He set his hand behind her hips and held her steady as he deepened his thrusts, though even then there was more sense of purpose than urgency. He kissed her lips and murmured words that her heart understood even if her ears could not decipher them. And then he was still in her, and she was pressing against him, and something opened at her core and let him through—and he came and came until there was no she and no he but only they.
They remained pressed wordlessly together for a long time before he released her and she knew with deep regret that now they were two again—and would remain so for the rest of their lives.
But she would not be sorry.
“I must take you back to the house,” he said, sitting up and adjusting his clothes while she pushed her skirt down and then bent to pull up her stockings and the bodice of her dress. “And I must get back to Alvesley.”
“Yes,” she said, rearranging some of her hairpins.
He got to his feet and reached down a hand to her. She set her own in it and he drew her up until they were standing facing each other, not quite touching.
“Claudia,” he said, “I do not know—”
She set a finger over his lips, just as she remembered doing at Vauxhall.
“Not tonight,” she said. “I want tonight to remain perfect. I want to be able to remember it just as it is. All the rest of my life.”
His hand closed about her wrist and he kissed her finger.
“Perhaps tomorrow night will be just as perfect,” he said. “Perhaps all our tomorrows will.”
She merely smiled. She did not believe it for a moment—but she would think about that tomorrow and the next day…
“You will come to the ball?” he asked her.
“Oh, I will,” she said. “I would much rather not, but I believe the countess and Lady Ravensberg will be offended, even hurt, if I stay away.”
And how could she stay away even without that incentive? Tomorrow night might be the last time she saw him. Ever.
He kissed her wrist and then released her hand.
“I am glad,” he said.
21
The Duke of Anburey requested the presence of the Marquess ofAttingsborough in the library, the butler informed Joseph as soon as he set foot inside Alvesley again. He did not go there immediately. He went up to his room, where he found Anne and Sydnam Butler sitting with Lizzie. She had not woken up since he left for Lindsey Hall, they informed him.
“My father wants to talk with me,” he said.
Sydnam threw him a sympathetic look.
“Go,” his wife said, smiling at Joseph. “We relieved Susanna and Peter only half an hour or so ago. We will stay awhile longer.”
“Thank you,” he said, standing beside the bed and touching the backs of his fingers to Lizzie’s cheek. She had a corner of the pillow clutched in one hand, and held it against her nose. He wasso gladthat all the secrecy had gone from their relationship. He leaned over to kiss her. She mumbled something unintelligible and was still again.
There was a terrible row in the library after he went down there. His father stormed at him. He had apparently talked reason into Portia and persuaded her that his son would behave properly and she would never have to see or hear about the child ever again. She was prepared to continue with the engagement.
Joseph, however, was not prepared to be dictated to. He informed his father that he was unwilling to hide Lizzie away any longer. He hoped to move her to Willowgreen, to spend much of his time there with her. And since Portia had released him during the afternoon, she must now accept this new fact if the betrothal was to resume.
He held firm even when his father threatened to turn him out of Willowgreen—it was still officially his. Then he would live with his daughter somewhere else, Joseph told him. He was not, after all, financially dependent upon his father. He would set up another home in the country.
They argued for a long time—or rather, Joseph remained quietly obstinate and his father blustered. His mother, who was present throughout, endured it all in silence.
And then his father and mother left the library together and sent Portia to him.
She came, looking composed and beautiful in a gown of pale ice blue. He stood before the empty fireplace, his hands clasped at his back while she crossed the room toward him, took a seat, and arranged her skirts about her. She looked up at him, her lovely face empty of any discernible emotion.
“I am truly sorry about all this, Portia,” he said. “And I am entirely to blame. I have known since the death of Lizzie’s mother that my daughter must be even more central to my life than she had been before. I have known that I must make a home for her and give her my time and my attention and my love. And yet somehow it did not quite occur to me until today that I could not do it properly while living the sort of double life that society demanded of me. If ithadoccurred to me in time, I would have been able to discuss the matter openly with my father and yours before exposing you to the sort of distress you have endured today.”
