“You avoided me for so long,” he said huskily. “Then my father died less than two months later, and I barely had time to think for nearly a year. Settling the estate seemed to require all my time and energy. At least it kept me too busy to feel very much. But I couldn’t forget you, sweet. The scandal had died down, and I hoped there was still a chance for us. I dared not try to see you alone, but I knew we would attend many of the same parties.
“So we did, at the beginning of this season. You at least spoke to me—however stilted and formal those conversations were. And I knew, by then, that you had refused several offers after our engagement ended. But you treated me like a stranger. We were never alone long enough for me to even begin to ask you what had gone wrong.”
“Is that why you accepted Grandmother’s invitation to come here?” she asked.
He hesitated, clearly trying to decide something. He choose his words carefully. “I came here because it seemed the last chance to heal the breach between us. And because Lady Ware was certain you still loved me.”
Four
It was not, perhaps, as great a shock as it might have been. Antonia had long since begun to wonder about her grandmother’s motives.
“She told you that?”
Richard nodded. “Her letter was—rather extraordinary. Very blunt and quite assured. She said that she was utterly convinced you were still in love with me, and that if I wished to repair—her term—our relationship, the holidays would present the best opportunity in which to do so.”
Almost to herself, Antonia murmured, “How did she know? She left London shortly after I did, and I saw her only a few times afterward. She seemed disgusted by my—my want of conduct, but never inquired into my feelings.”
“Perhaps she didn’t need to. You may have given yourself away, love, without knowing. Lady Ware is very wise, I think, and unusually observant.”
“So she took matters into her own hands.” Antonia was not comfortable with the idea of another’s hand steering her fate, and her feelings were plain in her voice.
He smiled. “I am afraid I can feel only gratitude to her. She gave me the opportunity I wanted so badly. Toni…take a chance on me, please. Let me prove to you that you can trust me. Marry me.”
Antonia stared up at him, biting her bottom lip. She was still afraid to marry him, shying away from her own mistrust, and with that realization came the true enormity of what she had done. “Oh, God,” she whispered.
Obviously trying for lightness, he said, “I don’t believe a proposal calls for divine assistance.”
She laughed, but it was a sound of controlled desperation. “How could I have allowed this to happen? I have behaved like a jade, a—a whore.”
Richard’s smile disappeared. “By giving yourself to a man you love?”
“By giving myself to a man I won’t marry! A man who lied to me, hurt me…”
His lean face tightened. “We always return to that, it seems. What can I do to atone for this betrayal you believe me guilty of? Do you want to hear me beg, is that it?”
“No, I don’t want to hear you beg.” She would have turned her face away, but his hand held her still. “But I can’t pretend a trust I don’t feel. Nor can I believe the result would be anything but unhappiness if I married you without trust.”
He hesitated, then said ruthlessly, “This is the second time you have lain with me, Toni. What if I have gotten you with child? Will you still refuse to marry me then?”
She closed her eyes. The possibility had already occurred to her. She couldn’t help remembering the week after their engagement had ended—the longest week of her life—when she had waited anxiously to discover if their lovemaking had resulted in a child. It had not happened then, but there was every possibility it had happened now.
“Toni, look at me.”
Entirely against her will, she met his gray eyes. “I don’t know,” she whispered. But she did know. If she became pregnant, she would have no choice but to marry him. She would never bring such shame to her family as to bear an illegitimate child—and he would never allow his child to be born without his name.
“I do know.” His eyes were glittering strangely, and his voice was grim. “I don’t want to force you, and if I believed you would be truly unhappy with me, I wouldn’t force you no matter what. But I don’t believe that, Toni. We love each other, and that love may have created a child. If nothing else will persuade you, then that possibility should. You will marry me. If I have to remain in this bed with you until every soul in the castle knows it, then I will.”
In an instinctive movement, she tried to pull away from him, but he held her firmly. “No! Richard, you wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t I? There is nothing I can say to make you trust me; very well, then—I will forego trust for the present. In time, I shall prove you can trust me, if it takes me years to do it. But I won’t sacrifice those years. We belong together.”
Fighting against his determination was a losing battle, and Antonia knew it. He meant what he said; she could see that in his eyes. He wouldn’t hesitate to compromise her, and if he did, her grandmother would escort them to the altar with no loss of time, regardless of Antonia’s feelings. She would be the Duchess of Lyonshall before the new year.
“I wish I could hate you,” she whispered. “It would be so much easier if I could hate you.”
His expression softened, and he bent his head to kiss her. “But you don’t hate me, sweet,” he murmured against her lips. “And if you would only realize it, you do trust me. You could never have lain in my arms a second time without trust.”
Before she could examine the suggestion, his mouth began working its magic. Her body heated and began to tremble, and she was kissing him back helplessly. She couldn’t seem to think of anything but the building pleasure of his touch. Rational thought vanished beneath overwhelming sensation.
Still kissing her, he found the end of her braid and removed the ribbon, and his fingers combed through her thick hair until it was spread out on the pillow like a shower of fire.
“I have dreamed of you like this,” he said huskily, lifting his head to gaze at her burning eyes. “Your beautiful hair unbound, your face soft with yearning, your lovely body trembling with desire. We were always a good match, but never more so than in passion.”
Antonia caught what was left of her breath and tried to think straight. “You—you are attempting to seduce me,” she accused unsteadily.
For some reason, that amused him. Warm laughter lit his eyes and a crooked smile curved his lips. Gravely, he said, “It would take a ruthless man to seduce a woman against her will. Are you unwilling, sweet?”
She might have forced herself to say yes, but since one of his hands cupped a throbbing breast just then, the only sound she was able to make was a whimper. His long fingers caressed her tingling flesh, stroking and kneading, while his gaze remained fixed on her face.
“I wish you could know how beautiful you are in passion,” he murmured, his voice husky again. “How soft your skin feels when I touch it. How the warmth of your body entices me.” He lowered his head to tease a tight nipple with his tongue, drawing back before she could do more than gasp, then looked at her again as his hand slid down over her belly.
“Are you unwilling, my darling?” he repeated, just as his probing fingers found her wet heat.
Antonia couldn’t answer him. She was staring into his fierce eyes, yet her own were unfocused. Her body had remembered pleasure quickly, and now it was demanding more of it. Of him. She arched upward, offering, pleading. She felt the quickening waves of throbbing pleasure.
He bent his head again and took a nipple into his mouth, wringing a broken cry from her. She was out of control, out of herself, lost somewhere and completely dependent on him to bring her safely back again. It was the most incredible feeling she had ever known, of vast helplessness combined with a strange freedom, as unrestrained as pure madness.
She pulled at his should
er, moaning, but he resisted, lifting his head again to look at her as his fingers caressed her insistently. She wanted to beg him to stop tormenting her, but then the sensations swept over her with a rush, swamping everything, and she cried out wildly. His mouth captured the sound, taking hers possessively, and a moment later his body covered hers.
Antonia felt him come into her while the spasms of pleasure still rippled through her flesh, and the sensation was so incredibly erotic she cried out again. He took her from one peak of pleasure to another, to the most profound fulfillment she had ever known or imagined was possible.
There was no abrupt dividing line between mindless delight and the return of sanity. When she came back to herself he was still with her, his powerful body heavy on hers with a weight that brought another kind of satisfaction. The muscles of his back and shoulders were damp beneath her hands, and she could feel the faint aftershocks in both their bodies. She could also feel a slight coolness in the room since the covers had been kicked away from them, but she wouldn’t have wanted to move even if she had been freezing.
She rubbed her cheek against his without thought, and when he lifted his head she was smiling. It felt strange, that smile, unfamiliar and yet not at all wrong.
He kissed her very tenderly. “God, I love you so much,” he said in a low, rough voice. “I will be like your ancestor—even death won’t stop me from loving you, wanting you.”
There was still a tug of resistance in Antonia’s mind, but the pull of him was far greater; she knew that she had surrendered. Being his wife could bring her vast happiness or agonizing pain, but she had no choice except to take the risk. Not because she might have conceived his child, but because the thought of living without him was more unbearable than the possibility of pain could ever be.
She lifted her head from the pillow and kissed him. It was the first time she had ever done that, and she saw the flash of hope in his eyes. It moved her, and made her feel pang of hurt. For him. In that moment she truly believed that he loved her.
“You did seduce me,” she murmured, smiling.
His mouth curved in an answering smile. “Were you unwilling, love?”
“No.” She brushed a lock of dark hair off his forehead and linked her fingers together behind his neck. “I suppose I must be utterly shameless.”
“Never say such a thing about my future wife.” He was still smiling, but she felt the tension in his body.
She hesitated. “Richard…I can’t promise to put the past behind me. I don’t know if I can do that. But I will try not to let it ruin the future—”
He stopped her hesitant words with kisses that held more love and tenderness than triumph, and his eyes glowed down at her. “My sweet, I swear you will never regret it.”
She almost believed him. “Do you still intend to marry me before the new year?”
“Would you mind that?” His question was serious. “Your grandmother has informed me there is a small church nearby with an obliging vicar.”
“Has she, indeed.” Antonia’s voice was dry.
He smiled slightly. “If you wish, we will announce our engagement for the second time and be wed in London with all the accompanying pomp and ceremony. I own I would prefer a more quiet wedding—and an extended honeymoon. We could travel abroad, perhaps.”
Innocently, she said, “Fainthearted, Your Grace?”
His smile turned a bit sheepish. “Well, I admit I would find it less—taxing—to reappear in London next season after the ton has had time to become accustomed to our marriage. By then, some other choice morsel of gossip will no doubt command their attention.”
Antonia knew how his pride had suffered from the scandal she had caused, and she was grateful to him for not making her feel more guilty about it. He really was a gentleman to the core, she thought—and the first tiny seed of doubt was sown in her mind.
Would a man of such honesty and character have been capable of the magnitude of his betrayal? To not only keep a mistress during their engagement, but also to discuss her and their lovemaking with that woman? To give his mistress a fob he had gone to the trouble of having fashioned from a button torn from his future wife’s clothing?
And would that man have been so willing, even determined, to offer up his pride in an attempt to woo the lady who had spurned him?
It made no sense, Antonia realized with a jarring shock. The picture painted of him on that bleak day nearly two years before simply did not match what she knew of him—and what she saw of him now.
“Toni, love, if you wish to brave the ton in a stupendous London wedding, I am more than willing.”
She blinked up at him. “What? Oh—no. No, I would much prefer a quiet wedding. Really.”
He frowned slightly. “Then what is wrong? For a moment, you were very far away.”
Antonia knew there was an answer, but she had to find it for herself. Only then would she have a chance to rebuild the shattered trust.
She smiled. “I just realized how cool the room has become. One of us should find the blankets. Or…”
“Or?” His eyes were darkening.
Antonia moved slightly beneath him, and felt the first feathery pulse of renewing need. “Or,” she murmured, and lifted her face for his hungry kiss.
It was the sense of his absence that woke Antonia hours later, and for some time she lay with a drowsy smile on her lips as morning sunlight slanted through the window. Just like Parker Wingate, Richard had apparently slipped back across the hall to preserve his lady’s reputation. Having won her acceptance of his proposal, he was gallant enough not to expose their intimate relationship to the entire castle.
He would have done so, however, Antonia acknowledged wryly, if it had best served his purpose.
Her attention was drawn by the soft sounds of Plimpton entering the room, and a sudden realization caused Antonia to sit bolt upright in bed, the covers clutched to her breasts. Her naked breasts. She looked wildly around, and discovered that both her nightgown and dressing gown lay crumpled on the floor, several feet apart. And far out of reach.
She knew her hair was tumbled about her, the curls unruly from Richard’s passionate fingers. Just as the bed was tumbled, one of the blankets having been kicked to the floor and never reclaimed. And both pillows bore clear imprints, which made it blatantly obvious that Antonia had not slept alone.
Antonia’s face felt very hot, and she had not the faintest idea what she could possibly say.
Plimpton stood stock-still in the center of the room, her thin form erect and her face expressionless. She looked at the abandoned clothing, then examined the blanket on the floor. Then her thoughtful gaze studied the two pillows. Finally, she looked at Antonia.
To her astonishment, Plimpton’s prim lips curved in a smile of immense satisfaction.
“I won five pounds,” she said.
Antonia was speechless. She watched as Plimpton gathered up the nightclothes and carried them to the bed. “I beg your pardon?”
Calmly, Plimpton said, “The castle staff placed wagers, milady, on whether you and His Grace would patch things up. Only His Grace’s valet and myself were of the opinion that you would. He said by the new year. I said before Christmas.”
Antonia eyed her maid severely. “You did, did you? And what made you so certain, pray tell?”
“I knew you loved him.”
That statement deprived Antonia of speech for a second time, but she recovered quickly. “It is highly improper for you to be placing bets on my virtue!”
“So it would—if we were speaking of anyone other than your betrothed, milady.”
Silenced a third time, Antonia decided somewhat wryly that discretion might well prove the better part of valor. In a haughty tone, she said, “I would be obliged if you would hand me my nightgown.”
“Certainly, milady,” Plimpton replied. “And I will fetch your hairbrush as well.”
Antonia had to laugh. She was still a great deal astonished by Plimpton’s approval of
her scandalous conduct, but it was certainly a more reassuring reaction than shock and disapproval would have been. And since she had implicit faith in her maid’s discretion and loyalty, she was not worried about offensive tales being spread below stairs. In fact, she knew very well that Plimpton would not claim her winnings until Richard and Antonia announced their intention to wed.
While she drank her coffee and prepared to face the day, Antonia considered her doubts of the night before. In the bright light of day, those doubts were even stronger, but she could still reach no resolution in her own mind.
If indeed Mrs. Dalton had set out to deliberately destroy Richard’s engagement…But it was all so farfetched! Would she have gone to such lengths as to hire a thief to break into his house? And how had she known about the fob if he hadn’t told her? As far as Antonia knew, only the two of them had known of its significance; anyone else would scarcely have noticed that the fob had been fashioned out of a button.
And how had the woman known Antonia and Richard had been lovers?
She might have guessed, or merely assumed, perhaps. If Mrs. Dalton had found the same pleasure in Richard’s arms that Antonia had…
Antonia pushed that thought violently aside, feeling a little sick. Just the idea of another woman sharing that with him was almost unbearable.
Antonia’s gaze fell upon the book of family history, and she felt a pang of guilt. She had actually forgotten what was to happen tonight, on Christmas Eve. Remembering now, she brooded about it as Plimpton finished dressing her hair, then rose from the table and went to get the oil lamp that still sat on a table near her bed.
“I have to return this,” she murmured.
“I can do that, milady.”
“No, I will on my way downstairs.” She wanted to take another look at the paintings.
She encountered no one, and despite the fact that her previous viewing of the paintings had taken place in almost total darkness, Antonia was able to find the short hallway. The window at the far end let in enough light to see clearly, so she left the lamp on the table.