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Rendel grinned at him, and it made Cornelia’s heart leap with delight to see the new understanding between the two men whom she loved most in the world.
‘Love makes lunatics of us all,’ Rendel told Andrew cheerfully. ‘And only a madman would attempt this wild folly of life at all.’
Andrew nodded. ‘I think you have the right of it. Life is mere folly. Go to your wife, if you choose. I will see how the Alderman fares today.’
When he had gone Rendel crossed the room in three strides and knelt to take Cornelia in his arms. His strong body warmed her and she clung to him weakly, her chestnut hair tangling with his long black curls.
He kissed her upturned mouth, her bare shoulder, the long curve of her throat.
‘My dearest love,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘At last I have you.’
She laughed, stupid with happiness. ‘It was very hard for me to be trapped here, thinking I was going to die, fearing at all times that I would never see you again. I only realised I loved you when I knew how much I would hate being parted from you.’
He sat down, his back against the wall, cradling her in his arms, the sheet wound round her breasts, leaving her shoulders gleaming white against the black cloth of his suit.
‘I realised I loved you, Madame,’ he said mockingly, pretending to bite her shoulder, ‘when I first set eyes upon your angry little face. That hair, those spitting eyes, made my head swim with desire, but I had wanted and bought women often enough before not to know the difference between what I felt for you and what I had ever felt before. It was the difference between gold and gilded iron.’
‘You should not boast to me of your conquests, sir,’ she teased with mock severity, frowning up at him, yet with eyes that danced beneath her drawn brows.
He laughed down at her. ‘You heard of them, I suppose? I guessed that the Court gossips would waste no time in spinning their lures for you.’
‘I heard about Germaine,’ she said, with an assumption of indifference which did not deceive him for a second.
He bent to look into her eyes, a smile curling the thin lips which once had seemed so cold and sneering to her.
‘You are mighty calm, then, Madame. You do not feel any jealous pang, knowing I was her lover?’
She felt a stab as he spoke, and her eyes reflected the jealousy site felt.
He smiled, caressing her. ‘Ah, you need not look like that, my love. Germaine was available. It is a hard fashion in which to speak of a lady, but so it was—she offered amusement. I accepted. It was all very polite and all very pointless. I was tired of the game before ever I set eyes on your face.’
‘Are you sure?’ she asked huskily.
He kissed her with tenderness. ‘Quite sure,’ he whispered. ‘I saw you, I loved you and I pursued you assiduously, as you must have realised. I had no difficulty in finding out your name. A few discreet enquiries in the city, a servant set to watch for you. I discovered your father’s ambitions and persuaded the King to see to it that he was invited to Greenwich that day, so that I might strike up his acquaintance, apparently by chance.’
‘I suspected it,’ she cried, laughing yet reproving. ‘You are very cunning, sir.’
‘It was equally planned that I should be in the theatre on the evening of your birthday visit there—your father had mentioned it and I immediately determined that should be the place of our next meeting.’
‘What if I had denounced you to my father?’ she asked him.
He shrugged. ‘I am a gambler, love. I took that chance. And I had had the chance to weigh up your father, remember. I knew how much he wished to rise in society. I fancied that he would be forgiving towards me even if you did denounce me.’
She nodded. Once this calm admittance might have angered her, but now she knew that he spoke the truth. Her father would have found excuses for him. His own ambition would have made him eloquent on Rendel’s behalf.
Then she remembered the day on which Rendel had proposed to her, and asked him why, if he had loved her, he had been so lukewarm in his manner.
He frowned. ‘I had not expected your father to be such a fool. His financial difficulties precipitated my proposal. I had intended to wait until I had coaxed you round. I was sure I could make you love me.’
‘Oh, were you?’ she interrupted, stung, yet amused.
‘Yes, Madame,’ he said softly, smiling teasingly at her. ‘I was too experienced to be blind to your hidden reactions to me. When I kissed you that first evening, it happened then —you blazed into life under my kiss. I felt your body respond.’ He shrugged. ‘Oh, I know your mind still resisted, still repeated that you hated me. But I trusted to nature’s own laws, my dear.’
She laughed breathlessly. ‘I truly believed I hated you. I knew, of course, that you had another effect upon me. I was not so innocent that I could fail to notice that.’
‘If it had not been for your saintly doctor, you would have admitted the truth much earlier,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Andrew stood between us for a long time. But I think that I already knew, on our wedding night, that I loved you. I had not faced the fact, that was all.’
