He set his face in the hollow between her shoulder and neck and willed his heartbeat to a more normal rate.
“W-Would you stop me?” he asked, raising his head at last and looking down at her. “Would you h-have stopped me?”
It was probably an unfair question. But he did not think she would have.
He moved off her and lay beside her, the back of one hand draped over his eyes. He breathed as deeply and as silently as he was able, bringing his body under control.
“I lost my v-virginity when I was sixteen,” he told her. “I have not been celibate since then, except for the three years I spent at P-Penderris Hall. But I do not b-believe I am a rake. And Idobelieve that any solemn vow f-freely given ought to be binding in honor, including marriage vows.”
She sat up and clasped her arms about her knees. One lock of her hair had come loose from the knot at her neck and lay along the back of her cloak, shiny and slightly wavy. He raised one hand and ran the backs of his fingers along it. It was smooth and silky. She hunched her shoulders but did not move away from him.
“I just accused you of not knowing me,” she said. “But I do not know you either, do I? I have made assumptions, but they are not necessarily true. But Idoknow that you hide behind a mask of careless mockery.”
“Ah, but the question is, Mrs. Keeping,” he said, “do youw-wantto know me? Or do you wish to c-continue undisturbed with your placid, blameless, not quite happy but not entirelyunhappy existence here? I may be d-dangerous to know.”
***
Agnes got to her feet and moved to the water’s edge. But it was not far enough. She walked along the shore until it bent away to her right. She stood still and gazed sightlessly across at the west bank and the trees that overhung it. He did not follow her, and she was thankful for that.
He had been lying right on top of her. For a minute or two all his weight had borne her down into the grass. He had been between her thighs. She had felt him....
Only their clothes had stopped them.
And she had wanted him. Not just the being-in-love sort of wanting. Not just the desire for kisses. She hadwantedhim.
She had never wanted William—which was just as well, she supposed, since she had not had him very often. Once a week, as a regular routine, for the first year or so, then at less frequent intervals, and finally, for the last two years, not at all. She had never denied him his rights when he had claimed them, and she had never shrunk from their encounters or found them particularly unpleasant. But there had been a certain relief, a certain feeling of freedom, when he had stopped coming to her—except that she would have liked to have had a child. The friendship and affection between them had endured, though, and the comfortable sense of belonging. He had often told her how fond he was of her, and she had believed him. She had been fond of him too, though, if she was honest with herself, she would have to admit that she had married him only because home had no longer felt quite like home with Dora gone and her father’s new wife in her place, with the strong likelihood that her mother and sister would come to live with them soon—as they had.
She had wanted Viscount Ponsonby as she had never wanted her husband. She could still feel the tenderness of physical longing in her breasts and along her inner thighs. And it frightened her—or at least it disturbed her, iffrightwas too extreme a word. But it wasnottoo extreme. She was terrified of passion, of wanton abandon.
Her thoughts touched upon her mother, but she pushed them firmly away, as she always did when they threatened to intrude.
She continued along the shore until she could see the house across the water. He was sitting on the jetty close to the boat a short distance away, one knee raised, an arm draped over it, the picture of relaxation and well-being—or so it seemed. He was watching her approach.
I do believe that any solemn vow freely given ought to be binding in honor, including marriage vows.
Considering the fact that she had fallen in love with him last autumn and again this spring, she should be over the moon with happiness that he wished to marry her, especially in light of those words. Why was she not? Why did she hesitate?
I may be dangerous to know.
Yes, she felt that it was so. Not that she feared him physically, despite the violent rages he had admitted to and the leashed energy she sensed lurking beneath the often sleepy-seeming exterior. Those rages had happened at a time when he had been all locked up inside his head as a result of his war injuries. He was past that stage now. A slight stammer, sometimes a little worse than at other times, was not enough to frustrate him to the point of violence. But—she feared the danger that was him.
He representedpassion, and she feared that almost more than anything else in life. Violence came from passion. Passion killed. Not the body, perhaps, but certainly the spirit, and all that had most value in life. Passion killed love. They were mutually exclusive things—a strange irony. It would be impossible to separate the two with Viscount Ponsonby, though. She would not be able simply to love him and keep herself intact. She would have to give all and...
No!
He got to his feet as she came closer. He had her bonnet in one hand. He looked lazily into her eyes as he fitted it carefully over her hair, and she stood like a child, her arms at her sides, while he tied the ribbon in a bow beneath her left ear. She looked back into his eyes the whole time.
Would you stop me? Would you have stopped me?
He had not insisted that she answer, and she had not done so—which had been cowardly of her.Wouldshe have stopped him? She was not at all sure she would. Indeed she was almost certain she would not have. Her heart had sunk with disappointment when he had stopped. Andwhyhad he stopped? A rake would surely not have done so.
Her gloves, drawn from a coat pocket, materialized in one of his hands. He held one out and then fitted it onto her fingers. He did the same with the other glove, and she half smiled.
“You would make an excellent lady’s maid,” she said.
His eyes gazed keenly into hers from beneath heavy eyelids.
“I would indeed,” he said. “This is a mere foretaste of the services I would provide.”
