by Edith Layton
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He only looked down at her, and at his complete silence she grew a bit uneasy, and trailing her hand along the little table and avoiding his eye, she said defensively, “Our parents decided it, actually, donkey’s years ago. Our lands match, they march together on the western border, it’s a thing we’ve always known. Everyone’s always known it, Julian, you ought to have.”
“You never mentioned it,” he said stiffly.
“Why mention the day is light?” she said with flippancy, and then went on testily. “It wasn’t any secret.”
“You don’t love him,” he said flatly.
“Of course not,” she replied, turning to face him. “I never have, that’s the point. He doesn’t love me, either.”
“But you encouraged me—” he began, as she interrupted him to say, “Just so. I still do. Oh, Julian,” she said fretfully, “you’re being so difficult. So provincial. You can still be my gallant. That’s precisely what I want,” she said eagerly, “for ours is to be a modern marriage. Alford will be a complacent husband, I’ll be an understanding wife. So long as his heirs are his, we agree to grant each other freedom. Oh,” she said pettishly, sitting down on the little table in an attitude of dejection, “I thought you were a man of the world. Half society lives that way. My own parents did. Would you rather,” she asked angrily, raising her head when he didn’t reply, “have me run away with you, scandalize myself, anger Alford, his family, my brother, and all for ‘love’”—she sneered at the word before she went on—“when we can have that love and all the rest as well?”
He froze, shocked, and yet thinking deeply. She was right in that there were dozens of such marriages in the ton, perhaps more of that sort than any other. And it was further true, he realized, that she’d never promised him anything in so many words. But, he thought, gazing at the upturned face he could scarcely read in the dim light, she was so very young, had lived her life among so many superficial people, how could she fully understand the sort of loveless, cold, hypocritical life she was about to commit herself to?
She saw him standing immobile, his entire frame stiff with insult, and she sighed. He was entirely handsome and noble, and though she was vexed with him, she was also delighted with his refusal to accept the loss of her. She’d worried this evening, she’d wondered tonight, when she’d seen him with Miss Logan, the beautiful, wealthy Miss Logan, if she mightn’t have already lost him. That would be painful. Because Alford was dull, and not at all attractive, and scarcely caused a stir wherever he went. But Julian was a perfect foil for her, and never boring, and she wanted him at her side. Only Robert disliked him, really; even Alford agreed that he was an excellent escort for her. She was resolved to keep him, even though it meant making certain disagreeable sacrifices.
“Julian,” she said then, rising and taking the one step to his side, “Julian,” she whispered, laying her hand alongside his cheek and resting her head against his chest, “Julian,” she said huskily, “must I show you how much you do mean to me? How much we can still have together? Should you like to make love to me?”
Oh yes, he thought then, his spirits soaring, his white teeth showing in a grin even in the half-light, he was right. She was very young, and it was precisely that youth that he’d use to show her how foolish her plans were. He lowered his lips to hers as a reply, and kissed her for a very long while and held her unprotesting form close.
Her scent was of cool violets, and her skin was as fine and pure and powdered as a moth’s wing, and her mouth compliant, but only that. He was a gentleman of vast and varied experience, and nothing in her response led him on but the lack of protest in it, and the knowledge that he held the one woman he’d ever loved. That, and the fact that he knew he must show her that physical love was no small, easy thing, and that physical joy was more than she’d ever imagined. Thus he might win her, so he could convince her, then he could claim her and carry her off with him as his wife.
So he was infinitely patient. He dragged the top of her gown down by slow and light-kiss-measured degrees, he let his hands drift lightly along the contours of her body, barely touching, yet all the while drawing her closer, his fingers gathering up the folds of her skirt as carefully as though it were made of spiderweb, as gently as though the material itself were some sensitive living thing.
Still, she remained passive and he found himself growing anxious instead of aroused, until he heard her whisper urgently, “Oh, Julian, hurry.”
That did surprise him. He was no amateur, and he’d had no evidence of her desire. He stared down at her, but her face was in shadow. Still, her skin was cool and dry, her breathing calm and even, her heartbeat slow and measured against his chest. He frowned.
“The table,” she said rapidly, as though she’d read his thoughts. “It’s being pressed against the back of my legs. Give me your jacket,” she said, and mutely, confused but obedient, he let her help him off with his tight-fitting velvet evening jacket. She tossed it to the wooden floor, and then, still holding his hand, she lowered herself to sit upon it with as much ease and graceful aplomb as though he were helping her to a seat on a cushion at a picnic, instead of watching her, her clothes in disarray, as she dropped to the floor of an abandoned cabin in the dark of night. She tugged at his hand to urge him to follow her.
“Come to me, Julian,” she whispered, “now, hurry.”
But he hesitated. The night was becoming too complex for him. He’d wanted to seduce her only so that he might carry her away, but nothing in her reaction spoke of abandon, except for her words. He thought dazedly that she was acting unlike herself, and so she was. But then a startling thought came to him so suddenly that he had to pause to think it over, even as he stood poised above her. Because they’d never had much time together, scarcely any of it alone, and all of it had been spent discussing his plans, her appearance, and polite gossip. And so he could hardly say he really knew her at all, or even half so well as he knew Susannah. But that thought stopped him entirely. Then it was as if he could see himself where he stood and felt profoundly foolish, looking down at a half-undressed lady sitting on the floor on his best jacket, as composed as though she were at a tea, as he loomed above her in a child’s playhouse.
“Julian,” she demanded in exasperation, “come to me. We haven’t much time left. I can’t stay out all night. Don’t you want me?”
He did, of course; he did not, of course—he scarcely knew what to say as he sank to his knees to approach her on her own level. She smiled, that he could see, and then she slowly lay back. Then he was truly speechless, as she dragged at his hand and begged him to come to her. Obediently, unthinkingly, he lay down beside her, one hand going to her smooth hair to stroke it, the other to tentatively touch her mouth. He traced his finger over those perfect lips and was about to tell her that they’d gone far enough, that he couldn’t compromise her after all, no matter how he loved her, for he was, after all, a gentleman, and she a lady, and it was enough for him that she wanted him.
“Julian,” she complained, “can’t you be quicker about it?”
Then, forgetting she was a lady in his perturbation, he asked, astonished, “But, are you ready?”
“Of course,” she said complacently, and wriggling as she adjusted herself further, she whispered, “Can’t you see?”
He saw only that which made him doubt his eyes. For the Lady Marianna Moredon lay next to him, with all the portions of herself that ought to be covered, exposed, and all that was blameless, covered over. Her breasts shone white, their dark nipples like empty eyes staring into the dimness, her body beneath them swathed in billows of bunched white fabric, until one saw her flat white abdomen, the black of her pubic patch making another inky blot at the juncture of her long white legs. It was absurd, and shocking, in fact so bizarre that Julian, though confused and dismayed, was suddenly stirred by the very perversity of it.
“Julian,” she pouted, “why do you delay? Oh,” she laughed, her small pointed bre
asts bobbing, “is it that you don’t have one of Colonel Cundum’s machines with you? No matter, if you leave before you have come, as they say,” she said gaily, “it will make no matter.”
He sat back and rose to his knees. He wanted nothing more than to be gone, but now there was dignity, his as well as hers, to think of. There was no worse way a man could insult a woman, he knew, than to refuse her favors. But at the moment he could think of nothing worse than obliging her, for surely one of them had run mad. All arousal gone, he only managed to whisper something about not wishing to despoil her before her wedding.
“Think of Alford,” he said, finally.
“I have,” she said impatiently, “so you should not. He was the first, that’s all he cares about. And, Julian,” she said softly, tenderness in her voice for the first time in their mad encounter, “you deserve some pleasure. I’ve been very bad to you. I want to make you happy, please let me, Julian.”
He liked females very well, he’d loved her, and once he heard that plea, it was impossible to refuse her. He allowed her to help him undo the buttons on the fall of his pantaloons. Then, trying to forget whose female body he gazed at, and seeking oblivion in his senses from his reasoning, he sought to bring this anonymous partner to some sort of readiness. But she hurried him on with her words and her hands. Before he had time to regret it, he’d entered her. And because he’d been celibate for so long a time for him, he soon found himself rocking to some sort of relief, touched as it was already with the small chill of despair.
“Oh no, Julian,” she cried, returning him to himself at the height of his moment, in just the same voice that she’d always spurned his chaste kisses, but then it was too late to obey her. Still, she was surprisingly strong and entirely uninvolved, so she managed to topple him so that he reached completion by himself, doubled over and gasping at her side, totally shamed and vulnerable, pouring out what he’d thought would be his love onto her crumpled muslin skirts.
While he lay back trying to regain his breathing and his senses, she sprang up and began to straighten her clothes. She avoided looking at him. She was embarrassed for him. It was a constant wonder to her how gentlemen could take their pleasure in such unpleasant fashion, and how the handsomest of them could look so determinedly witless while they were at it, and she was continually amazed how enfeebled they were after. But, of course, she knew it was necessary to them. Once it was done, of course, she was always vastly relieved.
“That was lovely,” she said brightly, to make him feel better, as she twitched her bodice into place.
He’d raised himself to a seated position when she begged his handkerchief, and then, announcing merrily that it was lucky they were so close to water, she told him to wait while she freshened up, too polite to mention the blot he’d left on her gown. Then she left the little playhouse.
Soon he rose to his feet and adjusted his clothing, and then, leaning against the wall of the house, he looked through the long windows of air and saw his lady in the moonlight, white and cool as some virgin goddess, busily cleaning the last traces of his touch from the hem of her skirts. He ran his fingers through his hair, shook out his jacket, and struggled into it again. When she returned to him, he was Julian Dylan, Viscount Hazelton, completely again, just as she was once more the Lady Marianna Moredon that he’d never known.
They strolled back to the ball slowly. She slipped a bit of columbine from off its tall spike and breathed in its scent. He took it from her fingers and placed it in her dark hair as she smiled at him, as though they were two gentlepersons back from an evening stroll. He was back from far more, and finding himself again, was as facile and clever and sure with her as he’d always wished to be. Now he wanted to be free of her easily as much as he’d ever wanted to have her. But he knew how great she considered her gift to him to have been. However well he knew now that she’d detested giving it, he was never cruel, and as a considerate lover he was determined to bring her to joy, however belatedly. If she was never to find that pleasure in the actual act, at least he knew, at last, how to satisfy her.
For when she began to speak of their future, of more secret meetings and clandestine plans, he stopped and took her hands in his and gazed into her eyes tenderly.
“Marianna,” he breathed, “it cannot be.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Wasn’t it lovely? Don’t you have everything you wanted now?”
“Yes, precisely,” he said. “You’ve given me all I’ve ever wanted. This was, perhaps, the most perfect night of my life. I can’t hope to equal it. I can only break my heart trying. Tonight was mine alone, and I’ll never forget it. I must let you go now. Seeing you again, I would have to touch you. Touching you, I would ruin the memory of what we had. The perfection of that memory is what is most important. But I thank you for it, Marianna, and respect you completely.”
She’d wanted to keep him as an escort and adornment, even if it meant having to keep him as a lover. But he’d just given her far more, and she’d have to give far less for it. To be enshrined as a gentleman’s perfect vision of love was all she’d ever wanted. She was disappointed. But she was content.
He kissed her cheek, and then left her by the door to the ballroom, with happy tears in her eyes. He was, she thought, for all he could not help being a man, a gallant, gentle one. And he, striding toward the stables to collect his horse, felt as though he’d wallowed in mud, and yearned for some cleanliness. He’d loved many women, and never felt so filthy at it before as he had with his one true love. He’d bespeak a tub, he thought, when he got back to Greenwood Hall, and he’d scrub until his skin ached. And then he’d sit and talk with his friends.
And at the thought of one particular friend, who’d been as transparent in her devotion to him as he’d once been to another, he felt a strong surge of protectiveness. As he rode back to Greenwood Hall, his spirits lifted, and he began, at last, to think about the nature of true love.
*
“Now,” Warwick said as he delivered Susannah to his house again, “now you know what it feels like to be the belle of the ball.”
“So I do.” She smiled up into his eyes. “Thank you.”
“Now I suppose,” he said lightly, plucking up a flower that was about to tumble from her hair, “there’ll be no keeping you at home.”
“Now,” she said firmly, “there’ll be no keeping me awake tonight, but that’s all. And thank you, Warwick,” she said, and rising on her toes, she planted a swift kiss upon his lean cheek before she grinned and went up the stair.
He watched her out of sight, and then, with a belated crooked reciprocal smile, remembering that she’d known very well that Julian had gone off with his lady and yet never seemed to care, he relented, and at last admitted that stranger, hope, into his heart.
17
The rain came down in torrents, a damp wind briskly shepherded fresh black clouds in to replace the gray ones that had worn themselves out with thundering, even ducks huddled at the sides of their overflowing ponds. It was a perfect day for a day after a party.
Susannah could have stayed in bed, pillows behind her head, sipping chocolate and nibbling pastries for sustenance, holding her coverlets to her neck, pointing her toes toward the hearth and hugging her memories to herself for warmth, and no one would have blamed her. She’d been such a success the night before that she’d have been forgiven for idle gloating the morning after. But luxurious smugness was for those who were used to triumph. Susannah needed to be certain it all had actually happened. She could use some reassurance, but after what seemed to be a lifetime of it, she certainly didn’t need any more introspection. She wanted to share her glory.
If she also needed to escape from herself, she didn’t mention that as she detailed all her other reasons for her early appearance downstairs to her host. But perhaps he knew it, she thought as she looked up from the chessboard into his amused eyes. He certainly seemed to know and understand all else. Which might be, she thought, as she frowne
d and pretended it was all for the fate of her pawn, precisely why she had such mixed feelings about him now. This morning he was a perfect host, keeping her company during the dull time after their riotous breakfast, where he’d served her compliments with her coffee, celebrating her success as wittily and easily as he’d helped to create it for her last night. Last night he’d been more than a social catalyst, he’d been a marvelous partner, laughing her through her nervousness, bolstering her courage, and supporting her every anxious step of her way into society. A few days before, in the wood, he’d been something quite different, although equally as marvelous and supportive a partner. But then, for all she knew he hadn’t meant to, he’d frightened her.
Or perhaps she’d frightened herself. It had been a staggering experience, whoever had caused it. She’d been kissed before, of course, if never so thoroughly. She’d had previous suitors, and for all they’d been proper young men, she’d been curious, and though she’d been taught a kiss was no simple thing, even her family didn’t believe a girl should go entirely untasted before her marriage vows. A stolen kiss or two was quite unexceptionable in her brothers’ circles. But all those experimental kisses had been given only after much thought, and taken very seriously by their recipients. Then too, she realized, none of her suitors had been society gentlemen, for whom nothing was serious and to whom an embrace was evidently as lightly given as a smile.