“But how could you ever feel joy,” he asked her, “if you had not also known dreariness and suffering?”
“Is there ever joy?” Her dark eyes searched his face as though the answer was written there.
He opened his mouth to assure her that of course there was. Butwasthere? When had he last felt it? When he arrived at Penderris Hall a few months ago for his annual stay there with his friends? That had been a happy moment, but had it beenjoy? He wished he had not used the word with her. It was a disturbing word.
And was that what his problem was? That wherever he went, he had to take himself with him? Was it in denial of that fact that he had decided to travel? The eternal quest to escape from himself, from the body that slowed him down, made him grotesque and ungainly, and stopped him from living the life he wanted to live?
“We have to believe thereisjoy,” he said. “In the meantime, we have to believe that our lives are worth living.”
She lifted one hand and set it against his cheek, her fingers pushing into his hair. Her hand was smooth and cool.
“It is ungrateful of me,” she said, “to have been given freedom and a new life and yet to feel a little depressed. You will find a meaning for your life.”
“I am going to be a world-famous travel writer.” He smiled.
“You will find what you are searching for, Ben,” she said. “You are a kind man.”
“And the good and kind are rewarded with fulfillment and happiness?”
He was surprised to see tears brighten her eyes, though they did not spill over onto her cheeks.
“They should be,” she said. “Life should work that way, though we know it does not always do so.”
He released his hold on the brush, caught her by the waist, drew her against him, and kissed her. She wrapped her arms about him and kissed him back.
Their lips clung. Their breath mingled. She was warm, soft, fragrant, very feminine. He was aware, even with his eyes closed, of her nightgown and bare feet, of her hair loose down her back, of the bed beneath them. There was an increase of heat, a tightening in his groin again.
She slid her feet free of her nightgown and he somehow got his legs right up on the bed, and his hands were on her breasts, heavy and firm beneath the cotton of her nightgown, and her hands were under his coat, inside his waistcoat, warm against the back of his shirt.
She had lain down across the bed, and he had followed her, his hand beneath the hem of her nightgown, smoothing its way up the heat of her inner thigh. His tongue simulated in her mouth what he would like to be doing with her body. His weight was pressing against her breasts.
He had made her a promise downstairs just an hour or two ago.
But not tonight. You are quite safe from me, I promise, despite the situation in which we find ourselves. I will not take advantage of you.
He tried to ignore the voice in his head—his own voice. It could not be done, however.
He lifted his head and gazed down into her passion-heavy eyes.
“We cannot do this,” he said.
She said nothing.
“We would regret it,” he told her. “It would have been provoked entirely by this room. Wewouldregret it.”
Idiot, he thought.Fool.
“Would we?” She sighed, but he could see that she was returning to her senses.
“You know we would.” He sat up, lowering the hem of her nightgown as he did so, and pushed himself to his feet without using his canes. High mattresses were always a blessing to him.
“And yet,” she said, “it is quite acceptable for a widow to have an affair, provided she is discreet about it. I learned that when I was with Matthew’s regiment. I think it would be a grand use of freedom—to have an affair.”
“With me?” He did not turn to look at her.
“With a man who wanted one with me as much as I wanted one with him,” she said. “Perhaps with you, Ben. One of these days. But not tonight. You are right about that. It would seem slightly sordid.”
He drew a few slow breaths. “Now,” he said, “if you would get beneath the covers and pretend to fall into an instant sleep to spare my modesty, I will slip out of a few of my clothes and climb in on the other side. And tomorrow and for every other night of our journey, we will continue on our way, even if the distance is a hundred miles, until we find an inn that can properly and separately accommodate us.”
