Lindsey Hall as the carriage rounded the great fountain and drew to a halt. “Oh,” the duchess said when the coachman had opened the door and let down the steps, “the Marquess of Attingsborough has accompanied you, Miss Martin. I am so glad. We have worried about you coming alone. But Lizzie is not with you?” “She is sleeping,” the marquess explained to her as he stepped out and turned to hand Claudia down. “I thought it best not to disturb her. I will take her away from there tomorrow—to another destination if you wish.” “Other than Lindsey Hall, you mean?” the duchess said. “I most certainly hope not. This is where she belongs until Eleanor and Miss Martin leave for Bath. I invited her here.” “I have thought that perhaps I ought to leave tomorrow too,” Claudia said. “Miss Martin.” It was the duke who spoke. “You are not planning to leave us in the manner you chose last time, it is to be hoped? It is true that Freyja credits the chagrin and guilt she felt at that time with turning her into a tolerable human being, but I could draw no such comfort from the incident—especially after I had heard that Redfield took you and your heavy valise up in his carriage because you would not take mine.” He spoke haughtily and somewhat languidly, and his hand closed about the handle of his quizzing glass and half raised it to his eye. The duchess laughed. “I wish I could have seen that,” she said. “Freyja was telling us about it during the drive back from Alvesley. But, come inside, both of you, and join everyone else in the drawing room. And if you are afraid, Lord Attingsborough, that you will meet disapproving frowns there, then you do not know the Bedwyn family—or their spouses. Does he, Wulfric?” “Indeed,” the duke said, raising his eyebrows. “I will not come in,” the marquess said. “I must return to Alvesley soon. Miss Martin, would you care to take a stroll with me first?” “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.” She was aware of the duchess smiling warmly at them as she took the duke’s arm and turned to go back into the house with him.
Joseph was not well acquainted with the park about Lindsey Hall. He turned in the direction of the lake, where the dog had led Lizzie almost a week ago. They walked in silence, he with his hands at his back, she with her hands clasped at her waist. They stopped when they came to the water’s edge, close to where he had shown Lizzie how to hurl pebbles so that she could hear them plop into the lake. The remains of the sunset made the water luminous. The sky stretched above, light at the horizon, darker overhead. Stars were already visible. “It is altogether possible that my father and my sister will persuade Portia that it is not in her best interests to end her betrothal,” he said. “Yes.” “Though she did say nothing could change her mind,” he added, “and I will not compromise. Lizzie will remain a visible part of my life. But it is a terrible thing for a lady to end an engagement—especially twice. She may reconsider.” “Yes.” “I cannot make you any promises,” he told her. “I do not ask for any,” she said. “Even apart from the one obstacle, there are others. There can be no promises, no future.” He was not at all sure he agreed with her, but there was no point in raising any arguments now, was there? The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed to him that his father and Wilma between them would persuade Portia to resume her plans to marry him. “No future,” he said softly. “Only the present. At present I am free.” “Yes.” When he reached out a hand to her, she set her own in it, and he laced his fingers with hers, drew her closer to his side, and strolled onward, following the bank of the lake. Up ahead he could see a forest of trees stretching down almost to the water’s edge. They stopped when they were in the darkness of the shade provided by the trees. The grass was rather long and soft underfoot. He turned to face her, lacing the fingers of their other hands too and drawing them partway around his back so that she stood against him, touching him with her breasts, her abdomen, and her thighs. Her head was tipped back, though he could no longer see her face clearly. “I intend more than kisses,” he said, leaning over her. “Yes,” she said. “So do I.” He smiled in the darkness. She sounded fierce and prim, her voice at variance with her words and the yielding warmth of her body. “Claudia,” he murmured. “Joseph.” He smiled again. He felt that he had already been caressed with intimacy. She had never spoken his name before. And then he leaned closer and touched his lips to hers. It had still not ceased to amaze him that of all the women he might have possessed or loved during the last fifteen years or so of his life, she should be the one his heart had chosen. Even Barbara faded into insignificance beside her. He yearned for this strong, intelligent, disciplined woman more than he had longed for anything or anyone else in his life. They explored each other’s mouths with lips and tongues and teeth, their hands clasped together behind his back. Her mouth was hot and wet and welcoming, and he stroked into it with his tongue, sliding over surfaces until she moaned and sucked it deeper. He drew his head back and smiled at her again. His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. She was smiling back, her expression dreamy and sensual. He released her hands and shrugged out of his coat. He went down on one knee and spread it on the grass, then reached up for her hand. She took his and then came down onto her knees too and lay down, her head and her back on his coat. This, he was very aware, might be the only time ever. Tomorrow all might have changed again. She knew it too. She reached up her arms to him. “I don’t care about the past or the future,” she said. “We allow them far too much power over our lives. I care for the present moment. I care for now.” He lowered his head and kissed her again and eased himself down until he was lying beside her. It had been eighteen years for her, almost three for him. He could feel her hunger and tried to put some sort of brake on his own. But sometimes passion would obey no commands beyond its own fierce needs. He kissed her mouth, ravished it with his tongue. He explored her with urgent hands, discovering a body that was shapely and alluring. He drew her skirt up and pushed her stockings down, caressing the firm smoothness of her legs until hands were not enough. He bent his head, feathered kisses from her ankles to her knees, kissed the backs of her knees and licked them until she gasped and her fingers tightened in his hair. He found the buttons at the back of her dress and unfastened them one by one until he could draw the garment off her shoulders with her chemise and expose her breasts. “I am not beautiful,” she said. “Let me be the judge of that,” he told her. He caressed her breasts with his hands, ran his lips over them, licked her taut nipples with his tongue until she was panting again. But she did not lie passive. She moved to his touch, and her hands roamed over him and beneath his waistcoat. They dragged his shirt free of his pantaloons and caressed their way upward over his bare back to his shoulders. And then one hand came free and moved down between them to cover his erection through his pantaloons. He took her firmly by the wrist, moved the hand away, and laced her fingers with his. “Mercy, woman,” he said against her lips, “I have very little control remaining as it is.” “I have none,” she said. He chuckled, and his hand went beneath her skirt again and up along her warm inner thighs to the junction between them. She was hot and wet. She moaned. He fumbled with the buttons at his waist, moved over her, pressing her thighs wide with his own, slid his hands beneath her to cushion her against the hard ground, and pressed firmly into her until he was deep and felt her muscles clench about him. She raised her knees and braced her feet on the grass. She tilted to him to take him deeper yet, and he drew a slow breath, his face against the side of hers. “Claudia,” he said into her ear. It had been a long, long time—an eternity. And he knew he could not prolong what was about to happen. But he needed to remember that this was Claudia, that this was more than sex. “Joseph,” she said, her voice low and throaty. He withdrew from her and thrust inward, and the rhythm of love caught them both in its urgent crescendo until everything burst into glory and he spilled into her. Far too soon, he thought regretfully as his body relaxed into satiety. “Like an overexcited schoolboy,” he murmured to her. She laughed softly and turned her head to kiss his lips briefly. “You do not feel like one,” she said. He rolled off her, bringing her with him until they were both lying on their sides. She was quite right. Nothing had been wrong. On the contrary, everything had been right—perfect. And for now it was enough. Now might be all they had. He hugged the moment to himself as he hugged her and willed the moment to become an endless eternity. He saw the moonlight overhead, felt the cool breeze, felt the soft, relaxed warmth of the woman he held, and allowed himself to feel happiness.
Claudia knew she would not be sorry—just as she had never been sorry about that kiss at Vauxhall. She knew too that there would be only tonight—or this evening. Tonight he must return to Alvesley. She was as certain as she could be that Miss Hunt would not readily give up such a matrimonial prize as the Marquess of Attingsborough. It would not take much effort on the part of the Duke of Anburey and the Countess of Sutton to make her see reason. And of course he—Joseph—would have no choice but to take her back since the betrothal had not been publicly ended. He was a gentleman, after all. And so there was only this—only this evening. But she would not be sorry. She would certainly suffer, but then she would have done that anyway. She refused to doze off. She watched the moon and stars above the lake, heard the almost silent lapping of the water against the bank, felt the cool softness of the grass against her legs, smelled the trees and his cologne, tasted his kisses on her slightly swollen lips. She was tired, even exhausted. And yet she had never felt more alive. She could not see him clearly in the darkness, but she knew when he dozed, when he awoke again with a slight start. She felt a huge regret that just sometimes one could not hold time at a standstill. This time next week she would be back at school preparing lessons and schedules for the coming year. It was always an exhilarating time. She would be exhilarated by it. But not yet. Please not yet. It was too soon for the future to encroach upon the present. “Claudia,” he said, “if there are consequences…” “Oh, gracious,” she said, “there will not be. I am thirty-five years old.” Which was a ridiculous thing to say, of course. She was only thirty-five. Her monthly cycle told her that she was still capable of bearing children. She had not thought of it. Or if she had, she had disregarded the thought. Foolish woman. “Only thirty-five years old,” he said, echoing her thought. But he did
