by Mary Balogh
For two days the weather had been cloudy and blustery with a few light showers. But though the third day dawned cloudy again, by the time they set off for the planned wilderness walk, most of the clouds had moved off, and it promised to be a lovely day again.
“We will do the walk backward,” he said, taking Katherine’s arm as they left the house and turning her to the east. “Not that there is a forward or backward way of doing it exactly, but the tendency always is to start at the lake. The trouble with that is that there are so many places to stop and admire, very often one ends up merely circling the lake and missing some of the best parts of the walk.”
“Through the hills among the trees?” she said. “Yes, I can imagine it is the best.”
She was wearing a sprigged muslin dress today, pale blue on white, and her straw bonnet with blue ribbons. She looked delicate and pretty. The high- waisted style of dress that was currently fashionable was perfect for her figure, emphasizing as it did her slender grace as the gentle folds of the muslin softly molded her shape and sometimes showed the outline of her long, slim legs.
There was a glow of color in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes — something their servants and neighbors no doubt attributed to the fact that she was a new bride discovering the delights of the marriage bed when in reality it was probably due to the fact that she was busy with schemes that brought her pleasure.
He pursed his lips as he looked down at her.
They crossed the wide east lawn, soon to be the apple orchard, and he led her onto the path into the trees. It turned almost immediately to the north and ascended the gradual slope that would take them into the hills.
“You are unusually quiet this morning,” Katherine said.
“I might have observed,” he said, “that my prediction that this would turn into a lovely day has proved quite correct. I might even have added the words I told you so. But alas, you were reading your letter from the Duchess of Moreland at breakfast, so I made the prediction silently lest I disturb you. Now if I lay claim to it, you will probably accuse me of taking credit for something I did not predict at all. You are not a very trusting person, Katherine.”
She had turned her head and was laughing at him.
“For the sake of peace between us,” she said, “I will believe you.”
He smiled lazily back at her.
“How lovely this is,” she said. “Like an outdoor cathedral.”
The trees were indeed tall and fairly widely spaced at this point, and the path was broad and straight despite the incline.
“This has always been one of my favorite stretches of the wilderness walk,” he said. “I suspect that when the path was constructed, it was begun at the lake side and ended here. And that by the time the designer arrived here, he had run out of ideas and energy and interest. There are no follies, no seats, no prospects down to the house or out over the countryside. Just forest and hillside.”
“And holiness,” she said.
“Holiness?”
“I am not sure if it is the right word,” she said. “Just unadorned nature, though I suppose the path is manmade. Just trees and the smell of trees. And birds. And birdsong.”
“And us,” he said.
“And us.”
They walked in silence for a while, the sound of their breathing added to birdsong as they ascended more steeply into the hills behind the house and finally came to the rhododendron walk, the highest part of the trail, where there were several carefully contrived prospects and a few benches and follies. And the heady perfume of the blooms.
“Oh,” she said. “Beautiful!”
“Better than the cathedral?” he asked her.
“But that is the wonderful thing about nature, is it not?” she said. “Nothing is better than anything else— only different. The parterre gardens, the cathedral section of the walk, this—they all seem best when one is actually there.”
There was an ancient stone hermitage to one side of the path, complete with crucifix carved into the wall beside the doorway It was not that ancient, of course. It was a folly There never had been a hermit with sackcloth tunic and matted hair and beard, telling his beads from morning to night and existing on moldy bread and brackish water. They went and sat inside it on a stone bench that had been made more comfortable with a long leather cushion.
There was a view down across the east and south lawns to the village in the distance. The church spire was centered in the view. It all looked very rural and peaceful.
He took her hand in his.
“What would you be doing if you had not been forced into marriage?” she asked him, reversing the question he had asked her a few days ago. “Where would you be?”
“Here,” he said. “I promised to be home for Charlotte’s birthday.”
“And afterward?” she said. “Would you have stayed?”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “Perhaps not. Brighton is a good place to be during the summer. The Prince of Wales is usually there, and he draws all sorts of interesting people. There is much company, much entertainment. I might have gone there.”
“Do you need company, then?” she asked. She had turned her head and was looking at him.
He raised his eyebrows. “We all need company,” he said. “And entertainment.”
“Are you a lonely man, then?” she asked him.
The question jolted him. It was completely un expected—and quite unanswerable. He answered it anyway
“Lonely?” he said. “Me, lonely, Katherine? I have scores of friends and acquaintances. I always have so many invitations and activities to choose among, that making choices is a daily chore.”
“And do you fear being alone?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he said.
He had grown up essentially alone—with a mother and her husband and two sisters, with a houseful of servants and numerous neighbors, most if not all of whom had been kindly disposed to him. He had nevertheless grown up alone.
“People who live among crowds can be very lonely people,” she said.
“Can they, indeed?” He laced his fingers with hers. “And people who grow up in remote villages cannot be lonely?”
“There is a difference,” she said, “between solitude and loneliness. It is possible to be alone and not lonely. And it is possible to be among crowds, to be a part of those crowds, and be lonely.”
“Is this,” he asked her, “part of the vicarage wisdom that you learned at your father’s knee?”
“No,” she said. “It is something I have learned myself.”
“And are you,” he asked her, “a lonely woman, Katherine?”
“Not often.” She sighed. “I like being alone, you see. I like my own company.”
“And I do not,” he said. “Is that your inference? You once told me that I do not like myself. Is this why I must be lonely? Because I cannot enjoy the company of the only companion with whom I must spend every moment of my life?”
“I have annoyed you,” she said.
Had she? He was not in the habit of allowing people to annoy him over trifles. He did not care for other people’s opinions when they concerned him.
“Not at all.” He raised their hands and kissed the back of hers. “Solitude holds no fears for me. I would just prefer company. Including present company.”
“I think,” she said, “I can be happy here.”
“Can you?” he said.
“I love this place,” she said. “I love the servants. And I like your neighbors—our neighbors. Yes, I can be happy here.”
“Organizing fetes and balls and house parties and other social events?” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “and just living. Just being here. Be longing here.”
“And bringing up your children?” he said. “Our children?”
“Yes.” She looked into his eyes, her cheeks slightly flushed.
“We could,” he said, “begin immediately on those children—or on the first of them anyway—if you w
ish, Katherine. Although, on second thought, perhaps not quite immediately.” He looked down at the bench, which, even with the leather cushion, was not very comfortable.
She laughed, though she continued to look into his eyes.
“I do want children,” she said.
“And I need them,” he said. “Or one son at the very least. So we are in agreement. We need to work on the first of those children. Almost immediately?”
She laughed again.
“It depends on your definition of almost,” she said.
“Almost is to be three weeks long, is it?” he asked with a sigh.
“Yes,” she said. “Do you not want children for their own sake, Jasper?”
He had never really thought of it. He thought now Children of his own body. And Katherine’s. Children who could be loved and nurtured. Children who could be hurt, who could have all the spirit crushed out of them. If he were to jump a hedge one month before his son was born and break his neck, would Katherine marry another man to bring him up?
There is too much potential pain in having children, he almost said aloud. Too much risk. But he would merely expose himself more to her with such words.
He raised their clasped hands again and tucked her arm beneath his.
“Daughters to look like their mother?” he said. “And sons to look like their… mother? Children to hold and love and play with and nurture? It is an appealing thought, I must confess. And now it is possible. I am married. Yes, I will have children with you, Katherine, not just because I need them, but because I want them.”
Sometimes he was not sure himself whether he meant what he said to her or whether he spoke to impress or tease her. Though he never spoke with any serious intention to deceive. This wager was different from any other he had ever made. There was too much at stake in winning it—and though she did not know it, it was a double wager. Either they both would win, or they both would lose.
But oh, Lord, she believed him. Her lips had parted, and her eyes had brightened with tears that she quickly blinked away. And perhaps she was right. Perhaps he did mean what he had said. He had a sudden mental image of holding a baby as tiny as Moreland’s —a baby that was his own.
Dash it all, he would be bound to drop it.
No, what he would be bound to do was love it. There would be no choice in the matter. No child of his was going to go unloved while he had breath in his body Even a child who had just painted red, grinning lips and black arched eyebrows on all the stone statues along the balustrade about the roof or who had returned home with torn coat and breeches that he had forgotten to change out of after church before going to ride the waterfall—a strictly forbidden activity in its own right. He would love and love such a child anyway He would probably take him back to the waterfall, in fact, so that they could ride it together, and take him—or her—back up to the roof to paint purple beards on all the statues.
Katherine had raised her free hand and was cupping his cheek with it. With the pad of her thumb she brushed something away from beneath his eye. Some thing wet.
Good Lord!
He jumped to his feet and stepped outside the hermitage. He moved back onto the path without waiting for her and plucked two blooms from the rhododendron bushes.
“Let me see,” he said, turning to her as she came up behind him. “One to go here in the ribbon about the crown of your bonnet, I believe, and one to go… . here.”
He pushed the stem down inside the bosom of her dress, into her cleavage, using his finger to press it down firmly. She was warm and slightly moist there, and he felt such a stabbing of desire that he was surprised he had not got an instant erection and alerted her to the direction his thoughts had taken.
“Not that you need sweetening,” he said. “But perhaps the flowers do. They will be sweetened by their proximity to you.”
“Oh, well done,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “That was one of your better efforts.”
“Do I win any reward, then?” he asked. “A kiss, perhaps?”
But, as he had expected, she merely laughed.
Lord, that was not a tear she had wiped away, was it? He had rarely felt more embarrassed in his life.
He offered her his arm and they continued along the path, which began gradually to slope downward in the direction of the lake.
They passed the great, ancient beech tree at the end of the rhododendron walk and stopped to set their palms against the trunk and marvel at its great size and age. He looked beyond it, up the hill into the trees, which grew dense here. But there was nothing to be seen from here. And for today, he decided, he would keep her on the path. There would be time enough to come back—or not.
“There is a beach at this end of the lake,” he said. “It is called a beach though, of course, there is no sand, and no ebb and flow of tides. But the bank was deliberately created to slope into the water so that one can sit picnicking there or paddle one’s feet without toppling in over one’s eyebrows. Or one can swim. We do not have any picnic fare with us, alas.”
“We will paddle our feet instead,” she said as they descended the slope and the trees thinned out and the sun beat down on them. “It has turned into a warm day and I am a little footsore after all the walking.”
“Can you swim?” he asked her.
“I can,” she said. “I learned as a child at Rundle Park, when we used to go over there to play with the Dews. I thought I had forgotten how, but I have not. I have swum at Warren Hall too.”
“Then we will swim today,” he said. “What better way to cool off after a long walk?”
“Today?” She turned her head sharply to look up at him. “I cannot swim in this dress, Jasper. It is one of my best ones. And you cannot swim in those clothes.”
They had come to a fork in the path. One branch would take them about the far side of the lake and up to the little cottage and the waterfall and so on around to the house side. The other fork went down to the beach and then on around to the boathouse and jetty. He turned down toward the beach.
“I suppose,” he said, “unless you are very brazen, Katherine, you are wearing a shift beneath your dress. And stays too?”
“Of course,” she said. And then she looked at him again, her eyes widening. “I am not bathing in my shift!”
“Without it, then?” he asked. “You need not fear being seen by anyone except me. And I have seen you unclothed before. It was by candlelight on that occasion admittedly. But I would wager you will look just as lovely in sunlight.”
“Jasper!” She laughed nervously. “I am not swimming without my shift.”
“With it, then,” he said, “if you must be modest.”
They stood on the sloping, grassy bank, looking out across the water of the lake. It was sparkling invitingly in the sunshine. The air was hot now that there was no shade.
“Come,” he said, releasing her arm and turning her so that she faced away from him. “I will help you out of your dress and stays. I make a tolerable lady’s maid when pressed into business.”
“Oh,” she said indignantly, “I am sure you do. But, Jasper, we cannot go swimming now. We have no towels. We have no dry clothes. We have no… oh!”
He had opened her sash and the back of her dress, lifted it off her shoulders, and let it slide down to the ground. He tackled the tapes that held her stays together at the back.
“We will dry in the sunshine afterward,” he said, setting his lips between her shoulder blades as he loosened her stays and dropped them to the grass before kneeling and rolling down her stockings.
Her shift covered her from the breasts to several inches above her knees. She looked tall and willowy and more enticing than any other woman he had ever set eyes upon as she stepped out of her shoes and stockings and turned to face him.
He was committed now If he did not get himself into the lake water soon, he might well explode like a firecracker.
“Oh,” she said, “this is not very proper at all.”
The vi
car’s prim daughter in a skimpy shift and nothing else at all—a potently erotic mix.
He stripped off his coat and waistcoat and neckcloth with ungainly haste.
“For your husband to see you in your shift?” he said. “It is shocking indeed.”
He pulled off his shirt over his head and sat down on the grass to haul off his boots before standing again and dragging off his pantaloons and stockings.
Should he shock her completely? But he hesitated for only one fraction of a moment before removing his drawers as well. How the devil had he managed to show no outer sign of arousal?
She bit her lower lip.
“The water will be cold,” she said—a very weak protest indeed.
“Then we will warm it up,” he said. “We will boil it over its banks. I do not know about you, Katherine, but I am feeling very warm indeed. Are you coming?” He held out a hand for hers.
“I do not know” She glanced gingerly at the water. “I really do not think this is quite— Oh!”
He scooped her up in his arms and strode off with her. It might be unmannerly to interrupt a lady, but there were limits to a gentleman’s powers of endurance.
It was horribly shocking. Not the coldness of the water—they had not reached that yet. But the fact that she was with a man in the outdoors in broad daylight, clad only in her shift while he was clad in nothing at all.
Nothing.
Of course, he was her husband.
This was all very shocking nevertheless.
And exciting.
And exhilarating.
And she was very warm indeed. She had not realized quite how hot the sun was.
He was wading into the water. A few drops splashed up onto her skin. They were cold. She laughed and clung to him and shrieked. He was surely not going to—
But he was.
And he did.
He dropped her.
She sank to the bottom like a stone and came up sputtering and fighting. She dashed the water from her eyes, gasped for air, and saw him still standing there, thigh deep in the water, his hands on his hips, laughing at her.