She felt the tension of sexual incompletion gradually drain from her body as she wrapped her arms loosely about his waist.
“We will agree, will we,” he said after a minute or so of silence, his mouth close to her ear, “not to be sorry for this? And not to allow it to cause discomfort between us when we meet again?”
She did not answer immediately. Then she lifted her head, released her hold on him, and took a step back. As she did so she very consciously donned the persona of Miss Martin, schoolteacher, again, almost as if it were a garment stiffened from disuse.
“Yes to the first,” she said. “I am not at all sure about the second. I have the feeling that in the cold light of day I am going to be very embarrassed indeed to come face-to-face with you after tonight.”
Good heavens, now that she couldseehim in the semidarkness, it already seemed both incredible and very embarrassing indeed—orwouldseem.
“Miss Martin,” he said, “I hope I have not…I cannot…”
She clucked her tongue. She could not let him finish. How humiliated she would be if he said the words aloud.
“Of courseyou cannot,” she said. “Neither can I. I have a life and a career and people dependent upon me. I donotexpect you to turn up on Viscount Whitleaf’s doorstep tomorrow morning with a special license in your hand. And if youdid,I would send you on your way faster than you had come there.”
“With a flea in my ear?” he said, smiling at her.
“Withat leastthat.”
And she smiled ruefully back at him. How very foolish love was, blossoming at an impossible time and with an impossible person. For she was, of course, in love. And it was, of course, quite, quite impossible.
“I think, Lord Attingsborough,” she said, “that if I had known what I know now when I stepped inside the visitors’ parlor at school to see you standing there, I might have sent you awaythenwith a flea in your ear. Though perhaps not. I have enjoyed the past two weeks more than I can say. And I have grown to like you.”
It was true too. She reallydidlike him.
She held out a hand to him. He took it and shook it firmly. The barriers were being set up between them again, as they absolutely must.
And then she jumped, her hand convulsing about his, as a loud crack broke the near silence.
“Ah,” he said, looking up, “how appropriate! The fireworks.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed as they both watched a streak of red arch above the trees and sink down out of sight again, roaring as it went. “I have so looked forward to them.”
“Come,” he said, releasing her hand and offering her his arm. “Let’s go back into the open and watch them.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Let’s.”
And despite everything—despite the fact that something that had hardly started had also ended here tonight—she felt a deep welling of happiness.
She had spoken correctly a minute or two ago. She would not have missed this short stay in London for all the enticements in the world.
And she would not have missed knowing the Marquess of Attingsborough either.
11
Claudia was seated at the escritoire in the morning room, writinga reply to a letter from Eleanor Thompson, when the butler came to announce the arrival of visitors. The collie, who had been curled up beside her chair, sleeping, scrambled to his feet.
“Her grace, the Duchess of Bewcastle, the Marchioness of Hallmere, and Lady Aidan Bedwyn are waiting below, ma’am,” he said. “Shall I show them up?”
Gracious! Claudia raised her eyebrows.
“Lord and Lady Whitleaf are upstairs in the nursery,” she said. “Should this message not be delivered to them?”
“Her grace said it was you she has come particularly to see, ma’am,” the butler said.
“Then show them up,” Claudia said, hastily cleaning her pen and pushing her papers into a neat pile. At least she would be able to tell the duchess that her sister was well. But why would they call uponher?
Yet again she had not slept well. But this time it had been entirely her own fault. She had not really wanted to sleep. She had wanted to relive the evening at Vauxhall.
