26.
Newbury Abbey, Lily had discovered, looked much the same and yet so very different. She had been oppressed by it, dwarfed by it, overwhelmed by it when she had last been here. Now she could admire its magnificence and love the light elegance of its design. Now it felt like home. Because it was his home, and surely would be hers too.
During the day and a half since her arrival she had talked with everyone and enjoyed everyone"s company-including that of the kitchen staff with whom she had taken coffee at midmorning while she peeled potatoes. She had been in Neville"s company too, though she had not been alone with him even once. The most private they had been was that minute-no, not even so long-when he had leaned into her father"s carriage.
It did not matter. There was a way of being alone with someone even in the midst of crowds. She had grown up surrounded by a regiment of soldiers and its women and children and had learned that lesson early.
They conversed with each other-in company with others. They looked at each other and smiled at each other-in full view of everyone else. But all the time there was really just the two of them, and the shared understanding that at last the time was right. That at last she was home to stay. For the rest of their lives. Lily was sure she was not wrong.
It had not yet been spoken in words, for although the time was right, the exact, perfect moment had not yet arrived. And they would not rush it-it was as if they had a tacit agreement on that. They had waited a long time; they had endured a great deal. The moment of their final commitment would reveal itself. They would not try to force it.
The carpet in the drawing room was rolled back during the evening so that there could be dancing for the countess"s birthday party. Lady Wollston, Neville"s Aunt Mary, took her place at the pianoforte. Neville danced with his mother and then with Gwendoline, who liked to dance despite her injured leg. He danced with Elizabeth and Miranda.
And of course he danced with Lily-the last dance of the evening, a waltz.
"I am selfish, you see, Lily," he told her with a smile. "If it were a country set, I would have to relinquish you to other partners with every new pattern of the dance. With a waltz, I have you all to myself."
Lily laughed. She had danced with her father, with Joseph, with Ralph, with Hal. She had thoroughly enjoyed the evening. But only because she had known that finally, at last, she would dance with Neville.
"I knew it would be a waltz," she told him.
"Lily." He leaned his head a little closer. "You are a single woman, daughter of a duke, bound by all the proprieties that apply to a lady of the beau monde."
Lily"s eyes danced with merriment.
"I have already spoken with Portfrey and have won his consent," he said. "I could speak with you formally in the library tomorrow. Your father or Elizabeth would bring you there and then tactfully leave us alone together for fifteen minutes. No longer than fifteen-it would be improper."
"Or?" Lily laughed again. "I hear an alternative in your voice and see it in your face. If the prospect of fifteen minutes alone in the library makes you wince, as it does me, what then?"
He grinned at her. "Portfrey would challenge me to pistols at dawn for even thinking it," he said.
"Neville." She leaned a little closer. Their proximity would have scandalized the beau monde at a ton ball. But they were among family, who watched them with affectionate indulgence while pretending not to watch at all. "What is the alternative to the library? Oh. Shall I say it? You mean the valley, don"t you? And the waterfall and pool. The cottage."
He nodded and smiled slowly.
"Tomorrow morning?" she asked. "No, that would not provoke a challenge from any irate father. You mean tonight, don"t you?"
His smile lingered, as did her own. But they were gazing deep into each other"s eyes, performing the steps of the waltz almost without realizing that they still danced. And Lily, feeling a tightening in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a weakening in her knees, knew that the moment had found itself. The perfect moment. He spoke again only when the music came to an end.
"You will go there with me, Lily?"
"Of course," she said.
"After everyone has settled for the night? I will knock on your door."
"I will be ready."
Yes, Lily thought as she made her way to her room a short while later, having hugged the countess, Elizabeth, and her father, and said a decorous good night to Neville. Yes, it was entirely right that they go to the cottage. Tonight. She was a lady now, daughter of a duke, and she was single, and she was bound by all the rules by which polite society regulated itself. But deeper than those realities was the fact that she was Lily, that in her heart she was married and had been for almost two years, that she was bound by something far stronger than mere man-made rules.
An almost full moon beamed down from a clear, star-studded sky. It was autumn and it was cold. But Lily, her hand clasped in Neville"s, saw and felt only the beauty of this moment to which they had come. They hurried past the stables, down over the lawn, through the trees, through the ferns, down the steep slope to the valley. They did not speak even when they were far enough from the house not to disturb anyone with the sound of their voices. There was no need of speech. Something far deeper than words pulsed between them as they went.
They turned up the valley together at last, making their way toward the waterfall and the pool and the cottage. It was there they had lived through another moment-a tantalizingly brief moment-of total, utter happiness before being torn apart by a series of events that did not need to be remembered just now. They were back where they had been happy together. And where they would be happy again.
They were back where they belonged.
He spoke before opening the cottage door.
"Lily," he said, bending his head toward hers, cupping her face with gentle hands, "we will make love before we talk, will we? Even though church and state do not recognize our right to do so?"
"I recognize it," she told him. "And you do. It is all that matters. I am your wife. You are my husband." It had always been true, from that moment on the hillside in Portugal, when she had been dazed with shock and grief. Even then she had known that he was everything in the world that she would ever need or want. No one-least of all the impersonal forces of church and state-could destroy the sanct.i.ty of that ceremony.
"Yes." He touched his forehead briefly to hers and closed his eyes. "Yes, you are my wife."
He lighted two candles inside the cottage. She carried one of them through to the bedchamber while he knelt at the fireplace there, lighting the fire. The air was frigidly cold.
"It will take awhile to warm up in here," he said, getting to his feet and opening back his cloak before drawing her against him and wrapping it about both of them. He rested his cheek against the top of her head. "Let me hold you and kiss you until it is warm enough to undress and lie down on the bed."
But she laughed and tipped back her head to look up into his face. "It was cold," she reminded him, "on our wedding night."
"Oh, Lord, yes," he said, grinning. "Only cloaks and blankets and a tent to keep out the December chill."
"And pa.s.sion," she said.
He brushed his lips against hers. "I must have crushed you horribly. It is not the introduction to pa.s.sion I would have chosen for you if I had had the planning of it."
"It was one of the two most beautiful nights in my life," she told him. "The other was here. The air is already warm by the fire."
"But the floor is hard."
She smiled dazzlingly at him. "Not harder than the ground inside your tent in Portugal."
They used the pillows and all the blankets from the bed. They used their cloaks. They did not remove all their clothes. The floor was indeed hard and cold, and the air was not comfortably warm despite the crackling fire that was catching hold in the hearth.
Their pa.s.sion knew none of the discomforts. For each there was only the other, warm and alive and eager. After a while, after they had caressed each other with hands and mouths and murmured endearments and he had raised her dress and adjusted his own clothing and pressed himself deep inside her, there was not even each other, but the two of them seemed one body, one heart, one being. And, after he had moved in her and with her for long minutes of shared pa.s.sion and pleasure, there was not even the one left but only a mindless bliss. Oh, yes, they were married.
He was still inside her. He had been sleeping, all his relaxed weight bearing down on her. And her back was to the hard floor of the cottage. He disengaged himself and rolled off her, keeping his arms about her. But she moaned her protest at the loss of him and turned against him with sleepy murmurings.
The fire, he saw over her shoulder, was blazing healthily. He could not have been sleeping for long, then.
"You must have a bodyful of squashed bones," he said.
"Mmm." She sighed. Then she moved her head and kissed him with soft languor on the lips. "Are you going to make an honest woman of me?"
"Lily." He hugged her to him tightly. "Oh, Lily, my love. As if you could ever be dishonest. You are my wife. You can say no a thousand times over, you can say it for the rest of our lives and never make me waver in that conviction."
"I do not intend to say no a thousand times," she said. "Or even once. I said yes the first time you asked. I married you an hour later. I have been married to you ever since even though I could not agree to make it legal back in the spring. I am not saying no now. I am married to you and I want the world to acknowledge the fact-Father, your mother, everyone. But only to acknowledge what already is."
He kissed her.
"Father will want a grand wedding," she said, "even though the only wedding that will really matter to me is the one in Portugal. He will want us to get married at Rutland Park. We must give him what he wants, Neville. He is very special to me. He is ... I love him."
"Of course. And Mama will expect it too," he said, kissing her again. "Society will expect it. Of course we will get married again-in the grand manner. When, Lily?"
"Whenever Father and your mother want it," she said.
"No." He smiled at her suddenly. "No, Lily. We will decide. How does the second anniversary of our first, our real wedding sound to you? December-at Rutland Park."
"Oh, yes." She smiled back with obvious delight. "Yes, that would be perfect."
Everything was perfect-for the present. It would not remain so throughout the rest of their lives, of course. Life did not work that way. But now, this night, all was well. The future looked bright and the past ...
Ah, the past. The past that Lily had endured and he had never found the courage to share completely with her. It did not matter, perhaps. The past was best left just where it was. But then the past could never remain there. It encroached on the present and could blight the future if the issues it had raised were never dealt with. Lily"s past would always be something he tiptoed about, something she deliberately never spoke about to him.
"What are you thinking?" She touched her lips to his. "Why do you look so sad?"
"Lily." He spoke quietly, looking into her shadowed eyes though he would rather have looked anywhere else in the world. "Tell me about those months. There was more to tell, was there not? But I did not have the courage or fort.i.tude to listen to the whole of it back in the spring. The pain of those we love is always harder to bear than our own, especially when there is guilt involved. But I need to know. I need to share it all so that there are no shadows left between us. And perhaps you need to tell. I need to help you let go of it, if I can. I need-"
"Forgiveness?" she said when he did not complete the thought. Her finger was tracing the line of his facial scar. "You did all you could, Neville, both for me and for the men who died in the pa.s.s. It was war. And it was Papa who took me on that scouting mission. I knew the risk; he knew it. You must not blame yourself. You must not. But yes, I will tell you. And then we will both let go of the pain. Together. It will be finally in the past, where it belongs."
Even now he wished he had left it alone. He wished he had held on to their perfect night without allowing the intrusion of the one piece of ugliness they had never confronted together.
"His name was Manuel," he said quietly.
She drew a slow and audible breath. "Yes. His name was Manuel," she said. "He was small and wiry of build and handsome and charismatic. He was the leader of the band of partisans and a fanatical nationalist. He was fiercely loyal to his countrymen, terrifyingly cruel to his enemies. I was his woman for seven months. I believe he grew fond of me. He wept when he let me go."
He held her while she continued. And after she had finished talking. She had cried at the end. She was crying now. So was he.
"It does not need to be said," he murmured against one of her ears when he had control of his voice, "because there was no guilt, Lily. But I know you blame yourself for living when those French captives died. And for allowing that man to use your body instead of fighting to the death.
So I will say it, my love, and you must believe me. You are forgiven. I forgive you."
Her tears stopped eventually, and she blew her nose on the handkerchief he had somehow found in the pocket of his cloak.
"Thank you," she said. She smiled tremulously. "It does not need to be said, because there was no guilt, Neville. But I know you need to hear it. I forgive you for failing to protect me, for neglecting to come in search of me, for coming home to England and proceeding with your life. You are forgiven."
He drew her head beneath his chin and ma.s.saged her scalp through her hair with light fingers. He gazed into the fire.
Strange night, he thought. Almost like the first night they spent together, ugliness and grief on the one hand, love and bliss of physical pa.s.sion on the other, weaving themselves into some fabric called life. Something that despite everything was worth living and fighting for. As long as there was love-that indefinable element that gave it all a meaning and a value deeper than words.
It had been strangely right to confront the final painful barrier tonight of all nights. To recognize openly together that the path to this night and this cottage had been a long and a difficult one. But to understand that together they could ease each other"s burdens and offer each other pardon and peace as well as love and pa.s.sion.
"Lily." He kissed her on the mouth. "Lily-"
She pressed herself to him and clung tightly.
It was a fierce loving, without foreplay, without any great gentleness. It was the yearning of two bodies to reach beyond desire, beyond pleasure, beyond simple s.e.xual pa.s.sion to the very core of love. And blessedly they found it there in the cottage beside the pool and the waterfall, their final cries wordless, their sated bodies tangled together on the hard floor among blankets and cloaks and other garments. They slept.
Neville was still fast asleep and awkwardly tangled up in the blankets after Lily had risen to her feet, straightened her clothes, fluffed up her hair as best she could, and drawn on her cloak. She was tempted to leave him there, but the fire had died down and soon enough the cold would wake him anyway. She nudged him with one foot.
He grunted.
"Neville," she said, and watched, unsurprised, as he came fully awake and sat up all in one moment-he had been an army officer, after all. "Neville, in another few hours we are going to have to go back to the house and look fresh and tidy and innocent enough to face Father and your mother and everyone else. We are going to have to tell them our news and allow them to take everything else out of our hands. Are we going to waste these precious few hours?"
He grinned and reached out an arm for her. "Now that you mention it-" he began.
But she clucked her tongue. "I did think of bathing," she admitted, "but I suppose the water would be rather chilly."
He grimaced.
"So we will go walking on the beach instead," she told him. "No, running."
"We will?" He stretched. "When we could be making love instead?"
"We will go running on the beach," she said firmly. "In fact"-she grinned cheekily at him-"the last one to the rock and up to the very top of it is a shameful slug-a-bed."
"A what?" he said, shouting with laughter.
But she was gone, into the other room, out through the door, leaving it wide open, leaving behind her only an echo of answering laughter.
Neville grimaced again, sighed, cast one longing look at the dying fire, chuckled, jumped to his feet, gathering his clothes about him as he did so, and went in pursuit.
27.
Lily had not judged the Duke of Portfrey quite correctly. He wanted a wedding for her at Rutland Park, it was true. She was his daughter, and he had finally found her and brought her home where she belonged. It was from home that he would give her away to the man who had won his blessing to be her husband.
But he left the choice to the size of wedding to Lily herself. If she wanted the whole ton there, then he would coerce every last member to come. If, on the other hand, she preferred something more intimate, with only family and friends in attendance, then so be it.
"The whole ton would not fit into the church," she told him. It was an ancient Norman church, set on a hill above the village, a narrow path winding upward through the churchyard to its arched doorway. It was not a large church.
"They will be squeezed in," he a.s.sured her, "if it is what you wish."
"Are you sure you would not mind," she asked him, "if I were to choose a wedding with just relatives and some friends?"