by Mary Balogh
He took neither of the two courses he considered. He took a third and did something he did not consider at all.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you would like to get away from the crowds for a few minutes, Lady Angeline, and stroll along one of the side paths among the trees.”
He had just spotted one of those paths coming up on their left, and he moved them onto it almost before she could turn her head to smile at him. He was unfamiliar with those side paths, of course. He had never been to Vauxhall before.
He knew almost immediately that he had made a mistake. The path was narrow and dark. There were no lamps strung in the tree branches here. The only light came from the main path and, when the canopy of branches overhead was not too thick, from the moon above. The path was also winding and deserted.
“Oh,” Lady Angeline said, her voice warm with delight, “what a very good idea, Lord Heyward. This is heavenly, is it not?”
They could have walked single file in some comfort, but that would have been somehow ridiculous. They walked side by side, her arm through his and clamped to his side—he had no choice. They brushed together a number of times either at the shoulder or at the hip or at the thigh or, once or twice, at all three simultaneously. Again, he had no choice.
Even the music sounded more distant from in here. The voices and laughter of revelers sounded a million miles away.
And what had happened to the cool night air?
“I do beg your pardon,” he said. “The path is far narrower than it looked. And it is very dark. Perhaps I ought to take you back to the main avenue, Lady Angeline.”
Windrow and his companions would surely have gone past by now.
“Ah, but it is lovely here,” she said. “Can you hear the wind in the trees? And the birds?”
He stopped to listen. Her ears were keener than his. All he had heard, with growing unease, were receding voices and distant music. But they were surrounded by nature and the sounds and smells of nature, and she was right—it really was rather lovely. And the moon was almost, if not quite, at the full. There must be a million stars up there. And indeed, if one tipped one’s head right back, one could see a surprising number of them.
They were as lovely as the lanterns. No, lovelier.
He felt the tension seep from his body and drew a deep, fragrant breath.
“Look at the stars,” she said almost in a whisper. Her voice sounded somehow awed.
They were in a small clearing, he realized, and there was an almost clear view upward. Turning his head, he could see that her face was bathed in moonlight. Her eyes shone with the wonder of it. And she turned her face to share the wonder with him. She smiled, but not with her usual bright smile. This was more dreamy, more … intimate.
As if they shared some very precious secret.
“I am looking,” he said. Though it was not at the stars he was gazing any longer, but into her eyes. And why was he whispering?
Her lips parted, and the moonlight gleamed on them. She must have moistened them with her tongue.
He kissed her.
And immediately lifted his head. He felt rather as if lightning had zigzagged its way right through the center of his body.
She did not move.
And the lightning or the moonlight or something had killed his brain.
He kissed her again, turning her as he did so with one arm about her shoulders so that he could twine the other about her waist. And he opened his mouth, parting her lips as he did so, and plunged his tongue deep into her mouth. It was all heat and moisture and soft, smooth surfaces.
Someone moaned—he sensed it was not he—and one of her arms twined about his neck while the other circled his waist and she kissed him back with fierce enthusiasm.
If there was any modicum of common sense left to rattle about inside his head, it deserted him at that point, and his one hand slid hard down her back until it spread over that very shapely derriere that had so disturbed him a month ago on the road to London. And the tip of his tongue traced the ridge along the roof of her mouth while his other hand moved downward and forward to cup one of her breasts. It was warm and soft and full.
He felt himself harden into arousal.
Someone had a furnace going full blast and both doors open wide—and there was only one way to put out the fire. His hand tightened over her bottom and pressed her closer.
And then, while the rest of his body was only feeling an intense desire for the woman in his arms, his eyes suddenly saw against the insides of his closed eyelids.
They saw Lady Angeline Dudley.
And his mind spoke two very clear, very stern words to him.
Good Lord!
The admonition came too late, of course. Far too late.
Impulsiveness and lust had been his downfall.
He returned his tongue to his own mouth, moved his hands to cup her shoulders, and took a step back. A very firm step.
Her face, heavy-lidded and moist-lipped, open and vulnerable, was achingly beautiful in the moonlight.
But it was the face of Lady Angeline Dudley.
“I do beg your pardon,” he said, his voice sounding almost ridiculously steady and normal.
They were useless words, of course. There could be no pardon.
“Why?” she asked, all wide, dark eyes.
“I ought not to have brought you here,” he said. “I have done the very thing I ought to have been protecting you from.”
“I have never been kissed before,” she said.
He felt ten times worse, if that was possible.
“It was wonderful,” she said with dreamy emphasis.
She was indeed a dangerous innocent. One kiss and she was like clay in the kisser’s hands. In unscrupulous hands that could spell disaster. What would have happened if he had not come to his senses? Would she have stopped him? He doubted it.
“I have compromised you horribly,” he said.
She smiled and looked more herself.
“Of course you have not,” she said. “What is more natural than for a man and a woman to kiss when they find themselves alone in the moonlight?”
Which was precisely his point.
“I will take you back to the box and your chaperon and your brothers,” he said.
Her brothers. Good Lord. Tresham was not exactly a spotless role model. He had been behaving scandalously on the dance floor back there with his mistress—or one of them. It was common knowledge that he had been carrying on with Lady Eagan even before Eagan left her. Perhaps he was even why Eagan had gone. It had perhaps been less honorable but safer than challenging Tresham to a duel. Even so, Tresham would not think it was the most natural thing in the world for any man to kiss his sister while walking in the moonlight with her. Tresham would take him apart limb from limb.
“If you must,” Lady Angeline said with a sigh. “You must not worry, though, Lord Heyward. I kissed you just as much as you kissed me. And no one saw. No one will ever know.”
Except the two of them. That was two people too many.
She took his arm and snuggled up to his side as they stepped onto the narrower part of the path again.
“Tell me you are not really sorry,” she said. “I want to remember tonight as one of the loveliest of my life, perhaps even the loveliest, but I will not be able to if I am to believe that you regret having kissed me.”
He sighed—with mingled exasperation and relief—as they stepped back onto the main avenue. And there was indeed no further sign of Windrow.
“It has been a lovely evening,” he lied.
“And the fireworks are still to come,” she said happily.
Yes, indeed.
Chapter 11
ANGELINE WOKE UP smiling.
She gazed up at the elaborately pleated canopy over her bed and stretched until her toes cracked and her fingers curled over the top of the headboard. She laced her fingers behind her head.
She could tell that it was raining even though the curtains were still drawn
. She could hear a pattering against the windowpanes. But it felt as if the sun were shining.
Was it possible for life to be brighter?
Vauxhall Gardens must be the most wonderful, most magical place on earth. Everything about it was perfect. And the company had been the best possible. Conversation had been lively and conducted on a variety of subjects, all of which she had found interesting. Mr. Lynd had danced with her. So had Viscount Overmyer and Cousin Leonard. The music had been divine, the food scrumptious.
The fireworks had been breathtaking, awe-inspiring. They had been beyond the power of superlatives to describe, in fact. The only disappointing thing about them, as she had said at the time, was that the display had come to an end far too soon. As had the evening, of course.
But it had been by far the most wonderful evening of her life.
Oh, by far.
Angeline bent her legs at the knee and rested her feet flat on the mattress, the blankets tented over them.
Her mind had been skirting around the very best part of it all. She had allowed the memories to crowd into her mind the moment she awoke, but she had very deliberately kept the best for last so that she could give it her undivided attention. And even now she would think of that very best memory a bit at a time, keeping the very, very best, the very most glorious until last.
The Earl of Heyward.
Even his name was lovely. So much lovelier than any other she knew. Poor Martha was smitten by Mr. Griddles. And if that name were not bad enough in itself, there was his first name. What parents would inflict the name Gregory upon a poor baby when his last name was Griddles? But that was precisely what his parents had done.
The Earl of Heyward was Edward. Edward Ailsbury.
His conversation was sensible. He had participated in every topic of discussion without trying to dominate any, and he had expressed his opinions even when they had conflicted with someone else’s—and yet he had listened courteously to those other opinions. He was obviously fond of his family. He had taken Lady Heyward for a stroll while Angeline danced with Cousin Leonard. And he had looked a little sheepish when Mrs. Lynd, while talking briefly about her children, had said that her youngest, as well as Lady Heyward’s daughter and Lady Overymyer’s three, would grow fat before summer came if her brother kept taking them to Gunter’s for ices.
“But what are uncles for, Alma,” he had asked, “if not to spoil their nieces and nephews horribly before taking them home to their parents?”
“And you have promised to take all five of them to the Tower of London next week, Edward,” Lady Overmyer had added. “Is that not a little rash of you?”
“Probably,” he had agreed. “I shall enforce good behavior by threatening to forgo the ices on the way home.”
They had all laughed, and Angeline had stored in her heart the image of Lord Heyward as a doting uncle.
But the very best part could be postponed no longer. Her memory was fairly bursting with it. She wiggled her toes against the mattress and closed her eyes.
He had kissed her.
She had kissed him.
Her very first kiss.
He had taken her off the main avenue, where everyone else was walking, and had found a quiet, enchanted little clearing into which moonlight poured—so much more romantic after all than the lamps—and he had kissed her once, then drawn her right into his arms and kissed her again.
Oh, it had been nothing like anything she had ever expected a kiss to be. She had always wondered what her lips would feel like when being kissed and what the man’s would feel like. She had wondered how she would breathe. She could not remember breathing at all, but she supposed she must have done so or she would be dead.
She could not even remember clearly what her lips had felt like, or his. For a kiss had proved to be far more than just a touching of lips. Their whole bodies had been involved, their whole beings. Oh, goodness, as soon as his lips had touched hers for the second time, his mouth had opened and so had hers—and he had pressed his tongue into her mouth. It sounded shocking if it was put into words. But she was thinking more in remembered sensations than in words.
Her insides had turned to a sort of aching jelly. Her legs had felt weak. She had been throbbing in a place to which she could not put a name. And their bodies had been pressed together. He had been all hard-muscled, solid, unfamiliar masculinity and familiar cologne, and she had clasped him to her with arms that strained to draw him even closer. But how much closer could he have got short of removing a few layers of clothes? The very thought of that reminded Angeline of how hot that clearing had seemed for the few minutes of their embrace. As though someone had lit a fire and piled on a forest of kindling and a ton of coal.
His one hand had been spread—oh, dear—over her bottom. The other had come beneath one of her breasts and closed about it.
It was surely the most startlingly glorious first kiss anyone had ever experienced. Not that she was interested in anyone else for the moment.
It had been the very best experience of her life. She could not imagine that anything in her life could exceed it. Ever. Except that she had wanted it to go on and on forever, and of course it had not.
And the dear man had apologized afterward.
As if he had somehow taken advantage of her. As if he had somehow compromised her. He had even said so. A lady’s honor could not be compromised if there was no one there to see, could it?
Indeed it could, said Miss Pratt’s voice in her head, at its most severe. A lady must always be a perfect lady, even in the privacy of her own boudoir.
Which was about the most stupid of many stupid pronouncements Miss Pratt had made.
She had told him it was her first kiss. She had told him it was wonderful. Perhaps she ought not to have said either thing. She must have sounded very naive. But why not? Why pretend to be worldly-wise and jaded when one was not? She had begged him to tell her he was not really sorry, and he had admitted it was a lovely evening.
Lovely was an understatement. For she had made perhaps the most wonderful discovery of all last night. Lord Heyward was a very proper, serious-minded gentleman to whom courtesy and reason and good sense were more important than posturing and violence. But it could always be said that such men were dull. Tresham called him a dry old stick.
But it was not so.
She now knew from personal experience that such a man could also be passionate in his private dealings with the woman he loved. Very passionate indeed.
With the woman he loved.
Angeline’s eyes were still closed. She wiggled her toes and opened her eyes at last. Was that who she was? The woman he loved? She must be. He could not possibly have kissed her like that if she was not. Could he?
She would see him again this evening. At least, she hoped she would. There was Lady Hicks’s ball to attend, and apparently it was always one of the great squeezes of the Season.
Oh, surely he would be there too.
She threw back the bedcovers and swung her legs over the side of the bed to the floor. She had planned to walk in the park this morning with Martha and Maria—she had so much to tell them. It was still raining, of course, so that idea must be abandoned. But there were always shops just waiting to be shopped at, and there were tearooms where one might sit and talk with friends. She had far too much energy to remain at home merely waiting for this evening to come.
WHEN EDWARD ARRIVED at Dudley House later the same afternoon, he was shown into the library on the main floor while the butler went off to see if the Duke of Tresham was at home. Edward could not even allow himself the luxury of hoping he was not. Besides, he was almost sure Tresham would be here. He had been at the House earlier, as had Edward himself. He would certainly have returned home before going out for the evening.
Edward looked around at the shelves of books that lined the walls and wondered if Tresham ever as much as opened the cover of any of them. The large oak desk was clear apart from an inkpot and some quill pens on a blott
er. Comfortable-looking leather winged chairs flanked the fireplace. A chaise longue was set at the other side of the room. One could not imagine Tresham spending much of his time in a library of all places.
He walked closer to the fireplace for the simple reason that he did not want to be found hovering just inside the door, looking as uncomfortable as he felt. But a man stood in front of his own hearth, not someone else’s. He changed direction and crossed to the window instead. He stood looking out.
He did not believe he had ever felt more depressed in his life. Or more purely embarrassed. He wished he were anywhere else on earth but where he actually was. On the opposite side of Grosvenor Square he could see a maid cleaning off the boot scraper outside one door and found himself envying her her quiet, uncomplicated existence. Which was nonsense, of course. No one’s life was all quietness or lack of complications. It just seemed sometimes that someone else’s life—everyone else’s in this case—was preferable to one’s own.
As luck would have it, his mother and Lorraine had just been returning from a visit as he was leaving the house, bringing with them both his grandmother and Juliana, and they had all, of course, wanted to know where he was going all spruced up and freshly shaven.
“Oh, out,” he had said vaguely, kissing his mother and grandmother on the cheek.
“Take my word for it, Adelaide,” his grandmother had said, “there is a lady involved. Lady Angeline Dudley, I trust.”
“She was at Vauxhall with us last evening,” Juliana had said, smiling. Just as if his mother and grandmother had not already known that.
“I do hope you are not planning to take her driving in the park, though, Edward,” his mother had said, glancing out the hall window. “It is not actually raining again, but it is going to be at any moment. I do not at all like the look of those clouds. What a gloomy day it has been.”
“Perhaps,” his grandmother had said, waving her lorgnette in his direction as though conducting a symphony, “he is going to Dudley House to propose marriage to her, Adelaide. Did he dance with her at Vauxhall, Lorraine? Did he steal a kiss from her? Vauxhall is the very best place in London for stolen kisses. I still remember that. Ah, the memories.”