“She was correct. You would not have been.”
She spoke only the belief she lived. The rules she knew. Yet he did not care for the knot of unsuitability that she assumed, even though his meeting with Thornridge had only proven she was right about that.
Her eyes watered and her smile trembled. “You cannot know how this touches me, Jonathan. You could have told me before. I would not have misunderstood, and thought it meant you had tried to buy me when I was a girl.” She half laughed and half cried, and her eyes glistened even while she smiled. “There I was, thinking Anthony was going to save me in the name of love, and the mysterious Mr. Albrighton tried to do so in the name of common decency. Is it any wonder that I love you, Jonathan?”
She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief, perhaps unaware of what she had just said. He was not. He watched her joy in this small revelation of something long ago. Dusk was gathering, but not around this bench.
He still was not appropriate for her. If she ever wanted a protector, she could do far better than him.
Unless she loved him. She would set aside her own best interests then. He could probably have all that Thornridge offered, and Celia too, just as Castleford had predicted.
“It is good to hear you say that you love me, Celia. It is good that we talk of that, and how love has become a part of what is between us.”
Her breath caught in midsniff. She looked at him almost fearfully, with a question in her eyes.
He had to smile, but her expression touched him with its sadness. “I am speaking of my love too, darling. You are more worthy of being loved than you will ever know.”
She truly wept then, with tears that made her eyes luminous a thousand times over.
He took her in his arms. “It is past time, I think, to decide which story it will be, Celia.”
Her head rested against him. She breathed deeply for control. “The one we have started, I think. My friends accept it, the ones who matter, that is. Once you talk to Thornridge, once he accepts how it must be with you, it will also be the only story allowed. Only I don’t want any gifts, Jonathan. I don’t want it to be that sort of affair.”
“There is much wisdom in what you say. Only I am not accustomed to normal sorts of stories for myself. Nor are you, as you have proven.” He tilted her head back so he could kiss her lips. “I said I would not give you up easily. Not any part of what we share. I will never risk losing this love you now say you have for me. I think that we should marry, Celia, so I am sure you are mine forever.”
A lovely joy suffused her expression. Then the Celia who had been educated by Alessandra looked at him with love and kindness, but too much worldly realism. “Thank you for that, Jonathan. I am honored, and flattered, and I will never forget this moment. It cannot be, however. Once you convince your cousin to do the right thing, you will have to live a very normal sort of life. More normal than most, I should think.”
“I have already met with him. I have already weighed my choices. I do not propose on an impulse, Celia. I know what I gain, and what I may lose.”
She studied his eyes. “You mean it, don’t you? You are serious.”
“I am as serious as I have ever been.”
Another long gaze, full of cautious joy. Then the most beautiful expression softened her face, and the caution left her. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard.
She angled back to look up at the house’s windows, and the last fiery rays of the setting sun limned her side and profile with an orange red glow. With naughty glee in her eyes, she stood and climbed onto his lap, facing him with her bent legs flanking her hips.
“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me, then fill me, so this wonder and sweet astonishment that I feel does not break my heart from sheer happiness.”
He kissed her. She snuggled closer, then raised her skirt and petticoat. Within moments he was in her, bound to her, rocking in a slow rhythm toward ecstasy while her soft cries chanted her love and pulled him into her brilliance.
They went to the theater that night. Celia wore her mother’s ermine-trimmed mantlet over a restrained white dress decorated tastefully with lace. Jonathan hired a coach and called for her as if he did not live in the attic.
He always looked like a gentleman. There was never any question of his station, even though he officially did not have it. His bearing and confidence communicated the truth, she decided, as she sat across from him in the coach. Tonight, however, his normal informality was gone, and his crisply groomed appearance would stand up to any scrutiny.
The joy of the afternoon stayed with them both. They laughed and joked in the coach, and were still wearing their hearts on their sleeves when they arrived at the box. Jonathan made no pretense that he merely escorted a friend of the ladies, and the ladies noticed. Celia was glad that her secret was already out with them because she could not have hidden her love tonight if she had to.
Summerhays welcomed them warmly alongside his wife. Lord Hawkeswell appeared surprised by their arrival.
“He is not being especially discreet,” Audrianna said in her ear while they found their seats to watch the play.
No, he was not. Not in the way he looked at her, and not in the way he addressed her. Everything remained very proper but he did not hide the signs of intimacy that said they belonged together.
He sat beside her. No one in their party made any attempt to stop that. She noticed other eyes in boxes across the way turn in their direction. She saw people notice the two bastards in Summerhays’s box who had no business being there.
He is mad. Utterly mad. The voice spoke in her head while the play unfolded onstage, and the “he” in question sometimes looked at her with a smoldering, possessive attention that suggested he saw little of the histrionics down below. He sacrifices your future as well as his own. Better to be a wealthy mistress than an impoverished wife.
She recognized Alessandra’s voice. That ghost had tried to ruin her happiness while she prepared for tonight, but she had banished it. Now, in the theater, with the world that he challenged looking on, she could not escape Mama’s scold.
Not impoverished, she wanted to say back. He is not without devices or income. I will be a partner in The Rarest Blooms. We will not starve.
It is romantic and noble and good now, in the first excitement of a new passion. Ten years hence, when you both long for the comforts of life that he rejects, it will be too late to undo it if you marry. He gives up too much, and so do you.
A hand touched hers. Not Jonathan’s hand. Audrianna sat on the other side of her, and her white-gloved fingers entwined Celia’s own. She bent her head close.
“You look troubled now, Celia, and you were so happy when you arrived.”
Celia gazed across the theater. Heads still turned sometimes, to watch her. Audrianna’s attention followed in that direction.
“You may think they all know who you are, but I think most are just admiring your beauty,” she said.
“I think that unlikely.”
“That is because you have never understood just how beautiful you are. All the same, I wish Castleford had come the way he was supposed to. Our plan was to have him here. Then no one would have given more than passing notice to anyone else in the box. Alas, he sent word to Sebastian this morning that he had to depart London at once and could not attend.”
“It was probably just an excuse, when he learned about the rest of your party.”
Audrianna found that amusing. “He would never trouble himself to avoid you, Celia, and you are the only one he does not know. He is friends with all the gentlemen, and has shown a peculiar kindness to Verity and me.”
Her husband claimed Audrianna’s attention then, and she released Celia’s hand.
The little conversation had silenced the scolds. They interfered no more. Celia watched the play, never forgetting the exciting and handsome man by her side who was announcing his interest in her in such a public way. She also looked on her friends
with great affection, touched by their care for her.
This had all been arranged, she guessed. By Jonathan and Summerhays and maybe even the ladies. Her presence here, in this most respectable box owned by a marquess, had been a calculated step, so that Jonathan could show the world that he loved the woman known as Celia Pennifold, and did not care if an accident of birth had also made her Alessandra Northrope’s daughter.
Chapter Twenty-six
She grasped the windowsill for support. The first sign of sun peeked over the rooftops beyond the garden, giving dawn’s mist an ethereal beauty. Heavenly scents of renewal flowed over her on the refreshing breeze that cooled and teased her skin.
Jonathan’s hard strength curved over hers. His arm surrounded her from behind and supported, while his hand cupped her breast. His hold on her flank held her steady to his thrusts.
Pleasure inundated her. Transformed her. All of her senses heightened at once, so she observed more and felt more and heard the subtlest sounds. The trembles of fulfillment beckoned where they joined, then grew intense and spread until her entire being reached toward the pending moment of release with exquisite anticipation.
It broke in her with unbearable force and went on and on while he thrust harder, deeper, faster. The tremble of ecstasy was all through her, filling her, then outside of her too, into the mist and the light and the sounds, and into him as well, she was sure, until more than their bodies joined.
He pulled her to him and wrapped her in an embrace so complete that he bound her length to his. They floated together in an aftermath echoing with the beauty of this precious intimacy.
“The wagons will be coming soon,” she muttered when her feet finally felt the ground again and their breathing had calmed. “I must go and dress.”
He pressed a kiss to the crook of her neck and stayed there, as if he did not want to lose the scent of her. His hold loosened, finally. “I will help, so it does not take long.”
She went to her chamber and washed and dressed. Before she went down the stairs, she opened a door next to her own. The chamber within was hardly luxurious, but of good size, and much more convenient than that one in the attic.
She would move Jonathan down here. It was past time to make that change. He was not a tenant anymore, and would soon be the master of this house.
Pacing its length, she judged what other furniture it would need. In the midst of her contemplation, she heard Marian calling up the stairs for Jonathan, alerting him to callers.
Celia returned to her own room and looked out the open window to see two men tying their horses’ reins to a post. Their voices carried up the building to her.
“I only said he is too free in sending us on errands like footmen,” Hawkeswell said.
“He did not send us. He requested that we help.”
“He is being far too sly for me. If this is revealed to be some besotted game—”
“Give the devil his due, Hawkeswell. When he sets his mind to a task, he can be tenacious in seeing it through, for good or ill.”
Hawkeswell stepped to the door. “It is the ill that I fear.” He looked at the building, then up and down the street. “What is this place? Albrighton lives here?”
“According to my wife, yes. I should tell you that this is Miss Pennifold’s house.”
Hawkeswell’s head snapped around. “Is it indeed? If your wife knows, mine surely does too. Am I the only one who was not aware of this affair?”
“I expect so. Although I don’t know how you missed it. He looked like he wanted to devour her at the theater last week.” Summerhays raised his fist. The knock sounded down below. The two men’s crowns passed below her, into the house. Male voices exchanged greetings, then spoke more quietly.
Celia left her room, and descended the stairs. The conversation stopped when they heard her footfalls.
She stepped down, to where she could see them standing just inside the door, and they could see her. Hawkeswell looked like a man ill at ease with his mission. Summerhays appeared to have been placating the other two.
Jonathan looked angry. Furious. She had never seen him quite like this before.
He looked at her, then glared at Summerhays. She excused herself, and walked to the back of the house.
“Go back and tell him no.” Jonathan made no effort to lower his voice. She heard every word. “He should not have interfered. I did not ask him to.”
“He is not a man who thinks he requires permission for anything, let alone interferences,” Hawkeswell said. “I would be just as vexed as you are. I agree he went too far.”
“Whether he should have done it or not, it is done,” Summerhays said. “You should at least find out what he has learned.”
“I don’t give a damn what he has learned.”
“Well, you should,” Summerhays said. “For your future, and that of your children, you should.”
None of them spoke then. Celia set about moving the few plants still on the shelves to one side. A good deal of time ticked by. Perhaps they were whispering, so the household could not hear them. So she could not.
“I will admit that Summerhays has a point, Albrighton,” Hawkeswell said. “You can tell him to go to hell afterward, but you may as well hear him out.”
Another protracted silence, then boot steps came down the passageway. Jonathan entered the back sitting room and closed the door. He was still angry, but perhaps not as indignant as before.
“What is it?” she asked.
He sighed impatiently. “A man I know has sought some information on my behalf, without my permission. He now wants to share it. If I do not go to him, he may well come here someday when in his cups and make a scene.”
“An earl and the brother of a marquess serve as this man’s messengers? Would this man be Castleford? He is notorious for scenes and drunkenness, and you are friends.”
He laughed a little. “Friends. I suppose you could say we are friends, of a sort.”
“I do not know everything about the world, Jonathan, but I do know that if a duke has done something in the name of friendship, it would be foolish to be ungracious.” She left her plants and went to him. “What has this one done for you?”
He gazed down so thoughtfully. So gently. It frightened her. He looked at her much like a man might look at his beloved before leaving on a long journey.
“He sought information about my birth, Celia. He looked for the proof of whether I was a bastard or not.”
She needed a few moments to understand what he said. Then the fullness of the meaning shocked her.
“Did you know it was even possible that you were not?”
“My mother claimed the earl married her, but it could have been a tale told to make a young child feel better about his lot.”
Confused reactions jumbled in her. “Does he know she claimed this? Thornridge? Is that why he tried to—”
“Yes.”
He continued looking at her in that kind way. His gaze invited her to confide the foreboding growing thickly beneath her heart.
I am going to lose you. You are mad, but not that mad. No man will give up such as this, when it is handed to him as a gift of fate.
She smiled as brightly as she could. “This is wonderful, Jonathan. If he has learned something so important that he sends for you at this hour, I think that the best news waits for you.”
He did not disagree. A grip of anguish squeezed her heart with his silence.
“Come with me, Celia.”
She longed to, if only to be with him a little longer before everything changed. She would not be able to bear it, however. She could not listen with composure while a duke explained that the wrong man was known as Thornridge.
“I cannot. The wagons. Remember?”
“Of course.” He touched her face, and dipped to kiss her. “I will return soon. Probably in time to help as I promised.”
Then he was gone, his boots striding toward the men who waited, and toward his true destiny.
“What do you mean, His Grace is in bed?” Hawkeswell bit out the question so fiercely that the servant stepped back a pace in alarm.
“Just what I said, m’lord. He gave orders that he is not to be disturbed until noon.”
Summerhays checked his pocket watch. “Forty minutes.”
“The hell you say,” Hawkeswell snapped. “His messenger woke me at nine o’clock with the urgent demand that I collect you and Albrighton and attend him forthwith on this matter of critical interest to Parliament and the nation. I’ll be damned if—” He noticed the servant pacing back more, his ass aiming for the door. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere, m’lord! Does m’lord require something?”
“Reassurance. Please tell me that the duke is at least in bed alone, and that I am not being inconvenienced due to a hasty debauch.”
“I could not say, m’lord.”
Hawkeswell gave the man a good glare.
“I have not been in his apartment,” the man hastily added.
“Hawkeswell,” Summerhays chided.
“Go up and tell his valet to immediately inform the duke that the Earl of Hawkeswell is here, on their matter of mutual urgency.” Hawkeswell gestured the servant away. He turned to Summerhays after the door closed on the pleasant, airy room off the drawing room where they waited. “It would be just like him, and you know it. To send me riding all over town, and realize it left him a few hours to slip in a quick one.”
“As it were,” Jonathan said.
Hawkeswell pivoted in his direction. “Damnation, he made a joke, Summerhays. It was even a little bawdy. You are feeling better, Albrighton? Not so angry anymore?”
“Not so angry.”
Sinful in Satin Page 28
