He smiled fleetingly. “About this,” he said. “About this time out of time.”
She shook her head,
“I’m glad,” he said. “I would hate you to leave here convinced that you had done something unforgivably immoral or something like that.”
“No,” she said. “I won’t. I will always remember with pleasure, Justin."
"And I,” he said.
They smiled at each other.
“I must say it’s deuced cold lying here,” he said. “I could think of far cozier places in which to be making love to you without even having to tax my brain.”
“It was your idea to make angels,” she said.
“And yours to make fun of me,” he said, rolling her to one side and dumping her into the snow. He got to his feet, brushed himself off quickly, and reached down a hand for hers. “Let’s go and see if luncheon is ready, shall we?”
“That’s the best idea you have had yet today,” she said, turning as he slapped the snow from her cloak.
“I promise to come up with a better one after luncheon,” he said. “Far better, in fact.”
She was lying asleep in the crook of his arm. They were snug in his bed with a cheerful fire crackling in the hearth and the sun streaming through the window. The clouds had finally moved right off an hour before.
He was feeling pleasantly drowsy, too. He would sleep soon and make up a little for two almost sleepless nights— and prepare for the one ahead. He turned his head and smiled down at Rosamund's sleeping face. She had fallen asleep even before he had lifted himself off her. She had merely made sleepy protests when he had done so.
He hoped she had been telling the truth about the unlikelihood of becoming pregnant. God, he hoped he was not getting her with child. Not that he would ever know, of course. She would do the suffering all alone. But he cared too much to be concerned about only his own good name.
He cared too damned much. He should have instructed his coachman to keep on going two days before. Her brother would probably have found her. Or someone else would have taken her up. Or she would have found some other habitation. Or having taken her up and brought her here, he should have fought his baser instincts much harder than he had. He should have brought that book of sermons to this room and locked himself in.
But what had happened in the last day that was so earth-shattering? Nothing really. They had become lovers, to the mutual satisfaction of both. He was a man looking for a last fling before settling down to a respectable betrothal. She was a widow looking for a brief interlude of excitement. They had found what they wanted in each other.
They had shared six thoroughly satisfactory beddings and were likely to share as many more before she left the next day. Thoroughly satisfactory. She had shouted out his name a few minutes before so that he had been afraid for one moment that Reeves would come rushing upstairs to see if he were murdering her.
In two nights and one day he was having far more pleasure than he would have had in a week with Jude. But by tomorrow he would be exhausted. It would be time for her to go even if she did not have to do so.
He would have thoroughly pleasant memories of her—as she would of him, she had said outside that morning. Thoroughly pleasant. It was a great good-bye to youth and freedom.
He tipped his head sideways and rubbed his cheek across her soft dark hair.
Except that he cared too damned much. He felt something like panic when he thought of the next day.
“Was I sleeping?” She turned over onto her side suddenly and smiled drowsily up at him.
“Mhm,” he said. “Very wise of you, and very flattering.”
“Flattering?”
“I believe it was my lovemaking that put you to sleep,” he said.
“Do you?” She closed her eyes and smiled. “The fact that I scarcely slept last night would not have anything to do with it?”
“What stopped you from sleeping last night?” he asked.
Her smile broadened. “Your lovemaking,” she said.
“Precisely,” he said, kissing her nose and then her mouth. “Go back to sleep.”
“Is that an order?” she asked.
