All his previous lovers had been experienced women. All of them during his military years, without exception, had been widows from among the camp followers, a few of them widows several times over. All of them had known a thing or two about keeping themselves unencumbered while they followed the armies about under all conditions, making themselves useful, doing what they could to make life possible for a vast army on the move in a country not their own. They had all known how to keep themselves clean and free of disease. They had all known how to prevent conception.
Because Lydia Tavernor had been married for a number of years, and because she was childless, he had assumed without—admittedly—giving the matter much thought, that she knew how to stop herself from getting with child. But what if she really had been a virgin until tonight? What if she knew nothing? What if she had not even considered the possibility that a real lover as opposed to a dream one might get her with child?
But no. He had to have been mistaken. It would be just too bizarre …
But what if … ?
He sighed as he climbed the steps to his front door. If only when Tom had offered to walk her home that night,hehad kept his mouth firmly shut. And if only after she had said good night to him on that occasion, he had not insisted upon following her through the gate and all the way to her door. If only his heart were not feeling a bit bruised tonight. More than a bit, actually.
If only, if only, and if only …
Lydia washed herself with shaking hands. She pulled on a flannel nightgown and then her dressing gown over it. She went back into the living room, took the guard away from the fire, and saw that it was out with not an ember still glowing. She did not bother to build a new one. She sat on her chair, her bare feet and legs curled up beneath her, pulled the cushion from behind her, and clasped it to her bosom with both arms. She slid her hands under the loose sleeves of her dressing gown to warm them.
She could not stop shaking even though it was not a cold night. She had to clamp her teeth together to keep them from chattering. Snowball was sitting before her chair, gazing mournfully up at her, but she had no attention to spare her dog.
What had she done?
And if there was ever a more rhetorical question than that one, she did not know what it could be.
She had given up willpower, common sense, sanity. She had done him a terrible wrong—telling him this morning he might come this evening, telling him as soon as he arrived that he must go, inviting him to stay awhile anyway, sending him away again, calling him back,sleeping with him, sending him away yet again, telling him never to return. It was a relentless list of weakness and contradiction and self-indulgence.
Harry.
What had she done to him? She was not so vain that she imagined she had broken his heart. But she had …usedhim. And then discarded him.
It had been nothing like … Oh, it had beennothinglike anything she had expected. Sweet kisses, sweet romance, sweet bodily pleasure, and sweet memories to wrap about herself. That was what she had dreamed of. Not hot, mindless passion and raw sensation that was pain and fierce pleasure all inextricably bound together, and naked beauty and the overpowering sensation of being possessed body, mind, and soul. Suffocated by it. Though no. No! That was unfair. And wrong. If she had felt possessed and suffocated, it was by her own desire, her own passion to love and be loved. Though that was not the right word either. Something more raw than love. More physical. If there was a word, she did not know it.
She shivered still in the aftermath of what had not been love, though she did not know what it had been. She was sore and throbbing. And yet longing at the same time. Yearning and longing. She tightened her arms about the cushion and lowered her head so her forehead rested on the top of it. She closed her eyes.
She had hated Isaiah.
What a wonderfully freeing admission, even if shewasjust thinking it and not shouting it from the rooftop. She had never admitted it even to herself before now.
She had hated him.
And it was not even past tense. She hated him still.
From her wedding day on she had tried and tried to please him, to make his vision and his mission her own. He must be right, she had always told herself. He was aman of God, and many of his parishioners here worshiped him as much as they did the God whose word he preached. She had made herself be one of them. For she had to be wrong in any rebellious thought that tried to invade her mind. There would be something bad about her if she did not love him. And so she did. By sheer willpower. She had had no real problem with willpower in those days. Perhaps if he had lived she would have kept on loving him and convincing herself that it was not in reality hatred that she felt. And perhaps all that was herself would have disappeared more and more into him as time went on until she vanished altogether. She almost had. Perhaps it would have been as well if she had.
But what had made her think about Isaiah now of all times? Guilt? She laughed into the cushion, and Snowball whined. Lydia looked up.
“Guilt, Snowball?” she said.“Guilt?”
She laughed again, and Snowball tipped her head to one side and looked inquiringly at her.
“I lost my virginity tonight,” Lydia told her dog. “And I am supposed to feelguilt? I am supposed to grovel before the sacred memory of my husband who was husband only in name?”
Snowball did not think so. She whined again and bounced before the chair. Lydia uncurled herself and set aside the cushion in order to lean down and scoop the dog up onto her lap.
Shedidfeel guilt. Toward Harry. Who was beautiful. Inside and out.
How was she ever going to face him again? He wanted to call on her once more to say something. Briefly, he had said. He did not plan to apologize to her, did he? She would not be able to bear that. He was coming the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow she was going to Eastleigh with the Baileys, though she could not bear the thought of that either. How could she share a carriage with those good people and spend a day shopping with them?
But then an idea caught at her mind. A temptation, perhaps? To run away? To escape reality? To return to what was most familiar to her? Or perhaps merely a withdrawal, a chance to give herself space to sort herself out, to put herself back together so she could move forward again with the life she had set up so happily for herself during the past year?
She would not have to stay forever. It could be just a visit, to last as long as she chose. Maybe a week, maybe two. She had the perfect excuse. Her sister-in-law had just let her know that she was with child. She was excited about it and wanted Lydia to come home. She meant, of course, that she wanted Lydia tomovehome and stay. But a visit would be in order. Her father had been ill. They would all be happy to see her.
And she had the perfect opportunity. She would not have to wait until she wrote to Papa and he sent the carriage for her, as of course he would wish to do and insist upon doing. That would all take a week, probably longer. She could travel post from Eastleigh or even hire a private chaise. The Reverend Bailey would surely advise her upon which would be best. Papa would not like it, but he would be delighted to see her anyway.
