One Night for Love

they had endured a great deal. The moment of their final commitment would reveal itself. They would not try to force it.

The carpet in the drawing room was rolled back during the evening so that there could be dancing for the countess's birthday party. Lady Wollston, Neville's Aunt Mary, took her place at the pianoforte. Neville danced with his mother and then with Gwendoline, who liked to dance despite her injured leg. He danced with Elizabeth and Miranda.

And of course he danced with Lily—the last dance of the evening, a waltz.

'I am selfish, you see, Lily,' he told her with a smile. 'If it were a country set, I would have to relinquish you to other partners with every new pattern of the dance. With a waltz, I have you all to myself.'

Lily laughed. She had danced with her father, with Joseph, with Ralph, with Hal. She had thoroughly enjoyed the evening. But only because she had known that finally, at last, she would dance with Neville.

'I knew it would be a waltz,' she told him.

'Lily.' He leaned his head a little closer. 'You are a single woman, daughter of a duke, bound by all the proprieties that apply to a lady of the beau monde.'

Lily's eyes danced with merriment.

'I have already spoken with Portfrey and have won his consent,' he said. 'I could speak with you formally in the library tomorrow. Your father or Elizabeth would bring you there and then tactfully leave us alone together for fifteen minutes. No longer than fifteen—it would be improper.'

'Or?' Lily laughed again. 'I hear an alternative in your voice and see it in your face. If the prospect of fifteen minutes alone in the library makes you wince, as it does me, what then?'

He grinned at her. 'Portfrey would challenge me to pistols at dawn for even thinking it,' he said.

'Neville.' She leaned a little closer. Their proximity would have scandalized the beau monde at a ton ball. But they were among family, who watched them with affectionate indulgence while pretending not to watch at all. 'What is the alternative to the library? Oh. Shall I say it? You mean the valley, don't you? And the waterfall and pool. The cottage.'

He nodded and smiled slowly.

'Tomorrow morning?' she asked. 'No, that would not provoke a challenge from any irate father. You mean tonight, don't you?'

His smile lingered, as did her own. But they were gazing deep into each other's eyes, performing the steps of the waltz almost without realizing that they still danced. And Lily, feeling a tightening in her breasts and a weakening in her knees, knew that the moment had found itself. The perfect moment. He spoke again only when the music came to an end.

'You will go there with me, Lily?'

'Of course,' she said.

'After everyone has settled for the night? I will knock on your door.'

'I will be ready.'

Yes, Lily thought as she made her way to her room a short while later, having hugged the countess, Elizabeth, and her father, and said a decorous good night to Neville. Yes, it was entirely right that they go to the cottage. Tonight. She was a lady now, daughter of a duke, and she was single, and she was bound by all the rules by which polite society regulated itself. But deeper than those realities was the fact that she was Lily, that in her heart she was married and had been for almost two years, that she was bound by something far stronger than mere man-made rules.

***

An almost full moon beamed down from a clear, star- studded sky. It was autumn and it was cold. But Lily, her hand clasped in Neville's, saw and felt only the beauty of this moment to which they had come. They hurried past the stables, down over the lawn, through the trees, through the ferns, down the steep slope to the valley. They did not speak even when they were far enough from the house not to disturb anyone with the sound of their voices. There was no need of speech. Something far deeper than words pulsed between them as they went.

They turned up the valley together at last, making their way toward the waterfall and the pool and the cottage. It was there they had lived through another moment—a tantalizingly brief moment—of total, utter happiness before being torn apart by a series of events that did not need to be remembered just now. They were back where they had been happy together. And where they would be happy again.

They were back where they belonged.

He spoke before opening the cottage door.

'Lily,' he said, bending his head toward hers, cupping her face with gentle hands, 'we will make love before we talk, will we? Even though church and state do not recognize our right to do so?'

'I recognize it,' she told him. 'And you do. It is all that matters. I am your wife. You are my husband.' It had always been true, from that moment on the hillside in Portugal, when she had been dazed with shock and grief. Even then she had known that he was everything in the world that she would ever need or want. No one—least of all the impersonal forces of church and state—could destroy the sanctity of that ceremony.

'Yes.' He touched his forehead briefly to hers and closed his eyes. 'Yes, you are my wife.'

He lighted two candles inside the cottage. She carried one of them through to the bedchamber while he knelt at the fireplace there, lighting the fire. The air was frigidly cold.

'It will take awhile to warm up in here,' he said, getting to his feet and opening back his cloak before drawing her against him and wrapping it about both of them. He rested his cheek against the top of her head. 'Let me hold you and kiss you until it is warm enough to undress and lie down on the bed.'

But she laughed and tipped back her head to look up into his face. 'It was cold,' she reminded him, 'on our wedding night.'

'Oh, Lord, yes,' he said, grinning. 'Only cloaks and blankets and a tent to keep out the December chill.'