It felt like gentle fingers sliding down her body. She looked down at herself, her face burning hot. She swallowed. She should not. She really should not. But of course she would. She stepped across to the other side of the room, where there was a full-length mirror.
She had always been embarrassed to look at herself naked. She never did so when she stepped out of the bathtub. She was not naked now, of course, but she could see herself clearly through the white lace. It clung to her breasts, half-covering them, narrow straps passing over her shoulders. It fell shimmering to the floor. Her hair, brushed loose down her back, looked very dark in contrast.
Rosamund swallowed again and turned sharply away. Two minutes later the nightgown was folded neatly in the trunk again, the flannel had been donned once again, the candles had been blown out, and Rosamund was in bed, the blankets drawn up about her ears.
She must not do that again.
It was a very naughty garment, she had told him at dinner, and he had agreed. He had chosen it with care, he had said. For how many minutes would his mistress have worn it? she wondered. And when he removed it, would it have been beneath the bedclothes or standing beside the bed? She really did not want to know the answer, she thought, pulling the blankets even higher.
What would it be like to be touched by Mr. Halliday? she found herself wondering a few moments later, totally unable to shut off her mind and address herself to sleep. To have those long, sensitive fingers on her shoulders and arms, in her hair? To be kissed by those well-formed lips? Held against that slim, firmly muscled body? Rosamund shivered even though the fire still burned cheerfully.
She had begun to wonder about younger men several years before, and had always ruthlessly suppressed the thoughts. She had been too young when she had gone to Bath, and too naive: she had never been beyond the neighborhood where she had grown up and to Brookfield, the Marquess of Gilmore’s home. She had been frightened by the attentions of young men. And she had still been missing her father even though he had been dead for seven years. She was unhappy with Dennis, not because he had ever treated her badly or ever given any indication that she was not welcome in his home, but because he was not her father and had tried to act as if he were.
She had wanted a father, one of the right age and appearance and demeanor. She had chosen Leonard to be her father. Oh, she had not consciously done so, of course. She had taken him as a husband. But she had realized some time after their marriage, when she had grown up a little, that that was what she had done. And he had been a good father to her: kind, indulgent, always willing to listen to her and advise her, always loving.
Of course, he had been a husband, too. They had had a real marriage. He had come to her every Tuesday and Friday nights, when her monthly cycle would allow, and occasionally on Sundays, too. She had not minded. She had never found what he did to her distasteful or repulsive. But she had always been embarrassed by it, even after seven years— he had been too ill in the last year to come to her at all.
It had always seemed like the only shared activity in which they were not together, although it had been the most intimate of all. She had always felt as if he were a million miles away from her in mind. He had always breathed very heavily, sometimes grunting, until he was finished with her. Sometimes, during the seventh year, it had taken him a very long time to be finished.
She had never minded because he was her husband and she knew she gave him pleasure. But she had always been embarrassed. It had not seemed right. It had seemed almost incestuous.
She had begun to wonder about younger men—slimmer men, more-hard-muscled men, more virile men. Men like Mr. Halliday. She pulled the blankets all the way over her head.
Oh, dear, she ought not have got out of Dennis’ carriage. What a very foolish and childish thing it was to have done. And what disastrous results it was having. She was stranded alone with a man who was supposed to be with his mistress. And she was having thoughts about him that were making her blush down to her toenails.
She hoped the snow would have stopped and the sun would be shining by morning.
The snow was falling thicker than ever the following morning.
“Lord love us,” Mrs. Reeves said as she served breakfast, “it’s like as if we have to get a whole winter’s worth of snow in two days, I was only saying to Reeves last week, I was, that it looked as if we weren’t going to get any this winter, after all. And now look at it.”
Lord Wetherby had spent a great deal of time looking at it from the window of his bedchamber that morning. It was impossible to tell where the driveway and the road were.
“It’s a good thing you was planning to stay a week, sir,” Mrs. Reeves added. “I don’t know as how you would be able to get away even if you wanted.”
The earl smiled at Rosamund when they were alone. “Are you still worried about your brother?” he asked. “Don’t be. There were a coachman and a footman traveling with him, you say? Servants are invariably sensible people. They would not have risked their skins even if he was prepared to risk his. He is shut up inside some inn, fuming at the discomfort and the delay, you may be sure.
“And worrying his head off about me,” she said. “Poor Dennis. I always gave him a great deal of grief. He must have been very relieved when Leonard took me off his hands. And now, as soon as he has resumed responsibility of me, I have caused him this monumental worry. I ought not to have got out of that carriage yesterday, should I?”
“We do not always behave rationally when angry,” he said. “I’m sure that at the time it seemed the only possible thing to do.”
“I have a bad temper, only with Dennis,” she said. “I was never angry with Leonard. We never quarreled at all.” Silence fell at the table so that Lord Wetherby could hear himself crunching his toast.
“When do you think the—” she began.
“What do you like to do—” he said at the same moment. She smiled. “What do I like to do?” she asked.
“On snowy days,” he said, finishing his sentence.
“Sit and watch it,” she said. “Walk in it when it has stopped falling. Make snow angels. I love snow. It is so rarely that we have a good fall. It’s ironic that we should have one of the best at this particular time, is it not? When do you think it will stop and begin to melt?”
“For your sake, I hope soon,” he said. And for his own sake, too. After a night of restless tossing and turning, he had expected the morning to be easier. One’s mind did not so readily turn to women and beddings in the early light of day, and the chances were that she would wear something less alluring than that orange gown of the evening before.
She was wearing her own pale-blue woolen dress, and her hair was dressed rather severely at the back of her head. But wool was a good fabric for a slender woman. It clung enticingly. And that particular shade of blue looked good with her coloring.
Perhaps even so he could have been reasonably comfortable with her if she had not chosen to wear one of the perfumes he had bought for Jude. It was the one he had chosen with the most care. He had even imagined, inhaling it, exactly where he would dab it on her body and exactly when. It did nothing for his peace of mind to find it wafting delicately across the breakfast table from Mrs. Hunter’s person.
“I’m afraid there is not much in the house here with which to entertain a lady,” he said, “except cards. We cannot play cards all day long, though, can we?”
