from his tone alone whether he was amused or wistful. “I am not beautiful,” she said. “You are not pretty,” he conceded. “You very definitely are beautiful.” What a bouncer. He would carry gallantry to the end, would he? “I am not young,” she said. “It is a matter of perspective,” he said. “To the girls in your school you are doubtless a fossil. To an octogenarian you would appear to be a sweet young thing. But we are almost exactly the same age, and since I do not think of myself as old—far from it—I must insist that indeed you are young.” “I am not elegant or lively or…” She ran out of ideas. “What you are,” he said, “is a woman who lost confidence in her beauty and charm and sexual attractiveness heartbreakingly early in life. You are a woman who sublimated her sexual energies into making a successful career. You are a woman of firm character and will and intelligence and knowledge. You are a woman bursting with compassion and love for your fellow creatures. And you are a woman with so much sexual love to give that it would take far more than your quiet, dull scholar to satisfy you—unless he too has hidden depths, of course. For the sake of argument let us suppose that he does not, that he is simply ordinary and dull with conversation to offer you and nothing much else. No passion. He is not a dream man at all, Claudia. He is verging upon nightmare.” She smiled despite herself. “That is better,” he said, and she realized that he could see her face. “I have a marked partiality for Miss Martin, schoolteacher, but it is possible that she might choose to be a cold bed- fellow. Claudia Martin, the woman, would not be. Indeed, I have already had proof of it.” “Lord Attingsborough—” she began. “Claudia.” He spoke over her. “We have had our fairly brief stroll. We can return to the house and ballroom now if you wish. It is altogether possible that not above half of the guests here have noticed we are gone. We can enjoy the rest of the ball—separately so as not to arouse gossip among that smaller half. And tomorrow I can come and take Lizzie, and you can return to Bath, and we can both deal with receding memories over the coming weeks and months. Or we can extend our stroll.” She stared at him in the darkness. “This is one of those moments of decision,” he said, “that can forever change the course of a life.” “No, it is not,” she protested. “Or at least, it is not more important than any other moment. Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives.” “Have it your way if you must,” he said. “But this moment’s decision awaits us both. What is it to be? A desperate attempt to return to the way things used to be before I presented myself at Miss Martin’s School for Girls, a letter from Susanna in my coat pocket? Or a leap in the dark—almost literally—and a chance for something new and very possibly quite wonderful? Even perfect.” “Nothing in life is perfect,” she said. “I beg to disagree with you,” he said. “Nothing is permanently perfect. But there are perfect moments and the will to choose what will bring about more such moments. Last evening was perfect. It was, Claudia. I will not allow you to deny it. It was simply perfect.” She sighed. “There are so many complications,” she said. “There always are,” he told her. “This is life. You ought to understand that by now. One possible complication is that the little lodge in the woods might be locked tonight as it was not yesterday afternoon.” She was speechless—except that she had understood the moment he asked her to come walking with him where they would go. There was no point in trying to deny it to herself, was there? “Perhaps,” she said, “they keep the key over the lintel or beside the step or somewhere else easy to find.” She still could not see his face. But for a moment she caught the gleam of his teeth. “We had better go and see,” she said, drawing her shawl more closely about her. “Are you sure?” His voice was low. “Yes,” she said. This time when they walked on, instead of offering his arm he took her hand in his and laced their fingers. He held the lantern aloft. It was needed at the other side of the bridge, where the trees obscured even what little light was provided from the sky. They found the faint path by which they had returned yesterday and followed it through the woods until they arrived at the hut. The door was unlocked. Inside—she had only half noticed yesterday—there was a fireplace with a fire set in the hearth and logs piled beside it. There was a table with a few books on it and a tinderbox and lamp. There was a rocking chair with a blanket draped over it. And against one wall there was the narrow bed upon which they had found Lizzie. It all looked prettier, cozier tonight. Joseph set the lantern down on the table, took up the tinderbox, and knelt at the hearth to light the fire. Claudia sat in the chair, rocking slowly, holding the corners of her shawl, watching him. There was the pleasurable anticipation of what was to come. All day her breasts had been tender and her inner thighs and inner passage slightly aching from last night’s lovemaking. It was to happen again. How absolutely lovely marriage must be… She rested her head against the chair back. The fire caught and he got to his feet and turned to her. His eyes looked very blue in the lantern light, his hair very dark, his features chiseled and handsome. He set one foot on a runner of the chair to stop it rocking, set his hands on the arms, and leaned over her to kiss her openmouthed. “Claudia,” he said, lifting his head a few inches from hers, “I want you to know that you are beautiful. You think you must be unlovely because circumstances once forced an essentially weak man to leave you and because you are now in your middle thirties and unmarried and a schoolteacher. You think it impossible that any man could find you sexually appealing any longer. You probably even tell yourself that last evening happened only because I guessed I would not be free today to pursue our relationship further. You are wrong on every count. I want you to know that you are incredibly beautiful—because you are the product of who you have been and become in over thirty years of living. You would not be as beautiful to me if you were younger, you see. And I want you to know that you are endlessly appealing sexually.” She gazed up at him. “This appealing.” He took one of her hands in his and spread it, palm in, against the bulge of his erection. “Oh,” she said. “Endlessly appealing,” he said. Her hand slid to her lap, and he reached up both hands to remove all the pins from her hair. She was going to have to repair it later, she thought, without benefit of a brush or a mirror. But she would think of that later. “It is a crime,” he said as her hair fell in heavy waves over her shoulders, “to dress this hair as ruthlessly as you do, Claudia.” He took her hands in his and drew her to her feet. “You are not my dream woman. You are right about that. I could never have dreamed you, Claudia. You are unique. I am in awe. I am humbled.” She gazed into his eyes to detect irony, or at least humor, there, but she could see neither. And then she could see nothing very clearly at all. She blinked away tears. And then he leaned closer and licked them away with his tongue before drawing her closer and kissing her deeply. She was beautiful, she told herself as they undressed each other slowly, pausing frequently to caress or embrace each other. She was beautiful. She ran her palms over the muscles and light hairs of his chest after removing his evening coat and waistcoat, his elaborately tied neckcloth, and his shirt. And he moved his hands all over her before cupping her breasts, rubbing her nipples with his thumbs, and then bending his head to take them, one at a time, into his mouth and suckling her so that raw desire stabbed downward into her womb and along her inner thighs. She would not feel self-conscious or inadequate. She was beautiful. And desirable. There was no doubt of that once she had removed his silk evening breeches and his stockings. She was desirable. And she was not the only one who was beautiful. She twined her arms about his neck, pressed her full naked length against his, and found his mouth with her own. When his tongue pressed into her mouth she sighed. He was right, there were perfect moments even though they were both pulsing with need. “I think,” he said, drawing back his head to smile at her, “we had better make use of that bed. It will be more comfortable than the ground was last night.” “But narrower,” she said. “If we were planning to sleep, perhaps,” he agreed, smiling at her in such a way that she felt her bare toes curl on the hard floor. “But we are not, are we? It is quite wide enough for our purpose.” He drew back the blankets, and she lay down on the sheet and lifted her arms to him. “Come,” she said. He came down on top of her and she spread her legs and twined them about his. They were both ready. He kissed her and murmured low endearments against her ear. She kissed him back and twined her fingers in h is thick hair. And then he slid his hands beneath her, she tilted herself to him, and he came inside her. His size still shocked her. She inhaled slowly as she adjusted her position to allow him full access, and closed her inner muscles about him. There could surely be no lovelier feeling in the world. Though perhaps there could. He withdrew from her and pressed deep again and repeated the action until she could feel his rhythm and match her own to it and revel in the sheer carnality of their coupling. There could be no lovelier feeling than this—both during the first few minutes of controlled pleasure and during the final minute of deeper, more urgent lovemaking as the climax neared. And then it came—for both of them at exactly the same moment, and she opened to the outpouring of love and gave back in equal measure, and that was the loveliest feeling of all, though it was almost beyond feeling and well beyond rational thought or words. She was beautiful. She was desirable. And finally… Ah. Finally she was simply woman. Simply perfect. No, she thought as she gradually began to return to herself, she would not go back and change a single detail of her life even if she could. There were all sorts of complexities, complications, impossibilities to face when she had been restored entirely to herself and sanity, but that time was not yet. There was this moment to live. He inhaled deeply and audibly, and then let the breath go on a sigh. “Ah, Claudia,” he murmured. “My love.” Two words that she would treasure for a lifetime. Even the costliest jewel could not tempt her if it were offered in exchange for them. My love. Spoken to her, Claudia Martin. She was one man’s love. Just a few weeks ago all this would have been quite beyond the bounds of credibility. But no longer. She was beautiful, she was desirable, and…She smiled. He had lifted his head and was looking down at her with heavy-lidded eyes, one hand smoothing back her hair from her face. “Share the thought,” he said. She opened her eyes. “I am woman,” she said. “Hard as this may be to believe,” he said with laughter in
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