I forgot who I was, where I was. My body arched of its own volition, so violent was the white-hot explosion that shook me through. I cried out, not knowing such intense feeling existed before this.
He came back up the bed to me. I reached for him blindly, and he entered me again, the sum of every part of me, all I could think of, all I wanted. He pushed me to the heights of pleasure, relentlessly drove me until I cried out over and over, losing all words except his name. He was all I wanted to be, all I wanted to have. He called out to me when he climaxed, accepting all I was giving to him.
Richard took his weight off me, but came back at once to take me closely into his arms. I breathed deeply, recovering, the scent of him surrounding me. I felt completely safe.
“What was that?” I still wasn’t sure how he’d taken me so far out of my world.
He kissed the top of my head. “That, my sweet, was me, inadequately trying to show you how much I love you.”
“It was wonderful.” I couldn’t believe the intensity of it.
He laughed, turned my face up to his with one hand, and kissed me in a gentle salute. “I love you. You’re a constant delight.”
“You’re a constant surprise.”
I felt the closeness; our hearts beat next to each other in time. I could have stayed there forever. When he released me I felt the loss keenly. I watched him throw the covers back and go to search amongst the discarded clothes on the floor.
I lazily watched him find his coat, and feel in the pocket. He brought out a small box, his watch and a piece of paper. He sat on the edge of the bed and read it. Then he handed it to me. “That should be good news. It was put into my pocket earlier, when I was jostled in the street.” So that was why he hadn’t made any fuss. It read:
Mr. Cawnton has received Mr. Thompson’s account of the incident last Sunday. He accepts his explanation and assures him no further action will be taken, but warns him not to meddle in what does not concern him.
I was still afraid for him. I knew what these people were capable of. I handed back the note. “Who’s Mr. Thompson?”
“Me.” He tossed the paper on the nightstand. He lifted the quilt and slipped back into bed beside me. “Though most people think it’s Carier. I hope these people do, and I’m supposed to be merely the messenger.” He stopped when he saw the expression on my face. Secrets. “Yes, I know, it’s a secret and I will tell you. But it would take longer than the time we have at our disposal now. Will you wait? I’ll tell you when I can, I promise, but it’s a long story.”
I smiled, relaxed back into his arms. “That will do. I’m sorry I asked you to share everything. I had no right.”
His lips touched my forehead, and when I looked up he kissed my lips. “You’re wrong. I’ve asked you to put your life into my care, and you deserve to know it all. I don’t want anything between us that might drive us apart. I will tell you everything, everything you ask, everything I can remember.”
“Thank you. I don’t deserve you.”
“Wrong again.” His arms were warm. I snuggled closer. “I’ve done some things I’m deeply ashamed of. I’m sure you haven’t.” He played his fingers in my hair. “All the women I’ve hurt, all the husbands I’ve wronged, I can’t do anything to help them, but I can, through you, cause no more hurt. Only love.”
“So I’m your salvation?”
“You’re everything.” Our lips met in a kiss that wasn’t, for a change, charged with lust, but pure love, so sweet I almost wept with happiness. “And I have something else for you.”
He reached back to the nightstand where he’d deposited the box. “You’re out of mourning now, and it took some time to find this, or I would have given it you before. Wear this for me?”
I opened the box and my mouth dropped. It was my betrothal ring. He had chosen a ruby for me, enhanced by diamonds around the edge, but I had rarely seen a stone so full of life, so rich in colour. I remembered to close my mouth.
“It took me a while to find what I had in mind,” he said, taking the ring out of the box. “Here, try it on.” He lifted my hand and slipped the ring on my finger, then studied the effect critically. “If you don’t like it, it can be changed, but I think it suits you.”
I turned my hand to catch the rays of the sun to make it glint. “Thank you,” I managed eventually.
“It’s your right.” He tilted my head up to him, and kissed me, long and slow, then released me with a sigh. “But now, my love, if I’m to make any kind of lady’s maid, we have to make a move.” He flung the quilt back, then turned around and came back to take me in his arms again. “How can I wait three more weeks?”
“How can I?” I smiled back at him and stretched my arms over my head, luxuriating in his loving gaze upon my body. “You don’t have to wait. One more time, to tide us over?”
Chapter Nine
WE GOT HOME JUST IN time to dress for dinner, so I hurried upstairs and rushed into my clothes. Lizzie came into my room as the maid left it, and sat on the bed. There was no trace of a limp. “How’s your foot?” I asked.
She grinned. “You know how it is.”
I scrambled into my gown and began to hook it on to my stomacher. “Richard says if you bind it, you’ll remember which one it is you’re supposed to limp on.”
“I’m obliged to him but Mr. Kerre already suggested that on the way home. I’m sure it will be perfectly all right tomorrow.”
“I’m sure it will.” I finished hooking the gown and went to the dressing table to find my hairbrush. She was still smiling, unashamed by her subterfuge. “Lizzie, how could you?”
“What?” Her innocent blue gaze met my more cynical expression. “Didn’t you want some time alone with him?”
“It’s not that, and indeed I’m grateful to you—” more than I could say, “—but it was so blatantly done!”
“Well, and how else was it to be done? I tired of coughing and rattling the handle of the door every time I went into a room. It’s obvious to everyone here you needed some time alone together. You can hardly keep your hands off each other.” She thought, tracing a pattern on the quilt with the tip of her finger. She looked up again, meeting my eyes shyly. “What’s it like?”
I didn’t pretend to misunderstand her, but my puritan heart was shocked she should think to ask. “Lizzie, how can you ask me that?”
She drew a delighted breath and a smiled broadly. “So you did it. I felt sure you wouldn’t stop at kissing. Tell me, Rose, please, it might be years before I find out for myself.”
She leaned forward, entreating me to tell her, looking alluring without even making the effort. I snorted. “I shouldn’t think so for a minute. You’ll find out soon enough. Lizzie. I have no intention of telling you anything.” I was scandalised by her request, but as well, I wanted to keep the events of the day to myself, something to keep me warm at night. There were no words to describe the joy I’d felt that afternoon, and nothing would make me share it with anyone else.
Lizzie sat up, sniffed in an unladylike way and folded her arms. “Well it’s the least you can do.”
“No. But I will tell you something else.” In truth, I felt I owed her something for the afternoon, and felt confident enough in her discretion to share my secret.
“All right.” She still wasn’t placated, but she folded her hands on her lap and prepared to listen.
“It wasn’t the first time,” I confessed, and I dropped my eyelids momentarily.
“What?” The heat rushed up to her face in a pretty rosy flush.
I smiled in triumph. “I became his mistress last October. That was the only time, before this afternoon.”
“Dear God.”
I had succeeded in shocking her, and my sister wasn’t easily shocked. She couldn’t speak for a while, and I was content to watch her in silence. Her changes of expression, from disbelief to horror ended in a gabble of words. “But you didn’t know what he was like then, his reputation was fearsome. And he was betrothed to s
omeone else.”
“I was sure of him from the first day.” As I said it, I realised somewhere inside me it was true. God knows I shouldn’t have been so sure, but my naïveté had prevented me shunning what my heart felt, and I had won my heart’s desire. Otherwise he might have left me, gone through with the disastrous marriage to Miss Cartwright and made both of us miserable.
I watched Lizzie, who now searched for words, stunned by what I had just told her. “You were fortunate not to quicken. How could you take such a risk?”
“I never thought of the risk. He did, immediately afterwards and he asked me to tell him the minute I knew.”
“You were lucky.”
I loved the new experience of having my gossip-loving younger sister lecturing me. “I know. I’m lucky in more ways than you know. I hope you have such good fortune.”
She chuckled and stretched her pretty feet out before her. “Oh, I want someone of rank with lots of money and a pleasant personality, but if you’d involved us in that kind of scandal, what chance would there have been for me?”
“You could have survived it. And we would have made it possible for you to distance yourselves from us. But by that time Richard and I had committed ourselves to each other.
I stood and, linking arms with my sister, we went downstairs together to dinner.
When I saw Richard I blushed, and he laughed at me.
“Every time I look at you until I see you at the altar, I’ll remember this afternoon,” he murmured, leading me into the dining room.
Richard behaved in exactly the same way towards me as he had always done, and I took my cue from him. At first, I was shy in his presence, and sure everyone knew, or could see the difference in me. But I saw no change in anyone’s behaviour and I felt easier as time went by.
The relaxed atmosphere persisted, as though our tension had pervaded the whole house before, and now had dissipated, only, I feared, to begin to rise again. Lust wasn’t what I felt for Richard, but if I was totally honest with myself, it was part of it. I found him immensely attractive, and I knew I wasn’t alone in that. His experience was diverse and plentiful before I had met him.
I looked forward to my wedding, and even more, what would come afterwards.
THAT FRIDAY WE WERE due to go to the Assembly Rooms. Martha had asked the Skerrits to dine, and then we would all go to Exeter together. My brother Ian, as usual, cried off, feigning illness. He had suffered a lot in childhood but he had grown out of most of the illnesses that had made him a sickly child. Now he enjoyed all the benefits of the reputation and none of the inconveniences, using the excuse to avoid anything he didn’t want to face. He preferred the company of his books to other people.
I dressed with care. I’d had a new gown made for when I came out of mourning, pink silk with flounces, fly braid and ruched trims, lightly embroidered with little flowers in silver around the hem and front opening, worn with one of the new smaller hoops. When I was dressed, I stood in front of the large mirror in my room and for once, smiled at what I saw. I looked frivolous, something I hadn’t been able to achieve for months. Mourning precluded that. The pearls Richard had given me were the finest jewellery I possessed, so I put them on.
When I went downstairs to the drawing room, Richard complimented me, before his attention went to my necklace, and he frowned.
“Lovely though they are, I’m not sure the pearls are set off by that gown. You look beautiful, as always, but don’t you think this would be better?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gervase watching me closely, and I wondered what Richard was about.
Richard drew a glittering string out of his pocket. Diamonds, a delicately worked necklace of flowers and foliage entwined together in a fiery chain. Everyone in the room including me drew a breath as the chain twisted in his hand, flashing dazzling sparks in the candlelight.
He came towards me, smiling. “Forgive the subterfuge. My mother had them when she was first married, and now they’re yours. I sent to Derbyshire for them last week, when the trip to the Assembly Rooms was first planned.”
I couldn’t speak. I could see the mirror above the fireplace from where I stood, and silently I looked into it while he unclasped the pearls and fastened the diamond necklace about my neck instead. The jewels flashed every time I breathed.
“It’s part of a set.” He handed me a box, which had lain unnoticed on a side table. Inside, on a bed of blue velvet, lay matching earrings, a bracelet and several brooches to fasten to my stomacher. I touched them wonderingly with one finger, watching them glitter, then Richard spoke and I looked at him instead.
He gazed at me as though we were the only people in that room, openly loving, openly proud “I wish the whole of the Assembly tonight to know you are the future Countess of Southwood. And my chosen bride.”
He’d known what this meant to me, to show me as his in that place. I groped in my mind for the words to show him how I felt, but couldn’t find any.
Then Tom laughed, and broke the spell. “I’ve never known you lost for words before, Rose.”
The rest of the room burst with expressions of delight, admiration and amazement. Richard stepped back, allowing Lizzie and Georgiana to come forward to examine my new jewels.
I hooked the earrings in the piercings in my ears. Although they were girandoles, three pendants from one central stone, they were light and easy to wear. The cold gold setting fell against my neck when I swung my head. Georgiana Skerrit took a deep breath of admiration while Lizzie pinned the brooches to my stomacher, and then made me sit down while she fixed one in my hair. It was set en tremblant, so it quivered every time I moved my head, and sent flashes of light about the room.
I lent the pearls to Lizzie for the evening, which delighted her, and then I touched the necklace, still cold around my neck. “Thank you.”
Richard took my hand, and kissed it. “It’s your triumph tonight. Mine will come later, when I present you in town. They’ll all hate that I saw you first, and seized the prize.”
We had dinner, and then the carriages arrived at the door. Richard and I shared a carriage with Martha, James, Lizzie and Gervase. It was fortunate fashionable hoops had decreased in size recently, because there wouldn’t have been room for us all with the wide, oblong hoops of the previous decade, but as it was we had to overlap our skirts to fit in. The skirts of Richard’s rich, blue coat were full behind, pleated into two great jewelled buttons at the back, but were much easier to handle.
We drove to the Assembly rooms in high excitement, although I tried hard to calm my nerves. I wanted to look serene and happy, not as excited as an ingénue, and I’d managed to steady my breathing and smooth my excitement to some extent by the time we arrived.
When Richard handed me out of the carriage I looked with new eyes at the building, the scene of so many of my disappointments and humiliations. As usual on an Assembly night, it glowed with light in the growing dusk, and some local people were gathered around, curious to see the great and the not-so-good (but rich) of the county as they arrived.
We moved into the light of the flaming torches set outside the front door, and the crowd drew its collective breath. It was sweet to hear. I put my hand on Richard’s arm and we passed inside, to be greeted by the master of ceremonies.
Chapter Ten
THE MASTER OF CEREMONIES had never bowed so low to me before. I adored it, the man who used to favour me with a polite but brief nod, now giving me all his attention. I accepted his congratulations with a gracious inclination of my head, and slowly ascended the stairs, leaning on Richard’s arm. Richard took his most intimidating form; stunningly adorned in gleaming blue satin, exquisite French lace foaming over the backs of his elegantly disposed hands and at his neck. Diamonds glittered at his throat and his knee, and he wore an expression of hauteur on his handsome face, the fashionable society appearance I should try to cultivate. But I knew him now, and he didn’t intimidate me.
James and Martha walked in front
of us. Martha showed to advantage tonight. She had powdered her hair, while I had daringly left mine bare, but the effect gave her more gravitas somehow, more dignity. A smile hovered under my self-control as I allowed Richard to escort me into the ballroom. I wanted to enter it as grandly as he did.
When James and Martha were announced a hush fell in the room beyond, previously humming with voices. We couldn’t see them yet, but I knew every eye must be turned to the door. This was the first time James and Martha had attended the Assembly since they inherited the title of Lord and Lady Hareton. We gave them their pause at the door, and Martha smiled and nodded. She had taken her new fortune in her stride, although she hadn’t wished for it, and she deserved every second of this, her grand entrance.
Then it was our turn. When we were announced the few voices quietly murmuring paused. A sudden hush stilled the voices, almost like a gasp for air.
I crested the top of the stairs. The room blazed with light from the dozens of candles set in the great chandelier and the wall brackets. Every face turned up to us. I hoped Richard could feel my happiness and thought then how shy and fearful I might have been without him, how I might still have been passed over, despite my new status. After all, a spinster aunt was a spinster aunt, whether the sister of an earl or the distant cousin of one. But the affianced wife of a viscount, the heir to a great earldom, was a different prospect entirely. Especially on the arm of the handsomest man in the room, and wearing diamonds.
I nodded graciously to the gaggle of girls gathered together by the large fireplace; their usual spot. They were my erstwhile tormentors. I tasted my triumph, felt the sweetness of revenge in my mouth. Petty, I know, but at that moment it felt like the greatest public triumph of my life.
We descended the stairs into the room at a leisurely pace and I heard Lizzie’s and Gervase’s names called out.
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