She kissed the hollow of his throat, tasting a single salty drop of his sweat. ‘That was … ‘
‘Extraordinary?’
‘Yes.’ Though she feared she did not have much to compare it to. She had never been entirely naked with William, let alone draped wantonly over his bare body like this. It had frightened her at first, to let go of her clothes in front of Dominick, but now it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
‘You were certainly extraordinary, my lady,’ he said, his arm tightening around her waist.
‘Was I? I am glad. I’ve never really tried anything like that.’
‘Not at all?’ he said, his tone surprised. ‘Not bad for a beginner.’
Mary sighed and rolled off him, lying back in the pillows at his side. ‘Before I married my mother said I should just lie still and think of fat, pretty babies, that it would soon be over. Someone obviously gave William the same advice—that it would soon be over.’
Dominick propped himself on his elbow, staring down at her in the dying light. ‘That poor devil. How much he missed.’
Mary stared at the hard muscles of his chest, the smooth skin gilded by pale hair. She traced a caress over it, mesmerised. ‘How much I missed,’ she murmured. ‘Is it always like that?’
He caught her hand in his, kissing her palm. ‘Almost never.’
She rolled onto her side facing away from him, curling into him as he wrapped his arm over her waist. Almost never. How ridiculous it was, the warm glow that flowed over her at those two words. She was special. They were special. It was enough—at least for the moment. Especially when he kissed her shoulder like that …
‘You said you wanted to talk to me?’ she said, pressing her hand over his where it lay against her waist.
Dominick chuckled, kissing her shoulder again. Their legs tangled together, their entwined bodies keeping the cold night away—without those lost blankets. ‘Did I? I don’t remember thinking about talking at all—not when you greeted me wearing only that pretty robe.’
‘It was a good idea, wasn’t it? I didn’t want you to think I was an old frump.’
He gave a snort. ‘No one could ever think that, Mary.’
‘I think it,’ she admitted. ‘Sometimes I feel so old and tired. But not tonight. Tonight it felt like when we first met.’
‘Yes—it did,’ he said.
Mary turned her head to look at him. With his hair tousled like that, the sputtering candlelight sparkling over him, he looked no older than he had at that ball. ‘Do you remember, too? Lady Ingram’s ball?’
‘Of course I remember. Your mother didn’t want you to dance with me.’
‘So we sat in the corner and talked instead. I was the great envy of all the other young ladies.’
‘And then we just happened to meet in the park the next day … ‘
‘By complete coincidence, of course.’
He grinned at her, kissing her hand. ‘Of course.’
‘And you kissed me on the terrace at the Harlington ball.’
‘Behind the potted palms.’
‘I had never felt so very alive before.’ Until tonight, she thought. She finally did feel alive again—felt the warm tingle of it deep down to her toes. She had thought it could never happen again but here it was. ‘I didn’t even know a person could feel like that at all.’
‘Neither did I.’
Mary stared at their joined hands, thinking how very right it felt to be held by him like this. What would her life have been like if her parents had not objected to Dominick? Would she have married him back then and lived every night since like this? Or had they had to live their lives apart, learn their separate lessons, in order to appreciate this moment?
She could not regret what had happened, because she had had her beloved son—even if only for a while. But still she wondered. What would have happened if Dominick had not sent her away when she’d asked him to run away with her?
‘I did want to talk to you, Mary,’ he said, suddenly solemn again. ‘I need you to know certain things.’
‘Oh, dear. I suddenly feel quite underdressed for the occasion.’ Mary sat up, reaching for the sheets tangled on the floor. She propped the pillows behind her, wrapping the bedclothes over her nakedness.
Dominick, too, leaned against the pillows, close to her but not touching. He wound the sheet over his lean hips, frowning as if he were considering how to begin.
Mary thought she might prefer it if he did not begin at all. She wanted nothing to mar the shimmering fabric of the night, the memory she would take away from it. Yet she could see he had to say whatever it was that burdened him, and she would listen, no matter how it hurt. She might even have a few things to say herself.
‘When you asked me to help you find your sister, you said “Don’t turn me away now.”‘
‘I—yes, I suppose I did say that,’ she answered in surprise. ‘I should not have said such a thing. I was desperate.’
‘No, you were right. I did turn you away back then. I left what we might have been.’ He reached out and took her hand again, holding it lightly as he stared down at her fingers. ‘But leaving you then was the only honourable, unselfish thing I ever did in my life.’
Mary’s throat felt dry and tight, and she swallowed hard as she forced herself to remember those long-ago days. The stunned pain that had seemed to freeze her heart, leaving her unable to eat or sleep or move about in the world at all. Her mother had taken her off to Brighton, in hopes of reviving her spirits in the sea air. William had followed them there, and she, no longer caring who she married at all, had accepted him.
It had hurt more than anything in her life until the tragedy of her son’s loss. ‘Your letter said I was too young and too lacking in fortune, that our union could never work,’ she said. She had thrown that hurtful missive into the fire after she had read it, yet the words were still there. ‘When I went to your lodgings, the servants said you had left London.’
His hand tightened over hers, and he gazed at her searchingly with those blue eyes. ‘And you believed that letter?’
Mary shook her head, just as she tried to shake away her young, wounded self. ‘I could not believe you would suddenly leave me because of my meagre dowry. I knew you too well by then to believe you cared so much about fortune. But something had driven you away, made you change your mind about us. Another woman, maybe? Or I feared you were tired of me and my young, lovestruck ways.’ She stared down at their hands. ‘What was it, Dominick?’
‘I had a visitor.’
‘A visitor?’
‘Your father came to see me.’
‘My father?’ Mary cried. She had not expected that. Her father had always been such a quiet man, always escaping to his library to get away from the clamour of four daughters. Back then she hadn’t even been sure he knew what was going on. It had usually been her mother who lectured. ‘What did he want?’
‘To talk about you, of course. He told me how close your family was, how much you loved your sisters and wanted to take care of them. He told me Derrington wanted to marry you, and spoke of everything an earl could offer and I could not. The life you would lead as Lady Derrington.’
‘And you—you decided I would be better off with William?’ she whispered.
‘He was rich and titled, and he had a reputation as a good and steady man. I knew that if I loved you I had to forget my own selfish desires and do what was best for you. And was I wrong? Look what my life has been, and look at your own. Derrington gave you all I could not.’
Mary took back her hand, inexplicably angry. Yes, look at what her life had been—dull and colourless, with a husband who had never understood her, never seen her as anything but a possession, an ornament. And now Dominick told her he had left her to be noble. To do what was best for her. Yet he had never asked her what that might be, what she would choose if given the chance. He, her father and William had decided her fate.
But no more! She was free of them now, and s
he would make her own choices from now on. Would she choose Dominick again? She did not know. If she did, it would be entirely on her own terms.
‘Your life doesn’t appear to have been so very bad,’ she said, tugging the sheets higher over her shoulders. ‘Gambling and carousing, having fun.’
He gave a bitter-sounding laugh. ‘That has all been decidedly exaggerated.’
‘Indeed? And what of the women? What of the lady I saw at the museum? Or Lady Newcombe? It was said you and she were the great love story of the age.’
‘Mary … ‘ he said tightly, shaking his head.
‘If we are sharing confidences, you might as well tell me. Did you love her?’
‘I did love Eleanor,’ he admitted. He lay down on his back, his arms braced under his head as he stared up at the canopy. ‘But not in the way everyone says. Not in the way I loved you.’
He had loved her? Mary’s anger slowly faded, replaced by a tired, bittersweet sadness. Loved—past tense. ‘How did you love her?’
‘She was my friend. I met her at Hatchards, you see, and we talked about books. We both loved horses and the theatre, and we enjoyed each other’s company very much. We understood each other.’
‘Just—company?’
A wry smile quirked the edge of his mouth. ‘She was older than me, and her husband was a very jealous man. We would just meet at the bookshop or walk the quiet pathways of the park. Then one evening she came to my lodgings, wearing a veil just as you did.’
‘And did she want you to help find a runaway relative?’
‘Not at all. She wanted me to help her run away.’
‘She what?’ Mary gasped. This, then, was the infamous elopement?
‘Yes. I said her husband was jealous. When his suspicions were aroused he became violent. Someone had seen Eleanor talking to me, and he had confronted her about it. He—well, he beat her, Mary. Her back and shoulders were a mass of bruises.’
‘Oh.’ Mary pressed her hand to her mouth, feeling cold and sick. ‘That poor lady.’
‘What was worse, she was pregnant. She had miscarried several times since she’d married, and she did not want to lose this child. She said I was her only real friend, and begged me to help her run away somewhere to have the baby in peace.’
‘And so you did.’ Mary shook her head, inexpressibly sad for that poor, lost woman who had only wanted to protect her child, even against terrible odds. She did know how that felt. And Dominick helping her like that—Mary wished she had been able to turn to him when Will had died.
‘Of course I did. No one else would help her. The monster was her husband. So we left for France together, and waited at Calais for the birth.’
‘While everyone here gossiped about the terrible outrage, and Lord Newcombe stamped around threatening to kill you.’
He gave her a surprised glance. ‘You knew about all that?’
‘An on dit of such magnitude spread even to Derrington.’ And she had gone out for a walk to cry alone. That was when she had truly known she must let go of her old dreams of Dominick. He had a new life, a new love. A love he would run away with—unlike her. She had been sure he had not loved her after all.
‘Eleanor had a very difficult time with the birth,’ he said quietly. ‘It was a long one, and she was so weak. The child lived only an hour—a handsome little boy. She followed soon after. I stayed abroad for many months, trying to forget. And by the time I came back to England, alone, her brute of a husband had married someone else—a poor little sixteen-year-old. He married her only weeks after poor Eleanor died.’
‘And your reputation was ruined.’ Of course it was. Even Mary had half believed the stories about him. She felt horrible about that now—horrible that she had ever doubted him at all. Her noble, loving Dominick.
‘My reputation? Even before Eleanor I had no reputation to speak of, which was one reason your parents so rightly objected to me. But I had to help Eleanor, Mary. She had no one else, and she wanted that child so very much.’
‘Oh, Dominick.’ She reached out and gently touched his cheek. Cold numbness was spreading through her until she thought she would smother under its weight. ‘What a chivalrous white knight you are. You give away so much to help people like me, like Lady Newcombe and even Ginny. Do you never think of yourself?’
He smiled at her, a whisper of his usual flirtatious grin, and turned his face into her palm. ‘I certainly thought of myself tonight, my dear.’
She shook her head. ‘Yet you are willing to let everyone think you a careless rake?’
‘What do I care what they think?’ He suddenly seized her by her waist, rolling her back down to the bed as he braced himself above her. ‘I only care what you think. Are you still angry with me for leaving you?’
Mary stared up into his eyes. Angry? How could she be, when he looked at her like that? She could hardly think at all. And yet he had told her so much tonight—told her things that changed the way she saw her whole life, the world around her. Changed the way she saw him. Her white knight in black armour.
‘I do not know,’ she said, winding her arms around his neck. ‘I shall have to think about it.’
‘Is there nothing I can do to make you forgive me?’ He kissed her shoulder, the soft curve of her breast. ‘Nothing at all?’
She felt the rough velvet of his tongue over her sensitive nipple, and she gasped. ‘Well, perhaps you could try.’
Chapter Ten
Mary carefully cut a sprig of holly, the berries a bright blood-red against the glossy dark green leaves, and tucked it into her basket. Beside her, Ginny did the same, inspecting the branches for the prettiest leaves, while Captain Heelis climbed a rickety ladder in an attempt to find mistletoe. Though he and Ginny cast uncertain glances toward each other, they seldom spoke.
What a silly, romantic tangle this Christmas was, Mary thought. Ginny’s young, wild almost-marriage was thwarted, and she and Dominick—well, she simply had no idea what was happening with them. Whenever she thought of him, and of last night, she wanted to laugh out loud with the joy of it all. Yet still at the back of her mind a doubtful voice whispered to her.
Dominick made her feel young and carefree again, but the truth was things were not entirely as they had been back when she had first met him. She was a widow now, not a green girl. She twirled the bit of holly in her gloved fingers, watching the whirl of red and green. Yet that did not mean she could not enjoy her Christmas—which was turning into a bright one indeed.
‘You seem in a good mood today, Mary,’ Ginny said.
‘I am. The rain has stopped, and it’s a lovely morning.’ Mary dropped the branch in with all the others—a tangle of greenery to replenish the boughs on Lady Amesby’s banister.
‘But it’s still cold,’ Ginny said, shivering in her pelisse.
‘It’s Christmas time—it’s supposed to be cold,’ Mary said with a laugh. ‘Lady Amesby will have warm cider for us when we return to the house.’
Ginny glanced at Captain Heelis from the corner of her eye. He tottered on his ladder, dropping drifts of mistletoe to the ground. ‘Perhaps we could make a kissing bough, like when we were children! That was always fun.’
‘I think your Captain Heelis is collecting enough mistletoe for twenty kissing boughs,’ said Mary.
‘Oh!’ Ginny’s cheeks turned a brilliant pink, which had nothing to do with the chilly wind. ‘I don’t think he is my Captain Heelis, Mary. Not any more.’
‘Really?’ Mary carefully laid another holly branch in her basket, keeping her tone neutral. Ginny had a skittish air about her, as if she would dash away if pressed for confidences. ‘I would think someone who wants to marry you enough to make a dash for Scotland is assuredly yours. If you still want him.’
‘I’m not sure,’ Ginny said quietly. ‘I acted like such a ninny on our journey. The cold, the fight at that terrible inn—I couldn’t stop crying. I was sure I had made a terrible mistake, just as you warned me.’
Mary r
eached out to squeeze her sister’s hand. ‘Do you mean you no longer care for Captain Heelis in that way, Ginny?’
‘I do care for Arthur! And he cares for me, too, I’m sure. He was so kind when I cried. He felt terrible. But I did realise something.’
‘What is that?’
Ginny rubbed her toe along the frosty ground, staring down at the line like a child about to be scolded. ‘Well, I realised that you were quite right.’
‘What?’ Mary cried. ‘Good heavens, has the world ended? That can surely be the only explanation for you declaring I was right.’
‘Oh, Mary, don’t tease,’ Ginny protested, but she did laugh. ‘You were right that I could not be happy without my family and friends, without a proper home. I want to marry Arthur, but only if things are as they should be.’
‘Oh, Ginny, dearest. How very grown-up that sounds.’ Mary kissed her sister’s pink cheek. ‘You are young—you have time to make sure things are just right before you make any decisions.’
‘But you were my age when you married.’
‘That was different.’
‘Oh, I know,’ said Ginny. ‘You had to take care of us all.’
Mary was surprised by Ginny yet again. She had been just a child when Mary had wed William; surely she had not known the truth of their circumstances then? ‘I was hardly a maiden in a fairytale, sacrificing herself to save the village from a dragon.’
‘No. Lord Derrington was not a dragon,’ Ginny said, turning away to cut more holly. ‘But he was not much fun, either. I’m not sure someone who does not care for music can be entirely trusted.’
Music was only one of the things William had not cared for, Mary thought sadly. But … ‘He was a good man.’
‘I am sure he was.’ Ginny dropped a handful of leaves into the basket, waving at the Captain. He nearly fell from his ladder, waving back. ‘Lord Amesby is very handsome. Charming, too.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘Just as handsome as he was when you were my age?’
Before Mary could even begin to answer Ginny skipped away to meet Captain Heelis as he climbed down. They gathered up the branches of mistletoe, then turned back to the house. Mary was left alone with only the holly to hear her thoughts. At least it seemed Ginny had decided to be sensible. Could she do the same? Could she be brave enough to dare to start life over again? To hope again?
A Christmas Betrothal Page 16