by Mary Balogh
He moved off her after a while, but only far enough to make it easier for her to breathe. He still half covered her. He did not lower their clothing between them. They lay flesh to flesh.
“That will keep us warm for a while,” he said. “We will do it again later if we must. Nelson—here.” He patted his thigh and the dog jumped up to lie across their legs again.
His voice was cool and matter-of-fact, Moira thought, just as if they had decided to generate warmth by taking a swallow from his flask again or rearranging their clothing and the blanket. His voice had been like that from the beginning and during what they had done together. As if what had happened was nothing momentous at all. What did she expect? That he would speak in a lover’s velvet voice? They were not lovers. They had not made love. They had merely done what was necessary for survival. And very effective it had been, for the time being at least. His shoulder through his shirt was very warm against her cheek.
But his voice had reminded her. He had spoken in the voice of the Earl of Haverford. In Kenneth’s voice. He was the Earl of Haverford, she thought very deliberately at last, and she pictured him behind her closed eyelids as he had appeared at the ball: splendidly groomed, tall, elegant, handsome, aristocratic, haughty. He was Kenneth, the boy she had worshiped from afar, the young man she had loved and contrived to meet whenever she could until he had caught her . . . and until all that dreadful nastiness with Sean. Until she had seen him for what he really was and had understood where his loyalties really lay. Until she had learned that the love he had protested for her was worth nothing at all. Until she had come to hate him with an intensity equal to the love that had preceded it.
She was lying here in the hermit’s hut with Kenneth, Earl of Haverford. They had just—no, they had not. That was a quite inappropriate term for what had just happened. They had just coupled. Without love, without commitment, without even affection or respect. For the sole purpose of survival. A fate worse than death . . . She half smiled at the thought. The instinct for survival was, after all, stronger than any other, it seemed.
The morning, she thought, dreading the coming of daylight, was going to be quite unbearable. The horrible embarrassment . . . Her mind shied away from dealing with the far more significant issues than embarrassment she would have to deal with tomorrow. And it was all her fault. All of it. How could she have been so foolish, foolish, foolish?
* * *
THE snow had stopped during the night and the wind had abated. In the gray of early dawn it even looked as if the sun was going to shine later. Kenneth stood in the open doorway of the hermit’s hut, stamping his feet, thumping his gloved hands together, anxious to get moving so that he could be warm again. Behind him, Moira folded the blanket and buttoned her hood beneath her chin. They had not spoken since she had commented that it was light outside. He had been sleeping.
Running, he thought. Running on the spot. Legs and arms pumping. Forcing up the pace. Keeping up the pace. Ignoring groans of protest and complaints of tiredness. He had done it several times in Spain. He had forced his men to it, bellowing at them, cursing them, standing with them, fitting himself into their ranks, running with them so that they would know he was not being merely sadistic. He would lose men to enemy guns if he had to, he had always told them. He would be damned before he would lose even one to the cold. He had never done so.
He could think of it now this morning when it was several hours too late for the thought to be of any use. His mind had not even touched upon it last night. Running on the spot would have kept her alive—and furious, no doubt. She would have survived her fury.
His mind looked grimly ahead. But there was no point in thinking about the future. It was fixed and immutable. He turned impatiently to see if she was ready to go.
“There is something that must be said before we leave here,” she said.
He had decided that they would leave even though the snow was deep, and finding a safe way down to the valley would not be an easy thing. Not that she would fight against the decision, of course. Against the dark gray of her hood her face looked pale and set and quite calm. Her eyes did not avoid his as he might have expected them to do. But, of course, she was Moira.
“I do not believe there is anything that needs to be put into words at this moment, Moira,” he said. “We are both adults. We both know the rules. We need to get moving.”
“Oh yes, the rules,” she said. “I suppose you will escort me home and have a few words with Mama. You will, of course, take all the blame upon your own shoulders. I suppose you will then write to Sir Edwin Baillie and be discreet and tactful—and take all the blame yourself. I suppose you will then make me a private and formal offer and pretend that marriage with me is the dearest wish of your heart.”
“I believe that last detail might be dispensed with,” he said, goaded to irritation. Did she imagine that he welcomed the thought of what must now happen? That he was overjoyed by the turn of events that had just set his life on its head?
“It will all be dispensed with,” she said. “I do not want you trying to make any explanations, trying to shield me from blame. I do not want you making me an offer. I will refuse it if you do.”
“You are being childish again,” he said curtly. He had had her twice during the night. She had been undeniably virgin—as he had expected. Neither of them had any choice in what must happen now. “There is nothing to discuss.”
“In refusing to marry someone I dislike and someone who dislikes me, I am being childish?” she said. “It would seem childish to me to marry merely because circumstances forced us into—” Her chin came up and she glared at him.
“Having carnal knowledge of each other?” he said. “It is what husbands and wives do together, Moira. Or what two people do together before they inevitably become husband and wife.”
“Was I your first woman, then?” she asked. “Why has the inevitable not happened to you before now?”
He frowned and spoke irritably and perhaps unwisely. “My first lady,” he said. “You are not a whore, Moira.”
Her eyes widened, but she laughed. “Mama will be told that I spent the night at Dunbarton,” she said. “She already believes it to be the truth. At Dunbarton they can be told that you spent the night at Penwith. No one need know where or how we really spent the night.”
“Not even Sir Edwin Baillie?” he asked, looking at her with raised eyebrows.
“No,” she said.
“Will he not be a trifle surprised on your wedding night?” he asked.
She looked at him scornfully. “I will, of course, be ending my betrothal,” she said. “But I will not marry you. You will only cause unnecessary complications if you come asking.”
For some reason he was furiously angry. He should be elated, but all he could see was the scorn in her eyes and all he could remember was the way she had huddled close to him during the night and how she had grown hot beneath him when he had had her mounted. By God, she had enjoyed it. But what had he expected this morning? he wondered. That she would look at him with the soft eyes of love? He would have abhorred such a thing.
“And I am not blaming you for anything,” she said, her nostrils flaring with a matching anger. Her eyes blazed at him. “Do you think I do not realize how very foolish I was to leave Dunbarton last night? Do you think I do not know that you risked your life in coming after me? Or that you saved my life last night? You did, you know. I am not sure I would have survived the night here alone. Do you think I do not know how much in your debt I am?”
“You owe me nothing,” he said.
“And do you think I am to repay that debt every day of my life?” she said. “Trying to please you and reconcile you to a marriage you were forced into much against your will? I would rather die. I will not marry you.”
“I will not ask you, then,” he said curtly. “Have it your way. But you may be forced to change your m
ind, Moira. You must do the asking if there is need. We will see how you like that.”
He could see from the slight flush in her cheeks that she understood his meaning. They glared at each other for a few moments longer before he took a step toward her, pulled the scarf from about his neck and wrapped it firmly about hers, and turned and stepped out into the snow. It was knee deep. He turned back to take her arm, and after an initial jerking away from his grasp she accepted her need of his help—with tightly compressed lips and ill grace.
Nelson bounded happily ahead of them.
9
DURING the week following Christmas, Kenneth kept himself determinedly busy. While the snow lasted, he spent several hours of each day out of doors, sledding, building snowmen, playing snowballs. His younger cousins called him a jolly good sport, his nephew and niece and the other children climbed all over him and begged for more of whatever activity they happened to be involved in at that moment, and even some of the adults accompanied him outside and assured him that he was being an extraordinarily gracious host. Juliana Wishart, her mother persuaded him, had a great love of the outdoors.
When the snow had melted sufficiently for the roads to be safe again, he played escort to an array of aunts and cousins and took them visiting people they had met during the ball and felt constrained to call upon before they returned home. Regrettably they could not, he assured two of his aunts quite firmly, call upon Miss Hayes as the road down to Penwith Manor was still impassable. Perhaps next week—but of course they were both leaving before even this week was out. Juliana Wishart and her mama accompanied Kenneth and the countess on a drive into Tawmouth to look at the shops and to view the harbor from above the seawall. Lady Hockingsford hinted and the countess suggested that he take Miss Wishart down onto the beach for a stroll, but fortunately, that young lady was afraid of heights and almost dissolved into tears at the prospect of having to descend the steep stone steps, even though his lordship would hold her arm and not let her fall, her mother assured her.
At home there were card games to organize and billiard games and spillikins for the children and a few more energetic games, such as hide-and-seek. There were impromptu concerts to organize and games of charades and even one evening of informal dancing. There were aunts to run and fetch for, uncles to converse with, cousins to aid and abet or at the very least to turn a blind eye to as they paired off with other young people of opposite gender and sought out secluded nooks, especially those that sported mistletoe. There were letters to write and a few business matters to be dealt with.
There was his mother to quarrel with.
“You escorted Miss Hayes home?” she said with a frown after he had returned to Dunbarton the morning after his ball and made his explanations to everyone who was present in the breakfast parlor. She had taken him aside after the meal was finished so that they could speak privately. “Alone, Kenneth? In the middle of the night? I am relieved that she did not after all have to stay here, of course, but was it necessary for you to accompany her yourself? Surely one of the grooms would have done very well.”
“She was my guest, Mama,” he said curtly, “and wished to return home to Lady Hayes. I had given my word to Sir Edwin Baillie that I would see her safely home. That is what I did.” Safely home? She had been a virgin when she left Dunbarton.
“You went without a word to anyone,” his mother said, still frowning. “It was quite unmannerly, Kenneth. And it is impossible now to hide the truth. You might have done so, you know, instead of speaking out for all to hear. Was there really no way of avoiding having to spend the night at Penwith? You will be fortunate indeed if the woman and her mother do not squawk loudly about honor and contrive to win themselves a far more dazzling provider than Sir Edwin Baillie.”
He felt angry—and not solely on his own behalf. “The woman and her mother are Miss Hayes and Lady Hayes, Mama,” he said. “They are our neighbors. We have exchanged visits. Miss Hayes was my invited guest here last evening. I saw her safely home. I do not believe she is deserving of your scorn.”
His mother had gone very still. She looked at him intently. “Kenneth,” she said, “you do not fancy this woman, do you?”
Fancy? He thought of how she had dozed in his arms and of how, despite the chill of the air and the discomfort of the narrow bed, he had felt desire for her. It was the desire that had clouded his judgment. There must have been a dozen ways to ensure their survival. When she had woken up, trembling with the cold, he had been able to think of only one. Oh, yes, he had fancied her, all right. He had felt pure lust for her. And he had had her—slowly and thoroughly—twice.
“She is my neighbor, Mama,” he said. “And she is betrothed.” Though not for much longer, it was true.
His mother continued to look at him as if she would read his mind. “And you should be betrothed too,” she said. “You are thirty years old and have neither a son nor a brother to whom to pass all that is yours. You owe it to your position to marry. You owe it to your papa and to me. You cannot do better than Juliana Wishart.”
“She is a child, Mama,” he protested.
“She is seventeen years old,” she said. “She has the sort of character that can be controlled and molded by a strong man. She will be capable of breeding for a number of years. Her background is impeccable. So are her manners and her education. She is very pretty. What more could you possibly ask for?”
Someone closer to his own age, perhaps, Someone who could offer companionship, even perhaps friendship. Was it too much to expect of a woman? Someone capable of arousing some passion in him. Someone with the sort of character that was not easily controlled or molded by a strong man. Someone who would fight his mastery every inch of the way until in the end there would be mutual victory, mutual conquest. But then, he had not tried to verbalize, even in his mind before now, the ideal he looked for in a mate. Surely he did not want a woman he could not master.
“Nothing,” he said in answer to his mother’s question.
She looked satisfied at last. “Well, then,” she said, “you must get up your courage, Kenneth. You have spent too long with the military and too little time in society. You have become mute and awkward. Yesterday would have been the perfect time, but today will do just as well. I shall ask Lord Hockingsford to wait upon you in the library after luncheon.”
“Thank you, Mama,” he said, “but I shall choose my own time and my own place. And my own bride too. I am not at all sure she will be Miss Wishart.”
“But neither are you sure she will not,” she said firmly. “Thinking about it will only make the whole thing seem more difficult than it is. You must do it before you have time to think. You will not be sorry. Juliana will make an excellent countess.”
He refused to commit himself further, and she was forced to be content to bring him together with the girl as often as possible during the coming week. He realized that by the end of the week he might well find himself in an awkward situation indeed, one from which it might be difficult to extricate himself as a free man.
Perhaps he should just go ahead and do it, he thought sometimes. Marry the girl and be done with it. Beget his heirs on her and proceed to live his own life as well as he could despite her. He might even grow fond of her. She certainly was a sweet and biddable young lady.
But he could not enter into a marriage so cold-bloodedly, either for his sake or hers. He was uncomfortably aware that for all her youth and timidity and biddability, Juliana Wishart was also a person—probably a person with dreams of love and romance and happily-ever-afters. She would find none of those things with him. For one thing, he was too old for her.
And he could not enter into any marriage just yet. Not until he knew that he was free to do so, not until he knew that those hours spent in the hermit’s hut had had no consequences. The very thought horrified him, but it was a very real possibility nonetheless. Twice he had spilled his seed in her. He could not b
etroth himself to any other woman before he knew that he was not going to be compelled to marry Moira Hayes.
Moira Hayes! He could blanch at the very thought. She was everything that was most contemptible in a woman: brazenly scornful of convention and propriety, a liar, a criminal, a smuggler! She was every bit as bad as her brother had been—or her great-grandfather. And she had almost snared him just as Sean had almost snared his sister. Though she had rejected him too—with furious bitterness. He did not care to remember that final quarrel. She had been like a tigress. . . .
Perhaps she had mellowed with age or with the loss of her accomplice, but she still wandered about unchaperoned, and she still defied any advice that might be construed as a command. She still went her own headstrong way. She still had no regard for propriety. She should have chosen death over a surrender of her virtue. But no, that was both ridiculous and unfair. No, he would not blame her for that, at least.
But she had refused to listen to his marriage offer even before he had made it. It was so typical of Moira to do that. How could she refuse? He had had her virginity. She had lost her virtue and with it all hope of marriage to anyone but him. What would be left for her and her mother after she had ended her betrothal to Baillie? Had she thought of that? It probably would make no difference to her decision. She would scorn to marry him merely because she had lost her virtue to him—merely!
All week he kept himself busy. And all week his mind was plagued with memories of that night and memories of her refusal even to listen to his marriage offer. All week he dreaded that she would change her mind or that events would force her into doing so. And all week he was irritated—no, furious with her. She could not refuse him. He could not accept her refusal. It just would not do.
