by Mary Balogh
TAUNTON WAS A VERY small village. There was nothing there beyond the church and a few houses, one shop, and a small tavern. His grace had pointed out a decent posting inn on one main road a few miles back. They would stay the night there, he had said.
But Fleur did not take a great deal of notice. They were close, and she was leaning forward in her seat. Her heart was thumping.
And this time there was no missing it. It was there and new and large and proclaimed its legend for all to see: John Hobson, Beloved son of John and Martha Hobson, 1791–1822. RIP.
God. Oh, God. Fleur stood beside it, turned to stone herself. She had killed him. He had been thirty-one years old. He had been someone’s beloved son. Martha Hobson had borne him. John Hobson had watched the son named after him grow up. They both must have felt pride when he became valet to Lord Brocklehurst of Heron House. They would have boasted of him to their friends. And now he was dead and cold beneath the ground.
She had killed him.
“Oh, God,” she said, and she went down on one knee beside the grave and touched the cold headstone.
“Fleur.” There was a light hand on her shoulder. “I am going to the vicarage for a moment. I will be back.”
But she did not hear him. Hobson was lying in the ground beneath her, that large and powerful and handsome man. He was dead. She had killed him.
She did not know how long she knelt there. Finally two strong hands took her by the arms and helped her to her feet.
“I’ll take you back to that inn,” he said. “You can rest there.”
They were inside the carriage again, without her having any memory of having walked there.
“I didn’t know it would be like this,” she said. “At first I did not think a great deal about him. I was too concerned about myself. I did not even have many nightmares. And then I thought that perhaps he had deserved what happened, though I was sorry. And in the last week I have known that I must come here, must see his last resting place. But I did not know it would be like this.” Her hands were over her face.
“You will be able to lie down and rest soon,” he said. His arms were about her. One hand had loosened the strings of her bonnet and tossed it aside. He had her head cradled on his shoulder, his fingers smoothing through her hair. He was murmuring to her.
“I didn’t want him to die,” she said. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
He secured two rooms for them at the posting inn, rooms far larger and better-appointed than those they had occupied the night before. There was a private parlor between them.
“I want you to lie down for an hour,” he said, leading her into one of the bedchambers, taking her by the arms, and seating her on the bed. “We will have a late dinner together. I want you to sleep.”
She obeyed the pressure of his hands and lay back against the pillows. He removed her shoes for her. She felt numb, still not quite in touch with reality.
“You will want to remove your dress, perhaps, when I have left,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I have a few calls to make,” he said. “I will be back.”
“Yes,” she said. It did not occur to her to wonder on whom he would be paying calls in a part of the country that was quite strange to him. She closed her eyes.
And felt his lips touch hers briefly before he left the room.
She must have slept, she thought. It felt as if she had been gone for a very long time, though she was still wearing her dress, she saw, and he was standing over her as he had been when she had closed her eyes. And indeed there was a candle burning in the room, and darkness beyond the windows.
“I thought you would have given me up for lost long ago,” he said. “I thought you would have eaten and sent my dinner away cold already. Have you been sleeping all this time?”
She looked at him, dazed. The right side of his mouth was curved into a smile. His dark eyes sparkled down into hers. She was lying on an inn bed, she thought, the Duke of Ridgeway standing over her.
“I have some good news for you,” he said. “You had better not stand up until you have heard what it is. Or even sit up, for that matter.”
“Good news?” she said.
“You have not killed anyone,” he said. “By deliberate intent or by accident or by any other means. You did not kill Hobson. The man is still alive somewhere, doubtless with a great deal of Brocklehurst’s money in his pockets.”
She stared up at him, at the strange bizarre dream that had just walked into her sleep.
“The only thing that is buried in the cemetery here,” he said, “is a coffin filled with stones. It seems that our man was merely stunned by the hearthstone, Fleur. You are quite, quite free, my love—free of the noose and free of your conscience.”
THEY DINED VERY LATE. THE DUKE HAD NOT expected to be gone quite so long, and Fleur had not expected to sleep so deeply.
“I really did not expect that anything would be done until tomorrow at the earliest,” he told her as they sat down to eat in their private parlor. “I reckoned without the curiosity and zeal of Sir Quentin Dowd.” Sir Quentin, he had told her, was the local magistrate. “I believe he would have dug up the whole graveyard single-handed if there had been no servants on hand and if I had been unable to show him the exact grave.”
“But what made you suspect it? I don’t understand.” That was a phrase she seemed to have repeated many times in the course of the day, Fleur thought.
“Why would one not wish to have a man buried either in the place where he died and was known or in the place where his family lived?” he said. “Your cousin seemed to have had a choice, and yet chose neither. In fact, he went literally out of his way to have the burial carried out in a strange place, where neither of them was known.”
“Someone might have wanted to see the body?” she said.
“I would imagine his family would have insisted on it,” he said. “And perhaps a few of the servants at Heron House or Hobson’s friends in the neighborhood would have expressed the wish too. Your cousin could not risk that happening. He did not cover his tracks well, of course, and he told conflicting stories to various people. But then, I suppose he did not expect that anyone would be curious enough to do any careful investigating. Eat up.”
Fleur looked at her plate, though she could not remember how food had got onto it. “How can I eat?” she asked.
“With your knife and fork,” he said. “How does it feel to be free?”
“But where did he go?” she asked. “And why? Why would he let his family think him dead?”
“Undoubtedly for money,” he said. “I would guess he is on the Continent somewhere.”
“And why would Matthew do it?” She frowned. “It was a diabolical plot. And all so that I would hang? Does he hate me so much?”
“You know the answer to that,” he said. “He never had any intention of letting you hang. He wanted you in his power for the rest of your life. He has a strong obsession for you, Fleur.”
“But I have always disliked him,” she said. “How could he have wanted me, knowing that? And knowing that I would hate him for forcing me into such a thing?”
“For some men it is enough to have power over something they desire,” he said. “Sometimes there seems even to be a special thrill about being hated. I don’t know if your cousin is one of those men. I would not have said so from my acquaintance with him at Willoughby. He did not seem demonic. But his actions certainly suggest that he is.”
“I shall not look forward to his coming back home and living close to me again,” she said.
“Fleur.” He reached out and touched her hand. “Do you really expect such a thing? Sir Quentin at this very moment is breathing fire and brimstone. Your cousin is in deep trouble, I promise you. I don’t believe you will have to fear his coming home for a long time to come.”
“Oh,” she said. She looked down at her plate again. “I am not hungry.”
He got to his feet and rang for a waiter to remove the di
shes. They were both silent until the task was completed.
“I keep waiting to wake up,” she said. She crossed the room and stood looking down into the empty fireplace. “I was very foolish to run, wasn’t I? I should have gone to the rectory as I had planned to do.”
“But he would have carried out the same plan,” he said, “and perhaps got away with it.”
“Yes,” she said. “I don’t know if anyone else would have guessed the truth. I would not have. Only you. And I would not have met you if I had not run.”
He stood a short distance from her, watching her gaze into the fireplace. “I wish you had not had to suffer so much,” he said quietly. “I wish you had asked me for help, Fleur. I wish I had thought to ask if you needed my help. I wish it had been different.”
“But it was not,” she said.
“No.”
“Why have you done all this for me?” She turned her head to look at him. “Tell me the truth.”
He shook his head slowly.
“I don’t think I could have been more terrified of the devil than I was of you,” she said, “when it was happening and in my thoughts and nightmares afterward. And when you came home to Willoughby and I realized that the Duke of Ridgeway was you, I thought I would die from the horror of it.”
His face was expressionless. “I know,” he said.
“I was afraid of your hands more than anything,” she said. “They are beautiful hands.”
He said nothing.
“When did it all change?” she asked. She turned completely toward him and closed the distance between them. “You will not say the words yourself. But they are the same words as the ones on my lips, aren’t they?”
She watched him swallow.
“For the rest of my life I will regret saying them,” she said. “But I believe I would regret far more not saying them.”
“Fleur,” he said, and reached out a staying hand.
“I love you,” she said.
“No.”
“I love you.”
“It is just that we have spent a few days together,” he said, “and talked a great deal and got to know each other. It is just that I have been able to help you a little and you are feeling grateful to me.”
“I love you,” she said.
“Fleur.”
She reached up to touch his scar. “I am glad I did not know you before this happened,” she said. “I do not believe I would have been able to stand the pain.”
“Fleur,” he said, taking her wrist in his hand.
“Are you crying?” she said. She lifted both arms and wrapped them about his neck and laid her cheek against his shoulder. “Don’t, my love. I did not mean to lay a burden on you. I don’t mean to do so. I only want you to know that you are loved and always will be.”
“Fleur,” he said, his voice husky from his tears, “I have nothing to offer you, my love. I have nothing to give you. My loyalty is given elsewhere. I didn’t want this to happen. I don’t want it to happen. You will meet someone else. When I am gone you will forget and you will be happy.”
She lifted her head and looked into his face. She wiped away one of his tears with one finger. “I am not asking anything in return,” she said. “I just want to give you something, Adam. A free gift. My love. Not a burden, but a gift. To take with you when you go, even though we will never see each other again.”
He framed her face with his hands and gazed down into it. “I so very nearly did not recognize you,” he said. “You were so wretchedly thin, Fleur, and pale. Your lips were dry and cracked, your hair dull and lifeless. But I did know you for all that. I think I would still be in London searching for you if you had not gone to that agency. But it’s too late, love. Six years too late.”
He lowered his head to kiss her, and heat flared instantly. He lifted his head.
“I have only tonight to offer you,” he said. “Tomorrow I will be taking you home and continuing on my way to my own home.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Only tonight, Fleur.”
“Yes.”
“We will make it enough.”
“Yes.”
“We will make it last for all eternity.”
“And even beyond that,” she said.
“Fleur,” he said. “My beloved. It was the love of my life I recognized outside the Drury Lane Theater. You know that, don’t you?” His lips were against hers.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
“I love you. You must know that I have loved you from the first moment I saw you standing in the shadows.”
“Yes.” She opened her mouth beneath his, touched his lips with her tongue. “Adam. Love me. Take away my fears.”
He kissed her deeply, reaching into the heat of her mouth with his tongue, molding her body to his with his hands, waiting for it to surrender fully against his own.
“Are you still afraid?” he asked against her lips.
“Mortally.” She kept her eyes closed. “Of the stages that follow this. But I want it all with you, Adam. I want your hands on me, and your body. I want you in me.”
He kissed her again and felt her with his hands—the full, firm breasts already hard-tipped beneath her dress, the small waist and shapely hips, the softly rounded buttocks.
“Fleur.” He whispered her name into her mouth. He wanted her with a fierce pain.
“Keep touching me,” she whispered. “Give me courage. Your hands are so warm and so strong. Give me courage.”
He bent and swung her up into his arms and carried her through the open door into her bedchamber. He set her down on the bed.
And she knew that she was committed, that she could not go back, though she knew equally that he would have stopped at any moment she said the word. She loved him more than life and she wanted more than anything else at that moment for the memory of an ugly coupling to be erased and replaced with a memory of love.
But she was afraid. Mortally afraid. She was afraid of the intense burning look in his dark eyes. She was afraid of his hawkish features and slashing scar. She was afraid of his hands, which covered her breasts and felt their tips with his thumbs and which moved first behind her head to remove the pins from her hair and then behind her back to undo the buttons of her dress. And she was afraid of his body, still hidden beneath his clothing.
“We can make this enough,” he said, looking down into her face, his hands stilling at her back. “We can make this much loving enough, Fleur. I will merely hold you for a few minutes longer to give myself the courage to let you go.”
“No,” she said. “I want all of it, Adam. I want all of you. I want to give you all of me.”
He slid the dress off her shoulders, down her arms, down over her hips and her legs. She watched his eyes as her chemise and her undergarments and stockings followed. And she remembered standing naked before him, her clothes in a neat pile on the floor beside her.
“Make me forget,” she said. “Adam, make me forget.” She reached up her arms to him.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, leaning over her to bury his face in her hair. “The most beautiful woman in the world.” One hand stroked over a breast. A warm, long-fingered hand.
She reached up to undo the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt.
And he was afraid. She was so very beautiful. He wanted to be perfect for her. He raised himself to a sitting position again.
“I will close the door,” he said. The light from two branches of candles was shining through the doorway and slanting across the bed.
“No,” she said, reaching for him.
“Fleur,” he said, looking down into her eyes, troubled. “I don’t want you to see me again. I am very ugly.”
“No.” She caught him by the arms, pulled him down to her. “I want to see you. I must see you. Please, Adam. I will be afraid in the darkness.”
He stood up beside the bed and undressed very deliberately. And he watched her watch him, as he had done on a previous occasion. Except t
hat then he had been angry, daring her to show distaste, while this time he waited for it with a dull certainty that it would happen.
“Adam,” she said when he stood naked beside the bed finally, “you are not ugly. Ah, you are not ugly. But I am so glad I did not know you before the wounds. I would not have been able to bear it.” She reached out a hand to touch his left side lightly, and ran the hand down his side and thigh. “You are not ugly.”
He lay down beside her on the bed, looked into her eyes, smoothed back the silky red-gold hair that he had loosened. And he kissed her again.
She spread one hand over the heavy hairs on his chest and lifted the other to explore the rippling muscles of his arm and shoulder. She moved it down over his chest, around to his back. Her tongue circled his, stroked over it, was stroked in its turn. And she felt his hands move over her, touch her, explore her, arouse her.
And she was no longer afraid. Her breasts were taut and tender to his touch. His hands were sending aching vibrations from them up into her throat. There was a heavy throbbing between her legs.
He had taken her once, briefly and dispassionately. Apart from that one occasion, it was many years since he had had a woman. He wanted to be perfect for her. He needed to bury himself in her and release his seed into her with a few swift thrusts. But he wanted to be perfect for her.
He moved a hand down between her thighs, opened her gently with his fingers, touched her, stroked her lightly. She was hot and wet to his touch. She moaned and twisted against him.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, his mouth against hers again. “This time it won’t hurt, Fleur. I promise you. Are you still afraid?”
“Yes.” Her voice was a sob. “Yes. But come to me, Adam. Come to me.”
He lifted himself over her and lowered himself on top of her, his head turned against the side of hers. And terror flared again as his legs came between hers and pushed them wide and his hands came beneath her to lift and tilt her.
And then he was coming into her, warm hard maleness mounting all the way into her. Without any tearing. Without any pain. Only the throbbing and the aching all about him and the waiting for him to put an end to it. She could hear someone moaning.
