by Mary Balogh
“Lonely?” he said. “Me, lonely, Katherine? I have scores of friends and acquaintances. I always have so many invitations and activities to choose among, that making choices is a daily chore.”
“And do you fear being alone?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he said.
He had grown up essentially alone-with a mother and her husband and two sisters, with a houseful of servants and numerous neighbors, most if not all of whom had been kindly disposed to him. He had nevertheless grown up alone.
“People who live among crowds can be very lonely people,” she said.
“Can they, indeed?” He laced his fingers with hers. “And people who grow up in remote villages cannot be lonely?”
“There is a difference,” she said, “between solitude and loneliness. It is possible to be alone and not lonely. And it is possible to be among crowds, to be a part of those crowds, and be lonely.”
“Is this,” he asked her, “part of the vicarage wisdom that you learned at your father’s knee?”
“No,” she said. “It is something I have learned myself.”
“And are you,” he asked her, “a lonely woman, Katherine?”
“Not often.” She sighed. “I like being alone, you see. I like my own company.”
“And I do not,” he said. “Is that your inference? You once told me that I do not like myself. Is this why I must be lonely? Because I cannot enjoy the company of the only companion with whom I must spend every moment of my life?”
“I have annoyed you,” she said.
Had she? He was not in the habit of allowing people to annoy him over trifles. He did not care for other people’s opinions when they concerned him.
“Not at all.” He raised their hands and kissed the back of hers. “Solitude holds no fears for me. I would just prefer company. Including present company.”
“I think,” she said, “I can be happy here.”
“Can you?” he said.
“I love this place,” she said. “I love the servants. And I like your neighbors-our neighbors. Yes, I can be happy here.”
“Organizing fetes and balls and house parties and other social events?” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “and just living. Just being here. Belonging here.”
“And bringing up your children?” he said. “Our children?”
“Yes.” She looked into his eyes, her cheeks slightly flushed.
“We could,” he said, “begin immediately on those children-or on the first of them anyway-if you wish, Katherine. Although, on second thought, perhaps not quite immediately.” He looked down at the bench, which, even with the leather cushion, was not very comfortable.
She laughed, though she continued to look into his eyes.
“I do want children,” she said.
“And I need them,” he said. “Or one son at the very least. So we are in agreement. We need to work on the first of those children. Almost immediately?”
She laughed again.
“It depends on your definition of almost,” she said.
“Almost is to be three weeks long, is it?” he asked with a sigh.
“Yes,” she said. “Do you not want children for their own sake, Jasper?”
He had never really thought of it. He thought now. Children of his own body. And Katherine’s. Children who could be loved and nurtured. Children who could be hurt, who could have all the spirit crushed out of them. If he were to jump a hedge one month before his son was born and break his neck, would Katherine marry another man to bring him up?
There is too much potential pain in having children, he almost said aloud. Too much risk. But he would merely expose himself more to her with such words.
He raised their clasped hands again and tucked her arm beneath his.
“Daughters to look like their mother?” he said. “And sons to look like their… mother? Children to hold and love and play with and nurture? It is an appealing thought, I must confess. And now it is possible. I am married. Yes, I will have children with you, Katherine, not just because I need them, but because I want them.”
Sometimes he was not sure himself whether he meant what he said to her or whether he spoke to impress or tease her. Though he never spoke with any serious intention to deceive. This wager was different from any other he had ever made. There was too much at stake in winning it-and though she did not know it, it was a double wager. Either they both would win, or they both would lose.
But oh, Lord, she believed him. Her lips had parted, and her eyes had brightened with tears that she quickly blinked away. And perhaps she was right. Perhaps he did mean what he had said. He had a sudden mental image of holding a baby as tiny as Moreland’s-a baby that was his own.
Dash it all, he would be bound to drop it.
No, what he would be bound to do was love it. There would be no choice in the matter. No child of his was going to go unloved while he had breath in his body. Even a child who had just painted red, grinning lips and black arched eyebrows on all the stone statues along the balustrade about the roof or who had returned home with torn coat and breeches that he had forgotten to change out of after church before going to ride the waterfall-a strictly forbidden activity in its own right. He would love and love such a child anyway. He would probably take him back to the waterfall, in fact, so that they could ride it together, and take him-or her-back up to the roof to paint purple beards on all the statues.
Katherine had raised her free hand and was cupping his cheek with it. With the pad of her thumb she brushed something away from beneath his eye. Something wet.
Good Lord!
He jumped to his feet and stepped outside the hermitage. He moved back onto the path without waiting for her and plucked two blooms from the rhododendron bushes.
“Let me see,” he said, turning to her as she came up behind him. “One to go here in the ribbon about the crown of your bonnet, I believe, and one to go… here. ”
He pushed the stem down inside the bosom of her dress, into her cleavage, using his finger to press it down firmly. She was warm and slightly moist there, and he felt such a stabbing of desire that he was surprised he had not got an instant erection and alerted her to the direction his thoughts had taken.
“Not that you need sweetening,” he said. “But perhaps the flowers do. They will be sweetened by their proximity to you.”
“Oh, well done,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “That was one of your better efforts.”
“Do I win any reward, then?” he asked. “A kiss, perhaps?”
But, as he had expected, she merely laughed.
Lord, that was not a tear she had wiped away, was it? He had rarely felt more embarrassed in his life.
He offered her his arm and they continued along the path, which began gradually to slope downward in the direction of the lake.
They passed the great, ancient beech tree at the end of the rhododendron walk and stopped to set their palms against the trunk and marvel at its great size and age. He looked beyond it, up the hill into the trees, which grew dense here. But there was nothing to be seen from here. And for today, he decided, he would keep her on the path. There would be time enough to come back-or not.
“There is a beach at this end of the lake,” he said. “It is called a beach though, of course, there is no sand, and no ebb and flow of tides. But the bank was deliberately created to slope into the water so that one can sit picnicking there or paddle one’s feet without toppling in over one’s eyebrows. Or one can swim. We do not have any picnic fare with us, alas.”
“We will paddle our feet instead,” she said as they descended the slope and the trees thinned out and the sun beat down on them. “It has turned into a warm day and I am a little footsore after all the walking.”
“Can you swim?” he asked her.
“I can,” she said. “I learned as a child at Rundle Park, when we used to go over there to play with the Dews. I thought I had forgotten how, but I have not. I have swum at Warren Hall t
oo.”
“Then we will swim today,” he said. “What better way to cool off after a long walk?”
“Today?” She turned her head sharply to look up at him. “I cannot swim in this dress, Jasper. It is one of my best ones. And you cannot swim in those clothes.”
They had come to a fork in the path. One branch would take them about the far side of the lake and up to the little cottage and the waterfall and so on around to the house side. The other fork went down to the beach and then on around to the boathouse and jetty. He turned down toward the beach.
“I suppose,” he said, “unless you are very brazen, Katherine, you are wearing a shift beneath your dress. And stays too?”
“Of course,” she said. And then she looked at him again, her eyes widening. “I am not bathing in my shift!”
“Without it, then?” he asked. “You need not fear being seen by anyone except me. And I have seen you unclothed before. It was by candlelight on that occasion admittedly. But I would wager you will look just as lovely in sunlight.”
“Jasper!” She laughed nervously. “I am not swimming without my shift.”
“With it, then,” he said, “if you must be modest.”
They stood on the sloping, grassy bank, looking out across the water of the lake. It was sparkling invitingly in the sunshine. The air was hot now that there was no shade.
“Come,” he said, releasing her arm and turning her so that she faced away from him. “I will help you out of your dress and stays. I make a tolerable lady’s maid when pressed into business.”
“Oh,” she said indignantly, “I am sure you do. But, Jasper, we cannot go swimming now. We have no towels. We have no dry clothes. We have no… oh!”
He had opened her sash and the back of her dress, lifted it off her shoulders, and let it slide down to the ground. He tackled the tapes that held her stays together at the back.
“We will dry in the sunshine afterward,” he said, setting his lips between her shoulder blades as he loosened her stays and dropped them to the grass before kneeling and rolling down her stockings.
Her shift covered her from the breasts to several inches above her knees. She looked tall and willowy and more enticing than any other woman he had ever set eyes upon as she stepped out of her shoes and stockings and turned to face him.
He was committed now. If he did not get himself into the lake water soon, he might well explode like a firecracker.
“Oh,” she said, “this is not very proper at all.”
The vicar’s prim daughter in a skimpy shift and nothing else at all-a potently erotic mix.
He stripped off his coat and waistcoat and neckcloth with ungainly haste.
“For your husband to see you in your shift?” he said. “It is shocking indeed.”
He pulled off his shirt over his head and sat down on the grass to haul off his boots before standing again and dragging off his pantaloons and stockings.
Should he shock her completely? But he hesitated for only one fraction of a moment before removing his drawers as well. How the devil had he managed to show no outer sign of arousal?
She bit her lower lip.
“The water will be cold,” she said-a very weak protest indeed.
“Then we will warm it up,” he said. “We will boil it over its banks. I do not know about you, Katherine, but I am feeling very warm indeed. Are you coming?” He held out a hand for hers.
“I do not know.” She glanced gingerly at the water. “I really do not think this is quite-Oh!”
He scooped her up in his arms and strode off with her. It might be unmannerly to interrupt a lady, but there were limits to a gentleman’s powers of endurance.
It was horribly shocking. Not the coldness of the water-they had not reached that yet. But the fact that she was with a man in the outdoors in broad daylight, clad only in her shift while he was clad in nothing at all.
Nothing.
Of course, he was her husband.
This was all very shocking nevertheless.
And exciting.
And exhilarating.
And she was very warm indeed. She had not realized quite how hot the sun was.
He was wading into the water. A few drops splashed up onto her skin. They were cold. She laughed and clung to him and shrieked. He was surely not going to-
But he was.
And he did.
He dropped her.
She sank to the bottom like a stone and came up sputtering and fighting. She dashed the water from her eyes, gasped for air, and saw him still standing there, thigh deep in the water, his hands on his hips, laughing at her.
And looking so handsome and carefree that she could have wept.
Instead she doused him with water and, while he sputtered in his turn and shook the water out of his eyes, she dived under and swam as fast as she could out into the deeper water of the lake.
Two hands grasped her ankles and then slid up her legs until they reached her hips. They pressed her under. She performed some sort of somersault as soon as he released his hold on her, came up underneath him, and grasped one of his ankles and hung on.
It was not a good idea. The fight that ensued was an unequal one in which she spent far more time below the surface of the water than he did. She was soon gasping for breath in earnest. It did not help, of course, that she could not stop laughing whenever her head was above the water.
“You were right,” she said when the fight came to a natural end after ten minutes or so and they were both floating on their backs, side by side. “We have warmed the water.”
He turned his face and smiled at her and reached for her hand.
And it happened.
Just like that.
She fell in love.
Or realized that she had been falling in love with him for some time.
Or that perhaps she had always loved him, right from that evening in Vauxhall when she had thought that perhaps love was not safe, that perhaps it was the most dangerous thing in the world.
Love did not have to make sense. It did not have to be worthy. It did not have to be earned. It did not have to woo.
It just simply was.
She closed her eyes, held loosely to his hand, and floated beside him as the world changed its course and settled around her again.
And he was not immune. Surely he was not. He had shed a tear earlier at the thought of having children with her. And now for several minutes he had simply frolicked with her, simply enjoyed being alone with her. He had been laughing and carefree, not hidden behind his habitual mask of hooded eyes and ironical teasing.
Surely he was growing somewhat fond of her.
Surely there was hope that disaster might after all turn to glory.
He let go of her hand and turned onto his stomach and swam a lazy crawl. She swam beside him, reveling in the sights she had of well-muscled arms and shoulders and back muscles, of tight buttocks and long, strong legs.
He was an incredibly beautiful man. Not that she had anyone with whom to compare him, of course.
And then he swam close to her again, lifted one arm across her back, and rolled her under him, his other hand sliding beneath her buttocks. She wrapped her arms about him and rolled them over, so that she was on the surface, he beneath-until he reversed their positions. And they rolled over and under until they were both breathless again and both smiling into each other’s eyes.
They swam together to shore and emerged, dripping, onto the bank. Katherine squeezed the water out of her hair while he spread his coat on the grass, and then they lay down side by side, their hands touching. She was aware again of his beautiful nakedness as the initial feeling of cold at coming out of the water gave place to the bright warmth of the sun against her flesh.
He was her husband.
And she loved him.
And surely he loved her too. But that was foolishness. No, it was not. Surely he did.
She turned her head to find him smiling lazily at her.
�
�I have swum here a thousand times,” he said, “but always alone until today.”
“Your sisters did not swim?” she asked him.
“Goodness, no,” he said. “It was strictly forbidden.”
“Even for you?” she said.
He laughed softly. “Even for me. We will teach our children to swim here, Katherine-and then we will strictly forbid them to swim here alone.”
“They will not need to,” she said. “We will come with them whenever they wish.”
“Or if we cannot,” he said, “there will always be a brother or sister to accompany them.”
“Yes.” She smiled and draped an arm over her eyes. The sun was bright.
“Happy?” he said.
“Mmm,” she said. “Yes. And you?”
“Happy,” he said.
It seemed to Katherine that she had never been happier in her life. Just over a week ago she had walked into a marriage that she had expected to bring her nothing but misery. Yet now…
The sunshine was blocked, and she removed her arm to find him leaning over her.
“In love?” he asked. “Do you love me, Katherine?”
Of course I do. How the words did not escape her lips she would never know. But-
Do you love me, Katherine?
Not I love you, Katherine.
“Have you won your wager, do you mean?” she asked him.
He smiled slowly at her, knowingly, sure of her answer. Sure of her.
“Have I?” he asked her, his eyes full of amusement. “I will not hold it against you. But it is confession time. Have I won?”
She closed her eyes for a few moments.
She had been duped. He had been working hard today-just as he had worked hard that evening at Vauxhall. That mention of children, those few tears, their swim, this lying side by side in the sunshine-all part of an elaborate campaign.
And she was as green now as she had been that night.
This was not about love or even about affection and spontaneity and the enjoyment of a sunny afternoon and each other’s company.
This was about a stupid wager.
She rolled away from him, got unhurriedly to her feet, and dressed as well as she could without assistance.
He was still lying naked on the grass.