by Mary Balogh
But then meaning was not to be grasped. It was a mystery to be trusted.
One needed courage to trust places like this. She had lost her courage the afternoon of the picnic. She needed to restore it.
She went to stand among the thick ferns that overhung the pool. She undid the strings at the neck of her cloak after a couple of minutes and tossed it aside. After a brief hesitation she pulled off her old dress too and kicked off her shoes until she stood there in just her shift. The air was cool, but to someone who had spent most of her life outdoors it was not uncomfortably cold. And she needed to feel. She stood very still. After a few minutes she tipped back her head and closed her eyes. The beauty of the moonlit scene threatened to steal everything for the eyes. She wanted to hear the sounds of water and insects and gulls. And she wanted to smell the ferns and the fresh water of the waterfall, the salt of the sea. And to feel the cool night air against her flesh and the ferns and soil beneath her bare feet.
She opened her eyes again once all her senses had become attuned to her surroundings. She looked into the dark, fathomless waters of the pool. The darkness with its suggestion of something to be feared was an illusion. The pool was fed by that bright fall of sparkling waterdrops, and it in its turn fed the shimmering sea. Darkness and light—they were a part of each other, complementary opposites.
"What are you thinking?"
The voice—his voice—came from behind her, not very far distant. The words had been softly spoken. She had neither seen nor heard his approach, but she was curiously unstartled, unsurprised. There was none of that terror, that panicked feeling that something menacing was creeping up on her that she had felt on the rhododendron walk and in the forest this morning. It felt right that he had come. It felt as if it were meant to be. What had gone wrong here could not be put right if he were not here with her. She did not turn around.
"That I am not just someone observing this," she said, "but that I am a part of it. People often talk about observing nature. By saying so they set a distance between themselves and what is really a part of them. They miss a part of their very being. I am not just watching this. I am this."
She was not thinking out the words, planning them, formulating a philosophy of life. She was merely speaking from her heart to his heart. She had never shared herself so deeply with another human being. But it seemed right to do so with him. He would understand. And he would accept.
He said nothing. Yet his very silence said everything. There was suddenly a feeling of perfect peace, perfect communion.
And then he was beside her, touching the backs of his fingers to the hair at her temples. "Then the one remaining garment has to go too, little water nymph," he said.
There was no element of suggestiveness in the words. They merely showed the understanding and acceptance she had expected. While she crossed her arms and peeled her shift off over her head, he was shrugging out of his coat and waistcoat and shirt.
"You were planning to swim, were you not?" he asked her.
Yes. She had not known it consciously, but yes, it would have been the next logical step even if he had not come to put it into words for her. She needed to immerse herself in the waters of the pool, to make herself an inextricable part of the beauty and peace that had been restored to her this night—the perfect gift.
She nodded. He was a part of it too, magnificent in his nakedness after he had stripped away the last of his garments. They looked at each other with frank appreciation and—oh yes, with the stirrings of desire, of hunger, of need. But there was more than just that. There were needs of the soul to be fed, and for now they were of greater importance than the cravings of the body.
Besides, there was all night…
He turned and dived into the pool—and came up gasping and shaking his head like a wet dog. His teeth flashed white in the moonlight. But before he could say anything Lily had dived in too.
The water was cold. Numbingly, breathtakingly cold. And clear and sweet and cleansing. She felt as if it were penetrating beneath the layer of her skin and soothing and cleaning and renewing. Now that she was in the water, she saw after she had surfaced and smoothed her hair back from her face, it was no longer black but shimmering with moving light. Darkness was only a perception, she realized again, dark from one viewpoint but bright from another.
It was not a large pool or even very deep. But they swam side by side for several minutes, saying nothing because nothing needed to be said. And they trod water close to the waterfall and reached out their hands in order to feel the sharp needles of water pounding against fingers and palms. The water was cold even after one had become accustomed to it.
"Wait here," he said eventually, setting his hands on the bank and lifting himself out in one smooth motion.
Lily floated lazily on her back until he came from the cottage with one towel wrapped about himself and others folded over his arm. He reached down a hand and helped her out and then wrapped a large towel about her shivering form. He reached behind her and squeezed the excess water from her hair before giving her the other towel to wrap turban-style about it.
"We could light a fire inside the cottage," he suggested, "if you wish to go inside there again, Lily. You would be in no danger from me. I will not touch you without your consent. Is the prospect of warmth enticing?"
Yes, it was. But more enticing was the thought of prolonging this night of magic, this night in which she could persuade herself that all of life's problems had been solved for all time. She knew life was never that simple, but she knew too that times like this were necessary, a balm for restoring the soul.
On a night like this love could become everything. Love could not always be so, but there were precious times like this that one ought not to deny.
Besides, the cottage was the one niggling fear that remained to be conquered.
She smiled. "Yes," she said. "I am not afraid. How could I be after this?" She gestured with one hand at the scene about them. He would understand, she knew. He had become a part of it with her. "I want to go inside. With you."
***
He must know the cottage very well, Lily thought. He had found the towels in darkness, and now it took him only a few seconds to find candles and tinderbox and bring the coziness of candlelight to the sitting room. While Lily pulled on her shift and dress, he knelt and lit the fire that was already laid in the hearth. There was more light then and the pleasant aroma of wood burning. Almost immediately there was a thread of warmth.
The remnants of fear vanished.
He sat in a chair beside the hearth after dressing—though he did not put his waistcoat and coat back on—while Lily sat on the floor close to the flames, her knees drawn up before her, her hair over one shoulder, drying in the heat. She was reminded of the relaxed, informal life of an army camp, though she had never sat thus with him there—there had been too much of a social gap between her father and Major Lord Newbury.
"After your father died, Lily," he said, perfectly in tune with her thoughts, it seemed, "did you have all sorts of regrets about what you might have said to him or done for him if you had only known that he was to die on that day? Or were you always so aware that as a fighting man he could die at any time that you left nothing unsaid, nothing undone?"
"I think the latter," she said after giving the question some thought. "I was fortunate to be able to live all my life with him even to the last day. I was fortunate to have a father who loved me so totally and whom I loved without reserve. I wish, though—I do wish I could have known what he wanted so badly for me to have after his death. He was always so insistent that there was something inside his pack for me. But there was no chance to see what it was—he had left it back at the base. But the important thing is that I know he did love me and did try to provide for my future." She looked up at Neville, sprawled and relaxed and yet elegant too in his chair. "You were not so fortunate?"
"My father was a manager," he said. "He liked to organize the lives of all those he loved
. He did it because he loved us, of course. He had our lives planned out for us—Gwen's and Lauren's and mine. I rebelled. I wanted my own life. I wanted to make my own choices. Sometimes I was downright spiteful about it. My father opposed my purchasing a commission, but when he finally relented and tried to choose a prestigious cavalry regiment for me, I insisted upon a foot regiment, which he thought beneath the dignity of his son. I loved him, Lily. I would in time have grown past the age of rebellion and have been close to him, I believe. But he died before I had the chance to tell him any of the things he deserved to be told."
"He knew." She hugged her knees. "If he loved you as well as you say he did, then he understood too. He had lived long enough to know about the various stages of life. And I believe that for many people rebellion during youth is normal. You must not blame yourself. You never did anything to disgrace him. I am sure he must have been proud of you."
"And what makes you, at the advanced age of twenty, so wise?" he asked her, a smile on his lips and in his eyes.
"I have seen and listened to many people in those twenty years," she said. "Many different types of people. Everyone is unique, but I have discovered that there are common traits of humanity too."
"I wish I had known your mother," he said. "She was one of the indomitable women who follow the drum even after they have children. It is my good fortune, of course, that she did and that your father was so devoted to you that he kept you with him even after she was gone. They produced a very special daughter."
"Because they were very special people," she said. "I wish I had known Mama better too. I remember her, but more as a sensation than as a person. Endless comfort and security and acceptance and love. I was very fortunate to have her even as long as I did, and to have had Papa. You were fortunate to have had such a father too—one who cared even enough to let you go. He did that for you, you know. He purchased your commission and even allowed you to choose a regiment he disapproved of. I am glad for my sake that he did."
They smiled at each other.
They talked for all of an hour while the fire burned down, was rebuilt once, and burned down again. They talked without any deliberate choice of topic, a comfort and ease between them that had not been there during the past week. It was quite like old times.
Eventually their chatter gave place to longer silences, companionable at first, but inevitably more and more charged with something else. Lily was fully aware of the changing atmosphere, but she allowed it to be. Tonight she had chosen to put fear behind her, to relinquish her personal will to the unfolding pattern of her life. She allowed to be what would be.
"Lily," he said finally, still apparently relaxed in his chair, "I want to make love to you. Do you want it too?" he asked her.
"Yes," she whispered.
"Here?" he said. "On the bed in the next room? In this cottage? To erase the memory of what happened the last time we were here?"
"It is why we are here, is it not?" she answered. "To weave ourselves into the magic, to be simply ourselves again, to be together despite all that has happened and is happening. Together as we have been outside in the pool and here by the fire. And together in—in there." She nodded toward the bedroom.
"You must not be frightened," he told her. "Not at any moment. However far advanced in passion I might become, I will stop the instant you tell me to stop. Will you believe that?"
"Yes," she said. "I believe it. But I will not tell you to stop."
She knew that she would want to. Before he came inside her, she would want to stop him. Because once he was in her, she would know. She would know if her dreams of love had been as insubstantial as most dreams are. And she would know if after all he found himself repulsed by the knowledge that another man had known her since their wedding day. But she would not stop him. This—tonight, all of it—was meant to be, and she would let it be, however it turned out.
"Come, then, Lily."
He got to his feet and held out a hand for hers. She stood beside him while he banked the fire, and then took his hand again to go into the bedchamber.
Chapter 13
They undressed without awkwardness or embarrassment, perhaps because they had bathed naked together just an hour or so before. He set his hands on her shoulders and held her away from him before drawing her close. She was small but exquisitely formed. His eyes focused, though, on the purplish, puckered scar on the upper side of her left breast. He traced it lightly with his fingertips and then lowered his head to touch it with his mouth.
"I was this close to losing you forever, Lily?" he said while she ran one hand lightly over the scar that almost circled his left shoulder—the relic of the saber wound that had very nearly hacked off his arm at Talavera.
"Yes," she said, and when he lifted his head she traced the line of his facial scar with one forefinger. "War is cruel. But we both survived it."
He kissed her, merely touching his lips to hers while his hands rested on either side of her small waist, holding her a little away from his own body. She looked and felt, he thought, like a sweet innocent. He could almost imagine that it was her first time even though memory of their wedding night was strong in him. And he thought quite deliberately of the Spaniard, the partisan without a name—a name he did not want to know, though she might at some time in the future need to talk about him, and he would force himself to listen. He thought about the man and what he had done to Lily over and over again for seven months. He did not want to suppress the knowledge that she had been forced to be another man's mistress.
"It matters, does it not?" She was looking into his eyes. "That there has been someone else?"
"It matters," he said, "because it happened to you, Lily. Because you suffered it all while I was recuperating in hospital and then was here, beginning a new life or, rather, resuming the old one. It matters because you were totally blameless while I was not. It matters because I do not feel worthy of you."
She set the fingers of one hand lightly to his lips.
"The past is unchangeable," she said. "It was war. This is the present, the only element of time we will ever have in which to create new memories. Better ones."
Ah, Lily. His beautiful, wise, innocent Lily, who could see life as something so incredibly simple that it was profound. He took her hand from his lips with his own, kissed her palm, and then kissed her mouth. He wanted to restore all her lovely innocence. He wanted to restore his honor.
"I am not going to hurt you," he told her. "I am not going to use you for my pleasure and give none in return. I am going to make love to you."
"Yes," she said. "Oh, don't be afraid. I know it. It is what you did the last time."
He brought her against him, slid one arm about her shoulders, the other about her waist, parted his lips over hers, and kissed her more deeply. It was hard to go slowly. The memories of the searing passion of his wedding night were suddenly very vivid—and he had had no woman since. But she set her arms about him, arched her body against his, as she had done on that night, and opened her mouth. He pressed his tongue inside.
"It will be all right," he murmured to her awhile later, forcing his mouth away from hers and feathering kisses at her temples, along her jaw, on her chin. "It is going to be all right."
"Yes," she whispered. "Oh, yes. It is all right."
He was as fearful as she—if she was fearful. He had to make things right for her. And he would make them right. He had heard from Captain Harris by the afternoon post and would surely hear from everyone else soon. Harris had given the answers he had fully expected. The Reverend Parker-Rowe's papers had been abandoned with his body in that Portuguese pass.
He knew what the other answers would be too—what they must be.
"Come and lie down," he whispered to Lily.
He lay on the bed with her, on his side, his head propped on one hand. She gazed back at him without apparent fear. Her eyes were dreamy with desire.
"I want to come on top of you," he said. "It is how I can love you
most deeply. But if my weight will make you feel trapped, if you would like it better, I will take you on top. Tell me what you want."
She turned onto her back and lifted one arm. "Come," she said. "I will not feel trapped. I am not afraid. I never was afraid of you, only of myself. I should have explained, told you that. I have always trusted you."
He knelt between her thighs, which she spread as he came over her, but he did not immediately either mount her or lower his weight onto her. He hooked her legs about his own and loved her body slowly with his hands and his mouth, leaning over her but not yet touching his body to hers. She was alive, he thought, his body exulting over her as if the reality of that fact had only just come home to him. She was warm and soft and alive, and she was on the bed with him in the valley cottage, where he had lain many times during the past year, dreaming of her, mourning her.
She was his wife and his love. She was alive.
And ready for love. He slid his hand down over the mound of dark-blond hair at the apex of her thighs. His fingers found her core and caressed her there until he could feel the heat and the slippery wetness of her desire.
"Look at me, Lily," he said, suppressing the urge simply to mount her. Even now he would not take her compliance for granted—he dared not. And she was lying very still.
She opened eyes heavy with unmistakable passion and gazed upward into his face.
"Look at me," he told her again. "I am your husband. I am going to come inside and love you and let you love me. I am not going to use you or hurt you or degrade you."
"I know," she murmured. "I know who you are."
He positioned himself carefully and pressed inward while she watched his face, unflinching. He felt her muscles clench about him and fought for control—she was soft and hot and wet. She searched his eyes with her own, but then they drifted closed and her head tipped back against the pillows and her lips parted. She was experiencing, he could not fail to see with mingled relief and desire, the beginnings of ecstasy.