Joan Wolf (12 page)

* * * *

It was a bitterly cold day at the end of February and Margarita was undressing for bed. It was late, after midnight. Nicky had been fretful with the tooth he was cutting, and she had spent the evening rocking and singing to him. Finally he had gone to sleep, and she had come into her own room to undress. Her maid, Chute, was waiting for her. Margarita smiled at the woman absently and cast a glance at the door that connected her room to Nicholas’s. The crack of light under the door told her he was still up.

Chute began to unbutton Margarita’s gown, turning away once or twice to sneeze. “Are you getting a cold, Chute?” Margarita asked. “You needn’t have waited up for me, you know.”

“I am all right, my lady,” Chute answered somewhat nasally, holding out Margarita’s nightgown. When the nightgown was on and the dressing gown over it, Margarita sat at the dressing table and Chute brushed out her hair.

“That will be enough,” Margarita said when it was falling free and shining to her shoulders. “Go to bed. Chute. And stay there tomorrow if you feel unwell.”

“Yes, my lady,” the dresser said thankfully. She put the brush down on the table, and as she did so her body was seized by a violent sneeze. Her hand jerked and the brush crashed against a bottle of perfume, knocking it over and breaking it. Margarita jumped up in haste and Chute cried out.

Nicholas was standing in front of his bedroom window, looking out at the frozen night, when he heard Chute’s cry and the sound of something breaking. He belted his dressing gown and went into Margarita’s room. The first thing that hit him was the overpowering scent of perfume. Chute was babbling hysterically and trying to mop up the dressing table, while Margarita spoke soothingly, saying everything would be all right.

“What a reek!” Nicholas said humorously, and both women started at the deep sound of his voice.

Margarita met his eyes and her dimples flickered. “Isn’t it dreadful? I never liked that perfume, even in small amounts, but now . . .” The heavy, sweet odor was overpowering. Chute repeated apologies.

“Never mind it now,” Nicholas said authoritatively. “The room will have to be aired, and it can’t be done tonight. You can sleep in my room tonight, Margarita. The fire is blazing and it’s nice and warm.” She came slowly across the room toward him, wrapped in a rich velvet robe, her hair hanging loose down her back. He frowned. “Is there glass on the floor? Watch out you don’t cut your feet.” She looked down and trod carefully.

“Go to bed. Chute,” she said over her shoulder. “The maids will attend to it in the morning.”

“Yes, my lady,” the woman replied faintly. She sneezed. “Good night, my lady, my lord.”

“Good night,” Margarita said firmly and dosed the door behind them.

Nicholas’s room
was
warm, although not as warm as hers. “Get under the covers and I’ll put another log on the fire,” he told her. She obeyed him, taking off her robe and climbing into the huge four-poster. When he turned around she was sitting up, straight-backed and still, her huge brown eyes watching him warily. He thought he knew what that look meant.

“You should be comfortable enough here,” he said a little wearily. “I’ll get one of the maids to make up another room for me.”

Margarita felt as if he had struck her. He couldn’t even bear to be in the same room with her. With her breath almost a sob in her throat, she scrambled out of the bed and stood barefoot on the cold floor. “Nonsense. If you don’t want to share a room with me, then
I
shall be the one to leave. There is no point in both of us being put out of our beds.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said sharply. “There is no fire in any other room. You’d freeze.”

She shook her head, wordless, and went back to the bed to get her robe. Nicholas, finally, understood that he had hurt her. He hesitated, then went to stand next to her, feeling huge, his eyes on her averted face. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I am not going to sleep here tonight because I couldn’t share a bed with you and trust myself to keep my hands off you. It is as simple as that.”

His hands were hard on her shoulders, biting with unconscious strength into the soft flesh. Margarita felt her heart begin to thud as his words registered in her mind. He seemed to be saying that he
did
want her. She took an uneven breath, looked fixedly at the lapel of his dressing gown, and spoke in a low voice. “I thought you did not find me pleasing.”

There was a stunned silence, and then Nicholas said quietly, “Don’t you ever look in your mirror?”

She was afraid to look at him. Gently, his arm came up around her, and she rested her head against the lapel she had been regarding so intently. Under her cheek, his heart was hammering. Those hammer beats gave her the courage to lift her head. “Don’t go,” she said.

“Are you sure?” His voice sounded oddly breathless and she nodded gravely. He cupped her face in one of his hands, bent his head, and slowly began to kiss her. She stood very quietly and his hand slid from her cheek up into her hair. He had himself under rigid control, conscious of the stillness of her lips under his. Then, very slowly, her mouth opened for him, and with a tentative sweetness that took his breath away, she began to kiss him back.

Without releasing her lips, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed. He lay her back against the pillows and with clumsy masculine fingers, began to undo the buttons of her nightgown. She let him do them all and, when he had finished, raised her arms like a good child so he could pull it over her head.

Her body was as beautiful as he remembered. The only change was in her breasts, which were no longer small and pointed. He ran an exploratory finger down the curve of one of them. “Did you really think I found you not to my taste?” he asked incredulously.

“I did not know what else to think.” His finger had left a trail of white fire behind it and she gazed at him, a mixture of apprehension and dawning passion in her dark eyes.

He took off his dressing gown and got into bed beside her. His mouth twisted a little as his eyes ran over the bared perfection of her body. “You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen or am likely ever to see,” he said huskily, and then his mouth claimed hers once again. His hands moved gently on her, so delicate, so sure. He was being very careful. He could not bear it if she stiffened against him.

But she didn’t. At first she was very still, neither giving nor withholding, but as the passion rose in him, an answer awoke within her and she melted for him, flowered and opened, soft and silken and infinitely beautiful under his love.

Afterward, she looked at him in wonder, her face a little flushed. “That was wonderful. I loved it. Why didn’t I like it before?”

He shifted a little above her, afraid his weight was too much for her. His breathing was finally slowing. “You weren’t ready, little one,” he said. “You were grieved and afraid and hurt. I should never have touched you.”

Her brown head nestled against his shoulder and he drew her close against him. “Nicholas
mío,”
she whispered.
“Mi vida, mi amor.”

He stiffened slightly, hearing those words. He had never felt so close, so one with a woman, but old fears flickered nevertheless. She said nothing more, and precisely because she had not asked, he felt he had to be honest. “Margarita,” he said a little harshly, “don’t ask me for love. If I care for anyone in this world, it is you, but love...”

She didn’t answer for a moment, but he felt the sweep of her lashes against his bare flesh. When she finally spoke, her voice was warm and soft, gentle and reassuring, the voice she often used to Nicky. “It is all right, Nicholas
mío.
I have enough love for both of us.” She said no more, and after a few minutes he could tell by the deep evenness of her breathing that she had gone to sleep. It did not take him very long to follow suit.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

There is none like her, none. Tennyson

She awoke with the dawn. The room was frosty, but under the covers, lying close to Nicholas, she was warm and comfortable. She closed her eyes and savored the closeness of him, the weight of his hand on her. He woke soon after she did. She felt his arms slip around her waist, pulling her closer. He put his mouth on the nape of her neck. Everything inside her quivered and melted at his touch, and she turned to him with welcoming, yielding passion. When she shifted a little beneath him so he could come deeper, he said in a voice she could hardly recognize, “Almighty God.”

Two hours later she heard the sound of someone making up the fire. After the maid had left, she sat up. He reached a lazy aim and pulled her down again, but she strained against it “Mrs. Wade will be bringing Nicky to me to nurse any minute now. She’ll wonder whatever happened to me.”

“Stay where you are,” he said. “I’ll fetch Nicky.” He rose, stretched before the fire like a giant cat, and put on his dressing gown.

“You might hand me my nightgown first,” she murmured.

He picked it up. “Do you need it to nurse the baby?”

“I need it if I am going to sit up in this drafty loom. It buttons down the front.”    

He quirked an ironic eyebrow at her but forbore comment about what he felt was her hypersensitivity to cold. He handed her the nightgown and went out into the hallway. They had moved the baby into the third floor nursery ten days ago, and he went down the hall to the back staircase that led directly to Nicky’s rooms.

He was back in his own room in ten minutes, a yelling baby in his arms.

“Here’s your son,” he said to Margarita, unceremoniously handing over the indignant Nicky.

“He’s hungry, that is all,” said Margarita with amusement. Once Nicky discovered that his needs were about to be answered, he broke off abruptly and addressed himself with gusto to the matter at hand. After a moment, Nicholas came back to the bed, his eyes on the steadily sucking baby at Margarita’s breast. He bent toward them a little, and looking up, Margarita’s head touched his. She smiled at him, radiantly beautiful, fulfilled and content. Looking at her, he felt curiously humble; he did not deserve to be looked at like that.

* * * *

The days went by, and the only shadow on Margarita’s happiness was the recurring nightmares that stemmed from her experience in Venezuela, and even they were growing fewer and less intense. Nicholas was afraid to say that he loved her, but Margarita had no doubt that he did. He said it in his lovemaking, he said it in the way he watched her face when they were together, he said it in his smile. Margarita had been surrounded by love all her life. She thought she knew what it looked like.

She thought she knew also the reason for Nicholas’s reticence. The only real quarrel she had ever had with him had been over her determination to write to his mother.

“I do not want you corresponding with her, Margarita, and that is final,” he had said in a tight, controlled voice.

“No, it is not final, my lord,” she replied calmly. “When a woman becomes a grandmother, she has a right to know. I do not ask that you write. You are angry with her and I accept that, although I do not approve of it.
I
will write. It will be nothing to do with you.”

She remembered vividly the look that came over his face—black, bitter pride shutting down over anger and hurt.
“She
is nothing to do with me. Or with you either. Do you understand me?” She drew herself up to her full height, her chin in the air, the breeding and arrogance of Spain momentarily stamped on her lovely face. “Yes, I understand you, my lord. I understand that you are an unforgiving, cold, heartless man. And what is more, I think you are afraid.” She stared at him steadily as he towered over her. “Now are you going to give me her address or do I have to get it from your man of business?”

He gave her the address and she had written. She received a reply to her letter but kept it to herself. Neither she nor Nicholas ever referred to the subject again.

* * * *

In March, she gave a party. Andrés Bello had come to Winslow for a visit, bringing with him another South American, Juan Vicente Montilla. Montilla was in Cartagena throughout Morillo’s long siege and was fortunate enough to escape after the city fell in December. He had joined Bolivar, who was now in Haiti. “The Haitian president, Alexander Petion, has promised to assist Bolivar in a new expedition,” Montilla told them that first evening, as they sat over coffee in the drawing room. “Many of the men who succeeded in escaping from Cartagena have found their way to Haiti—Marino and Brion are there as well. President Petion has agreed to provide ammunition to the expedition.”

“How many men does Bolivar have?” Nicholas asked.

The Colombian looked a little rueful. “That is what your government officials keep asking me, my lord. He has over two hundred men, but there will be ammunition for thousands. South Americans will rise for him, you will see.”

“Two hundred men against one of the greatest expeditions ever sent out by Spain?” Nicholas looked incredulous.

“It will not be two hundred men,” Margarita put in passionately. “Don Juan is correct when he says South Americans will rise for Bolivar. They will rise for freedom.”

Both American men nodded gravely. Nicholas found the faith they all displayed in this Sim6n Bolivar rather frightening and at the same time very moving. “He must be quite an extraordinary man, Simon Bolivar,” he said slowly, and the other three looked a little surprised.

“But of course,” said Margarita. “He is
El Libertador.”

* * * *

It was in order to entertain her guests that Margarita organized a dinner party. Invited were Sir Henry and Lady Hopkins, Mr. Knight and Lady Anne, Dr. and Mrs. Macrae, and Catherine Alnwick.

For one reason or another, Margarita had not done very much entertaining, and she was anxious that everything should go smoothly. She was anxious, too, at the thought of meeting Catherine Alnwick. She had never so much as hinted to Nicholas that she knew anything of his affair. She did not want to hear about it, to hear him explain it. It happened before he had come to her, and now it was over. That was all she cared to know. She never for a moment doubted that it was over.