Claire determinedly blocked images of the Reverend Clarkwell and of a lifetime of moral training from her mind. She was in love, she thought as she turned away from the window and considered what to wear. But that was irrelevant to anything. Of course she was in love. Was it surprising that a romance-starved spinster should fall in love with the first man to kiss her? She would suffer from her feelings. She knew that too. Life would be almost unbearable for a while after she went home again. But it did not matter. The suffering would be worthwhile. And there were two whole days to be lived through before the suffering began.
She would wear her favorite pink wool day dress, she decided, shrugging off the wish that she had clothes as fashionable as those of the other ladies. She did not, and that was that. Nothing was going to spoil this day for her.
Although she had feared that she was late for breakfast, Claire found that there were only five people in the breakfast room—Lady Florence and Mr. Mullins, Miss Garnett and Sir Charles Horsefield, and the Duke of Langford. She felt suddenly shy as all heads turned her way and not nearly as confident as she had felt since waking. He looked again the very remote aristocrat. Surely it could not have been about him that she had been weaving such dreams?
But he got to his feet immediately and came across the room to her, his hand outstretched for hers. And his eyes looked far less haughtily lazy than usual as he smiled.
“Claire,” he said, taking her hand. “Good morning. Come and have some breakfast.”
He looked almost like an eager boy, she thought in some wonder, and all her happiness came back in a flood. She smiled radiantly at him. “Good morning, Gerard,” she said, and she looked about the table to include everyone in her greeting. “Is it not a beautiful morning? I do believe spring is here to stay.”
Sir Charles groaned. “Morning, did someone say?” he asked. “Would you not know that I would pick up the valentine of a morning person?” He shook his head at Olga and raised her hand to his lips.
“My dear Miss Ward,” Lady Florence said, “you are looking quite radiant this morning. I wonder why.”
“Ah,” Mr. Mullins said. “Probably because it is Valentine’s Day tomorrow, Florence.”
“And so it is,” she said. “If the weather holds, we will have a drive this afternoon. Everyone is free this morning since we do not seem to have a large number up yet anyway.”
“Ah, freedom,” Sir Charles said. “I do not suppose I can interest you in a little more, ah, relaxation, can I, Olga?”
The Duke of Langford seated Claire beside him after she had filled a plate at the sideboard. “Would you care for a ride?” he asked.
She smiled at him again. She could think of nothing she would love more even if she had had to do it alone. But with him? “More than anything in the world,” she said.
Sir Charles groaned again.
He fell in love with her when she smiled. His stomach felt as if it performed some sort of somersault, which was rather a shameful thing for a man of thirty-four to admit to himself. But the smile utterly transformed her and made nonsense out of all the barriers he had tried to build up about his heart during a largely sleepless night. He had never been in love before. But he was in now—deeply.
With a totally unsuitable woman. He was a rake and had lived a worthless adulthood. He could not think of one worthwhile thing he had done in the past ten years or more—unless it was allowing her to go to bed alone the night before. She had lived a selfless adulthood and was very definitely—despite her behavior of the evening before—a virtuous woman.
Marriage and the raising of a family did not enter his plans at all. Years ago he had decided that his brother and his brother’s sons were quite worthy of taking his place when he died. More worthy than he, in fact. He would take no personal responsibility for the succession. The only use he had for women was that they cater to his pleasure.
Claire Ward was not the type of woman with whom he normally associated. One could think of Claire only in terms of virtue—of spinsterhood or marriage. And marriage seemed to have passed her by. She was not the type of woman with whom he would have chosen to fall in love, if he could have chosen. But then if he could have chosen, he would not have fallen in love at all. He had never either wanted or expected to do so.
But in love he was, he thought, watching her as she ate a hearty breakfast, watching that brightness and radiance that he knew the other occupants of the room were interpreting quite wrongly as having come from a night of sexual activity. He did not care what they thought. All he cared for was that there were two full days left before he would have to face reality and say good-bye to her, knowing that the total difference in their lives necessitated such an ending to their Valentine’s romance.
Romance! He had always laughed at the word and thought it for women only.
She had finished eating. Horsefield and Olga had left the room already, evidently on their way back to bed. Florence and Mullins were impatient to be gone from the table too, perhaps with the same destination in mind.
“How long will you need to change into your riding habit?” he asked Claire, laying a hand over hers on the table.
“Ten minutes.” She smiled into his eyes. There was light in them and color in her cheeks, and he found himself smiling back.
“I shall meet you in the hall,” he said. “In ten minutes’ time.” He rose as she got to her feet and left the room. Any other woman would have demanded at least half an hour, he thought.
“Oh, Gerard,” Lady Florence said. “Do have a care. You will be having Mr. Roderick Ward and the Reverend Hosea Clarkwell paying you a call in town within the week demanding to know your intentions and waving gloves in your face.”
“Will I?” he asked, fingering the handle of his quizzing glass. “That might be an interesting experience.” He strolled from the room.
It was like the middle of spring, they both agreed, but with the added attraction of freshness in the air and pale green grass dotted with primroses and snowdrops. The trees were still bare, but there was all the promise of the coming season in the warmth that radiated through their branches.
They rode and rode for what must have been hours but might as easily have been minutes. They rode the length of the park to the south of the house and through pastures and around hills and even over a low one, along country lanes and through lightly wooded groves. They rode without conscious purpose or direction.
And they smiled and laughed and talked on topics that they would not afterward remember. It did not matter what they talked about. They were together and happy and in love—though that was certainly not one of their topics of conversation—and the next day was St. Valentine’s Day and it was spring and the sun was shining. Was there any reason—any whatsoever—notto be happy?
They came to open pasture after riding slowly through one grove of trees and nudged their horses into a canter by unspoken consent. And then into a gallop. And then into a race. Claire laughed as her mount nosed ahead of the duke’s.
