The Secret Mistress

Chapter 20

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Angeline asked after they had listened for a few moments.

Edward assumed the question was rhetorical since it would have been obvious even to an imbecile what they had just heard, but she was waiting for his answer, all wide-eyed and pale-faced.

“It was a carriage leaving the inn,” he said. “Windrow’s, no doubt. He is taking Eunice and probably her maid to Norton Park to dine with Lady Windrow.”

“Without waiting for us?” Her dark eyes grew larger, if that were possible.

“I daresay,” he said, “they hope to dine before midnight and fear that that hope may be dashed if they wait. I daresay they think you and I have a few things to work out between us. And no doubt Windrow does not particularly relish the thought of sharing carriage space with me so soon after I hit him. The fact that he did not hit back or accept my invitation to step outside indicated, of course, that he was a party to Eunice’s scheme—even perhaps the instigator. And Eunice will have seen the success of her plan, even though she was alarmed at the flaring of violence, and will have considered it fitting—or perhaps she has been persuaded to consider it fitting—to leave us alone to settle what is between us.”

“Miss Goddard’s scheme,” she said, “was that I leave that letter for you, so that you would come hurrying after us to rescue her from Lord Windrow’s clutches. Yet you have just allowed him to drive off with her.”

“I would like to read that letter sometime,” he said. “I suppose it is a marvel of Gothic literature. But before I came to rescue you, it was a letter from Eunice that I read. It was restrained in tone but really rather clever and quite effective. As you see, here I am.”

And he was beginning to feel just a little angry, in a different way than he had been feeling until a few minutes ago. He was everyone’s puppet, it seemed, and he had been dancing to everyone’s tune. Well, to Eunice’s, anyway, and that infernal Windrow’s. Lady Angeline’s was less effective.

“What did you say?” She frowned suddenly.

“When?”

“Just before the carriage left,” she said.

“It is you I love,” he repeated, gazing steadily into her eyes.

And it is you I could shake until your teeth rattle. But he did not say those words aloud. Actually it was all part of the same feeling. She fascinated him and annoyed him. She exhilarated him and infuriated him. He adored her and could cheerfully throttle her, even if only very figuratively speaking. Theirs would not be a match made in heaven. There would be nothing placidly comfortable about their lifelong relationship. But one thing was certain. He knew he was alive when he was with her, whatever the devil that meant.

Whatever the devil it did mean, it made all the difference.

And he was not even sure what that meant.

“I love you,” he added since she was uncharacteristically mute.

Her eyes seemed to fill her face. And they were swimming in unshed tears.

“You do not.” Her voice was accusing. “You do not believe in love.”

“If I ever said anything so asinine,” he said, “I must have been lying. I love my mother and my sisters and my grandmother and my nieces and nephews. I even love my grandfather. And I love you—in an entirely different way. I am going to ask you again to marry me. I’ll do it when we are back at Hallings and when the time seems right. And this time I am not going to go down on one knee. Whoever started that ridiculous tradition ought to be horsewhipped, except that I suppose he is long dead.”

She was smiling through her tears.

“I will not demand it of you,” she said. “But how do you know I will say yes?”

He wagged one finger pendulum fashion before her face.

“No more games,” he said. “There have been enough games to last us both a lifetime, Angeline. They are at an end. I am going to offer you marriage because I love you and would be unable to live a happy, fulfilled life without you. And you are going to marry me because you love me.”

A wave of uncertainty washed over him, but he mentally shook it off. It was time to take a stand. He had the feeling he would be doing it for the rest of his life—except when she was bowling him over with some madness or he was simply indulging her because he had no desire whatsoever to take a stand.

Devil take it, life was going to be complicated. He was never going to know whether he stood on his feet or on his head.

“You are very sure of yourself,” she said.

“I am.” He clasped his hands behind his back and resisted the foolish urge to cross his fingers.

The private parlor, indeed the whole inn, was suddenly very quiet. Somewhere in the distance a clock ticked loudly.

“We had better follow Miss Goddard and Lord Windrow in your carriage,” she said. “Perhaps we can catch up to them before they reach Norton, and our traveling alone together will not appear too, too improper.”

“I do not have a carriage with me,” he said. “I rode here.”

“Oh.” She bit her bottom lip. “Whatever are we going to do, then?”

He had known what they were going to do the moment he heard Windrow’s carriage drive away. He had known it with a ruthless certainty, just as he knew that Windrow would stop here for them in the morning. He would not wish to arrive back at Hallings alone with Eunice, after all, even if she did have a maid with her. Good Lord, he might feel obliged to offer for her, and that would be a disaster of catastrophic proportions for Windrow—not to mention Eunice.

“We are going to stay here,” he said.

Her eyes widened again. “Tresham would kill me,” she said. “So would Ferdie. Do you suppose there are two free rooms?”

He guessed there were as many free rooms as there were rooms at the inn, but it was an academic point.

“I have no doubt there is one free room,” he said, “which we will take. As Mr. and Mrs. Ailsbury. Have a seat and I will go and see to it.”

Her lips parted and color flooded her cheeks. Her mouth formed an O, but no sound came out.

He leaned an inch or two closer to her and searched her eyes with his own.

“The time for games is over, Angeline,” he said again. “And the time for misunderstandings. It is time to love.”

But not yet in that way, surely. Such a thing would have been unthinkable to him just a week ago. Even yesterday. Even an hour ago. What was he thinking? But he did not particularly want to know. He had spent his life thinking, reasoning, figuring out what was the right and proper thing to do, working out how not to hurt those he loved and those in his care. He had loved. All his life. And yet he had never … loved.

Yes, sometimes thought was pointless. For some things were beyond thought or at least beyond logic.

Love had always been a duty, even if the love had been genuine.

Love had never been … freedom.

Freedom to ruin an innocent young lady?

Freedom to love her.

“Tell me you love me,” he said.

“I love you,” she told him.

“Tell me you will stay here with me,” he said. “Tell me you want to. Or tell me not and I will contrive something. There is probably some carriage or gig here I can hire to take you to Norton.”

So much for forceful, masterful behavior. So much for taking a stand.

“I will stay,” she said. “I will go to the ends of the earth with you if you ask it of me. I will—” She smiled and bit her lip. “You do not want a speech, do you?”

“Are you quite sure?” he murmured.

She gazed into his eyes and nodded—which was speech enough.

IT WAS A surprisingly large chamber for such an insignificant-looking inn. It was square and neat and light and airy. There were wooden beams overhead, some of them sloping with the shape of the roof down over the head of the bed, which had no canopy. The window looked out on fields and meadows and was framed by pretty, flower-patterned white curtains.

The bed was covered with a counterpane that matched the curtains. There was an upright chair on either side of the bed. There was a washstand with bowl and jug, and a large wooden dresser with a square mirror attached to it.

Angeline could see her image in the mirror even though she was standing some distance from it. She could see her hat, a straw wide-brimmed bonnet trimmed with a whole meadow of flowers of all descriptions and colors. It was definitely her favorite—well, one of her favorites, anyway. It was tied beneath her chin with bright green silk ribbons. She pulled the ribbons loose and removed the hat. She hooked it over the uprights of one of the chairs.

Then she felt naked. An unfortunate thought.

Lord Heyward had crossed the room and was opening the window as wide as it would go and then closing the curtains over it. They flapped gently in the breeze. They did not dim the light but only made it softer, somehow more rosy-hued. The air smelled enticingly of country and clover and horse. Somewhere close to the inn a horse whinnied. Much farther away a dog barked. A whole choir of birds was singing.

Angeline’s heartbeat was thundering in her ears. She felt slightly sick with fear and excitement.

He was looking at her from over by the window.

“Would you like to dine first?” he asked.

First?

“I just had tea,” she said.

He had not, of course. Perhaps he was hungry. Probably he was hungry. He was coming toward her across the room, skirting around the end of the bed as he did so. He stopped in front of her, framed her face with his hands, pushing his fingers into her hair as he did so, and kissed her. She set her hands on either side of his waist beneath his coat.

It had sounded a little silly when she had said it downstairs earlier, but she had meant it. She still meant it. She would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked it of her. And he loved her, not Miss Goddard.

He loved her. He would be unable to live a happy life without her.

He had lifted his head and was gazing into her eyes. And his fingers, she realized, were working the pins free of her hair. She slid her hands up under the silk of his waistcoat and spread her fingers over his back on top of his shirt. He was very warm. Her hair fell suddenly over his hands, about her shoulders, down her back.

“Edward,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

She had never spoken his name before, even in her mind. It seemed not quite to belong to him. Except that it belonged to her lover. Her soon-to-be lover. She swallowed.

He lowered his head again to kiss her just beneath one earlobe. His tongue flicked over a tender spot she had not known was there, and a surge of something raw, almost painful, darted down through her body and along her inner thighs to weaken her knees. Her toes curled inside her shoes.

His hands were working at the back of her dress, opening the buttons there. She slid her hands free as his mouth moved beneath her chin and down along her throat, and she moved them to undo the buttons of his waistcoat.

She spread her hands over his chest as her dress parted down the back and his hands crossed inside it to pull her against him. He lifted his head and kissed her mouth again, his own open and hot and demanding, his tongue pressing inside and caressing surfaces until that raw feeling returned and multiplied. Her hands were trapped between them.

And then he raised his head again and looked at her with an intense look in his eyes that she had not seen before—something heavy, something … passionate. She dropped her arms to her sides, and he drew her dress off her shoulders and down her arms until it fell about her feet, leaving her clad only in her flimsy undergarments and silk stockings and shoes.

He turned to the bed and drew back the counterpane and the top sheet before drawing off her undergarments.

“Sit down on the edge of the bed,” he said then, and she sat after kicking off her shoes.

He kneeled down in front of her, took one of her feet to set on his thigh, and drew off her stocking before moving to the other foot.

He was in no hurry. It was almost as if he savored every moment. But how could he? Angeline hummed with … something. Something terribly needy. But of course, she was naked—entirely so once her stockings were gone—and he was not.

She was naked in a room alone with a man in broad daylight.

She fairly pulsed with … whatever it was.

But really there was no hurry. It is time to love, he had said downstairs. And time was not always just one second long or even one minute or one hour. Those were artificial divisions, imposed by humankind. Time was infinite. And it was time to love.

“Lie down,” he said, but she got to her feet instead and reached for his coat. One hand blocked her. “No.”

“Yes,” she said, and his hand fell away.

She undressed him slowly and terribly inexpertly. His coat, she decided before it was off, must surely have been sewn onto him. It was no wonder valets were often hefty-looking men. His waistcoat, by contrast, its buttons already undone, slid off over his shirt and fell to the floor with no trouble at all. She tugged his shirt free of his breeches, and he lifted his arms while she pulled it off over his head.

She got distracted then. So did he, she suspected. For he was taller than she, and she had to lean into him in order to get the shirt off his arms—he did not lower them or lean forward to make her task easier, of course—and her breasts pressed against his chest and the shock of it, naked flesh to naked flesh, had her closing her eyes and drawing a sharp breath and staying just where she was, her own arms raised along his, his shirt bunched above them like a limp flag.

Their eyes met, and then their lips met, and then his shirt went fluttering over her head and his arms came about her and hers about him and she almost swooned at the sheer masculinity of him. She could smell his cologne and something else—him. Perhaps it was sweat, but who would have thought that sweat could smell so gloriously enticing?

“You are still half clothed,” she said against his mouth.

“I am,” he agreed.

She slid her hands to his waist and fumbled with the buttons there until she had them all undone.

And then terror, embarrassment, maidenly modesty, sheer uncontainable excitement, some instinct for self-preservation and very survival—something silly anyway—took over and paralyzed her, and she could go no further.

She wormed away from him and lay down on the bed, her head on one of the pillows. She did not draw up the covers even though the air from the window felt suddenly cool. She shivered, though somehow not from cold, and smiled at him—and watched as he pulled off his boots and his stockings, his breeches and his drawers.

And then he was as naked as she and a hot desert blast had replaced the cool breeze coming through the window.

Oh, goodness. Oh, goodness, oh, goodness.

She had seen her brothers when they were boys. They had all gone swimming and diving together, usually in forbidden deep waters, but while she had always kept her shift on, they had never deemed it necessary to keep their drawers on in front of a mere sister.

She had thought she knew what to expect.

But boys grew into men, and sometimes men felt … passionate.

And, oh, goodness.

Had her mind ever described him—even if approvingly—as an ordinary man?

He was all solid malehood, beautifully proportioned, well muscled in the places he ought to be muscled, lean elsewhere, and … well, modesty prevented her from adding anything else to the mental review of his attributes.

His eyes were roaming over her too, she realized.

“I am too tall,” she said.

“I know,” he said, “that at one time you were a beanpole and were described as such.”

“Yes,” she said. “I was the despair of my mother, whose height I overtook when I was twelve. And at that time I had no shape whatsoever, unless an arrow has shape.”

“Angeline,” he said, and there was something about his voice—for one thing, it was deeper than usual, huskier, “you are no longer a beanpole.”

She knew that. But his words implied more. His eyes implied more. His voice did. And suddenly and gloriously she knew that she was beautiful, that she had grown into this tall, dark bloom that was herself, and that she was perfect. Perfectly who she was and who she was meant to be. And perfectly loved by Edward Ailsbury, Earl of Heyward.

She blinked several times and swallowed, and reached up her arms for him.

“It is time for love,” she said, and realized that she had spoken aloud.

“Yes,” he said and came down onto the bed close beside her and raised himself on one elbow to lean over her.

Terror returned for a moment, but it soon vanished. For of course, she had been right a little while ago. Time was infinite. There was no hurry. Loving for now was more important than having loved. His mouth moved over hers and over her, and his hands moved and his fingers and his legs. And she was being loved slowly and tenderly and maddeningly until all terror was forgotten and only the need, the loving, remained.

She knew nothing. And that was an understatement. Her mother had told her nothing and Miss Pratt certainly had not—probably because she knew nothing herself. Cousin Rosalie had told her nothing. Why should she? Angeline had rejected every marriage proposal she had had, and Rosalie certainly could not have foreseen this.

And yet knowledge, experience, really did not matter at all, she discovered during the minutes or hours or infinity that passed after they had lain down together. Her hands, her mouth roamed where they would, instinct and need and his own deep inhalations and muffled exclamations leading her on. Embarrassment and maidenly modesty fled with the terror, and she touched him everywhere, even—eventually—there.

He gasped and she closed her hand about him. He was long and thick and rock hard, and soon he was going to be right inside her—she had not spent her life in and out of farmyards without learning a thing or two. No, not rock hard, for he was warm and pulsing and alive.

“Angeline,” he said, and his hand came between her thighs and parted folds and probed the most private, secret parts of herself. She could both feel and hear wetness but was embarrassed only fleetingly. It felt right and so it must be right. His hand felt almost cool against her heat.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

And one of his arms came about her and under her and turned her fully onto her back, and he came over her and lowered his weight on top of her while his other hand came beneath her too. And he lifted her, tilted her as his knees came between her thighs and pressed them wide apart. She felt him there, felt panic, quelled it, and he was pressing inward with a slow, steady thrust until she felt stretched to the limit and felt a return of the panic. He paused for a moment and then thrust hard and deep.

There was a moment when pain was so sharp it was unbearable, and then, before she could either cry out or squirm away from him, it was gone, leaving behind only an almost pleasurable soreness, and he was deep, deep in her. She belonged to him, he belonged to her. And she ached and ached.

She opened her eyes. He had raised himself on his elbows and was gazing into her eyes.

“I am sorry,” he whispered.

“I am not.” She smiled.

She had never averted her eyes in the farmyard or out in the meadows, even though any modest lady would certainly have looked sharply away and suffered heart palpitations. Even so, she had not really expected what followed. When she had watched, she had seen the action only from the outside, with none of the physical sensations that went with the action. Now she felt it from the inside, and the sensations were so startlingly different from anything in her experience before them that she could only feel them and not even try to convert them into language in her mind.

There was no hurry. There was absolutely no hurry. She did not know how long it lasted in minutes. But it lasted a long, long time while he worked her with steady, deep, hard rhythm, a rhythm accentuated by the wet suction of their coupling, and pleasure hummed through her and only gradually built to something more than pleasure but not quite pain. Even the soreness was not quite painful.

Until it all was. And until his movements told her that he felt it too. His hands went beneath her once more, his full weight came down on her, and the rhythm changed as he worked with greater urgency. And something broke in her just when she felt she could stand it no longer, and at the same moment he held rigid and deep in her and made a sound deep in his throat. And she felt a hot flow inside and he relaxed down onto her and she relaxed beneath him, and for an indeterminate time the world went away and yet floated hazily somewhere above her consciousness. She could hear the curtains fluttering and birds singing.

Even infinity had an end.

They had loved. And somehow having loved was quite as beautiful as loving. For of course there was no real end to it.

Infinity might have an end, but love did not.