Until You wds-3

by Джудит Макнот

  Overhead, crystal chandeliers glittered and gleamed with fifty thousand candles while the mirrored walls reflected a couple dancing alone beneath them-a tall, dark-haired man who waltzed with easy grace, his arm possessively encircling a young woman in an ivory gown. Sherry saw their reflection in the mirrors, sensed the heady, romantic magic of the moment, and she lifted her gaze to his. Somewhere in the depths of those knowing blue eyes smiling down at her, she saw another sort of romantic magic sparking to life… something deep and profound and silent. It held her captive, promising her something… asking… inviting.

  I love you, she thought.

  His arm tightened around her waist, as if he'd heard her and had liked the sound of it. And then she realized she'd said it aloud.

  On the balcony above the ballroom, the Dowager Duchess of Claymore looked down upon the couple and smiled with pleasure, already thinking of the splendid grandchildren they would have. She wished her husband could have been with her, watching his son with the woman who was going to share his life. Robert would have approved of Sherry, she thought. Unconsciously rubbing her thumb over the marriage ring Robert had slid on her finger nearly four decades before, Alicia tenderly watched their son waltzing with his affianced bride, and she could almost feel Robert standing at her side. "Look at them, my love," she whispered to him in her heart. "He's so like you, Robert, and she reminds me so much of me in little ways." Alicia could almost feel Robert's hand slide around her waist as he leaned down, and his smiling voice whispered in her ear, "In that case, my sweet, Stephen is going to have his hands full."

  A proud smile trembled on her lips as she thought of her own contributions toward bringing this moment about. Her eyes sparkled as she thought of the names she'd placed on the list of suitors Stephen had asked her to prepare, and his thunderstruck reaction to her candidates. They'd all been so old that Stephen hadn't even realized they were also infirm. "I did it!" she thought.

  Beside her, Hugh Whitticomb was observing the same sight and thought of the long-ago nights that Alicia and his own Maggie had kept Robert and himself on the dance floor until dawn. As he watched Sherry and Stephen moving together, he chuckled with delight at how successfully he had manipulated the situation. True, there were going to be some rough seas when she recovered her memory, but she loved Stephen Westmoreland and he loved her. Hugh knew it. "I did it, Maggie girl," he told her in his heart. Her answer floated through his mind. "Yes you did, darling. Now, ask Alicia to dance. This is a special moment."

  "Alicia," he said dubiously, "would you like to dance?"

  She turned a dazzling smile to him, as she placed her hand on his arm. "Thank you, Hugh! What a wonderful idea! It's been years since we danced together!"

  Standing off to one side of the dance floor, Miss Charity Thornton tapped her toe in rhythm to the magic of the waltz, her faded blue eyes bright with pleasure as she watched the Earl of Langford perform his first official function as Sherry's future husband. As the other dancers finally moved onto the floor, Nicholas DuVille spoke at her ear, and she turned in surprise. "Miss Thornton," he said with a lazy, white grin, "would you honor me with this dance?"

  Stunned with pleasure that he had sought her out at this momentous occasion, she beamed at him and placed her small hand upon his sleeve, feeling like a girl again, as one of the handsomest men in the room led her onto the floor. "Poor Makepeace," she confided without a hint of sympathy, "he looks quite devastated over there."

  "I hope you are not devastated," Nicki said with concern, and when she seemed confused, he added kindly, "I had the impression you were very much in favor of my suit."

  She looked charmingly flustered as he whirled her around and around, adjusting his steps for her diminutive size. "Nicholas," she said, "may I confide something to you?"

  "Certainly, if you like."

  "I am old, and I nod off when I don't at all wish to sleep, and I am dreadfully forgetful at times…"

  "I hadn't noticed," Nicki gallantly replied.

  "But, dear boy," she continued severely, ignoring his disclaimer, "I am not enough of a ninnyhammer to have believed for more than the first hour that you were besotted with our dear Sherry!"

  Nicki nearly missed a step. "You… did not think I was?" he said cautiously.

  "Certainly not. Things have worked out exactly as I planned they should."

  "As you planned they should?" Nicki repeated a little dazedly, completely reassessing her and coming up with answers that made him feel like shouting with laughter and flushing with embarrassment over his own naivete.

  "Certainly," she said with a proud little wag of her head. "I do not like to boast," she tipped her head toward Sherry and Langford, "but I did that."

  Uncertain if the unbelievable notion forming in his head was correct, Nicki studied her closely from the corner of his eyes. "How did you do whatever it was you think you did?"

  "A little nudge here, a little push there, dear boy. Although I did wonder tonight if we should have let Sherry leave with Langford. He was jealous as fire over Makepeace." Her little shoulders shook with merry laughter. "It was the most diverting thing I've seen in thirty years! At least, I think it was… I shall miss all this excitement. I have felt so very useful from the moment Hugh Whitticomb asked me to be chaperone. I knew, of course, that I wasn't supposed to do a good job of it, or else he'd have gotten someone else to do it." She looked up inquiringly after Nicholas's long silence and found him staring at her as if he'd not. seen her before. "Did you wish to say something, dear boy?"

  "I think so."

  "Yes?" '

  "Please accept my humblest apologies."

  "For underestimating me?"

  Nicki nodded, grinning, and she smiled back at him. "Everyone does, you know."

  35

  "I feel like a guest in my own house," Stephen remarked ironically to his amused brother as they waited for the women to join them in his drawing room so they could leave for the opera. He had not been alone with Sherry since he'd announced their engagement last night at the Rutherfords' ball, and he found it absurd that his change in public status to being her fiance supposedly had to mark the end of all possibilities for the slightest intimacy.

  At his mother's suggestion, he'd moved into Clayton's house, and she had moved into his, where she planned to remain with Sherry during the three days before the wedding-"to absolutely eliminate any possible reasons for gossip, since Sherry is under the very nose of the ton here in London."

  Stephen had graciously agreed to her suggestion only because he had every reason to expect Whitticomb to maintain his earlier position that Sherry would require the security of his reassuring presence, and that Charity Thornton was an adequate chaperone.

  Instead, the unreliable physician had agreed with Stephen's mother that Sherry's reputation might suffer now that Society knew Stephen was personally interested in her.

  Tonight, his brother and sister-in-law were playing chaperone, accompanying Sherry and him to the opera, while his mother attended her own functions, but she would be there when they returned, she'd promised.

  "You could always move Sherry in with us," Clayton pointed out, enjoying Stephen's discomfiture and his healthy eagerness to be alone with his fiancee, "and then you could stay here."

  "That's as absurd as this arrangement. The point is that I'm not going to preempt the damned wedding and take her to bed when there are only three more days to wait-"

  He broke off at the sound of feminine voices on the staircase, and they both stood up. Stephen picked up his black coat and shrugged into it as he strolled forward, then nearly walked into his brother, who had stopped to watch the two women rushing into the hall together laughing. "Look at that," he said softly, but Stephen was already looking, and he knew what Clayton meant even before he added, "What a portrait they would make."

  Their musical laughter made both men grin as they watched the Duchess of Claymore and the future Countess of Langford trying on each other's capes and bon
nets in front of the mirror while Colfax and Hodgkin stood with hands clasped behind their backs, staring straight ahead, as if oblivious to the girlish antics. Hodgkin wasn't as good as Colfax at hiding his thoughts, and his gaze kept sliding to Sherry and a smile kept tugging at his cheek.

  Whitney had been wearing a bright blue gown when they arrived. Sherry had said she intended to wear a bright green gown even though, she'd softly added, as she looked at the huge sapphire Stephen had given her that afternoon for a betrothal ring, "sapphire blue is my favorite color of all."

  They had evidently changed their minds and their gowns upstairs because Whitney was now wearing Sherry's green gown and Sherry was wearing her deep blue one.

  As both men started forward, they heard Whitney gaily predict, "Clayton will never notice the change, mark my word."

  "And I doubt Lord Westmoreland paid the slightest heed to my comment about which gown would look best with my ring," Sherry said, laughing. "He was preoccupied with-" She choked back the word "kissing," and Stephen stifled a laugh.

  "Shall we?" he said to his brother.

  "By all means," Clayton agreed, and without further communication, Stephen walked up behind Whitney while Clayton offered his arm to Sherry, startling a peal of laughter from her as he joked in a low voice, "Did I tell you earlier how lovely you look in green, my love?"

  Whitney was pulling on her gloves when masculine hands touched her shoulders and Stephen's voice whispered tenderly in her ear beside her bonnet. "Sherry," he whispered, and beneath his hands her shoulders shook with laughter as she carefully kept her face hidden, "I've arranged with my brother to leave us alone for a while when we return from the opera, so we can be private. He'll distract Whitney-" She whirled around and had already begun her indignant reprimand before she saw his knowing grin. "Stephen Westmoreland, if you dare to even-"

  Outside Number 14 Upper Brook Street carriages paraded in dignified pomp, their lamps glowing and flickering like a procession of golden fireflies. As the conveyance belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Dranby passed by the house, her grace looked admiringly at its splendid Palladian facade and sighed. "Dranby, who shall we find to wed Juliette, now that Langford is taken? Where will we find his equal in taste and elegance, in refinement and-" She broke off as the front door of the house opened and four laughing people erupted from it-the earl running down the front steps in pursuit of his new fiancee. "Sherry," he called, "I knew she wasn't you!"

  The American girl called a laughing reply back as she headed straight for the Duke of Claymore's coach, which was pulled up behind the earl's. The duke and duchess pressed closer to their coach window staring with disbelief as the Earl of Langford caught his new fiancee by the waist as she climbed into the duke's coach, swung her into his arms, and firmly deposited her into his own coach.

  "Dranby," said the duchess, "we have just witnessed the most delicious on-dit of the year! Wait until I tell everyone what we saw!"

  "If you'll take my advice, you won't bother," said the duke, leaning back in his seat.

  "Whyever not?"

  "No one will believe you."

  36

  A steady stream of luxurious conveyances were packed into Bow Street, waiting to pull up before Covent Garden's brightly lit facade to unload their passengers. "It looks like a Grecian temple!" Sherry exclaimed in delight as she peered out the window of their coach. "Like the painting hanging in your library."

  Her enthusiasm was so infectious that Stephen actually leaned over and looked at the Royal Opera House's facade with her. "It was modelled after the Temple of Minerva at Athens."

  Careful to lift her beautiful skirts, Sherry took Stephen's hand as she alighted from the coach and paused to look about her before they went inside. "It's wonderful," she said, ignoring the amused glances being cast her way as they made their way across the expansive vestibule and proceeded up a grand staircase past imposing Ionic columns and glittering Grecian lamps. It was the fashion in London to appear quite bored and blase at all times, but Sherry didn't care. Her face glowing with pleasure, she stopped in the lobby that led to the lower tier of boxes and looked about at the graceful pillars and arched recesses that contained paintings of scenes from Shakespeare.

  Loath to rush her, yet conscious they were blocking the other patrons, Stephen touched her elbow and said softly, "We'll stay late so that you may look around at your leisure."

  "Oh, I'm sorry. Only, it is hard to imagine that people can walk by all this without pausing to notice it."

  Stephen's box was located for maximum view, and when they entered it, he actually peered around to get a look at Sherry's face, but she was gazing in admiration at the identical tier of elegant boxes opposite them, each with its own chandelier and with gold flowers and stars painted on the box's front.

  "I hope you like the opera," he said, sitting down beside her and nodding casually to friends in the box on their right. "I try to come every Thursday."

  Sherry looked up at him, so happy that she was almost afraid to trust it. "I think I do. That is, I feel excited, which must be a very good sign." His eyes had been smiling into hers, but as she spoke she saw their expression change and his lids lowered, his gaze dropping to her lips, lingering long on them, then lifting.

  It was a kiss! she realized. It was a kiss, and he'd meant for her to feel it, to understand that was what he was doing. Without conscious volition, her hand moved imperceptibly, seeking his as it had the first day she'd returned to consciousness.

  It was a tiny movement, one he might have missed, even if he had been looking instead of turning to greet friends who'd stopped into the box. And yet, as Sherry turned her head to do the same, his hand slid into her open palm, covering it, strong fingers lacing with hers. A jolt streaked up Sherry's spine as his thumb slowly rubbed her palm, brushing left and right, then back again. It was another kiss, she realized, her breath catching. This one slower, longer, deeper.

  Her heart swelling, she looked down at the beautiful male hand partially covered by the open fan in her lap, watching his finger stroking while her body seemed to melt from the touch.

  Below, in the gallery and pits, the crowd was noisy and curious, openly studying the occupants of the boxes, and Sherry tried to look perfectly casual, while the simple touch of a finger on her palm made her pulse continue to escalate.

  When the movement finally stopped and her pulse slowed to normal, she felt very foolish to be so susceptible to what was very probably an idle touch on his part. Partly out of curiosity and partly for mischief, Sherry experimented. While he chatted with his brother, she stroked her thumb over Stephen's knuckles, concentrating far more on that than the conversation. It had no noticeable effect on him. In fact, he opened his hand, and for a second Sherry thought he was going to pull it away. Since he left it there instead, palm up, she dipped her gaze and thoughtfully traced each long finger from its tip to the vee where it met his wide palm, while he continued his absorbed conversation with his brother. Since he seemed not to notice or object, Sherry touched his palm, her fingertip following each intersecting line. I love you, she thought helplessly, telling him so with her fingertip. Please love me too. Sometimes when he kissed her or smiled at her, she was almost certain he did, but she wanted to hear the words, needed to hear them. I love you, she told him through her fingertip as it stroked his open palm.

  Stephen gave up all pretense of trying to carry on an intelligent conversation and slid a glance at her bent head. He was sitting in a noisy public place, with a bulging arousal that felt as if he'd been indulging in an hour of intense sexual foreplay instead of merely holding hands with an inexperienced virgin. His heart was beating in the heavy, insistent tempo that came with denying himself a climax while he maximized his pleasure, and still he did not stop her. Instead he opened his hand more, fingers splaying in willing submission to his own torture.

  He could not believe what she was doing to him, and he was deriving almost as much pleasure from knowing she wanted to touch
him as from her sweet stroking.

  In the glittering, sophisticated world he inhabited, the roles were clearly defined: wives were for the breeding of an heir; husbands were a social and financial necessity; mistresses gave and received passion. Couples who had nothing in common with their own spouses had affairs with other people's spouses. Stephen could think of perhaps twenty couples, among the thousands he knew, who shared anything stronger than mild affection. He could think of hundreds who shared nothing at all. Wives did not yearn for a husband's touch, they did not deliberately incite a husband's yearning for theirs. And yet that was exactly what Sherry was doing.

  Beneath lowered lids, he gazed at her profile as she delicately traced something onto his sensitized palm, then traced the same thing again. The third time she did it, he tried to distract himself from the desire that was flowing from the nerve endings in his open palm throughout his entire nerve stream, and to concentrate on what she was doing. With her fingertip she drew an open circle on his palm and then two perpendicular lines joined at the bottom:

  C L

  Her initials.

  Stephen drew a ragged breath and lifted his gaze to her profile while in his mind he dragged her into a darkened corner and covered that soft mouth with his…

  He was mentally kissing her breasts when a commotion below heralded the beginning of the opera and he wasn't certain whether he was relieved or sorry to have her distracted, but distracted she was.

  Sherry leaned forward expectantly, watching as the crimson draperies swept open beneath a graceful arch with painted figures of women holding trumpets and wreaths of laurel. And then the orchestra began to play, and she forgot the world.

  Stephen held her hand on the way home, feeling a little foolish for his boyish pleasure in the simple touch. "I gather you liked the performance," he said idly as he walked beside her to the front door of his house, their path illuminated by a bright full moon.