“Don’t be,” he said. “I feel privileged.”
“There,” she said more brightly, looking about her and setting the handkerchief down on a side table, “the sad story of my life. It was about this time last evening I moved over to that stool, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” He smiled.
“I must look frightful,” she said.
“A little red about the eyes and nose,” he admitted, studying her. “Rather beautiful, actually. Do you want me to repeat what I said last night?”
She nodded.
“I want to make love to you, Rosamund,” he said.
She looked back at him, unsmiling. “Yes,” she said. “I want that, too, Justin.”
He put one side of her hair back behind her ear. “I’ll come up with you tonight,” he said. "I want to undress you. May I?”
She nodded and got to her feet and reached out a hand for his.
Chapter 6
The Earl of Wetherby wondered if he had felt anything like this with any of his mistresses over the years. He deliberately thought back to his partings with some of them. But, no, of course there was no similarity. Always he had ended the liaisons himself, because for varying reasons, he had grown tired of the woman. That was the difference, he supposed. This parting from Rosamund was an enforced thing, an experience he was quite unused to.
He had just woken up and had no idea of the time, but the embers of the fire were only a dim glow in the hearth. There was a chill in the room, though not beneath the covers. She was asleep in his arms, her naked body turned into his. He was memorizing the feel of her, the smell of her, knowing that for days to come, perhaps weeks, he would be reliving these few days in his memory.
Yes, it was just that he was not in full control of this affair. If he could keep her until he had had his fill of her, he would part from her as thankfully as he had parted from every other woman who had ever shared his bed. The trouble was that he had not had nearly his fill of her. And he had only a few more hours with her. Hence this feeling of near desperation.
She was fun to be with, he thought. It was not just that she was a most satisfactory bedfellow, though she was very certainly that. He really could not imagine that Jude would have enjoyed making snowmen and snow angels. She would have been horrified at the mere idea of poking her nose out of doors. The woman spent her whole life in a boudoir.
And Rosamund was so easy to talk to. It was absurd after little more than two days, but he felt that he knew her well. For she had the gift of talking not just of surface matters but from her inner self. He knew her even after such a short time as a woman who had been devoted as both a wife and a daughter to her older husband and who had loved him dearly, but who nevertheless was now waking to the realization that much of life was still ahead of her. She was a warm, vibrant, and passionate woman.
The hand that was spread on his chest stirred.
“What time is it?” she asked him sleepily.
Oh, yes, it was a night when time mattered. “I have no idea,” he said, covering her hand with his own.
She lay very still, listening. But there were no sounds. “It’s not morning, is it?” she said.
“Not yet,” he said, lifting her hand and kissing the palm.
“I thought perhaps I had slept the night away,” she said.
“No.” He found her mouth in the darkness with his own. “There is still time left.”
What would he do, he wondered many minutes later as he lay on his back, her body cradled on top of him, her head pillowed on his shoulder, if it were not for Annabelle and his obligation to her? Would it make a difference? Would he go with Rosamund in the morning? Or get her brother’s name and direction so that he could follow her later?
Would he marry her? And that would be the only option, he realized. Despite the torrid affair they were indulging in, there would be no question of making her his mistress. Would he marry her? He was in love with her—there was no doubt about that. But he had never believed in romantic love and did not trust it now. The intensity of these feelings could not last beyond a few days or weeks at the most.
If he were free to pay court to her, he would be quickly disillusioned. On the whole, he thought very sensibly before following her into sleep, it was as well that he was in no position to pursue her acquaintance beyond the next morning. It would be better to have these few but treasured memories of her.
“Justin,” she said sleepily, turning her head and kissing the underside of his jaw.
It was still dark. Perhaps it was still night. But there were faint and indefinable noises coming from belowstairs. Mrs. Reeves must be in the kitchen already. The night must be over.
Rosamund closed her eyes again and felt a raw ache spread upward from her chest into her throat and behind her nose. The night was over. She was still lying on top of Justin, his arms and the blankets warm about her. Her legs were spread comfortably on either side of his. They were still joined from their last act of love.
She did not want it to be morning. She did not want the night at an end.
