The Secret Mistress (38 page)

He smiled sleepily at Eunice, who gazed briefly and reproachfully back at him, her eyebrows raised, her cheeks pink, before wishing his mother a happy birthday.

“W
HAT WAS
THAT
?” Angeline asked after they had listened for a few moments.

Edward assumed the question was rhetorical since it would have been obvious even to an imbecile what they had just heard, but she was waiting for his answer, all wide-eyed and pale-faced.

“It was a carriage leaving the inn,” he said. “Windrow’s, no doubt. He is taking Eunice and probably her maid to Norton Park to dine with Lady Windrow.”

“Without waiting for
us
?” Her dark eyes grew larger, if that were possible.

“I daresay,” he said, “they hope to dine before midnight and fear that that hope may be dashed if they wait. I daresay they think you and I have a few things to work out between us. And no doubt Windrow does not particularly relish the thought of sharing carriage space with me so soon after I hit him. The fact that he did not hit back or accept my invitation to step outside indicated, of course, that he was a party to Eunice’s scheme—even perhaps the instigator. And Eunice will have seen the success of her plan, even though she was alarmed at the flaring of violence, and will have considered it fitting—or perhaps she has been persuaded to consider it fitting—to leave us alone to settle what is between us.”

“Miss Goddard’s
scheme
,” she said, “was that I leave that letter for you, so that you would come hurrying after us to rescue
her
from
Lord Windrow’s clutches. Yet you have just allowed him to drive off with her.”

“I would like to read that letter sometime,” he said. “I suppose it is a marvel of Gothic literature. But before I came to rescue
you
, it was a letter from Eunice that I read. It was restrained in tone but really rather clever and quite effective. As you see, here I am.”

And he was beginning to feel just a little angry, in a different way than he had been feeling until a few minutes ago. He was everyone’s puppet, it seemed, and he had been dancing to everyone’s tune. Well, to Eunice’s, anyway, and that infernal Windrow’s. Lady Angeline’s was less effective.

“
What
did you say?” She frowned suddenly.

“When?”

“Just before the carriage left,” she said.

“It is
you
I love,” he repeated, gazing steadily into her eyes.

And it is you I could shake until your teeth rattle
. But he did not say those words aloud. Actually it was all part of the same feeling. She fascinated him and annoyed him. She exhilarated him and infuriated him. He adored her and could cheerfully throttle her, even if only
very
figuratively speaking. Theirs would
not
be a match made in heaven. There would be nothing placidly comfortable about their lifelong relationship. But one thing was certain. He knew he was
alive
when he was with her, whatever the devil that meant.

Whatever the devil it
did
mean, it made all the difference.

And he was not even sure what
that
meant.

“I
love
you,” he added since she was uncharacteristically mute.

Her eyes seemed to fill her face. And they were swimming in unshed tears.

“You do not.” Her voice was accusing. “You do not believe in love.”

“If I ever said anything so asinine,” he said, “I must have been lying. I love my mother and my sisters and my grandmother and my nieces and nephews. I even love my grandfather. And I love you—in an
entirely
different way. I am going to ask you again to marry me. I’ll do it when we are back at Hallings and when the time seems
right. And
this
time I am not going to go down on one knee. Whoever started that ridiculous tradition ought to be horsewhipped, except that I suppose he is long dead.”

She was smiling through her tears.

“I will not demand it of you,” she said. “But how do you know I will say yes?”

He wagged one finger pendulum fashion before her face.

“No more games,” he said. “There have been enough games to last us both a lifetime, Angeline. They are at an end. I am going to offer you marriage because I love you and would be unable to live a happy, fulfilled life without you. And you are going to marry me because you love me.”

A wave of uncertainty washed over him, but he mentally shook it off. It was time to take a stand. He had the feeling he would be doing it for the rest of his life—except when she was bowling him over with some madness or he was simply indulging her because he had no desire whatsoever to take a stand.

Devil take it, life was going to be complicated. He was never going to know whether he stood on his feet or on his head.

“You are very sure of yourself,” she said.

“I am.” He clasped his hands behind his back and resisted the foolish urge to cross his fingers.

The private parlor, indeed the whole inn, was suddenly very quiet. Somewhere in the distance a clock ticked loudly.

“We had better follow Miss Goddard and Lord Windrow in your carriage,” she said. “Perhaps we can catch up to them before they reach Norton, and our traveling alone together will not appear too, too improper.”

“I do not have a carriage with me,” he said. “I rode here.”

“Oh.” She bit her bottom lip. “Whatever are we going to
do
, then?”

He had known what they were going to do the moment he heard Windrow’s carriage drive away. He had known it with a ruthless certainty, just as he knew that Windrow would stop here for them in the morning. He would not wish to arrive back at Hallings
alone with Eunice, after all, even if she
did
have a maid with her. Good Lord, he might feel obliged to offer for her, and that would be a disaster of catastrophic proportions for Windrow—not to mention Eunice.

“We are going to stay here,” he said.

Her eyes widened again. “Tresham would
kill
me,” she said. “So would Ferdie. Do you suppose there are two free rooms?”

He guessed there were as many free rooms as there were rooms at the inn, but it was an academic point.

“I have no doubt there is
one
free room,” he said, “which we will take. As Mr. and Mrs. Ailsbury. Have a seat and I will go and see to it.”

Her lips parted and color flooded her cheeks. Her mouth formed an O, but no sound came out.

He leaned an inch or two closer to her and searched her eyes with his own.

“The time for games is over, Angeline,” he said again. “And the time for misunderstandings. It is time to love.”

But not yet in
that
way, surely. Such a thing would have been unthinkable to him just a week ago. Even yesterday. Even an hour ago. What
was
he thinking? But he did not particularly want to know. He had spent his
life
thinking, reasoning, figuring out what was the right and proper thing to do, working out how not to hurt those he loved and those in his care. He
had
loved. All his life. And yet he had never
 … loved
.

Yes, sometimes thought was pointless. For some things were beyond thought or at least beyond logic.

Love had always been a duty, even if the love had been genuine.

Love had never been … freedom.

Freedom to ruin an innocent young lady?

Freedom to
love
her.

“Tell me you love me,” he said.

“I love you,” she told him.

“Tell me you will stay here with me,” he said. “Tell me you
want
to. Or tell me not and I will contrive something. There is probably some carriage or gig here I can hire to take you to Norton.”

So much for forceful, masterful behavior. So much for taking a stand.

“I will stay,” she said. “I will go to the ends of the earth with you if you ask it of me. I will—” She smiled and bit her lip. “You do not want a speech, do you?”

“Are you quite sure?” he murmured.

She gazed into his eyes and nodded—which was speech enough.

I
T WAS A
surprisingly large chamber for such an insignificant-looking inn. It was square and neat and light and airy. There were wooden beams overhead, some of them sloping with the shape of the roof down over the head of the bed, which had no canopy. The window looked out on fields and meadows and was framed by pretty, flower-patterned white curtains.

The bed was covered with a counterpane that matched the curtains. There was an upright chair on either side of the bed. There was a washstand with bowl and jug, and a large wooden dresser with a square mirror attached to it.

Angeline could see her image in the mirror even though she was standing some distance from it. She could see her hat, a straw wide-brimmed bonnet trimmed with a whole meadow of flowers of all descriptions and colors. It was definitely her favorite—well,
one
of her favorites, anyway. It was tied beneath her chin with bright green silk ribbons. She pulled the ribbons loose and removed the hat. She hooked it over the uprights of one of the chairs.

Then she felt naked. An unfortunate thought.

Lord Heyward had crossed the room and was opening the window as wide as it would go and then closing the curtains over it. They flapped gently in the breeze. They did not dim the light but only made it softer, somehow more rosy-hued. The air smelled enticingly of country and clover and horse. Somewhere close to the
inn a horse whinnied. Much farther away a dog barked. A whole choir of birds was singing.

Angeline’s heartbeat was thundering in her ears. She felt slightly sick with fear and excitement.

He was looking at her from over by the window.

“Would you like to dine first?” he asked.

First?

“I just had tea,” she said.

He
had not, of course. Perhaps he was hungry. Probably he was hungry. He was coming toward her across the room, skirting around the end of the bed as he did so. He stopped in front of her, framed her face with his hands, pushing his fingers into her hair as he did so, and kissed her. She set her hands on either side of his waist beneath his coat.

It had sounded a little silly when she had said it downstairs earlier, but she had meant it. She
still
meant it. She would follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked it of her. And he loved
her
, not Miss Goddard.

He
loved
her. He would be unable to live a happy life without her.

He had lifted his head and was gazing into her eyes. And his fingers, she realized, were working the pins free of her hair. She slid her hands up under the silk of his waistcoat and spread her fingers over his back on top of his shirt. He was very warm. Her hair fell suddenly over his hands, about her shoulders, down her back.

“Edward,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

She had never spoken his name before, even in her mind. It seemed not quite to belong to him. Except that it belonged to her lover. Her soon-to-be lover. She swallowed.

He lowered his head again to kiss her just beneath one earlobe. His tongue flicked over a tender spot she had not known was there, and a surge of something raw, almost painful, darted down through her body and along her inner thighs to weaken her knees. Her toes curled inside her shoes.

His hands were working at the back of her dress, opening the buttons there. She slid her hands free as his mouth moved beneath her chin and down along her throat, and she moved them to undo the buttons of his waistcoat.

She spread her hands over his chest as her dress parted down the back and his hands crossed inside it to pull her against him. He lifted his head and kissed her mouth again, his own open and hot and demanding, his tongue pressing inside and caressing surfaces until that raw feeling returned and multiplied. Her hands were trapped between them.

And then he raised his head again and looked at her with an intense look in his eyes that she had not seen before—something heavy, something … passionate. She dropped her arms to her sides, and he drew her dress off her shoulders and down her arms until it fell about her feet, leaving her clad only in her flimsy undergarments and silk stockings and shoes.

He turned to the bed and drew back the counterpane and the top sheet before drawing off her undergarments.

“Sit down on the edge of the bed,” he said then, and she sat after kicking off her shoes.

He kneeled down in front of her, took one of her feet to set on his thigh, and drew off her stocking before moving to the other foot.

He was in no hurry. It was almost as if he savored every moment. But how
could
he? Angeline hummed with … something. Something terribly needy. But of course, she was naked—entirely so once her stockings were gone—and he was not.

She was
naked
in a room alone with a man in broad daylight.

She fairly pulsed with … whatever it was.

But really there
was
no hurry.
It is time to love
, he had said downstairs. And time was not always just one second long or even one minute or one hour. Those were artificial divisions, imposed by humankind. Time was infinite. And it was time to love.