Evelyn Richardson (24 page)

Slowly his mouth moved against hers, tasting her, savoring her. As her lips opened gently under his, he grew dizzy with the urge to make her part of him, part of his life, never to let her go again.

Her eyes closed and her head tilted back inviting his caress. Lucian buried his hands in the rich brown curls and trailed kisses along her jaw to her ear. Then, with a sigh that was more of a groan, he pressed his lips against her forehead and pulled her to him so that her body was molded to his, the long, slim line of her thigh pressed along his, so that he could feel her heart beating against his chest.

“Catherine, I beg of you,” he whispered in her ear, “let me care about you. Do not dismiss me as you dismiss others who seek to offer you inexpert help. I can help you and I want to help you.”

She felt rather than heard his words, felt them in the breath on her cheek, the rumble of his voice in his throat, passionate and pleading. But she was too far gone to respond. She had never felt this way in her life, not even in her most intimate moments with her husband.

Granville had been tender and respectful. He had made her feel safe and comfortable, but he had never made her feel the way she did now, as though she were a bird, poised at the edge of a cliff, ready to sweep off the precipice to be caught and borne up higher and higher by the wind rushing up beneath her wings. She had never felt so alive. All her senses tingled with an energy and a vitality she had not thought existed. Suddenly everything she wished to do, everything she wished to become, seemed possible. She felt excitement flowing through her, and a desperate longing to cling to Lucian, to meld his strength with hers, to be carried away by his belief in her, and his belief in them.

A cool breeze ruffled her hair. Daylight was quickly fading. She felt the slight chill of the mist rising from the meadow over where the shadow of the trees had blocked the sun. It brought a chill to her flushed cheek and reason back into control.

No, she had never felt this way before, except perhaps once before, during her one and only Season when she had been in Lucian’s arms. It was just a waltz at one of the countless balls she had been forced to attend, except this one had been magic because he was there and he had asked her to save the last waltz for him. The opening strains of music had swept them into a world of their own. Nothing else had existed but his arms around her, the gray eyes smiling down at her, telling her how much she meant to him. And then he was gone the next day.

There was a reason she had only felt this way once before in her life and that was because it was not real. It was only the desperate joy of the moment, the passionate hope that such closeness could last forever, but she knew that was not true, that it was impossible. Such intensity could not possibly sustain itself. Life was not like that. The feelings she was experiencing now were not real for the very simple reason that they did not last. She knew that from her own experience.

Gathering what little strength she had left, Catherine drew a deep, shuddering breath and pulled away, away from the warm lips that demanded a response, away from the hands whose touch was magic itself, away from the dangerously welcoming shelter of Lucian’s arms.

“No.”

“No?” He tilted his head, a wicked little smile quirking the corners of his mouth.

“No. I mean, thank you. Thank you for your offer to help, but no.”

His dark brows rose quizzically and a dangerous gleam stole into his eyes, a gleam that unaccountably made her heart beat faster.

“Thank you for caring about me—I mean, the academy, and, er, what becomes of it, its success. Your support means a great deal to me.” She drew herself up with what she hoped was regal calm as she struggled to sound gracious but dismissive. “But now I must bid you adieu so that I can read over the reports Miss Denholme will have left me to prepare for work tomorrow.”

And then she fled, like the rank coward that she was, hurrying up the stairs to the small terrace that overlooked the rose garden, wrenching open the French windows that opened from the library out onto the terrace. Once inside, she scrambled up the stairs to her bedchamber and shut the door behind her, leaning against it while she tried to catch her breath and fighting to keep her shaking knees from buckling underneath her.

Lucian remained staring thoughtfully off into the gathering gloom, the smile slowly fading from his lips. It was a rare moment in his life that he found himself at such a standstill, rarer still that he found himself put there by a will as strong, if not stronger, than his own.

What was he to do now? How was he to convince Catherine to trust, not only in him, but in the feelings she had for him? Clasping his hands behind his back, he strolled slowly, reluctantly, back down the path toward his waiting carriage.

There was no use remaining. He knew she would not see him. He had glimpsed that look of panic in her eyes as she had pulled away from him. Brief though it had been, he had seen it, and he knew what it meant. All too well he knew what it meant, for he had experienced that same sort of panic when Lady Granville had smiled possessively at him the last time he had run into her in Bond Street. It was the panic of an independent spirit that feared, above all else, losing that independence.

Catherine was a woman who could be justly proud of her accomplishments, none of which would have been realized without that independence and determination, and she was not going to allow anything to threaten that independence, even if it was her heart’s desire.

At the moment, she just did not happen to understand what was her heart’s desire, just as Lucian had not fully appreciated what was his heart’s desire until perhaps an hour ago. Then he had kissed her and so much that had been nothing more than vague thoughts, feelings, longings, and desires had coalesced into one vision startling in its clarity and simplicity.

What he needed, what he wanted, what he had longed for all his life, was Catherine. Rationally, he had begun to suspect this quite some time ago, when his rediscovery of her had brought back all the painful, provocative memories of their first relationship and reaffirmed his original undeniable attraction to her wit and her spirit. But he had not been fully emotionally aware of this until the Countess of Morehampton had forced him to recognize how completely his happiness was tied up with Catherine’s happiness and well-being. The kiss had pushed him over the edge to the further revelation that it was not only the desire for Catherine’s happiness that drove him, but his own sense of incompleteness without her. Or to be more precise, he was in love with her, had always been in love with her since the moment he had first met her.

As he settled back against the maroon leather squabs of his traveling carriage, Lucian could not help reflecting how cynically he had doubted the existence of love. Yes, he would admit that there was love of money, love of power, love of social position, he had seen them a hundred times among his peers, and countless women in the grip of one or all of these had declared themselves to be in love with him. But being in love, truly in love, had seemed an impossible dream. No one had ever proven its existence to him in a way that he had found to be the least bit convincing. Now he knew why. There was no way of proving its existence to another person. One was either in love, or one was not. And he was in love with Catherine.

Now all that remained was to convince her that she was in love with him, that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him as he wanted to spend the rest of his with her. For the moment, however, there was nothing to do but respect her wishes and leave her alone to return to her work while he returned to his own work in London.

He tried to ignore how depressing a thought it was as he ordered the coachman to head for Marlborough and the relative comfort of the Castle Inn, where he could at least be assured of an excellent meal and a decent bed for the night.

Chapter Twenty-seven

As she rose the next morning, Catherine tried to tell herself that she was in a most cheerful frame of mind. After all, she could now draft a letter to Lord Granville informing him that she had been able to procure proof from a reliable witness that her great-aunt had died after her husband, leaving no question as to the disposition of Lady Belinda Montague’s fortune.

But somehow the prospect of foiling yet another of ‘Ugolino’s’ schemes to force her into quietly respectable widowhood did not bring Catherine the pleasure she had thought it would, and no matter how she threw herself into her work in an effort to recapture her energy and enthusiasm, it was simply not the same. She felt both listless and restless at the same time, and no task that she selected brought her any sense of satisfaction.

Her dissatisfaction was so palpable that even Margaret, usually absorbed in her own work, remarked upon this unusual state of affairs. “Perhaps you should have allowed yourself to rest a day to recover from your journey to Oxfordshire. You are looking sadly pulled, you know,” the mathematics teacher observed, casting a critical eye over her friend as she paused in the door of Catherine’s office some two days after Catherine’s return from Bampton.

“Pooh. I am not such a poor creature as to be worn out by a simple carriage ride.” Catherine jumped up and hurried over to take the list of supplies Margaret had been checking over.

But despite this sudden display of energy, Margaret remained unconvinced. “You were able to accomplish all that you hoped to during your journey, were you not?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh, yes. Everything is quite settled now, thank you.” Catherine sat down and stared at the list in front of her, effectively discouraging all further discussion.

Margaret left, but still Catherine’s eyes refused to focus on the list. Instead, she kept seeing Lucian’s face as he had swept her into his arms, feeling his lips on hers demanding an answer she was afraid to give.

She shivered at the memory. Even thinking about it two days later she felt weak with longing and with a desperate yearning to believe that the incredible way her body had reacted to his touch was not just the illusion of senses disordered by exhaustion, tension, and desire, a yearning to ignore the past, forget that he had disappeared completely from her life ten years ago and never once attempted to contact her until he had appeared in her office three months ago, a yearning to live only in the moments they had shared since she had returned to consciousness in his arms to find him looking down at her as though she were the most precious thing in the world to him.

Catherine longed to believe that those moments that had culminated in the kiss in the rose garden were the beginning of the way life could be—rich, joyful, a world of shared pleasures as well as shared interests and shared values, but she could not risk it, would not risk it. It had taken her too long to forget Lucian the first time, too long to replace her daydreams of ecstatic happiness with the more solid, sober reality of mutual respect and shared responsibilities that Granville offered. And there had been nothing wrong with that way of life. She had been content, had felt useful, productive, and respected.

But were you happy? a treacherous little voice inside her whispered, a voice that echoed the doubts Lucian had expressed about her marriage to Granville. She knew that contentment and happiness were not the same thing, but she also knew that she had actually experienced one and had only dreamed about the other. And now, she was a fair way toward reestablishing that contentment on her own terms, as soon as she had convinced Lord Granville for once and for all that she was free to conduct her life as she saw fit and nothing could stop her. Better to pursue that certain goal of contentment than to risk everything on the chance of happiness, a happiness that depended so critically on someone else who had proven unreliable in the past.

Sighing, Catherine rose and shoved the list aside. It was no use trying to force herself to deal with it now. She could no more concentrate on it than she could fly. Perhaps tomorrow, once she had settled all this in her mind, she would be able to tackle it with renewed vigor and revived intelligence, but for now, it was time to return to the dower house, eat a light supper, and go to bed and pray that she would not dream of a dark, angular face whose penetrating gray eyes looked into her very soul.

* * * *

But the next day brought no relief. In spite of her good intentions, Catherine found her mind wandering off into daydreams at the most inconvenient times—as she was giving Cook instructions for the week, while she was showing Lady Nettleton around the academy and answering questions about the desirability of education for young women, even during a discussion with Margaret about the possibility of adding Greek and Italian to the curriculum.

“I do feel that any female academy bold enough to include Latin in its course of study ought to include Greek as well. It will instill just the intellectual discipline and rigor in our pupils that we are hoping for,” the mathematics instructress insisted.

“But will they enjoy it?”

“Enjoy it?” Margaret looked at her friend with as much astonishment as if Catherine had suddenly grown another head.

“Will it make them happy? Will it enable them to appreciate the beauties and pleasures in life to a higher degree?”

Margaret snorted. “Of course not. But we are not here to help them enjoy life.”

“Would you not agree that the aim of education is to help one live life to its fullest?”

“Er, yes…I suppose so, but that is not the same thing as enjoying it or being happy.”

“Is it not? How sad. For if we cannot enjoy our lives, what is the purpose of living them?”

‘To be useful, naturally, to be upright and Christian in our thoughts and actions, to set an example for our fellow creatures, and to take care of those too poor to take care of themselves.”

“In short, to conduct ourselves with the rigid respectability that ‘Ugolino’ expects from the widowed Lady Granville herself.”

“Now you are being absurd. Of course one should not follow such a narrowly righteous path as that man expects—a more falsely pious—well, never mind. What odd humor has gotten into you, Catherine? You are not yourself lately.”