloves to the butler, climbed the stairs to his room, dismissed his valet, and stretched out fully clothed on his bed. He stared upward at the silk-lined canopy.
He
could not quite believe that it had happened. All the way home he had avoided thinking about it or reliving any of it. He was afraid now to think of it. He was afraid to pinch himself, lest he wake up and find that it had all been a dream.
But he could not stop the memories.
Her face lighting up with unmistakable joy at seeing him.
Her assurance, undeniably genuine, that she was so very happy to see him.
Her suggestion that they walk outdoors together for a while, though it had turned out later that she had promised the coming set to another man. She had totally forgotten it in her happiness at seeing him.
The way both her hands had rested on his arm as they went downstairs and outside into the garden.
The nostalgia with which she had talked of those afternoons at Highmoor.
He tried to stop thinking. Surely if he really thought about them, the next memories would crumble away and he would realize that they had been a fabrication of his imagination. A foolish fabrication. They could not possibly have happened in reality.
But thought could not always be stopped at will. And there they were—real memories of what had really happened.
She had stepped into his arms and set her own about his waist and her head against his shoulder.
God. Oh, God, it had really happened. He could feel her again. He could feel her warm, soft curves all along the length of his body. He could feel her arms tight about him. He could feel her curls soft and tickly against his cheek. He could smell her hair and that elusive violet smell he had noticed at Highmoor.
And then—ah, God, then.
She had lifted her head and gazed with soft warmth and love—even then he had thought it was love and had not believed the evidence of his own senses—into his eyes.
Kiss me. He shut his eyes very tightly, listening to her soft whisper again. Yearning—there had been yearning in her voice. And in her eyes.