“Is your book interesting?” he asked now, and thought as he was saying it that if he had spent time trying to compose the most inane question imaginable, he could hardly have done better.
“Yes, very,” she said brightly. “I have always admired poetry.”
Well, he thought, consoling himself, her answer lacked something in profundity, too.
“Is yours interesting?” she asked.
“Yes, indeed,” he said. “Sermons are always good for provoking thought.”
So much for that line of conversation, he thought, returning his eyes but not his mind to his book and remembering to turn another page.
It was snowing again. Not as heavily as before, but enough to keep them housebound. Without a doubt, even if the snow stopped during the night and the sun shone the next day, Mrs. Hunter was not going to be able to leave until at least the day after. And no one would be able to come in search of her, either.
That meant that they were facing the rest of this night together, all the next day, and the next night at the very least. He did not think he would be able to do it. He might have to take a blanket and pillow out to the stables to sleep with the horses.
She was wearing a pale-lemon satin, one he had thought would look good with Jude’s coloring. With Rosamund’s dark hair and eyes it looked nothing short of stunning. She wore the paisley shawl about her almost bare shoulders again. Her hair was looped down over her ears and coiled simply at the back. Her eyelashes were thick and long, he noticed, glancing up at her as she looked down at her book.
She had good skin, creamy and soft. It would be good to touch her. It had been good to touch her that morning, though in reality he had barely kissed her at all, knowing that if he had deepened the kiss by even one fraction he would have ended up making an idiot of himself.
But why so? She felt the same way. She was as aware of him as he was of her. She was a woman, not a girl. She was no virgin. She was a widow. Perhaps she would not be unwilling. Perhaps they could put this tension to rest by doing what they had both been thinking of doing and wanting to do since some time yesterday afternoon.
But would she crumble afterward and be tortured by guilt and remorse? Would he? He had never bedded any but women whose profession it was to sell their favors. He had never slept with a lady. And in one month’s time he was to betroth himself to Annabelle.
But he was not betrothed yet. He had one month left of freedom before pledging himself to a lifetime of fidelity to one woman.
He wanted Rosamund Hunter. He wanted her badly. But if he could just force his mind onto this one sermon, if he could just concentrate long enough to read it through from beginning to end, then perhaps he would be able to resist temptation. He turned back three pages to the beginning.
He had read two sentences when Rosamund got abruptly to her feet.
“It’s too warm by the fire,” she said, and crossed the room to seat herself on a stool close to the window, her back to him. She opened her book and gave it her attention again.
Now where was he? the earl thought. He had been quite engrossed for those two sentences.
What she should have done, Rosamund was thinking, was to plead a headache. She could have taken herself off to her room and been safe for another night. Why, oh, why, had she not thought of that? But having pleaded the heat of the fire in order to remove herself from such closeness to him in order to set him behind her, out of the line of her vision, she must now stay for a while and continue to read her book—or not to read her book.
She felt like jumping to her feet again and screaming. She felt like having a major fit of hysterics. She turned a page.
There would not be anything so very wrong in it, would there? She had heard that many married ladies took lovers, though the idea had always shocked her. How could they, she had always thought, when their husbands had exclusive rights to their bodies? Just as women had exclusive rights to their husbands’ bodies. It had always made her furious to know that many married men kept mistresses.
She had also heard that widows very frequently took lovers. She had not felt any great moral shock at the idea, but she had always been convinced that it was something she could not possibly do. She could never give that outside marriage. It was such a very intimate and physical and embarrassing thing.
And yet these were no ordinary circumstances—not by any means. And it would be just for a day or two. It would end this tension between them and it would satisfy her curiosity about younger men. How vulgar that sounded! She turned another page.
And she became aware suddenly, though there had been hardly any sound, that he had put down his book and stood up. And that after a few moments of standing quite still he was coming up behind her. She kept her eyes on her book and felt that her heart was beating right up into her throat.
His hands came beneath her arms and cupped her breasts. His thumbs found her nipples. Rosamund closed her eyes and swallowed. She felt warm breath on the side of her neck a moment before he kissed her in the hollow between her neck and her shoulder.
“I want to make love to you, Rosamund,” he said. His voice was low and husky, almost unrecognizable.
She kept her eyes tightly closed for a moment and then she turned slowly on the stool. His hands moved up to her shoulders. His eyes, gazing down into hers, were intensely blue.
“Yes,” she said. “I want that too.”
His mouth on hers was as light as it had been that morning, but his lips were parted, she noted with some shock, so that she felt heat and moistness and his tongue moving lightly across the seam of her own lips. She clutched her closed book to her bosom.
He raised his head and stooped down on his haunches in front of her. “One thing must be clear,” he said, touching one of her cheeks with his fingertips. “I am to be betrothed soon, Rosamund. I am committed to that. I don’t want to hurt you or give any wrong impression.”
“Just tonight and perhaps tomorrow night,” she said. “I understand, Justin. I want no more. But this is a time out of time, isn't it? And I want it to happen—just a very brief affair.”
