by Mary Balogh
"As a very dear friend," she told him.
"Ah," he said softly. "That is a pity, Elizabeth. I might have said the same of my feelings for you until a few months ago. But no longer. There is little point in broaching the subject of marriage with you, then? You do not love me as you would wish to love a husband?"
"Lyndon," she whispered, "it is too late for me to bear you a son."
"Is it?" he asked her, lifting her hand to his lips and holding it there after pulling back her glove. "But you are only six-and-thirty, my dear."
He was laughing. Oh, not out loud, but there was laughter in his voice, wretched man. She tried to draw her hand away, but his own closed more tightly about it.
"Lyndon," she pleaded, "be sensible. You owe me nothing. You owe much to your name and your position."
"I owe something to myself," he told her. "I owe it to myself to marry where I love, Elizabeth. I love you. Will you marry me?"
"Oh," she said—and could think of nothing else to say for several moments while he turned her hand and found her bare wrist with his lips. "You will regret this in a few days' time after everything is settled with Lily and you realize you will soon be free to do whatever you wish with your life. You will be relieved that I have said no."
"Are you saying no, then, my dear?" He sounded suddenly sad, the laughter all gone from his voice. "Will you look at me now and tell me that it is because you do not love me and choose rather to live the rest of your life alone than with me? Into my eyes, if you please."
She turned her head and looked at his chin—and then into his very blue eyes. Ah, could such a look be intended for her? The sort of look with which Neville regarded Lily and which she had so envied? But the Duke of Portfrey was looking unwaveringly into her eyes.
"Promise me you will never regret it." Hope and terror all mingled together were doing painful and peculiar things to her insides. "Promise me you will not be sorry in a year's time or two years' time if mere are no children. Promise me—"
He kissed her hard.
"I have never known you to babble nonsense before today, Elizabeth," he said well over a minute later.
"Lyndon." She blinked her eyes to clear her vision. Somehow her hands had found their way to his shoulders. "Oh, Lyndon, are you quite, quite's—"
He kissed her again, open-mouthed this time, and pressed his tongue past her startled lips and teeth right into her mouth. It was such a shockingly intimate embrace that she lost both her breath and her knees and was forced to lock her arms about his neck and cling for dear life. And then she kissed him back, touching his tongue with her own, sucking on it, listening with exhultation to the soft murmurs of appreciation with which he responded.
He was smiling when he lifted his head again. "I do beg your pardon," he said. "I interrupted you. What were you saying?"
"I have the feeling," she said severely, "that you will not allow me to complete any sentence you do not wish to hear."
"You learn fast," he said, rubbing his nose against hers and then trailing soft kisses across one cheek to her ear before nibbling on her earlobe and startling a cry of pure pleasure from her. "But then you are an intelligent woman. You must understand now how I intend to enforce wifely obedience."
"I never realized how absurd you can be," she said. "Or how unscrupulous. Lyndon?"
"Mmm?" He feathered kisses along her jaw toward her chin.
"I do love you, you know," she said, closing her eyes. "As a dear friend and so very much more than just that. If I marry you, I will try my very hardest to give you a son."
He threw back his head and laughed aloud before hugging her very tightly to him. "Will you indeed?" he said. "Those are provocative words, my dear—very provocative. I will test your resolve on our wedding night, I promise you, and every night following it. Perhaps on the occasional morning or afternoon too. When, Elizabeth? Soon? Sooner? By special license? I have no patience with banns, have you? I am forty-two years old. You are six-and-thirty. I want us to spend every day, every moment, of the rest of our lives together."
"We are not so very old," she protested.
"Certainly not too old," he agreed, kissing her on the lips again. He grinned. "Let us see what those children decide to do during the next day or two, shall we? I shall certainly insist upon a proper wedding at Rutland for my beloved Lily—nowhere else will do. But I would dearly like her to have a stepmother to help me organize it."
"Ah," she cried, "now we come to the real point of all this. Now we come to the truth of why you are going to such pains to persuade me—"
He kissed her long and hard.
Chapter 26
Newbury Abbey, Lily had discovered, looked much the same and yet so very different. She had been oppressed by it, dwarfed by it, overwhelmed by it when she had last been here. Now she could admire its magnificence and love the light elegance of its design. Now it felt like home. Because it was his home, and surely would be hers too.
During the day and a half since her arrival she had talked with everyone and enjoyed everyone's company—including that of the kitchen staff with whom she had taken coffee at midmorning while she peeled potatoes. She had been in Neville's company too, though she had not been alone with him even once. The most private they had been was that minute—no, not even so long—when he had leaned into her father's carriage.
It did not matter. There was a way of being alone with someone even in the midst of crowds. She had grown up surrounded by a regiment of soldiers and its women and children and had learned that lesson early.
They conversed with each other—in company with others. They looked at each other and smiled at each other—in full view of everyone else. But all the time there was really just the two of them, and the shared understanding that at last the time was right. That at last she was home to stay. For the rest of their lives. Lily was sure she was not wrong.
It had not yet been spoken in words, for although the time was right, the exact, perfect moment had not yet arrived. And they would not rush it—it was as if they had a tacit agreement on that. They had waited a long time; they had endured a great deal. The moment of their final commitment would reveal itself. They would not try to force it.
The carpet in the drawing room was rolled back during the evening so that there could be dancing for the countess's birthday party. Lady Wollston, Neville's Aunt Mary, took her place at the pianoforte. Neville danced with his mother and then with Gwendoline, who liked to dance despite her injured leg. He danced with Elizabeth and Miranda.
And of course he danced with Lily—the last dance of the evening, a waltz.
"I am selfish, you see, Lily," he told her with a smile. "If it were a country set, I would have to relinquish you to other partners with every new pattern of the dance. With a waltz, I have you all to myself."
Lily laughed. She had danced with her father, with Joseph, with Ralph, with Hal. She had thoroughly enjoyed the evening. But only because she had known that finally, at last, she would dance with Neville.
"I knew it would be a waltz," she told him.
"Lily." He leaned his head a little closer. "You are a single woman, daughter of a duke, bound by all the proprieties that apply to a lady of the beau monde."
Lily's eyes danced with merriment.
"I have already spoken with Portfrey and have won his consent," he said. "I could speak with you formally in the library tomorrow. Your father or Elizabeth would bring you there and then tactfully leave us alone together for fifteen minutes. No longer than fifteen—it would be improper."
"Or?" Lily laughed again. "I hear an alternative in your voice and see it in your face. If the prospect of fifteen minutes alone in the library makes you wince, as it does me, what then?"
He grinned at her. "Portfrey would challenge me to pistols at dawn for even thinking it," he said.
"Neville." She leaned a little closer. Their proximity would have scandalized the beau monde at a ton ball. But they were among family, who watched them with affe
ctionate indulgence while pretending not to watch at all. "What is the alternative to the library? Oh. Shall I say it? You mean the valley, don't you? And the waterfall and pool. The cottage."
He nodded and smiled slowly.
"Tomorrow morning?" she asked. "No, that would not provoke a challenge from any irate father. You mean tonight, don't you?"
His smile lingered, as did her own. But they were gazing deep into each other's eyes, performing the steps of the waltz almost without realizing that they still danced. And Lily, feeling a tightening in her breasts and a weakening in her knees, knew that the moment had found itself. The perfect moment. He spoke again only when the music came to an end.
"You will go there with me, Lily?"
"Of course," she said.
"After everyone has settled for the night? I will knock on your door."
"I will be ready."
Yes, Lily thought as she made her way to her room a short while later, having hugged the countess, Elizabeth, and her father, and said a decorous good night to Neville. Yes, it was entirely right that they go to the cottage. Tonight. She was a lady now, daughter of a duke, and she was single, and she was bound by all the rules by which polite society regulated itself. But deeper than those realities was the fact that she was Lily, that in her heart she was married and had been for almost two years, that she was bound by something far stronger than mere man-made rules.
***
An almost full moon beamed down from a clear, star-studded sky. It was autumn and it was cold. But Lily, her hand clasped in Neville's, saw and felt only the beauty of this moment to which they had come. They hurried past the stables, down over the lawn, through the trees, through the ferns, down the steep slope to the valley. They did not speak even when they were far enough from the house not to disturb anyone with the sound of their voices. There was no need of speech. Something far deeper than words pulsed between them as they went.
They turned up the valley together at last, making their way toward the waterfall and the pool and the cottage. It was there they had lived through another moment—a tantalizingly brief moment—of total, utter happiness before being torn apart by a series of events that did not need to be remembered just now. They were back where they had been happy together. And where they would be happy again.
They were back where they belonged.
He spoke before opening the cottage door.
"Lily," he said, bending his head toward hers, cupping her face with gentle hands, "we will make love before we talk, will we? Even though church and state do not recognize our right to do so?"
"I recognize it," she told him. "And you do. It is all that matters. I am your wife. You are my husband." It had always been true, from that moment on the hillside in Portugal, when she had been dazed with shock and grief. Even then she had known that he was everything in the world that she would ever need or want. No one—least of all the impersonal forces of church and state—could destroy the sanctity of that ceremony.
"Yes." He touched his forehead briefly to hers and closed his eyes. "Yes, you are my wife."
He lighted two candles inside the cottage. She carried one of them through to the bedchamber while he knelt at the fireplace there, lighting the fire. The air was frigidly cold.
"It will take awhile to warm up in here," he said, getting to his feet and opening back his cloak before drawing her against him and wrapping it about both of them. He rested his cheek against the top of her head. "Let me hold you and kiss you until it is warm enough to undress and lie down on the bed."
But she laughed and tipped back her head to look up into his face. "It was cold," she reminded him, "on our wedding night."
"Oh, Lord, yes," he said, grinning. "Only cloaks and blankets and a tent to keep out the December chill."
"And passion," she said.
He brushed his lips against hers. "I must have crushed you horribly. It is not the introduction to passion I would have chosen for you if I had had the planning of it."
"It was one of the two most beautiful nights in my life," she told him. "The other was here. The air is already warm by the fire."
"But the floor is hard."
She smiled dazzlingly at him. "Not harder than the ground inside your tent in Portugal."
They used the pillows and all the blankets from the bed. They used their cloaks. They did not remove all their clothes. The floor was indeed hard and cold, and the air was not comfortably warm despite the crackling fire that was catching hold in the hearth.
Their passion knew none of the discomforts. For each there was only the other, warm and alive and eager. After a while, after they had caressed each other with hands and mouths and murmured endearments and he had raised her dress and adjusted his own clothing and pressed himself deep inside her, there was not even each other, but the two of them seemed one body, one heart, one being. And, after he had moved in her and with her for long minutes of shared passion and pleasure, there was not even the one left but only a mindless bliss. Oh, yes, they were married.
***
He was still inside her. He had been sleeping, all his relaxed weight bearing down on her. And her back was to the hard floor of the cottage. He disengaged himself and rolled off her, keeping his arms about her. But she moaned her protest at the loss of him and turned against him with sleepy murmurings.
The fire, he saw over her shoulder, was blazing healthily. He could not have been sleeping for long, then.
"You must have a bodyful of squashed bones," he said.
"Mmm." She sighed. Then she moved her head and kissed him with soft languor on the lips. "Are you going to make an honest woman of me?"
"Lily." He hugged her to him tightly. "Oh, Lily, my love. As if you could ever be dishonest. You are my wife. You can say no a thousand times over, you can say it for the rest of our lives and never make me waver in that conviction."
"I do not intend to say no a thousand times," she said. "Or even once. I said yes the first time you asked. I married you an hour later. I have been married to you ever since even though I could not agree to make it legal back in the spring. I am not saying no now. I am married to you and I want the world to acknowledge the fact—Father, your mother, everyone. But only to acknowledge what already is."
He kissed her.
"Father will want a grand wedding," she said, "even though the only wedding that will really matter to me is the one in Portugal. He will want us to get married at Rutland Park. We must give him what he wants, Neville. He is very special to me. He is… I love him."
"Of course. And Mama will expect it too," he said, kissing her again. "Society will expect it. Of course we will get married again—in the grand manner. When, Lily?"
"Whenever Father and your mother want it," she said.
"No." He smiled at her suddenly. "No, Lily. We will decide. How does the second anniversary of our first, our real wedding sound to you? December—at Rutland Park."
"Oh, yes." She smiled back with obvious delight. "Yes, that would be perfect."
Everything was perfect—for the present. It would not remain so throughout the rest of their lives, of course. Life did not work that way. But now, this night, all was well. The future looked bright and the past…
Ah, the past. The past that Lily had endured and he had never found the courage to share completely with her. It did not matter, perhaps. The past was best left just where it was. But then the past could never remain there. It encroached on the present and could blight the future if the issues it had raised were never dealt with. Lily's past would always be something he tiptoed about, something she deliberately never spoke about to him.
"What are you thinking?" She touched her lips to his. "Why do you look so sad?"
"Lily." He spoke quietly, looking into her shadowed eyes though he would rather have looked anywhere else in the world. "Tell me about those months. There was more to tell, was there not? But I did not have the courage or fortitude to listen to the whole of it back in the spring. The pain of
those we love is always harder to bear than our own, especially when there is guilt involved. But I need to know. I need to share it all so that there are no shadows left between us. And perhaps you need to tell. I need to help you let go of it, if I can. I need—"
"Forgiveness?" she said when he did not complete the thought. Her finger was tracing the line of his facial scar. "You did all you could, Neville, both for me and for the men who died in the pass. It was war. And it was Papa who took me on that scouting mission. I knew the risk; he knew it. You must not blame yourself. You must not. But yes, I will tell you. And then we will both let go of the pain. Together. It will be finally in the past, where it belongs."
Even now he wished he had left it alone. He wished he had held on to their perfect night without allowing the intrusion of the one piece of ugliness they had never confronted together.
"His name was Manuel," he said quietly.
She drew a slow and audible breath. "Yes. His name was Manuel," she said. "He was small and wiry of build and handsome and charismatic. He was the leader of the band of partisans and a fanatical nationalist. He was fiercely loyal to his countrymen, terrifyingly cruel to his enemies. I was his woman for seven months. I believe he grew fond of me. He wept when he let me go."
He held her while she continued. And after she had finished talking. She had cried at the end. She was crying now. So was he.
"It does not need to be said," he murmured against one of her ears when he had control of his voice, "because there was no guilt, Lily. But I know you blame yourself for living when those French captives died. And for allowing that man to use your body instead of fighting to the death. So I will say it, my love, and you must believe me. You are forgiven. I forgive you."
Her tears stopped eventually, and she blew her nose on the handkerchief he had somehow found in the pocket of his cloak.