“I think perhaps I ought to save your life,” she said, “by telling the truth.”
“I think you ought.” He looked steadily back at her.
Her smile faded and her cheeks grew pink.
“It was a great deal better than pleasant,” she said, her voice hesitant. “At least for me it was.”
“Was he a terrible brute?” he asked softly, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Aubrey?” she said. “No. He never beat me.”
“Is that the best you can say about the way he treated you?” he asked.
“He told me frequently that I was not beautiful,” she said. “But he was telling no more than the tr—”
He pressed a finger across her lips.
“He was a filthy liar as well as a brute,” he said. “Or I am a liar. Take your pick.”
“Oh, Jack,” she said against his finger.
“Take your pick,” he said again.
She sighed.
“You are beautiful,” he said. “I was not a virgin before today, Cleo. I have had many liaisons, though none since my return to England. Until now, that is. I am sure it is extremely bad manners to compare one woman with another in the hearing of one of those women, but I am just a rough soldier and would not recognize good manners if they were to stand toe to toe with me and jab me in the nose. In comparison with the others, you are so superior that you make the comparison ridiculous. Like comparing the sun to a speck of dirt.”
Her smile was slow until it lit up her face.
“Oh, Jack,” she said, “you are wonderful.”
And she raised both arms and pulled his head down to hers again.
It was more wonderful the second time. No, that was not right. Wonderful was a word like perfect. It was a superlative. Nothing could be more wonderful than wonderful.
The second time was different. It was far slower. It was more tender. It was more … personal.
They took time to explore each other with hands and lips and tongues—and even teeth. They murmured soft words to each other, though Cleo could never afterward remember exactly what they had said. They looked at each other, gazing into each other’s eyes while they made love. And when they finished, they finished together and sighed out their contentment against the side of each other’s face. And when he moved off her, he kept one arm beneath her head and she snuggled against him while she gazed out of the window at a clear blue sky.
It was only then that she felt a little uncomfortable. Oh, not physically. She probably felt cozier, more relaxed than she ever had. She could easily nod off to sleep.
But it was not supposed to be this way. When she had thought things through yesterday morning and the night before that, she had come to a clear understanding of how she might proceed, of how they might proceed. It had all made perfect, rational sense. They would discover one way or the other whether she could have children and decide their future accordingly. Nothing could be simpler.
Or more pleasing to her. For however things turned out, she would have Jack for two months out of her life. It would be better than nothing.
She had expected it to be pleasant, the process of finding out, that was. Yes, she really had even though it had never ever been pleasant for her before. She had expected it to be quiet and sedate—though that second was not quite the word her mind sought. She had expected to feel happy afterward. She had expected her thoughts to be centered upon the question of whether she had or whether she had not conceived.
She would not be feeling uneasy at all, she thought now, if everything had proceeded according to her expectations.
It had not been pleasant at all. Oh, it had been, but only in the way a spectacular sunset might be described as nice or the way a mouse in comparison with an elephant might be described as smaller.
She had been shaken to the roots of her being. And being in love with Jack—which she had been for years—had suddenly taken on a wholly new dimension. For though she had looked forward to going to bed with him and had certainly not expected it to be an ordeal, it had not occurred to her that the physical act could be such a powerful, integral expression of her love.
And why had he not simply proceeded to business?
She was going to be severely punished for her immorality if she did not conceive, she thought. She would be forced to live out the rest of her life on memory alone.
Punishment. Immorality. Was that how she was thinking now, then? She was no longer an independent widow, for whom it was quite acceptable to take a lover?
All because she had enjoyed the act?
Would she feel less sinful if she had not enjoyed it?
And why had he not simply performed the act?
He had made her feel … cherished. Attractive. Even beautiful.
He had made her feel wanted. She had never felt wanted before. Needed, yes. Aubrey had needed to use her since he was surprisingly fastidious in his personal habits and feared contracting some dreaded disease from prostitutes. Yes, he had actually told her that.
But he had never wanted her.
It had felt as if Jack had.
He was smoothing a hand over her head and lowered his mouth to kiss her at the hairline.
“A penny for them,” he said.
Her thoughts? She tipped back her head and smiled at him. His face was only inches from her own. Ah, he was so very handsome. And there was a look of lazy contentment in his eyes.
“I was thinking how … pleasant this is,” she said, and his eyes smiled back into hers. “I am not great with words.”
“Only with feelings?” he said. “Tell me about your feelings, Cleo. What makes you happy? What are your hopes? Your dreams?”
You, to all three. But it was not what she said.
“I am not a wild dreamer,” she said. “I never have been. I am a dull creature. Little things make me happy—flowers, sunshine, birds singing. I hope to have a home in the country again one day, though I am not ungrateful that Aubrey left this house to me. I would have had to go live with Alfred if he had not, and that would have been a burden to him and to Megan. I dream of a cottage with a garden. And with a thatched roof and whitewashed walls and roses growing over the lintel.”
“And other people to share that home with you?” he asked.
She hesitated. But why not speak the truth?
“It is only a dream,” she said. “A kind man and a few children. A little dog. I am not an adventurous creature, am I?”
“I would imagine,” he said, “that you have already had quite enough adventure for one life.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Some women have envied me my years following the drum. They have no idea.”
“I believe I must be a dull creature too, Cleo,” he said. “I found my cottage after I had recovered sufficiently from my wounds to live alone. It is on one corner of my brother’s second estate and is, by most people’s standards, rather run-down. It has no thatched roof, no lintel, no roses, no garden. The woods are the back garden, the beach and the sea the front. I might have lived at the main house, and all sorts of people believe either that Matthew was cruel for denying it to me or that I am more than a bit peculiar. I loved that cottage. I still do, but it will never again be my home, alas. I must live at the main house after I am married.” He kissed the top of her head again. “After we are married.”
She sighed and burrowed closer to him. She did not want to pursue that line of thought.
“It sounds idyllic,” she said, “your cottage. I have seen the sea, of course, but I have never spent time beside it. Is it a little frightening?”
She had not enjoyed any of the sea voyages she had undertaken.
“It keeps me reminded,” he said, “of the vastness of all life, of its constant rhythms. It keeps me reminded of eternity, which could be frightening, I suppose, if one feared death. I do not. I have come eyeball to eyeball with it. I would even have welcomed it in the early days after I was wounded. My close brush with death has actually been my greates
t gift. Eternity is just the endless, steady rhythm of all that is. It soothes me. I have walked for hours on the beach. I have sat for hours merely gazing into the flowing or ebbing waves. I am indeed a very dull man, Cleo.”
“Yes,” she said, “I suppose you are.”
And she laughed softly against his chest before he found her mouth with his own and kissed her. She could tell that his mouth was smiling.
Oh, this was very treacherous indeed. This was not right.
It was as though he had read her mind.
“Cleo,” he said, “what happens tomorrow when your housekeeper has returned?”
She could not say she had not thought of it. Of course she had. She had not thought of any solution yet, though. She supposed she had assumed that one would present itself when the time came. Perhaps she could send Mrs. Evans on some errand that would keep her away from the house for a few hours. Perhaps if she shut the sitting-room door, Mrs. Evans would believe they were in there and not realize that they were upstairs in the bedchamber. Perhaps…
Well, there really was no good idea, and even if she found one, it would not work well for every day of two months.
“I thought so,” he said when she did not answer. “I think you had better just marry me and be done with it.”
“No,” she said, though she could no longer quite understand why she was being so stubborn. He had enjoyed their lovemaking. She was sure he had. He liked her. He had called her beautiful. He had compared her with other women with whom he had been and had said … how had he phrased it?
In comparison with the others, you are so superior that you make the comparison ridiculous. Like comparing the sun to a speck of dirt.
Why not just marry him and be done with it? And he was right in what he had said a day or two ago. There were never any guarantees in any marriage. Even with the Countess of Waterton. Neither she nor the earl could have known that she would have only daughters.
“Silence again,” Jack said, kissing her once more. “My stubborn Cleo. Very well, then. I shall lease a house for a couple of months. I’ll do it today or tomorrow morning, and I will come tomorrow afternoon to take you there. I daresay your housekeeper will come to wonder why you are going out driving with me every afternoon. I daresay your brother and sisters will wonder too, as will my brother and sister-in-law. But I am sure we will learn to be endlessly inventive in our explanations.”
“Yes.” She tipped her head to look back at him. “Thank you, Jack. But I must share the expense with you. Or bear it all myself.”
“Nonsense,” he said, and he slid his arm from beneath her head, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat up. “I must be going.”
She lay where she was and watched him while he dressed, standing unself-consciously before her. The flesh on the left side of his chest was unnaturally pink and puckered where the bullet intended for Wellington had struck him. It looked to be right over his heart. How the bullet could have missed defied explanation. His right leg was badly scarred. There were the white lines of old saber wounds in various places over his body. It seemed a miracle to Cleo that any man survived warfare.
He was beautiful despite it all. And now, instead of killing and risking being killed every day of his life, he lived in a dilapidated cottage with woods, a beach, and the sea for his garden.
Had lived.
Now he must marry and move into a large house.
He looked down at her when he was dressed.
“You will come to the theater this evening,” he said. It was not a question. She answered it anyway.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Definitely not. Not after this afternoon. It would not be right.”
“And yet,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “I will be going. After this afternoon.”
“That is another matter altogether,” she said. “I will not go, Jack.”
“Matthew’s carriage will be outside your door at seven o’ clock sharp,” he said. And then he grinned. “And the Earl of Waterton does not take kindly to being kept waiting, Cleo. Or, even worse, to being kept waiting in vain.”
And he turned on his heel and left the room. He even closed the door behind him.
“Jack,” she cried in panic.
She could hear his booted feet on the stairs.
Oh, the wretched, wretched man. How could she run after him? She was naked.
She could not possibly go to the theater this evening as a guest of the Earl and Countess of Waterton. Not when she and Jack had become lovers this afternoon.
It just would not be right.
But—she could attend the theater this evening as the guest of an earl. With the earl’s brother and heir as her escort. The very handsome brother. The hero whom the whole ton admired, even adored. The man she had loved for years and would love all her life.
She could have this one evening to cherish in memory for the rest of her days.
And perhaps, after all, she was not barren. Perhaps even now she was with child. Perhaps she and Jack would marry and have children—plural—and live with a measure of contentment, even happiness, in that large house. Perhaps he would take her sometimes to the cottage by the sea. Perhaps they would stroll on the beach together and dream together of peace and beauty and eternity. Perhaps…
Cleo swiped at her cheeks with the heels of her hand.
Good heavens, tears?
She would cause him horrible embarrassment if she was not ready to leave when the earl’s carriage came for her at seven. Though it would serve him right, wretched man. She had said no, but he had ignored her.
She threw her legs over the side of the bed and sat up.
She would go, she supposed. She might tell herself and tell herself that she would not, that he could not make her go, that he ought to be taught that no meant no. But in the end she would go anyway.
How could she not? Life had suddenly grown dazzlingly bright, and it would be foolish of her to withdraw to the shadows before she must.
Chapter Six
Jack was very much afraid as he rapped the knocker against the door of Cleo’s house that evening that she would refuse to answer or else come to the door patently not dressed for an evening at the theater. It had been wrong of him to ignore her protests this afternoon and not to go back when she called to him.
It was just that he suspected Cleo did not have much confidence in herself and none at all in her own beauty. Pritchard had destroyed what little she might have had as a girl. She was beautiful even if she did not have an obviously pretty face—though even that was lovely when it was animated and her eyes were raised. She had the most attractive smile of anyone he knew. He was a little biased, of course. He could no longer see her objectively. She was Cleo, the woman with whom he had come vividly alive again this afternoon for the first time in many years.
He felt whole again in ways he could not put into any satisfactory words. But he did not need words. What he did need was to persuade her to do likewise, to step confidently out into life again—or perhaps for the first time, to recognize herself as an attractive, sexual woman who could look anyone in the eye in the full expectation that she would be liked, even loved.
But, he thought ruefully as he stood outside her door and glanced back to the carriage, inside which Matthew and Charlotte waited, he ought not to have ignored her very firm no to this evening’s invitation.
He heard the lock turn on the other side of the door and it opened to reveal, not the housekeeper back from her day off, but Cleo herself, looking very smart in a sea-green evening gown of fine muslin, her hair dressed in a smooth chignon at the back of her head. She was looking at him with large eyes that held a hint of reproach.
“Ah,” he said. “You cannot know how anxious I have been, Cleo. It would have been more than a mite embarrassing to have to return to the carriage with the news that you refused to come when it was only this morning I informed them that I intended to pay court to you. It would have been no more than I deserved, though. You look lovel
y. I like your hair dressed that way.”
Her cheeks warmed with color, and her eyes grew more luminous. It was the look of a woman seeing a man for the first time since he became her lover. He smiled back at her, though a little ruefully.
“The flattery,” she said, “is unnecessary. I am coming, as you can see.”
“Flattery, of course,” he said. “You have exposed my lying tongue. I actually like your hair much more the way you wore it this afternoon.”
He saw understanding dawn in her eyes, and she smiled slowly back at him before stepping out of the house and turning to close the door.
He felt suddenly, absurdly happy. He took the key from her hand, locked the door himself, and waited while she tucked it away inside the small evening reticule she carried. He offered his hand and she set her own on top of it as he led her down the steps and across the pavement to the carriage.
Matthew was standing outside the open door. Charlotte was still seated inside, but she was leaning forward so that she could see out. They were curious to meet Cleo. They had been unable to place her in their minds even though they were sure they must have seen her a dozen times and Charlotte had actually been there beside the Serpentine when he bore her off home two days ago. They both remembered her brother and sisters, even the young one who was just making her come-out this year.
Cleo, Jack realized, had made an art out of being invisible. Even now he could feel her withdrawing inside herself, and when he glanced at her, he could see that her eyes were downcast and fixed on the pavement before her feet.
“Charlotte, Matt,” he said, “may I present my dear friend, Mrs. Pritchard? My brother and sister-in-law, Lord and Lady Waterton, Cleo.”
He squeezed her hand as she curtsied without raising her eyes.
“How do you do, ma’am?” Matthew said. “I understand you knew my brother in the Peninsula.”
“I was there with my husband,” she said.
“If I had known,” Charlotte said, “that you knew Jack, that is, I would have secured an introduction to you long ago, Mrs. Pritchard. For now I have a clear look at you, of course I know that I have seen you many times before. I had not even realized you were Sir Alfred King’s sister. Do come and sit beside me. If you are like me, you hate riding with your back to the horses. We will leave that seat for the men.”
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