by Mary Balogh
She gazed up at him.
“This appealing.” He took one of her hands in his and spread it, palm in, against the bulge of his erection.
“Oh,” she said.
“Endlessly appealing,” he said.
Her hand slid to her lap, and he reached up both hands to remove all the pins from her hair. She was going to have to repair it later, she thought, without benefit of a brush or a mirror. But she would think of that later.
“It is a crime,” he said as her hair fell in heavy waves over her shoulders, “to dress this hair as ruthlessly as you do, Claudia.” He took her hands in his and drew her to her feet. “You are not my dream woman. You are right about that. I could never have dreamed you, Claudia. You are unique. I am in awe. I am humbled.”
She gazed into his eyes to detect irony, or at least humor, there, but she could see neither. And then she could see nothing very clearly at all. She blinked away tears. And then he leaned closer and licked them away with his tongue before drawing her closer and kissing her deeply.
She was beautiful, she told herself as they undressed each other slowly, pausing frequently to caress or embrace each other. She was beautiful. She ran her palms over the muscles and light hairs of his chest after removing his evening coat and waistcoat, his elaborately tied neckcloth, and his shirt. And he moved his hands all over her before cupping her breasts, rubbing her nipples with his thumbs, and then bending his head to take them, one at a time, into his mouth and suckling her so that raw desire stabbed downward into her womb and along her inner thighs.
She would not feel self-conscious or inadequate. She was beautiful.
And desirable.
There was no doubt of that once she had removed his silk evening breeches and his stockings.
She was desirable.
And she was not the only one who was beautiful.
She twined her arms about his neck, pressed her full naked length against his, and found his mouth with her own. When his tongue pressed into her mouth she sighed. He was right, there were perfect moments even though they were both pulsing with need.
“I think,” he said, drawing back his head to smile at her, “we had better make use of that bed. It will be more comfortable than the ground was last night.”
“But narrower,” she said.
“If we were planning to sleep, perhaps,” he agreed, smiling at her in such a way that she felt her bare toes curl on the hard floor. “But we are not, are we? It is quite wide enough for our purpose.”
He drew back the blankets, and she lay down on the sheet and lifted her arms to him.
“Come,” she said.
He came down on top of her and she spread her legs and twined them about his. They were both ready. He kissed her and murmured low endearments against her ear. She kissed him back and twined her fingers in his thick hair. And then he slid his hands beneath her, she tilted herself to him, and he came inside her.
His size still shocked her. She inhaled slowly as she adjusted her position to allow him full access, and closed her inner muscles about him. There could surely be no lovelier feeling in the world.
Though perhaps there could. He withdrew from her and pressed deep again and repeated the action until she could feel his rhythm and match her own to it and revel in the sheer carnality of their coupling. There could be no lovelier feeling than this—both during the first few minutes of controlled pleasure and during the final minute of deeper, more urgent lovemaking as the climax neared.
And then it came—for both of them at exactly the same moment, and she opened to the outpouring of love and gave back in equal measure, and that was the loveliest feeling of all, though it was almost beyond feeling and well beyond rational thought or words.
She was beautiful.
She was desirable.
And finally…
Ah.
Finally she was simply woman.
Simply perfect.
No, she thought as she gradually began to return to herself, she would not go back and change a single detail of her life even if she could. There were all sorts of complexities, complications, impossibilities to face when she had been restored entirely to herself and sanity, but that time was not yet. There was this moment to live.
He inhaled deeply and audibly, and then let the breath go on a sigh.
“Ah, Claudia,” he murmured. “My love.”
Two words that she would treasure for a lifetime. Even the costliest jewel could not tempt her if it were offered in exchange for them.
My love.
Spoken to her, Claudia Martin. She was one man’s love. Just a few weeks ago all this would have been quite beyond the bounds of credibility. But no longer. She was beautiful, she was desirable, and…She smiled.
He had lifted his head and was looking down at her with heavy-lidded eyes, one hand smoothing back her hair from her face.
“Share the thought,” he said.
She opened her eyes.
“I am woman,” she said.
“Hard as this may be to believe,” he said with laughter in his eyes, “I had noticed.”
She laughed. His kissed her eyelids one at a time before kissing her lips again.
“It only astonishes me,” he said, “that it seems like a novel idea to you.”
She laughed again.
“You have no idea,” she said, “how a woman’s femininity becomes identified with an early marriage and the production of a number of children and the running of an orderly home.”
“You surely might have had those things if you had wished,” he said. “McLeith cannot have been the only man who showed an interest in you when you were a girl.”
“I had other chances,” she admitted.
“Why did you not take any of them?” he asked her. “Because you loved him so dearly?”
“Partly that,” she said, “and partly an unwillingness to settle for comfort over…over integrity. I wanted to be a person as well as a woman. I know that may seem strange. I know it is hard for almost anyone else to comprehend. It is what I wanted, though—to be a person. But it seemed that I could not be both—a person and a woman. I had to sacrifice my femininity.”
“Are you sorry?” he asked her. “Though you did not do it with any great success, I might add.”
She shook her head. “I would do it all again if I could go back,” she said. “But it was a sacrifice.”
“I am glad you did it,” he said, feathering light kisses along her jaw line to her chin and then lifting his head again.
She raised her eyebrows.
“If you had not,” he said, “you would not have been there to call upon when I was in Bath. And if I had met you elsewhere, you would not have been free. And I might not have recognized you anyway.”
“Recognized me?”
“As the very beat of my heart,” he said.
Her eyes filled with tears again, and she bit her upper lip. She heard the echo of what he had said in the carriage on the way to London when Flora and Edna had asked him to share his dream.
I dream of love, of a family—wife and children—which is as close and as dear to me as the beating of my own heart.
She had judged him quite insincere at that time.
“Don’t say things like that,” she said.
“What has this been about, then?” he asked, somehow turning them so that he lay on the inside of the bed, pressed against the wall, and she lay facing him, held firmly by his arms lest she fall off the bed. “Sex?”
She thought for a moment.
“Good sex,” she said.
“Granted,” he agreed. “I did not bring you here for good sex, though, Claudia. Or not just or even primarily for that.”
She would not ask him why, then. But he answered the unspoken question anyway.
“I brought you out here,” he said, “because I love you and because I believe you love me. Because I am free and you are. Because—”
She set her fingertips over his lips. He kissed t
hem and smiled.
“I am not free,” she said. “I have a school to run. I have children and teachers dependent on me.”
“And are you dependent upon them?” he asked.
She frowned.
“It is a valid question,” he said. “Are you dependent upon them? Does your happiness, your sense of self, depend upon continuing your school? If it does, you have a genuine point. You have as much right to pursue your happiness as I have to pursue mine. Fortunately, Willowgreen can be run from a distance as it has been for the past number of years. Lizzie and I will take up residence in Bath. We will live there with you.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said.
“I will be as silly as I need to be,” he said, “to make things work between us, Claudia. I was in a basically arid relationship for twelve years even though I was fond of poor Sonia—she did, after all, give me Lizzie. I came within a whisker this year of entering into a marriage that would surely have brought me active unhappiness for the rest of my life. Now suddenly, just this evening, I am free. And at last I want to choose happiness. And love.”
“Joseph,” she said, “you are an aristocrat. You will be a duke one day. My father was a country gentleman. I have been a governess or teacher for eighteen years. You cannot just give up all you are to live at the school with me.”
“I would not have to give up anything,” he said. “Nor could I if I wanted to. But one of us does not have to sacrifice our life for the sake of the other. We can both live, Claudia—and love.”
“Your father would have an apoplexy,” she said.
“Probably not,” he said. “But the matter would admittedly have to be broached carefully with him—yet firmly. I am his son, but I am also a person in my own right.”
“Your mother—”
“…would adore anyone who could make me happy,” he said.
“The Countess of Sutton—”
“Wilma can think or say or do what she likes,” he said. “My sister is certainly not going to rule my life, Claudia. Or yours. You are stronger than she is.”
“The ton—”
“…can go hang for all I care,” he said. “But there are precedents galore. Bewcastle married a country schoolteacher and got away with it. Why cannot I marry the owner and headmistress of a respected school for girls?”
“Will you let me complete a sentence?” she asked him.
“I am listening,” he said.
“I could not possibly live the life of a marchioness or a duchess,” she said. “I could not possibly mingle with the ton on a regular basis. And I could not possibly be your wife. You need heirs. I am thirty-five years old.”
“So am I,” he said. “And one heir will do. Or none. I would rather marry you and be childless apart from Lizzie than marry someone else and have twelve sons with her.”
“That sounds all very fine,” she said. “But it is not practical.”
“Good Lord, no,” he agreed. “With all those boys I would never know a moment’s peace in my own home.”
“Jo-seph!”
“Clau-dia.” He set one finger along the length of her nose and smiled at her.
A log crackled in the hearth and settled lower. The blaze began to die down. The little hut was as warm as toast inside, she realized.
“There are some problems, admittedly,” he said. “We are from somewhat different worlds, and it seems that they would make an awkward fit. But not an impossible one—I refuse to believe it. The idea that love conquers all may seem to be a foolishly idealistic one, but I believe in it nonetheless. How can I believe otherwise? If love cannot conquer all, what can? Hatred? Violence? Despair?”
“Joseph.” She sighed. “What about Lizzie?”
“She loves you dearly,” he said. “And if you marry me and come to live with us, she does not have to fear that you will take the dog away from her.”
“It is all quite impossible, you know,” she said.
“But there is no conviction whatsoever left in your voice,” he told her. “I am winning here. Admit it.”
“Joseph.” Once more her eyes filled with tears. “This is no contest. It is impossible.”
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll come over to Lindsey Hall to see Lizzie, and you and I will talk. But perhaps you should have a word with my cousins before you leave here—Neville, Lauren, Gwen. Perhaps you had better not talk to Wilma, though she would be able to tell you the same thing. They will all tell you that I never played fair as a lad, that I always had to have my own way. I was quite detestable. I still do not play fair when I want something badly enough.”
He had snuggled closer—if that were possible—while he talked, and was now nuzzling her ear and the side of her neck while smoothing his hand over her hip and buttock and along her spine until her toes curled again.
“We had better dress and go back to the house,” she said. “It would be too shameful if everyone were ready to return to Lindsey Hall and I was nowhere to be found.”
“Mmm,” he said into her ear. “In a moment. Or several moments might be better.”
And he moved them again so that this time he was lying on his back and she was lying on top of him.
“Love me,” he said. “Never mind practicalities or impossibilities. Love me, Claudia. My love.”
She spread her legs to set her knees on either side of his hips and raised herself onto her arms to look down at him. Her hair fell forward to form a sort of curtain about them.
“Once upon a time,” she said, sighing one more time, “I thought I was a woman of firm will.”
“Am I a bad influence on you?” he asked.
“You certainly are,” she said severely.
“Good,” he said and grinned. “Love me.”
She did.
24
It was a blustery day. White clouds scudded across a blue sky, bathing the ground in sunshine one moment, darkening it with shade the next. Trees waved their branches and flowers tossed their heads. But it was warm. And it was potentially the loveliest day of his life, Joseph thought as he arrived at Lindsey Hall late in the morning.
Potentially.
It had not been an easy day so far.
His father had quivered with fury even just with the news that Portia had run off with McLeith. He had not excused her actions for a moment—far from it. But neither had he excused Joseph for driving her to take such drastic measures.
“Her disgrace will be on your conscience for the rest of your life,” he had told his son. “If you have a conscience, that is.”
And then Joseph had broached the topic of Claudia Martin. At first his father had been simply incredulous.
“That spinster schoolteacher?” he had asked.
Then, when he had understood fully that it was indeed she, he had exploded in a storm of wrath that had had both Joseph and his mother seriously worried for his health.
Joseph had held firm. And he had shamelessly played his trump card.
“Mr. Martin, her father,” he had explained, “was guardian to the Duke of McLeith. The duke grew up in their home from the age of five. He thinks of Claudia almost as a sister.”
McLeith was not much in his father’s favor this morning, of course, but nevertheless the man was of a rank to match his own, even if it was only a Scottish title.
Joseph’s mother had asked the only question that really mattered to her.
“Do you love Miss Martin, Joseph?” she had asked.
“I do, Mama,” he had told her. “With all my heart.”
“I never did really like Miss Hunt,” she had admitted. “There is something cold about her. One can only hope she loves the Duke of McLeith.”
“Sadie!”
“No, Webster,” she had said. “I will not be quiet when the happiness of my own children is at stake. I am surprised, I must confess. Miss Martin seems too old and plain and stern for Joseph, but if he loves her and if she loves him, then I am content. And she will welcome dear Liz
zie into your family, I daresay, Joseph. I would invite them both to tea if I were in my own home.”
“Sadie—”
“But I am not,” she had said. “Are you going to Lindsey Hall this morning, Joseph? Tell Miss Martin if you will that I will call on her this afternoon. I daresay Clara will go with me or Gwen or Lauren if your father will not.”
“Thank you, Mama.” He had raised her hand to his lips.
There had still been Wilma to face, of course, before he left for Lindsey Hall. She was not to be avoided. She had been waiting for him outside the library and had forced him into the small visitors’ salon next to it. Surprisingly—perhaps—she had had nothing but recriminations to call down upon the head of the unfortunate Portia. But she had been deeply shocked by the rumors she had heard last night—rumors none of her cousins would either confirm or deny. Not that rumors had been necessary.
“You waltzed with that teacher, Joseph,” she had said, “as if no one else existed in the world but her.”
“No one did,” he had told her.
“It was quite indecorous,” she had said. “You made an utter cake of yourself.”
He had smiled.
“And then you disappeared with her,” she had said. “Everyone must have noticed. It was quite scandalous. You had better be very careful or you are going to find yourself trapped into marrying her. You do not know what women like her are capable of, Joseph. She—”
“It is I,” he had told her, “who am trying to trap her into marriage, Wilma. Or to persuade her to marry me, anyway. It is not going to be easy. She does not like dukes or even dukes in waiting, and she has no desire whatsoever to be a duchess—even if such a fate is comfortably far in the future provided we can keep Papa healthy. But she does like her pupils—especially, I suspect, her charity girls. She feels an obligation to them and to the school she began and has run successfully for almost fifteen years.”
She had stared at him, almost speechless for once.
“You are going to marry her?” she had asked him.
“If she will have me,” he had said.
“Of course she will have you,” she had told him.