‘I—I am afraid I have lost my chance now if I do,’ Anne’s mournful voice was belied by the dancing mischief in her sparkling eyes. The temptation to tease him a little was irresistible.
She could not mistake the glowing intensity with which he gazed so longingly upon her.
This was the expression she had first seen when he arrived home and mistook her for her sister. But it was vastly more powerful now, and far more disturbing. Amazingly, Edmund loved her as deeply as she adored him. Her entire being ached with desire for his caress.
Suddenly shy of him, she lowered her gaze and hurried on to explain, ‘James is no longer interested in me. He was all set to propose to Julia when I saw them last.’
‘Poor fool! Still, it is his own fault if he chooses to let her make his life a misery. The fellow must be out of his wits to prefer Julia to you.’
‘You did so once!’ she pointed out laughingly, delighted at the violence of his scorn.
‘But I have realised my error now, although only just in time! It terrifies me to think how nearly I left it too late!’
Impatiently he drew her close, his mouth seeking hers with an urgent pressure which grew more demanding as her lips parted in eager response. Everything faded into insignificance but their passionate need for each other, their seemingly insatiable longing.
‘How could I have been so blind!’ he groaned at last, shaking his head in self-disgust. ‘She has beauty, yes, but nothing more. I let myself be deceived by an empty shell, I suppose I mooned over that wretched portrait so long while I was a prisoner that I imagined Julia perfect to match it. It has taken far too long for me to recognise that the picture and the reality were so different.’
‘Do you mean the miniature Julia gave you the Easter you left?’ Anne asked in an oddly uneven voice. ‘The one in that dreadful gold frame with diamonds all round?’
‘Yes—though the frame was lost long ago. Fool that I was, I supposed the picture more valuable.’ He smiled ruefully as Anne choked back a gurgle of mirth. ‘You may well laugh at my foolishness! I languished after your sister when it was you who really had all the qualities I supposed her to possess, but was too moonstruck to see the truth.’
‘I was not laughing at you, my love!’ Contritely Anne leant forward to brush her lips lightly to his cheek, only to find herself seized to be kissed with ruthless thoroughness once more. When she could speak again she hastened to share the joke. ‘Truly I was not mocking you, Edmund, but the whole thing is too absurd. That portrait was really of me—or partly so, at least.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’ Edmund stared uncomprehendingly.
‘Papa commissioned an artist to paint Julia, but she could not bear the sittings—she could never stay still for two minutes at a time. The poor man grew so distracted at her fidgeting that when she threw a tantrum and told him I was sufficiently like her to take her place, he was too relieved to argue. He painted me then tried to alter the features to seem older, more mature, hoping that way to make it resemble Julia. Of course it didn’t answer. For a start she is far more beautiful than I am…’
‘Never!’ Edmund interrupted firmly. Lovingly he traced each feature with gentle fingers, and the featherlight touch set Anne aquiver. Suddenly breathless, she laughed up at him with the teasing smile that was all her own. She knew he exaggerated, but it made very satisfying hearing.
‘Flatterer! But you will admit we are different? Whatever the reason, Papa was, not unnaturally, dissatisfied with the result. He refused to buy the portrait. Julia did not dare let him know the truth, so she paid for it secretly and gave it you. really believe she could not see how unlike her it was.’
‘So it was you whom I have been worshipping all these years!’ Edmund shook his head wryly. ‘I ought to have guessed, but I have been so confused since I returned home that I haven’t had the heart to look at that picture. Now you have told me, I can see the smile is yours entirely—quite unlike your sister’s self-satisfied smirk. I was too blindly infatuated to be critical of the likeness when she gave it me. Then over the years my memory of her faded —it was the face in the picture I clung to.’
He laughed ruefully. ‘No wonder I mistook you for her when I returned. How furious you were when I kissed you that day!’
‘Only because you thought I was Julia,’ Anne admitted, blushing rosily at the memory. ‘At first it seemed as if all my dearest wishes were coming true, then such a rude awakening! I was so ashamed of having betrayed my feelings that I lashed out to protect my pride.’
‘There was little danger of my noticing anything amiss. I was too confused myself to think of your reaction till long after. Then I supposed I had been mistaken. You froze me utterly for days!’
‘I was terrified that otherwise you would guess how desperately I still loved you. I was too scared to admit that even to myself. I had kissed you back without thinking, and was furious with myself. Not that I should be at all sorry,’ she added, glancing provocatively from under long lashes, ‘if you were to repeat the error now.’
‘No error!’ he murmured thickly, jerking her into a crushing embrace. ‘But I will repeat it with pleasure till you beg for mercy!’
Edmund’s warm lips took possession of hers gently at first, then more urgently till they floated high on a wave of desire and longing that would surely take the rest of their lives to satisfy. No need for dissembling now. Rapturously Anne felt her senses reel in the joy of responding with all her being to a lovemaking which was meant for her alone. Pressing ever closer to the firm masculine body that moulded to hers, she felt the echo of the need thrilling within her ripple through him.
‘That first kiss ought to have shown me the truth,’ Edmund declared shakily at last.
‘Kissing you was so much more exciting than anything I had ever experienced before, but I was too bewildered to admit it. Gradually I realised it was you I loved, but I feared it was hopeless. When my impulses got the better of me on the night of the fire, you struggled so fiercely to escape!’
‘Because I thought you had confused me with Julia yet again,’ Anne admitted. This was heady stuff, she thought, affecting her like wine.
‘How could you imagine such a thing!’ he exclaimed with gratifying amazement. ‘I knew my heart well enough then to be sure you were the only woman for me. I did not know your feelings had changed too.’
‘Changed? Never! My love for you has only deepened over the years.’
‘And I never guessed it. What a fool I have been—I supposed that my ardour had frightened you.’
‘No, only my own urge to respond to it did that,’ Anne told him truthfully. ‘That was why I was so brusque with you.’
‘How much time we have wasted,’ he groaned. ‘I can still scarcely credit all this! You will marry me, Anne? Very soon?’
She nodded, too overcome with happiness for speech. Everything was forgotten but the intensity of their need for each other.
‘Anne! Anne!’
A persistent hand tugged at her sleeve, and reluctantly Anne became aware of the shrill voice that sought to break through their absorption in each other. She turned a bemused face upon Kit, who was dancing up and down with impatience. ‘Jonas is ready to go now…’ He broke off, eyeing with resignation their closely entwined forms. ‘Oh lord, Anne, are you going to marry Edmund?’ he demanded in disgust. ‘Ferdie reckoned you would. I was hoping Edmund would marry Mamma instead, as she said he would, and be my new Papa.
Then I could have some brothers at last.’
‘Unfortunately not even that inducement can alter my decision,’ Edmund replied, trying not to laugh. ‘Will you settle for me as an uncle instead?’
‘I suppose,’ Kit responded gloomily, ‘that I haven’t much choice.’
‘None. Grateful as I am for your help, I reserve the right to choose my own bride,’ Edmund confirmed solemnly. ‘But if it is any consolation,’ he added, glancing at Anne with a gleam in his eye that turned her scarlet with delicious confusion, �
�we can promise you a quiverful of cousins, can’t we, my love?’ Anne nodded. As her fingers squeezed the hand that encircled her waist, his instant powerful response made her bones melt in an ecstasy of desire.
‘As many as you wish,’ she promised, adding teasingly, ‘Though I cannot guarantee that some of them will not be girls.’
This dire possibility daunted Kit a little. He lingered a moment longer, but finding himself totally forgotten as they gazed hungrily into each other’s eyes, he returned, with a disgusted look behind him, to inform Jonas of this fresh catastrophe.
‘You will not make me wait too long, Anne,’ Edmund murmured huskily. ‘I don’t think I could endure it.’
‘It cannot be too soon for me either,’ Anne whispered, a tiny catch of wonder in her voice.
‘Six years has been far too long. It will take the rest of our lives to make up for all the time we have lost.’
And she reached up once more to obliterate every thought but the need for his embrace.
Change of Heart Page 21
