He took this for encouragement, and perhaps she meant her touch for encouragement. Without further ado, and with an expression she couldn’t read, he slid into her and again withdrew. Tensing, he thrust again, harder. Instead of again spurning the tight fit, he tensed his buttocks and gave one last forceful and deliberate thrust.
In a reflex action of pain, her knees slapped against his hips. He seemed to slump on top of her. His breathing sounded forced. In a tone nothing like his normal voice, he said, “I’ve made an irretrievable mistake.”
Her eyes filled with hot tears. She turned her head to one side. Her mind raced over her inadequacy. Not for a moment had she imagined that she would not have a natural aptitude for making love. To be rejected at this stage seemed to be the ultimate humiliation. Her throat closed over.
He lifted again and searched her expression. “I’ve hurt you,” he said softly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t worry,” she answered in a strangely normal voice. “I’ll go now.”
“I can’t let you go. Starling, I can’t let you go, not after I’ve done this. I’ve given you the pain but none of the pleasure.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She wound her hands into fists.
“You’ll never forgive me. As it is, I’ll never forgive me. Let me try.”
“I want to go.”
He drew a deep breath, stared her straight in the eye, and said, “No.” Very carefully, he moved inside her, at first abrasively. With a suddenness she hadn’t expected, his gliding soothed and then became stimulating.
“Ah, love, that’s better, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she whispered, lifting her calves over the back of his thighs.
He went deeper and harder inside her. She judged his enjoyment by the expression on his face until he made a sound like “Ahh” and jerked out of her.
She gasped. “Is that all?”
“I got a little ahead of myself. I promised you pleasure and instead I got carried away with my own.” His head dipped to her breast and he began suckling.
She would have liked to tell him she’d enjoyed the other just as well, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Within seconds she couldn’t have said those words with any truth. Not only did he tease at both breasts with equal enjoyment, but he also built in her a desire for something she couldn’t find. The sensation tingling through her nipples and tightening her abdomen felt like tickles compared to the gasping pleasure he gave her when he used his marvelous fingers between her legs.
At one stage, he put his mouth there, too, and teased her with his tongue, but fortunately, he didn’t continue that past her writhing attempt to stop breathing. She thought he spoke occasionally, but she couldn’t hear him over the rushing of her blood and her confused, anxious pleading. Suddenly, the huge build-up throughout her body ended. The urgency disappeared. She felt completed, languorous, and sated, and she had no idea why. Trumpets hadn’t blasted and the heavenly choir of angels had closed their mouths. Puzzled, she stared at Alasdair.
“It’ll be better next time, my love,” he said with an odd tone in his voice. “It gets quicker and easier with experience.”
He entered her again with slow enjoyment. She’d forgotten her worry about his size because they seemed to have been made for each other. And she forgot her feelings of languor and satiation. Both disappeared with his lovemaking, and she could see that making love was a tender cooperation on both sides, using words and touches that no one else could share. Had Alasdair said he loved her while he glided inside her, she would have believed him. However, he didn’t lie to her. Leaving him would be difficult enough without having false promises to cling to.
She had a “next time,” probably what he called a climax, but she wished she hadn’t when she let herself go in a very embarrassing way. However, he seemed pleased, and because he’d made her beg with his fingers again, she imagined she’d done nothing out of the ordinary. Soon after that, he lifted her buttocks in his hands and plunged into her with a desperation he hadn’t used before. When he groaned and stilled, she knew she had given him the same pleasure he had given her.
He lay on her and stroked her hair for a very long time. In this aftermath, she had to restrain her urge to cry for Meg who had never had this. Had she, she could never have said belittling things about men. Starling couldn’t imagine anything in the world as beautiful as coupling with the man she loved and then lying peacefully in his arms while he said nothing but expressed everything with the sleepy contentment of his hands. Eventually, he turned down the lamp and pulled up the bed covers, but he continued to hold her, resting his chin on her hair.
Starling breathed evenly, glad she had given herself this reward after two weeks of self-denial. She might have to leave Alasdair, but at least she’d loved him first.
Sometime after dawn, she awoke. Alasdair still held her. His thumb slowly and gently caressed the nape of her neck. She smiled with happiness, leaving her fingers on the curve of his biceps muscle.
“You’re awake?” His voice contained no sound of sleepiness.
“Mm.” She eased her position, letting her breasts rest comfortably against his chest.
“We didn’t settle anything last night. I can’t let you leave me. You’re mine now, and you’ve never belonged to anyone but me. I like that thought. We had a conversation before about the difference between comfort and luxury. I can promise you luxury, love, and I want to give you luxury. You’ll accept me, won’t you?”
Stunned, she could do no more than cling to the big, safe body beside hers. A proposal of marriage was truly a dream ending for a perfect night of love. Her voice cracked as she asked, “You want to keep me?”
He pressed his lips against her forehead. “I can’t lose you.”
Arching into the only man she would ever love, she kissed his shoulder as he eased his hardened arousal deeply inside her. Now she’d heard his proposal, she abandoned herself to the full pleasure of coupling, with no thought of sin and no sense of anguish at having to leave him. Loving him more than she had thought she could love anyone, she melted into his every gliding stroke, realizing that for her, he was the perfect husband.
She could marry him and still go ahead with her plan. He approved of woman in the workplace, and he had no objection to strays. Her money would be his, but he wouldn’t begrudge a penny to a group of unfortunates. No other man would understand and support her as he would, as he did right then when he brought her to another shattering climax with his fingers before he spilled his seed. “I don’t want you ever to leave me.” His tender words stirred in her hair.
Her hands caressed the smooth skin of his back.
“We’ll have to think about preventing babies.”
Why prevent babies? Would a married couple want to prevent babies? Realization dawned. She took her hands from him and dropped them on the bed. Her head tilted back. She hadn’t understood. He had offered her not the security of his name, but the luxury of his body in a physical relationship. “Keep” as in being his mistress.
“Have you told Lavender about me?” she asked, trying to cool her face with her frozen hands.
“I had nothing to tell until last night.”
“I mean that you hired me? That you’re free.”
“I made a commitment to her. I can’t go back on my word. She’s not like you. She’s weak, and she needs someone to care for her. She is my responsibility because long ago I took...” He stopped. Almost absently, one of his fingers combed her hair behind her ear. “You were a virgin. She… Perhaps she isn’t my responsibility. I need to think.” His hand dropped from her hair and he sat up, palms behind his head, massaging his neck with his thumbs.
She rolled out of bed, numb, cold, and smiling politely. “No need to say more. I enjoyed my first experience. And you, you gave me a reference. What more could I want?”
“You couldn’t want more because I gave you a reference?”
; “A reference is more important to me than anything else.”
Smiling faintly, he stared at her. “You can’t be that unemotional.”
“I’m a realist. Surely you’ve seen that? You don’t owe me anything. You kept your promise to give me pleasure. You certainly gave me pleasure,” she said, searching for her clothes while he stepped out of bed and into his trousers and dressing robe.
He turned a worried face to her. “We need to talk, but we don’t have time now. I have to see Paul and Mary off, and then I want to talk to Lavender. After that, you and I will settle everything.” With that he left the room.
She stepped into her chemise, her underdrawers, and her petticoat. She pulled her gown over her head, her heart shrinking. An anguished sob burst out of her throat, a torrent she needed to empty before she could face the world again. She could no more be the mistress of the man she loved than she could earn her money by immorality. Her place had been preordained years ago, when she realized she could help others in the same position as she.
She had no right to think she could die easier than leave a man whose smiles made her sing inside, whose laughter made her join in, whose interests she shared, whose humor she enjoyed, and whose body she craved.
Her shoulders shaking and breathing in wet gasps, she stepped into her shoes, her cheeks hot. One icy hand, and then two, wiped her face. She cooled her cheeks, staring in the mirror, gulping until she finally breathed evenly. Her mind unclear, and seeing her swollen eyes, her pale face, and the tangled mess of her hair, she took her brush from the set he had bought for her and began to tidy herself. When her face looked comparatively normal, her hair was tidy, and she had dressed neatly, she made her way along the passage, meaning to say farewell to Mary and Paul.
Ellen came out of their room.
“Is Mrs. Elliot in there or downstairs?” Starling asked, her voice coming from a completely lifeless chest.
Ellen nodded. “In here. Mr. Elliot is seeing to their luggage downstairs.”
Starling knocked on the door and entered. “I came to say goodbye,” she said to Mary’s back.
Mary turned. “Oh. Goodbye. It was an interesting experience to meet you.” She stared at Starling with raised eyebrows and an expression of cynical indifference on her face, reminding Starling of Alasdair when she’d first met him.
Starling insides dropped.
“Alasdair explained everything,” Mary said, her eyes hooded. She dropped her brush and comb into her traveling case. “I liked you very much. I certainly believed and trusted you. You fooled me completely, and that hurts. You can stop acting now. I know who and what you are. You’ve been sleeping with my brother for money and I’m afraid I just don’t associate with your type of woman.”
Starling’s face turned to marble. She’d not expected such a base betrayal from Alasdair. To be described as nothing more than a whore after their night of lovemaking seemed so needlessly cruel that for some moments she could only stand despairing and alone.
With no dignity whatsoever, she turned and ran.
* * * *
Alasdair sat in his library for fifteen minutes, trying to clear the tangle that was his mind. Even now, he couldn’t believe what a fool he had been. He had continually misheard Starling’s words and continually misread her motives while at the same time he treated Lavender with a respect she hadn’t ever earned. With his head screwed back on the right way, he returned upstairs and knocked on Lavender’s door. When she didn’t answer, he entered.
For some moments he watched her sleeping, noting her perfect bone structure and her splendid coloring; then he sat on her bed. Her eyes opened. Cold blue couldn’t measure up to warm brown.
“What’s the time?” She sat up, automatically primping her hair with a gesture than showed she cared more about how she looked than why he would be in her bedroom before seven in the morning.
“Do you love me?”
She drew her delicate eyebrows together. “Of course. I’ve always loved you.”
“You let me think that I had taken your virginity all those years ago. Those sorts of lies seem more manipulative than loving.”
“If you’ve been talking to Derry—”
“He knows more than I do, does he? Tell me the truth, Lavender. Don’t I deserve it?”
She turned her face away. “Men never want the truth,” she said in a sulky voice. “They like to believe their own fantasies.”
“I haven’t passed judgment on anything you’ve done, and I still want to be your friend, but if you won’t take responsibility for your actions, I won’t feel obliged to help you.”
“What do you mean ‘help me’?”
He drew a breath. “Help you start a new life in Adelaide.”
“You said you’d take care of me.” Her mouth thinned.
“The best way to take care of you is to help you take care of yourself.”
“You’re trying to punish me because you caught me with Derry.”
He shook his head. “Did I act as if I cared?”
“Starling must be an exceptional bed partner,” she said, watching his face.
“She’s exactly the sort of wife I need.” Having at last admitted that, he focused on Starling’s qualities, uncolored now by thoughts of the profession she’d never pursued. Until that moment, he’d seen her only through lustful eyes. Until last night, he hadn’t realized how much he loved her. Now he knew, he could admit to her strength of character, independence, and quiet perception, attributes Lavender did not possess.
Lavender’s mouth drooped. Her eyes filled with tears. “What you can see in a woman who can’t spell, bites her nails, dresses like a schoolteacher, and trains the servants to—”
“She’s soft and warm, and she’s incapable of hurting anyone. The servants act out of loyalty to her. She’s inspired that same loyalty in me. I wish you could see her the way I do.”
“No one’s ever said I’m warm and soft.” Two perfect tears overflowed from Lavender’s eyes. “They stare at me because I’m beautiful, and they take me to bed as a prize, but they go back to their warm and soft women. You’re the same. You don’t care for me. If you’d known I wasn’t a virgin when we first met, you would have used me and left me all the sooner.”
“I probably always knew. As you said, men like their own fantasies. We both made a mistake, but I think our ages excused us. You can make a new start as I did.”
Lavender blotted her eyes. Somehow she stopped her tears while she considered him. “I don’t understand love. Men have always loved me more than I love them. I’ve been wondering if perhaps Hamilton… What’s so amusing?” she said accusingly.
He laughed. “I never realized how truly practical you are. And tough, much tougher than I thought. You’ll manage very well without too much of my help.” He patted her hand, relieved to know that she loved him no more than he loved her, and he left to bid farewell to Mary.
As he walked through the doorway, he saw Ellen with her cleaning bucket and rags.
“You left Mrs. Frost’s door open.” She made a line of her lips. “No one needs to tell Mrs. Seymour that you’ve been in Mrs. Frost’s bedroom because she would have heard you both. You’ll be luckier than you deserve if she didn’t hear you carrying on.”
“I wasn’t carrying on,” Alasdair said indignantly. “I was saying goodbye.”
“Too bad you couldn’t say goodbye to your sister. She’s gone.” With a hard smile, Ellen stalked into the Elliot’s room to begin cleaning.
Alasdair stood, fists on his hips, then he shrugged. He could explain the situation to his sister by letter. Starling wouldn’t take his behavior amiss. He’d told her he meant to speak with Lavender. He strolled back to his own room, but Starling was nowhere to be seen. Her gold wedding ring sat on the tallboy. For a moment, he stood, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he swore aloud. If she’d been near Lavender’s room, she would have seen Mary. If she had... He had told Mary last
night that Starling was a whore.
His head thudding, he ripped open the chest where Starling’s gowns were stored. Nothing other than the blue evening gown remained, her wedding present from Mary. She had taken her dressing set, the holdall and every last piece of brown paper wrapping, all of which she had earned, more than earned. Thinking she might have moved these articles to the spare room she had used for a few nights, he checked there, too. Nothing; not a hair. Apparently, she’d simply had enough of his inability to express a sane thought.
Trying not to look frantic, he searched the house and the grounds and realized that during the two weeks he had known her, he had discovered not a thing about her. He didn’t know her friends, her interests, where she might go, or what she planned to do with the money.
Finally, he went back to his bedroom and sat on his bed, staring at the dent in the pillow where her head had rested. He raised his gaze to the restless gray sky outside, his chest empty.
With her, she had taken one last, clearly useless article. His aching heart.
Chapter 21
After pondering for some thirty minutes in his library, head in his palms, Alasdair rose to his feet and ordered his carriage. He scarcely noticed the sway of his journey to the emporium, and he barely remembered calling Mr. Porter, the manager of the fabric department, into his office. However, he heard the small man with dainty white hands say he wished Miss Smith hadn’t walked out two weeks ago. Customers had returned, wanting her advice.
The man hadn’t realized the unassuming woman would be so determinedly remembered. He only recalled her as quick and neat, and until she’d gone, he hadn’t thought he might miss her. “Well, not her, because I barely spoke to her, but she worked harder than her replacement does. She never thought about walking past an untidy roll without fixing it.”
Alasdair found the same when he spoke to each of the other nine shopgirls who had known her in the boardinghouse. She’d been quiet, self-contained, neat, and polite, and, without being superior, she was thought of as a lady.
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