Chapter 23
Nicholas slept for only a short while. He was awake now, his head turned to one side, gazing at the woman who slept beside him. Her head was cradled in the crook of his arm, her silver-blond hair forming a silky halo around her face and along his arm. Her cheeks were still flushed. Her lips were slightly parted in sleep. He did not want her to wake up. He wondered if she would be willing to stay all night, if he would have a chance to make love to her again.
He smiled. Make love with her. She had been quite right to phrase it that way. She had been a very active participant in what had happened, quite different from that other time in the cave, when she had been almost in a world of her own, discovering a little fearfully the power of her own sexuality. This time she had been with him every moment, as intent on pleasing him as on receiving pleasure.
In fact, he had never had a woman who showed so little timidity in bed. She had touched him and caressed him in places where he had never been touched before. And even when he was inside her she had not lain still, but had done marvelously erotic things with her hips. He had always thought that that stage of the sexual act at least belonged exclusively to the man. The best he could do was to make it pleasurable to his woman. But Katherine had made love to him. Or with him. For the first time he felt that that term “making love” was an appropriate one. He had always thought it a misnomer. The act was for physical sensations only, he had believed.
He had felt loved. He had felt that they were sharing something infinitely precious, not merely experiencing their separate pleasures. And so at the end he had followed the instinct of love and taken them together through a wonderful sensation of peaceful fulfillment. They had known that they were united, not just sexually but by the stronger bonds of love. And so when he had removed himself from her, they had not left each other’s arms but had smiled into each other’s eyes and slept. He had not known that fulfillment could come in any other way than through the explosion of tension that had always been the climax for him and—if he was careful—for his woman too.
And what now? Did he still have the strength of will to let her go? Could he still convince himself that she was better off without him if he must go through life with the stigma of illegitimacy on his name? Somehow the nobility of his intentions did not seem so important at the moment. It was more to the point that they loved each other. She had not said she loved him. But she did. Their lovemaking could not possibly have ended that way if there was anything less than love between them, And could he now let her go without a word? He had done it to her once already. He did not believe he could do it again.
One thing was clear to him anyway, Nicholas thought, lifting a lock of her hair and stroking its silkiness with his thumb. He was going to tell her the truth. It was going to be difficult. It might spoil the mood of peace and harmony they had built in the last hour. But he must tell her. It was not at all fair that she did not even know the identity of the man who had loved her, just as she had not known the face of her lover in the cave.
She was looking up at him, smiling sleepily as she had done after that first lovemaking. His own eyes smiled back at her.
“Harry,” she said, lifting one hand and trailing her finger lightly along his jaw.
“So you are awake at last, my dear Mrs. Mannering,” he said.
Her eyes had closed again. But she smiled. “Is that what I am?” she asked. “Your dear Mrs. Mannering? And you are my dear Sir Harry. For now. I shall probably be hating you and boiling with anger over some insult before another day is past. But for now you are very dear.”
Nicholas lay still, looking at her. Did she know how true her words were? She would be angrier than he had ever seen her when he told her the truth. And he knew that he could not spoil this very magical night. Tomorrow he would tell her, before she left.
She opened her eyes again, looking rather startled. “But what a forgetful thing to say,” she said. “Of course, tomorrow I will be gone. It is just as well. This is the way I want to remember you. The memories will be good ones, Harry. I am not sorry we met, and I am not sorry that this has happened.”
He picked up her hand, which had dropped to his shoulder, pressed back the fingers with the side of his thumb, and kissed the palm. “Does this have to be goodbye, Kate?” he asked.
She smiled. “Yes, it does,” she said. “You and I are from different worlds. You live the life of a gentleman, while I have chosen to earn my own living. I will have to go wherever my next employer wishes me to be. And I am not sure that I would wish to be your mistress even if I could, Harry. I have always thought that such a life would be unsatisfactory. I would have to depend upon you to support me, you see, and I would be able to offer only one kind of service in order to earn my keep. I would find it distasteful to use my body in such a way.”
“I was not suggesting that you be my mistress,” he said. “The position of wife is open.”
Her eyebrows rose and her eyes widened. “You are asking me to marry you, Harry?” she asked. “But you cannot be serious. I am a lady in name but I have become less than that since Giles’s death. And you are such a high stickler. You could not want me as a wife.”
He winced. “Have I really been quite so obnoxiously toplofty?” he said. “But of course I have. Forgive me, Kate. I am not quite what I seem to be. And I do not even have the right to ask you to marry me, my dear. Not at the moment, anyway. There is something you will have to know first. Something that might well affect your decision.”
“What?” she asked.
He looked into her questioning eyes and then bent his elbow, bringing her against him. He hugged her to him, his cheek against the top of her head. “This hour has been too precious, love,” he said. “Let us not spoil it. I shall tell you at breakfast tomorrow, and you shall tell me where I may find you in London. You will have time to think over your answer. I am afraid I have another commitment that will keep me from you for perhaps a couple of weeks.”
He had spoken in haste. And now he was going to let her down lightly. Kate closed her eyes tightly against his shoulder. But it did not matter. They had had this night together. It would be enough. She had never expected more. Indeed, she had not expected even as much after their quarrel in the garden earlier. She said nothing.
“Make love with me again, Kate,” he said, finding her mouth with his and kissing her long and lingeringly.
But she shook her head when she was able. “The ball must be almost at an end,” she said, “and Lady Thelma said she would look in on me and tell me all about it. Besides, I have a long day of traveling ahead tomorrow. I must go.”
He released her reluctantly and watched her get up from the bed, apparently without self-consciousness, and begin to dress herself. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and pulled on his breeches before crossing to her and taking the difficult task of buttoning her dress out of her hands.
“Oh,” she said, spinning around as he finished the task. “I almost forgot again. Will you write down Mr. Seyton’s address for me?”
“If you wish, Kate,” he said. “But here is a better idea. I shall be passing through Shropshire myself within a few days. Why don’t you let me take your letter directly to him?”
Kate hesitated. “You despise him,” she said. “You have said so.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Kate,” he said, “I am merely offering to take the man a letter. From you. Do you not trust me to do such a thing for your sake, no matter what my feelings for the man in question?”
"Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes, of course I trust you, Harry. But there is some urgency. Can you promise not to delay?”
He took her chin in his hand. “I promise, love,” he said, “that Nicholas Seyton will be reading your letter long before you think it possible.”
