by Mary Balogh
She laughed softly.
“Do they?” he said, nibbling on her bottom lip.
“Yes.” She pressed her lips softly to his. “I am still a girl at heart, Duncan. And I still dream.”
“I am a handsome gentleman, then?” he asked her.
She laughed again, the sound coming from somewhere deep in her throat.
“I think you must be,” she said. “Certainly my heart is all aflutter, and my toes are curling up in my slippers. Now there is only that certain heaven to travel to, Duncan.”
“May I come too?” he whispered against her lips, and deepened the kiss.
“Mmm,” she said on a long sigh.
Duncan was not sure he did not respond with an answering sigh.
They kissed long and deep, murmuring to each other when they came up for air, returning over and over again to the feast. And yet they kissed without any urgent sexual passion. That would come later, when they returned home to their bed. This was not about sex. It was about romance. It was about falling in love.
It was all very strange—and it was all strangely enticing.
Romance more enticing than sex?
He was not even sure he could not smell a perfect rose.
Margaret spent almost the whole of the following morning with Mrs. Dowling. She inspected the china and glassware and silverware and linen and sat poring over the account books and the order books with her. She was taken belowstairs to inspect the kitchen and pantries and storehouses, and stayed to drink a cup of tea and sample some sweet biscuits fresh out of the oven while she discussed menus and meal times with Mrs. Kettering, the cook.
She met a number of the servants and thoroughly enjoyed the morning. She was very aware, as she had never been at Warren Hall, that this was her home, that these were her servants.
She felt consciously happy. And though she remembered the night with pleasure—they had made love twice, once when they went to bed and once before Ducan got up for an early morning ride—it was last evening she remembered with a warm glow about the heart.
They had kissed each other out in the summer house with a deepening affection and a promise of passion when they went home—but with something that went beyond affection or passion. They had talked between kisses and had even been silent for a longish spell, her head on his shoulder, his fingers playing lightly with her hair. And they had laughed.
Their shared laughter had caused her to slide closer to falling in love with him. She had not heard him laugh often, and almost never with total lightheartedness at some silliness that was probably not really funny at all. And she could not remember laughing herself in quite so carefree a manner for a long time.
There was mutual trust in shared laughter.
She trusted his unexpected commitment to making a love match of their union. He had been open and frank with her. She had to trust him. She needed to.
Duncan was busy too. He had taken breakfast with Toby in the nursery, but he was spending the rest of the morning with Mr. Lamb, his steward. They had gone out on horseback just after breakfast, probably to tour the home farm.
Honeymoons were wonderful things, Margaret decided, but it felt equally good to be settling to what would be the routine of daily life whenever they were in the country. And that, she supposed, would be most of the time, at least for the next several years, with Toby so young. And perhaps soon there would be another infant in the nursery.
Oh, she hoped so.
Duncan was to spend the afternoon with Toby. Margaret told herself that she did not mind. He had said from the start that the child must come first with him, and he had arrived here just yesterday. He needed to spend time with his father.
However, just before luncheon, when Margaret was in her dressing room changing her clothes, there was a knock at the door. Ellen opened it.
Toby was standing there, Duncan behind him.
“There you are,” the child said to Margaret. “We looked in the big room downstairs, but you were not there. You are to tell me today if you will be my friend.”
“Oh,” Margaret said, looking briefly up at Duncan and finding that for some reason her knees felt suddenly weak, “I have been busy and have not given the matter a great deal of thought. But I think I might like to be your friend, Toby. Indeed, I am certain I would be. Shall we shake on it?”
She stepped closer to the door and held out a hand for his.
He pumped her hand up and down.
“Good,” he said. “We are going out after I have eaten. We are going to play cricket. Papa is going to bowl to me and I am going to hit the ball. You can catch it. If you want to, that is. I’ll let you bat some of the time.”
“That is kind of you,” she said.
“And then,” he said, “we are going to the lake, and Papa is going to let me swim if I have been a good boy.”
“ Is there a lake?” She looked at Duncan with raised eyebrows.
“At the foot of the west lawn,” he said. “It is out of sight from the house behind the trees.”
“Splendid,” she said, looking at Toby.
“What shall I call you?” he asked her. “I won’t call you Mama.”
“That would be absurd anyway,” she said, “since I am not your mother. Let me see. Papa calls me Maggie. Everyone else in my family calls me Meg. How about Aunt Meg, even though I am not really your aunt either?”
“Aunt Meg,” he said. “You had better be ready after luncheon or Papa will go without you. He said so.”
“I was talking to you, imp,” Duncan said. “Off you go now. Mrs. Harris is waiting for you in the nursery. Can you find your own way?”
“I can,” the child said, darting off. “Of course I can. I am four years old.”
“Going on forty,” Duncan said when he was out of earshot. He stepped inside the dressing room—Ellen had already left. “I am sorry about this, Maggie. Playing cricket with a child who has not yet learned to swing his bat on a collision course with the ball is probably not your idea of an enjoyable way to spend a sunny afternoon.”
“On the contrary,” she said. “I always did find fielding the ball the most dreary part of playing cricket. Now I can claim a different role and teach Toby how to hit a ball. If he will grant me the favor, that is, as his newest friend.”
They both laughed—and locked eyes.
“This evening,” he said, “will be just for us. And for romance.”
“Yes.” She reached up and cupped his face with both hands. She kissed him lightly and briefly on the lips.
“I really do not know,” he said, “how I could have imagined even for a moment that I would be able to find a bride, marry her in haste, and then settle her somewhere on the outer periphery of my life.”
“You have accomplished two out of the three,” she said, “and that is not a bad average. However, you must have imagined all that before you met me or got to know me at all well. I do not function at all well when balanced on peripheries.”
He laughed and returned her kiss just as briefly.
“If we do not go down and eat immediately,” he said, “I daresay Toby will go without us and we will be doomed to an afternoon with nothing to do but entertain each other.”
“Oh goodness,” she said, “whatever would we find to do?”
She laughed when he merely waggled his eyebrows.
She had done the right thing, she thought as she took his arm. Oh, she had done the right thing in marrying him. That collision in the Tindell ballroom was something that had been meant to be.
She was happy already.
They were going to fall in love.
And perhaps their determination to fall meant that they had already fallen—at least a part of the way.
22
DUNCAN found that his days were busy with varied activities—so different from most of the past five years, when time had often hung heavily on his hands. Now there often seemed to be not enough time.
He set about reacquainting himself with t
he estate and the home farm after six years of absenteeism. The work took up all his mornings and often cut into his afternoons. He spent as much of those as he could with Toby, for whom he would find a governess or tutor once the summer was over, though he would always give the child a few hours of his company each day. There were also neighbors to receive when they called—and they all did over time. Some came out of genuine cordiality, others probably out of mere curiosity. It did not matter. He received them all with courtesy while Maggie always showed genuine warmth. And she always spoke openly about Toby. Whether anyone was scandalized was unclear, but the Murdochs invited the child to attend the birthday party of their youngest son, and the day after their whole brood of four youngsters came to play.
The calls had to be returned. And Maggie was already promising both him and their neighbors dinners and a garden party and perhaps a Christmas ball when the time came—with an afternoon party for all the children.
In the evenings, after he had told Toby a bedtime story and tucked him into bed and kissed him good night, there was a courtship to pursue. They strolled outside most evenings, their hands joined, their fingers laced. On the one wet day they danced in the gallery—to music they supplied themselves with breathless, not particularly musical voices and a great deal of laughter.
Always they ended up kissing and holding each other with a curiously chaste lack of sexual passion considering what always happened later in their bedchamber. It was amazing that they were not both hollow-eyed and haggard from lack of sleep, in fact.
But the evenings were as intoxicating in their own way as were the nights.
He was falling in love, Duncan realized. He liked and respected her and enjoyed her company and conversation. His physical hunger for her was insatiable. But somewhere between liking and lust there was—well, he was beginning to trust her and her affection for him and Toby. He was in love with her, though he tried not to verbalize the fact in his mind—and never put it into words. Perhaps he did not trust enough yet. He brought her flowers from the garden every day, and she always pinned one of the roses to her gown.
She was good with Toby. She never pressed her company on him or her attention, but she was ready with both when he asked for them. She was content to be his friend while they all played cricket or dodge-the-ball or hide-and-seek or one of any number of other games. She was prepared to be his audience when he swam in the lake or climbed trees or thrust captured frogs or butterflies close to her face for her inspection before letting them go. She was always ready with admiration and praise when he called to her to witness how high he had climbed or how many strokes he had swum before sinking. She walked him to the Murdochs’ house on the edge of the village and waited through the birthday party to bring him home again—because it was one of the days on which Duncan was busy all afternoon. And she was content to dispense comfort and consolation when he bumped or bruised or scraped himself, as he inevitably did at least once a day. He giggled when she kissed better a thumb he had bent awkwardly backward while catching a ball and then went roaring off to play again, the pain forgotten.
Life fell into a busy but pleasant routine. Only one more thing was needed—from him. The final step into full trust. He dreaded taking it, but told himself that he would—soon. Unfortunately, he waited a little too long, but there was no real warning of that fact the evening before it happened. Though happened was perhaps the wrong word.
It had been a particularly hot day. It was still warm—one of those nights that never did fully cool off.
She came half running down the stairs to meet him in the hall, just a light shawl about her shoulders.
“Toby is sleeping?” she asked as she came.
“Yes.”
And then she stopped abruptly, her eyes on what he held rolled up beneath one arm.
“What is that?” she asked, though the answer was quite obvious.
“Towels,” he said. “We are going swimming.”
“Swimming?” She looked up into his eyes and laughed.
“Swimming,” he repeated. “I went in with Toby this afternoon and a few days ago, leaving you sitting on the bank, looking decorative. And, I noticed this afternoon, wistful.”
“I did not,” she protested.
“Liar,” he said, grinning at her. “You were itching to dive in there with us.”
“I was not,” she said.
“Can you swim?” he asked her.
“I used to as a girl,” she said. “I have not even tried for years. It would be quite indecorous to submerge myself in the lake, Duncan.”
He grinned and said nothing.
“But oh, dear,” she said, “it would be so much fun.”
“Will be,” he promised, “not would be.”
She took his free arm without further argument, and they stepped out of the house and began the longish walk across the west lawn and through the trees to the lake. The sun had already disappeared below the horizon when they got there, but the sky still glowed orange and purple—and so did the water of the lake.
“Oh,” she said, “it is all so very beautiful, Duncan. Perhaps we should just sit here on the bank and drink in the loveliness of it all.”
“I think,” he said, “you are a coward.”
“I will ruin my dress,” she said.
“Which you will, of course, remove before you jump in,” he said.
“My shift, then.”
“That too.”
“Duncan!” She looked at him, shocked. “I cannot go in—”
“Naked?” he said. “Why not?”
She looked about, as if she expected to see a whole army of interested onlookers march by.
“I see you naked every night,” he reminded her.
“But this is different,” she said.
He loved her occasional primness. It contrasted so deliciously with her ardor and passion at night.
“I could promise not to look,” he said, “until you are submerged to the chin.”
She laughed and so did he.
“Perhaps I will not remember how to swim,” she said. “Perhaps I will sink like a stone.”
He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Then I will have an opportunity to play the hero,” he said, “and dive in to rescue you.”
“Oh, Duncan.” She tipped her head to one side. “Our evenings are supposed to be for courtship and romance and falling in love, not for—”
He tipped his head in the same direction as hers.
She sighed and turned her back on him.
“You had better unbutton me,” she said as she discarded her shawl. “I suppose it might be fun after all.”
He dropped the towels to the grass.
“It will,” he promised, setting his lips to the back of her neck after opening the top two buttons of her dress. He slid his hands around to cup her breasts through her shift after opening her dress to the hips. He did not keep them there, though. This was about romance.
He knelt and rolled down her silk stockings and drew them over her feet after she had kicked off her shoes. He grasped the hem of her shift and drew it off over her lifted arms as he stood up again. She drew the pins from her hair.
He kept his drawers on when he swam in the daytime with Toby. Tonight he did not.
She shook her head, and her hair cascaded down her back.
He turned and dived into the water, came up and shook the drops from his face, and reached out his hands for her.
“It is best to jump in boldly,” he said, “rather than do it one toe at a time.”
“I remember that much,” she said. “Stand back.”
And she came running and jumped in, feet first, causing a mighty splash. She came up sputtering, her eyes tightly closed, her mouth open on a gasp.
“Oh,” she said, clearing her face with her hands and then smoothing them over her hair, “you did not warn me that the water is cold.”
“Only for the first moment,” he said.
She was stand
ing close to the bank, where the water was only chest deep. He trod water, spreading his hands over its surface and looking at her.
He had never seen her with wet hair. It was dark and sleek over her head. She looked younger, more carefree, though he was seeing her only through a heavy dusk, of course. The light on the water had been fractured by their entry.
“Come,” he said, and began to swim away from the bank in a lazy crawl.
He looked back after a while. She was coming after him, her feet splashing up behind her, her head up out of the water, her arm movements awkward. But her strokes became smoother even as he watched, and she dipped her face into the water and turned her head to catch breaths. Her body was dark and sleek amid purple and gold and silver ripples.
He stayed where he was until she drew abreast of him and saw him and raised her head.
“Oh,” she said breathlessly. “There are some things one never forgets. If I tried to put my feet down, there would be nothing under them but water, would there?”
He had brought them to the deep end of the lake. There was a shallow end, where they always went with Toby, but it was some distance away.
“You are tired?” he asked.
“Only breathless,” she said, and he saw the flash of her teeth in the gathering darkness. “I am out of practice. Oh, this is like being a girl again, Duncan.”
“Turn onto your back and float,” he suggested.
She did so, spreading her arms across the water, laying back her head and closing her eyes. He moved behind her and under her, slid his arms beneath her to support her, and swam backward with her.
She opened her eyes, tipped back her head to look at him, and smiled. She kicked her feet slightly to propel them along.
The sunset gradually faded, leaving darkness and moonlight and starlight and the lapping of water in their wake and the smell of sap from the trees.
They swam for an hour or more, sometimes together, sometimes side by side. Sometimes they merely floated on their backs, watching the stars, trying to identify them, agreeing finally that stars had no real names anyway, only what had been attached to them by humans.