“Are you awake?” she whispered.
“Mm? Now I am,” he said, lowering his head and kissing her nose. “Uncomfortable?”
“No,” she said. “It’s morning, Justin.”
“Is it?” he said. “Even though it’s not light yet?”
“There is someone downstairs in the kitchen,” she said.
“Ah,” he said. One of his hands was lightly massaging the back of her head.
“Should we get up?”
“Yes,” he said. “You will be eager to be on the road.”
“Yes,” she said.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to go with you?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I would not inconvenience you. And I would rather Dennis did not see you.”
“As you wish, then,” he said.
“Shall we get up, then?” she asked. But she pressed her face into his shoulder. She could feel him growing inside her again.
He lifted her away from him and turned her onto her back. And he came after her and thrust deeply into her. He laced his fingers with hers and set their hands on either side of her head. He buried his face in her hair and began to move slowly in her.
She was quite unaroused. There had been no foreplay at all. But she did not want to be aroused. She wanted to feel every moment of this last loving with a rational mind. She wanted to remember him, his physical person, with her body. She wanted to be able to lie down that night somewhere, probably at some inn, and remember what he had felt like. She closed her eyes and lay still, ignoring the tears that welled beneath her eyelids.
It was a long and slow and silent loving, and despite herself she surged to meet his passion at the end so that their hands gripped bruisingly against the mattress. And then he kissed her and smiled at her in the growing light, got out of the bed and drew on his dressing gown, and left her room without a word.
That was it, she thought. The end of an affair. One that had devastated her emotions far more than she cared to admit. One that she had doubtless been wrong and foolish to indulge in. But one that she would not erase from her past or her memory for all the inducements in the world.
And one not to be dwelt on and brooded on that morning, she thought, pushing back the bedclothes resolutely despite the chilliness of the room and stepping out onto the carpet. Otherwise, she would be a watering pot when they were saying good-bye and he would think her very foolish. He would think that she had fallen in love with him or something stupid like that. The very thought of his thinking any such thing made her shudder.
Though it would be no more than the simple truth, she thought ruefully. And he would be very right to think her foolish. She was twenty-six years old and could not even indulge in a brief affair with a handsome gentleman without losing her heart to him.
How very gauche and naive of her.
The arrangement was that the earl’s carriage would take Rosamund back to the main highway and along in the direction Dennis had been traveling, to the nearest inn. In all likelihood she would find him there if they had not already encountered him searching for her on the road. If by any chance there was no sign of him at the inn and no one had either seen or heard of him, then she would continue on her way, asking at each succeeding inn.
“But what if I do not find him at all?” she had asked. “It will take two days to reach home, even if the roads are perfectly clear.”
“Then I will wait until my carriage returns,” he had said with a shrug. “I came here for a week to be quiet. It does not matter if I am here a day or two longer than planned. No one will send out search parties for me.”
She left early after a breakfast she could not stomach and a conversation that was bright and cheerful and quite without depth. She could not afford to be late and perhaps miss Dennis on the road. Reeves and the earl’s coachman had cleared the driveway of snow. The road looked passable. The coachman said it would be no trouble at all.
“Well,” Rosamund said, standing at the open front door and extending her right hand foolishly to the earl, “this is good-bye. Thank you so much for taking me up and giving me a safe place to stay, Justin.”
He ignored the hand and the formal little speech. He drew her into his arms and held her against him so that it felt as if every breath of air would be squeezed from her. She did not even notice the discomfort. He rocked her and then kissed her once fiercely on the lips.
“You are beautiful, Rosamund,” he said. “I will always remember you with pleasure.”
“Me too,” she said, forcing a smile to her lips.
He looked searchingly into her eyes. “Are you quite sure there is no chance I have impregnated you?” he asked. “Shall I give you an address where I may be reached in the event that you will need me?”
She shook her head. “There is no chance,” she said. “But I would not send to you anyway, Justin."
