Unforgiven (The Horsemen Trilogy) (22 page)

She was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief and looking embarrassed and self-conscious. But he grinned at her as he offered his arm. It was the first time in years that they had laughed together and been silly together. It felt wonderful to laugh and be silly with Moira.

*   *   *

THE
Season had all but ended. Many people had already left town for their country estates or one of the spas. Most of those of the beau monde who remained would follow them within the next week or so. Nothing had been said between Moira and Kenneth about leaving—for obvious reasons. She would return to Dunbarton, of course. The only detail to be decided upon was the day of her departure. But would she go alone? It was a question of such significance that both of them avoided it and the setting of any date. But it would be soon.

It was a question they would face and answer after the night at Vauxhall. That night had been arranged well in advance, and it had been assumed among the members of the group that were to go that it would be the final celebration of the Season. Lord and Lady Rawleigh were to leave for Stratton Park the morning after, and Mr. and Mrs. Adams were to return to Derbyshire. Lord Pelham was going to Brighton the day after that. Moira suspected that he was taking a mistress with him, since there had been a loud
silence when she had asked if Mr. Gascoigne was to accompany him. Mr. Gascoigne, it seemed, was to go home, as his father was ailing and there was still a sizable family to be managed.

Within three or four days of the Vauxhall evening, all their closest friends were going to be gone, Moira thought. Helen and Michael and her mother-in-law had already left. She would have to leave too. But first they must make a decision. She did not welcome the thought. She did not know what she wanted to do. But it was a problem she would put aside until after Vauxhall. Nothing must spoil that evening.

She had looked forward to all the entertainments of the Season and to seeing all the famous sights of London. But the best had been kept until last. Vauxhall, she had heard, was a magical place, especially at night when the pavilion was lit with numerous lamps and candles, and colored lamps swayed from the tree branches along the paths that the patrons strolled. There were boxes at the pavilion where one could sit and eat while listening to the musical entertainment. There was dancing there. And often there was a fireworks display.

Only the weather could spoil the evening. Moira watched it anxiously all through a heavily clouded morning and a partly cloudy afternoon. But the sky cleared with the coming of evening and the air seemed to grow warmer just at the time when one might have expected it to cool off.

“You look very lovely,” her husband said when she joined him in the hall.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him. She was wearing the only gown she had bought in London, an extravagance in lace and
pale green satin that Catherine and Daphne between them had persuaded her into purchasing—not that she had needed much persuasion, it was true.

“The gown is new?” he asked, taking her warm shawl from her arm and wrapping it about her shoulders. “Have I received the bill for it yet?”

“I paid for it myself,” she said.

“You will present me with the bill tomorrow, then,” he said, handing her into the carriage and climbing in beside her. “Your allowance is for personal expenses, Moira. I will clothe you.”

She did not reply. It would be senseless to argue. And foolish. She should be delighted—the gown had been very costly. But she hated to be dependent upon a man.
I will clothe you.
There was something mortifying in the thought. She had been dependent upon a man all her life, of course—on her father, and more lately, on Sir Edwin Baillie. But this seemed different.

“It will always be so, ma’am,” he said, reading her thoughts, his voice rather cold, as it so frequently was. “There is no point in looking mulish. Even if you never see me again after this week, you will always be my wife.”

“My possession,” she said quietly. “You might as well say it aloud.”

“You will always be my possession,” he said curtly.

They were quarreling over his generosity. Was she mad?
Even if you never see me again after this week.
Panic threatened.

“There will be dancing tonight,” he said abruptly, changing the subject after a short, resentful silence. “Everyone will wish to
dance with you—Rex and his brother, Baird, Nat, Eden. But I would waltz with you, Moira. The first after supper. You will reserve it for me.”

“That is a command, my lord?” she asked.

“Yes, by God, is it a command,” he said, sounding thoroughly irritated, but he looked at her sidelong as she was looking at him. It was something that had been happening between them occasionally—flashes of irritation deflected by a shared sense of humor.

“Then I need not agree to save it,” she said. “I have no choice anyway.”

“You are learning,” he said.

“Yes, my lord,” she replied meekly.

He continued to look at her sidelong without turning his head toward her.

Vauxhall, which they approached by water in company with the other members of their party, was everything Moira had expected and more. The lights from colored lamps shimmered across the surface of the Thames and when they entered the pleasure gardens there was the feeling of entering a fairy tale, of leaving the real world behind.

“Oh, Kenneth,” she said, gazing about her, looking upward into the tree branches, “have you ever seen anything lovelier?”

“Yes.” He covered her hand on his arm with his free hand. “Moonlight shining in a band across the sea at Tawmouth.”

Very daringly she had met him in the hollow above the cliffs after dark one evening and they had watched just the scene he
had described, sitting side by side, his arm about her shoulders. He had kissed her, yet she had felt in no danger at all from him. Ah, the sweet innocence of youth.

He might never see Tawmouth again. She might live there alone—with her memories.

*   *   *

IT
was a warm, only slightly breezy evening. Vauxhall Gardens was crowded with revelers, perhaps because the end of the Season had arrived and everyone was making much of the last few entertainments available to them. They had done all that people did at Vauxhall: They had strolled along the shady paths in couples before supper, though none of them had walked with their own spouses; they had listened to the orchestra play Handel; they had eaten the thin slices of ham and the strawberries and drunk the champagne for which the Gardens were famous; they had conversed and laughed; they had danced.

There was a feeling almost of desperation about the evening—at least there was for Kenneth. It was not a particularly pleasant prospect that all these friends of theirs would disperse to various parts of the country within the next two days. There was no knowing when they would meet again. But that sadness was nothing in comparison to the greatest uncertainty of all. Would he and Moira also be going their separate ways? He would know soon. They could not postpone the decision much longer. Tomorrow—they must make it tomorrow.

They both knew it. They were both determinedly merry
tonight. They had not sat beside each other in the box Sir Clayton Baird had reserved. They had not walked together or danced together. They had not once looked into each other’s eyes. But the orchestra was about to play a waltz—at last. And it was after supper. He stood and fixed his eyes upon her for the first time. She was laughing over something Eden was saying to her, but she sobered immediately and looked up at him.

“This is my waltz, I believe, Moira,” he said, holding out a hand for hers.

“Yes.” She looked at his hand for a few moments before setting her own in it. She was not smiling when she stood up, as she had smiled all evening. The very air seemed to sizzle with tension. Surely they must all feel it, Kenneth thought. Indeed, it seemed that everyone in the box fell silent and watched the two of them leave together to waltz.

*   *   *

“WELL,”
Mr. Gascoigne said, “what is the verdict on those two?”

“My guess is,” Lord Pelham said, “that the lady does not allow herself to be easily dominated. Our Ken would not like that.”

“I would have to agree with you, Eden,” Viscount Rawleigh said. “He would not like it at all. But I do believe he might be caught by it. Irrevocably caught.”

“I would say that she certainly does not like being dominated,” Lady Baird said, “and that Lord Haverford, if he is wise, would relax that cold, rather domineering manner of his.”

“But he does it so very
handsomely
, Daphne, you must confess,”
Lady Rawleigh said with a laugh. “And I believe Moira is quite competent to deal with it. Besides, they
love
each other. That is as plain as the nose on my face.”

“Ah, a woman’s answer,” Mr. Adams said. “They
love
each other and all has been said.” He smiled affectionately at his sister-in-law.

“It will not be a tranquil marriage,” Mr. Gascoigne said.

“Quite frankly, Nat,” Lord Rawleigh said, “I do not believe Ken could endure a tranquil marriage.”

“They certainly know how to laugh together, anyway,” Lady Rawleigh said, exchanging an amused smile with her husband.

“They are sure to live happily ever after, then,” Sir Clayton said, getting to his feet. “Come and waltz, Daph?”

“Y
OU
are enjoying yourself?” Kenneth asked Moira after he had led her onto the dancing floor before the pavilion.

“Immensely,” she said. “I knew this would be a lovely place and a wonderful evening. I have not been disappointed. And dancing in the outdoors is the most delicious thing to do. I wish I could dance all night. May we dance until dawn, my lord?” She lifted one hand to set lightly on his shoulder and set the other in his.

“I hope not,” he said. “I have other plans for what remains of the night after we arrive home.”

The music began and she moved smoothly with him into the rhythm of the waltz. They had danced with each other so few times since her arrival in town. This was their first waltz together
since the Dunbarton ball. All the doubts ever expressed about the propriety of the waltz were thoroughly well-founded, he thought.

“Ah, yes,” she said in response to what he had said a few moments before. “And that will be more enjoyable by far than dancing.”

He twirled her about. He could not take his eyes from her. She was again that vivid girl who had scorned convention and had said boldly whatever was in her thoughts. But he could not quite believe the evidence of his own ears on this occasion. She was flirting with him, he realized. Flirting not as other ladies of his acquaintance flirted—with fluttering eyelashes and soulful eyes and parted lips—but as the boldest courtesan might flirt. But then, what else would he have expected of Moira?

“In many ways,” he said, “it bears a remarkable resemblance to dancing. In this waltz, you see, you have fit yourself comfortably to my rhythm.”

“It is not difficult,” she said, “to follow the lead of a man who moves with such confident skill.”

“There is nothing,” he said, bending his head a little closer to hers, “better designed to bring mutual pleasure to two people than a dance in which they move as one.”

“Except,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, “that which bears a remarkable resemblance to dancing.”

The minx! She was not going to relinquish mastery to him, then. She was not to be disconcerted by risqué conversation. She made outrageous love to him with her eyes and with her words. He had almost forgotten their surroundings. He remembered them now and put a little more distance between them. Their bodies had been almost touching.

“You waltz well, Moira,” he said. “A great deal has happened since the first time we waltzed together.”

“Yes,” she said, and he could see the recklessness fade from her eyes to be replaced by an almost dreamy look. “It was the very first time I had waltzed. It had a reputation in Tawmouth as a scandalous dance.”

“A justly deserved notoriety,” he said.

“It is the most wonderful dance ever invented,” she said. “I thought so then, and I think so now.”

They danced the rest of it in silence, moving together with an instinctively shared sense of its rhythm, and with a mutual awareness of the other dance they would perform together in the privacy of their own home before the night was over. The cool evening breeze fanned their hot cheeks. The lamps on the pavilion and in the trees merged into a kaleidoscope of color about the edges of their vision.

*   *   *

IT
could not be all that far from dawn, Moira thought later as they rode home in the carriage. It had been the last entertainment of the Season. Everyone had been reluctant to see it end. She kept her eyes closed and felt pleasantly sleepy and even more pleasantly aroused for what was to come when they arrived home.

She kept her thoughts firmly away from tomorrow.

“You are not sleeping, by any chance, are you?” her husband asked.

She opened her eyes to smile at him. “I am not,” she said. “I am just resting.”

“A good idea,” he said, a wealth of meaning in the words.

She wondered suddenly why there was a decision yet to make. They had quarreled during the two weeks they had been together, but not all the time. There had been more times when they had not quarreled. She would guess that there were many marriages in which there was more bad feeling between the partners than there was between her and Kenneth. And yet somehow those other married couples succeeded in rubbing along together well enough.

Rubbing along together—she sighed inwardly. That was the whole trouble. Merely rubbing along with a husband could never be enough for her, and she suspected that the same was true of Kenneth. Though it was not entirely true of her, of course. She would have married Sir Edwin Baillie, knowing very well that the marriage could only ever be tolerable at best. But then, that had been a different matter altogether. She had not
loved
Sir Edwin.

It was too complicated a matter to be thought of tonight, she decided, and she had promised herself that she would not do it. Tomorrow would come soon enough. She wished tomorrow would never come. She wished tonight could last forever.

“We are home,” a low voice said close to her ear, and her eyes snapped open. Her head was resting very comfortably on a broad, warm shoulder.

“Perhaps,” he said, “I should escort you to your room and leave you there to sleep.”

“No,” she said, sitting up. “I do not want to sleep—yet.”

“Ah,” he said. “You wish to dance again, ma’am?”

“I told you I wanted to dance all night,” she said.

“And your wish is my command,” he said.

*   *   *

IT
was a dance in which they were immediately in harmony. He left all the candles burning, stripped away her nightgown and his nightshirt, kneeled with her on the bed, face-to-face, explored her with lightly seeking hands as she did the like to him, watched her through half-closed lids as she watched him, touched her face lightly with opened mouth and caressing tongue as she touched his.

When he lifted her breasts high with his hands and lowered his head to lick at her nipples, to suck them one at a time into his mouth, she held his head with both hands, her fingers threaded into his hair, and lowered her own head to croon to him, to moan her pleasure.

He was on fire for her almost from the first moment. He had never wanted, he realized, as he wanted tonight. Always before Moira there had been simply a woman’s body to give him pleasure, to be pleasured in return. Tonight, more even than for the past two weeks, it was
her
body, and he knew that all his adult life he had lived this moment in fantasy though he had never admitted it to himself until now. Always there had been Moira, as unconsciously a part of his life as the air he breathed.

She knelt with spread thighs and threw her head back as he slid his hand beneath her and teased her with fingers experienced at arousing desire. With his mouth he caressed her throat. Desire was a pain that throbbed in his groin and pounded against his temples and thundered against his eardrums.

Women, he knew from long experience, drew their sexual pleasure far more from foreplay than from penetration. He would
have patience if she needed patience. He would wait for her all the rest of the night if necessary. Tonight she would know all the pleasure there was to know if it was within his power to give it to her.

“Does this feel good?” he asked against her mouth. “Do you want more? Do you want me inside? Tell me what you want.”

“Come inside me,” she whispered.

He put himself between her thighs, lifted her astride him, positioned himself, thrust hard and firm up into her—and waited for her to settle into a more comfortable position and wrap her arms about his shoulders.

“Dance with me now,” he said. “Let us share the rhythm and the melody.”

“Lead the way, then,” she whispered, “and I will follow.”

She stayed still for a few moments, as she had always stayed still during his lovemakings, while he began the thrust and withdrawal of love, and then she began tentatively to match his movements. After a while she added the rhythm of inner muscles clenching and unclenching about him and he lost all sense of time or place. Everything became sensation: the sound of labored, sobbing breath, the smell of cologne and sweat and woman, the feel of hot, slick, muscled depths, the instinctive determination to hold back, to prolong pain until he felt his partner first burst into release. Moira. His partner. She was part of the sensation. Not for one moment did his body lose its awareness that she was Moira.

She broke rhythm. She bore down hard on him, clenched hard about him, strained with tautness.

“Yes,” he murmured against her ear, holding deep in her,
rocking his hips against her. “Yes. Come, then. It is the end of the dance.”

Release did not burst from her, as he expected. It came in soft sighing murmurs and in a gradual and total relaxation. It came in peace and incredible beauty. He withdrew slowly and slid deep once more, releasing his pain, his need, into her, sighing against her hair.

“Yes,” he said softly when he had finished.

“You were right,” she said a long while later. They were still kneeling up, clasped together, joined at their core. “There was more pleasure to be had. I had no idea.”

“I am always pleased to be of service to you, ma’am,” he said, kissing her nose.

“Pleasure
is
good—for a while at least,” she said.

“Very good.” He pondered her words:
for a while at least.
It was so easy to believe when one was engaged in sexual activity that sex was all. It was not, of course. Not even nearly all. And he had needed Moira to remind him of that. He lifted her carefully off him and laid her down on the bed, straightening her cramped legs. “And so is sleep when the dancing is at an end.”

He got off the bed, covered her, picked up his nightshirt without bothering to pull it on, and smiled down at her. “Good night, Moira. That was a great pleasure indeed.”

“Good night, Kenneth,” she said. She did not smile back at him. She closed her eyes before he turned away.

And tomorrow we will talk.
Neither of them had spoken the words aloud. But they had both heard them quite clearly.

Tomorrow they would talk.

*   *   *

DESPITE
the late night, made later by an hour of vigorous lovemaking, they were up and out by the middle of the morning. They walked to Rawleigh House to wave the viscount and viscountess on their way. The sky was a brilliant blue, unmarred by even the smallest of clouds, and the day, already hot, promised to be a scorcher later on.

“It is a reminder,” Kenneth said, “that it is time to leave London behind for the opener spaces and cleaner air of the countryside or the seaside.”

“Yes,” Moira said.

They had been chatting quite amicably since she had joined him at the breakfast table earlier. And yet it had needed only carelessly spoken words like these to silence them. Moira did not doubt that he was as aware as she of the difference between what they had done together in bed the night before and what they had done during the two weeks preceding it. And of course he was as aware as she of the decision they must come to during the next day or two. He had just come perilously close to putting it into words.

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

Viscount Rawleigh and his wife were in good spirits. They were clearly excited at the prospect of returning home to Stratton Park in Kent. Mr. Gascoigne had also come to bid them farewell. Lord Pelham had not.

“He fully intended to, Rex,” Mr. Gascoigne said, grinning. “But I daresay he is still abed, fast asleep after—ah, after the late night at Vauxhall.”

“I daresay you are right, Nat,” the viscount said dryly while Catherine caught Moira’s eye, tossed her glance ceilingward, and shook her head.

Lord Pelham, Moira thought, must be thoroughly infatuated with his new mistress.

“Thank you for coming to see us on our way, my dear,” Lord Rawleigh said, taking one of Moira’s hands in both his own. “We will miss our friends. I asked Ken to bring you to Stratton for a few weeks, but he assures me that you have other plans. Enjoy the summer, then. It has been a delight to meet you.” He raised her hand to his lips.

“Moira.” Catherine hugged her tightly. “I feel that I have known you all my life instead of just two weeks. I am so glad our friendship will continue because our husbands are friends. I will write to you—at Dunbarton? Is that where you and Lord Haverford are going?”

Moira smiled and nodded.

“You must come and visit us there,” Kenneth said from behind Moira before taking Catherine’s hand and bowing over it. “Must they not, Moira?”

“Of course.” She smiled again. “It is in one of the loveliest parts of the world.”

“Perhaps next year,” the viscount said with a chuckle. He looked fondly at Catherine. “After a certain event has been brought to a safe conclusion.”

She smiled back at him and blushed. Moira, looking at them, felt a stab of envy.

Mr. Gascoigne was kissing Catherine’s hand. “And you, sir,” she
said. “May we expect you at Stratton anytime soon? We would both be very happy to have you. Or is your father seriously ailing?”

“I suspect,” he said, grimacing, “that my father’s indisposition arises as much as anything from the fact that he has five daughters yet to marry and a niece who has been growing mutinous.”