'And passion,' she said.
He brushed his lips against hers. 'I must have crushed you horribly. It is not the introduction to passion I would have chosen for you if I had had the planning of it.'
'It was one of the two most beautiful nights in my life,' she told him. 'The other was here. The air is already warm by the fire.'
'But the floor is hard.'
She smiled dazzlingly at him. 'Not harder than the ground inside your tent in Portugal.'
They used the pillows and all the blankets from the bed. They used their cloaks. They did not remove all their clothes. The floor was indeed hard and cold, and the air was not comfortably warm despite the crackling fire that was catching hold in the hearth.
Their passion knew none of the discomforts. For each there was only the other, warm and alive and eager. After a while, after they had caressed each other with hands and mouths and murmured endearments and he had raised her dress and adjusted his own clothing and pressed himself deep inside her, there was not even each other, but the two of them seemed one body, one heart, one being. And, after he had moved in her and with her for long minutes of shared passion and pleasure, there was not even the one left but only a mindless bliss. Oh, yes, they were married.
***
He was still inside her. He had been sleeping, all his relaxed weight bearing down on her. And her back was to the hard floor of the cottage. He disengaged himself and rolled off her, keeping his arms about her. But she moaned her protest at the loss of him and turned against him with sleepy murmurings.
The fire, he saw over her shoulder, was blazing healthily. He could not have been sleeping for long, then.
'You must have a bodyful of squashed bones,' he said.
'Mmm.' She sighed. Then she moved her head and kissed him with soft languor on the lips. 'Are you going to make an honest woman of me?'
'Lily.' He hugged her to him tightly. 'Oh, Lily, my love. As if you could ever be
'I do not intend to say no a thousand times,' she said. 'Or even once. I said yes the first time you asked. I married you an hour later. I have been married to you ever since even though I could not agree to make it legal back in the spring. I am not saying no now. I am married to you and I want the world to acknowledge the fact— Father, your mother, everyone. But only to acknowledge what already is.'
He kissed her.
'Father will want a grand wedding,' she said, 'even though the only wedding that will really matter to me is the one in Portugal. He will want us to get married at Rutland Park. We must give him what he wants, Neville. He is very special to me. He is… I love him.'
'Of course. And Mama will expect it too,' he said, kissing her again. 'Society will expect it. Of course we will get married again—in the grand manner. When, Lily?'
'Whenever Father and your mother want it,' she said.
'No.' He smiled at her suddenly. 'No, Lily. We will decide. How does the second anniversary of our first, our
'Oh, yes.' She smiled back with obvious delight. 'Yes, that would be perfect.'
Everything was perfect—for the present. It would not remain so throughout the rest of their lives, of course. Life did not work that way. But now, this night, all was well. The future looked bright and the past…
Ah, the past. The past that Lily had endured and he had never found the courage to share completely with her. It did not matter, perhaps. The past was best left just where it was. But then the past could never remain there. It encroached on the present and could blight the future if the issues it had raised were never dealt with. Lily's past would always be something he tiptoed about, something she deliberately never spoke about to him.
'What are you thinking?' She touched her lips to his. 'Why do you look so sad?'
'Lily.' He spoke quietly, looking into her shadowed eyes though he would rather have looked anywhere else in the world. 'Tell me about those months. There was more to tell, was there not? But I did not have the courage or fortitude to listen to the whole of it back in the spring. The pain of those we love is always harder to bear than our own, especially when there is guilt involved. But I need to know. I need to share it all so that there are no shadows left between us. And perhaps you need to tell. I need to help you let go of it, if I can. I need—'
'Forgiveness?' she said when he did not complete the thought. Her finger was tracing the line of his facial scar. 'You did all you could, Neville, both for me and for the men who died in the pass. It was war. And it was Papa who took me on that scouting mission. I knew the risk; he knew it. You must not blame yourself. You
Even now he wished he had left it alone. He wished he had held on to their perfect night without allowing the intrusion of the one piece of ugliness they had never confronted together.
'His name was Manuel,' he said quietly.
She drew a slow and audible breath. 'Yes. His name was Manuel,' she said. 'He was small and wiry of build and handsome and charismatic. He was the leader of the band of partisans and a fanatical nationalist. He was fiercely loyal to his countrymen, terrifyingly cruel to his enemies. I was his woman for seven months. I believe he grew fond of me. He wept when he let me go.'
He held her while she continued. And after she had finished talking. She had cried at the end. She was crying now. So was he.
'It does not need to be said,' he murmured against one of her ears when he had control of his voice, 'because there was no guilt, Lily. But I know you blame yourself for living when those French captives died. And for allowing that man to use your body instead of fighting to the death. So I will say it, my love, and you must believe me. You are forgiven. I forgive you.'
Her tears stopped eventually, and she blew her nose on the handkerchief he had somehow found in the pocket
