by Mary Balogh
A hush fell over the crowd.
“Get set,” Barker said.
Jasper raised his oar and touched it to Clarence’s.
The gun fired.
Clarence swung wildly and would have taken Jasper’s head off if the latter had not ducked out of the way. Jasper had to reach out smartly with his oar to hold it against Clarence’s side and prevent him from falling off his plank. It would not do for him simply to fall in.
It was a game of thrust and parry for a while—or a game of cat and mouse—with Jasper blocking wild swings and administering taps and pokes that were sufficient to send Clarence swaying from side to side and back and forth and to cause his eyes to bulge with fright but were not designed to pitch him in too soon.
The crowd might as well be given a decent show to watch.
And Clarence might as well be made to wait before being put out of his misery—or into his misery.
But the fool must have thought that Jasper was finding it impossible to dislodge him. He grinned suddenly and began his silly dancing to impress the crowd. He held his oar in one hand like a rapier and prepared to spear Jasper in the stomach with it.
Jasper lowered his own oar as if in surrender, nudged Clarence’s aside with one elbow, and caught his opponent just below one prancing knee.
Clarence performed a few desperate steps that were in no way balletic, flailed with both arms as if he were a windmill, roared with alarm, and then shrieked like a girl as he fell forward between the two planks and landed facedown and spread- eagled in the mud.
There was one companion shriek from the crowd— probably from Lady Forester—and one jubilant roar from everyone else.
Jasper discovered that he was liberally spattered with mud.
He found Katherine with his eyes and made her an elegant bow
“For you, my love,” he said aloud, though he doubted she or anyone else actually heard the words.
She read them on his lips, though.
She smiled dazzlingly
“Thank you,” he read on her lips. “My love,” she added.
Jasper turned his attention to the brown, slimy creature that was wrestling with itself in the mud below him, presumably in an attempt to gain a footing. He leaned down and possessed himself of one of Clarence’s slippery hands.
“Come on, old chap,” he said. “I’ll help you out and we will go for a swim. You are a good sport.”
Clarence pawed at his muddy face with an equally muddy hand while the roar died down around them.
“That was deliberate, Jasper,” he wailed. “I will never forgive you for this. Mama will never forgive you. Great- Uncle Seth will never—”
“Prunella,” Seth Wrayburn said in thunderous tones, “I am not master here and so cannot give orders. But I would strongly suggest you take your sniveling apology for a son once he has cleaned himself up and convey him back to Kent. And it is my fervent wish that I never have to set eyes on either one of you ever again.”
There was a smattering of applause from those gathered about him.
“Come on, Clarrie,” Jasper said for his ears only “Have some dignity. At least I have not broken your nose again. Let us go and get cleaned up before the tug-of-war.”
“I cannot swim!” Clarence wailed—loudly enough to raise something of a jeer from the bank.
The tassels on his Hessians looked like two drowned rats clinging to the slime of his boots.
26
“H A P P Y ?” Jasper asked, smiling down at Charlotte as they waited at the top of the long line that was forming for the opening set of country dances at the ball.
She had been toasted more than once at dinner and wished a happy birthday more times than anyone could count in the course of the day And now there was the final grand moment of celebration as she led the first dance of the evening with her brother.
“I am,” she said. “Oh, I am, Jasper. I do not think anyone could possibly be happier than I am at this moment. I am so very glad that you and Kate between you were able to persuade Aunt Prunella to stay until tomorrow Uncle Seth spoke out of turn after you pitched Clarence into the mud. He deserved it, of course, and I am very glad indeed that you did it—it was quite, quite splendid—but he is my cousin and Aunt Prunella is my aunt and I really could not bear any great unpleasantness on my birthday. Do you think Clarence really has a headache?”
“I would not be surprised,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, “all the flowers, Jasper. The ballroom looks like a garden. And it smells like one too. And look at how the mirrors multiply them all many times over.”
He smiled at her.
Dressed all in white, she looked delicate and very young—something that would doubtless dismay her were he to say it out loud. All her dances for the evening were already spoken for, though.
Next year she was going to be mobbed by suitors. He and Katherine were going to have a busy time of it keeping an eye on her.
“I am glad you have been able to reassure me about Lord Merton,” she said, glancing at the orchestra, which was merely awaiting his signal to begin playing. But a few couples were still joining the line.
Katherine had had a word with him and he had had a word with Charlotte. How he would have despised such maneuverings even just a few weeks ago!
Charlotte liked Merton exceedingly well, she had told him. Jasper suspected that she was even a little in love with him—she had compared him to the sun again. But she did not really want him to be in love with her. She wanted to be free to enjoy the excitement of her first Season next year. And she still intended to reach the age of twenty—clearly some sort of magic age to her—before fixing her choice upon any particular gentleman.
Jasper had been able to assure her that Merton was far too young a gentleman to be considering matrimony.
And she was far too young.
“Ready?” he said.
She nodded, all wide eyes and eagerness.
He turned to nod at the leader of the orchestra, and the ball began. The first ball at Cedarhurst in his lifetime.
Katherine was dancing with his uncle. He caught her eye, and she smiled dazzlingly
He raised one eyebrow and then winked at her.
To be continued, he had promised this afternoon. Soon now He enjoined patience on himself and gave his attention to his sister.
The Cedarhurst ball reminded Katherine of the as semblies she had attended at Throckbridge during her youth, and she and Meg reminisced about them as they stood together between the first and second sets. There too everyone had attended, not just those of the gentry class. Such events, in her opinion, were far more entertaining than ton balls in London.
Even Mr. Wrayburn had come.
And Lady Forester had come, though she had pointedly ignored both Jasper and Katherine since before the tug- of- war—which had sent Jasper back to the lake along with Stephen and Winford Finley and the other nine men who had been on the losing team.
The second set was to be another one of country dances. Stephen had already claimed Charlotte’s hand. Uncle Stanley came to claim Meg’s. Katherine watched Jasper approach across the room, chatting with a few of the guests as he came, a look of open good humor on his face.
I love you, he had said this afternoon just as if he had not noticed that everyone out on the east lawn had paused to watch his purposeful approach to her and to listen to his words.
I love you.
They were words he had spoken before. But he had never spoken them in just such a way Not for one moment had she doubted that he meant them this time. And she still did not doubt though they had had scarcely a moment to themselves since then.
I love you.
He stopped in front of her now and smiled.
“You are not going to force me to dance again so soon, are you?” he asked her. “I do not know when was the last time I danced more than once at any ball, Katherine. And until this spring even once would have been once too often.”
She smiled
at him.
“I will waltz with you later,” he said. “I will insist upon it, in fact. Husband’s privilege. That will be two sets in one evening. A record breaker.”
He grinned and she laughed.
“Oh, go,” she said. “Go and play host with the card players if you must.”
“That is not my point at all,” he said. “I want to go for a walk. But only if you will come with me.”
She ought not. Goodness, they were the host and hostess, and the ball had begun only half an hour ago. But everything was proceeding smoothly. Their constant presence was not strictly necessary And there was a look in his eyes…
There was always a look in Jasper’s eyes.
“Oh, very well,” she said. “If it will make you happy…”
“It will make you happy too,” he said, allowing his eyelids to droop over his eyes for a moment and his voice to drop half an octave. “I promise.”
They crossed the floor together just as the music was about to begin and went out through the French doors onto the balcony
“It was not much of a revenge, was it?” he said, placing one hand over hers on his arm. “Was it even marginally adequate?”
“It was quite, quite splendid,” she assured him. “It was wonderful. There was no violence. He was made to look like a fool, but he did it to himself. He might have fought and lost with dignity, but you knew he would not, and so you chose perfectly”
“Of course,” he said as he led her across the balcony toward the steps down onto the lawn, “the whole thing would have rebounded upon me if he had knocked me in. And it might have happened.”
“Never in a million years,” she assured him.
“But perhaps in a billion?” He raised his right eyebrow and looked down at her. “Do you have so little faith in me, Katherine?”
“Besides,” she said, “if he had knocked you in, you would have come up laughing and making a joke at your own expense, as you did after the tug- of- war. And you would have congratulated him.”
“And felt like a prize idiot,” he said.
“Yes, and that too.” She laughed. “Did you hear me say thank you? I did say it. And I meant it. Thank you for avenging me so well.”
The music was playing behind them—in their ballroom, at the summer ball, for the enjoyment of all their neighbors. It would be the first of many, but she knew she would always remember this one as being very special.
“Happy?” he asked against her ear as they turned the corner onto the upper terrace.
“Happy,” she said.
There were a few people down in the parterre garden. But he led her across the terrace and across the east lawn, where the races had been run this afternoon. It was deserted now
So was the beginning of the wilderness walk, the section of tall trees that she had likened to a cathedral.
They had not spoken for a while.
Their hands were joined, their fingers laced.
He stopped when they were among the trees, turned her off the path, and set her back against one of the sturdy trunks. He placed one of his hands beside her head. She could just see him in the moonlight that was filtering down from above.
“Déjà vu,” he said softly.
And she remembered Vauxhall.
“I love you,” she whispered to him.
“To be continued,” he said. “And now, my love, we will continue—without an audience.”
She had forgiven him.
He had pledged himself to love her and had done it.
He had promised himself that he would bring her to love him and she had just said she did.
He had made a friend of her.
He had avenged—to a certain degree anyway— Clarence’s horrible insults.
They could, he supposed, proceed to live happily ever after—or at least happily. Actually he had no interest in happily- ever- after. It was on a par in his mind with the idea of going to heaven and playing a harp for eternity. It sounded dashed boring. Happiness, on the other hand, was a state much to be desired.
But he had still not fully atoned. Not really
Somehow they had to go back to Vauxhall and put it all right—create memories that would obliterate the old.
He lowered his head and kissed her, tasting her lips, teasing them apart, moving his tongue over the soft, moist flesh behind them, sliding it deep into her mouth.
All without touching her anywhere else.
Her palms were flat against the tree trunk.
“Shall we do it as it ought to have been done that night?” he asked her.
“It ought not to have been done at all that night,” she said gravely.
“Quite right.” He smiled at her—he could just see her face in the darkness. “Shall we do it as it ought to be done tonight, then?”
“Yes,” she said.
He had never coupled with any woman while they were both still on their feet, he realized as he lifted her skirts and unbuttoned his breeches. Which was strange really when he considered all the times…
But he was not interested in any time that had not been with Katherine. Or any time that was not now
It was not particularly easy He stepped between her spread legs, held her firmly by the buttocks, half lifted and tilted her, bent slightly at the knees, and thrust upward into her.
Not easy, but dashed erotic, by Jove.
Her muscles clenched about him.
By Jove and by thunder!
She gripped his shoulders, arched her back so that her bosom was pressed against his chest, and tipped her head back against the trunk. Her eyes were closed, her teeth clamped on her lower lip.
He took her with swift, vigorous thrusts and no finesse at all until, after an almost embarrassingly short time, they both cried out and collapsed against each other.
It was perhaps, he thought in a moment of surprised clarity, the best sex he had ever had.
He found her mouth again as he leaned against her and they both relaxed.
“Katherine,” he said, slightly breathless.
She looked into his eyes and smiled. She reached up one hand to push the hair back from his brow.
“I love you,” he said.
“Yes,” she said with a sigh, “you do.”
They both laughed softly
“You do,” she said, hugging him more tightly. “Oh, Jasper, I know you do. And I love you. I suppose I always have, though I would not have admitted it in a billion years if you had not loved me.”
“Always?” he said, drawing back his head and looking at her in the darkness.
“I fell in love with you at Vauxhall,” she said, “because you were dangerous. And I fell in love with you this year because you made me laugh and were so absurd. And then because… Well, just because. I do not know why.”
“Because I had a wager to win,” he said, “and went about it with consummate skill.”
She laughed and lifted her face for his kiss.
“There was another half to that wager if you will remember,” she said. “You insisted upon it. I am just as skilled as you.”
“I would be an idiot of the first order if I tried arguing with that,” he said. “What is my forfeit to be? A lifetime of love?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Ah,” he said, “the same forfeit that I am going to exact from you.”
“Very well,” she said.
And they kissed again for long minutes, their arms wrapped joyfully about each other.
“Jasper,” she said eventually, pushing him firmly from her, “we must be getting back. Whatever were we thinking, leaving everyone like this?”
“I believe,” he said, “to put it bluntly, Katherine, and to risk putting you to the blush, we were thinking about sex.”
“Oh, dear,” she said. “I fear you are right.”
They were halfway across the east lawn when she spoke again.
“I hope,” she said, “there will be a child soon. It will make my happiness complete.”
“I shall do my very best to see that it happens soon, then,” he said. “I am always eager to oblige you.”
“Perhaps I will be increasing by Christmas,” she said, “or next Easter. I do hope so.”
“Good Lord,” he said as they stepped onto the terrace, “you must think me a dreadful slowtop, Katherine. I would say by the end of September at the latest, the end of August at the soonest.”
“Oh,” she said. “I will not hope for it so soon or I will be disappointed when it does not happen. I say Christmas.”
“And I say the end of August,” he said as they rounded the end of the house and approached the balcony.
“Don’t tempt fate by saying that with such confidence,” she said.
He wrapped one arm about her waist and turned her to face him.
“Listen!” he said, holding up one forefinger. “Do you hear it? Do you feel it?”
She stood very still for a moment, frowning in concentration.
Hear what?” she said. “Feel what?”
“It is quite unmistakable,” he said. “I feel a wager coming on, Katherine.”
Her face lit with laughter.
Katherine and Jasper had decided upon one waltz for the evening. Only one because they were well aware that most of their neighbors would not know the steps. But one nevertheless because they could not resist the chance of dancing it in their own ballroom.
Their reacquaintance earlier in the spring had really begun with a waltz.
They would dance it again, then, at Cedarhurst during the summer ball.
When they had planned it, though, they had not expected to dance it alone.
When a waltz was announced, a number of people held back, as was understandable. But a number of people took partners too, most notably those who had come from London. They stood dotted thinly about the ballroom floor while the musicians tuned their instruments and everyone, it seemed, spilled out of the refreshment room and the card room and came in off the balcony and up from the parterre garden.
Everyone seemed eager to watch the waltz being danced.