Authors: Mary Balogh
He gazed silently into her eyes and into her smiling face until she finally closed her eyes and fell asleep. And he continued to watch her, sleep being the furthest need from his mind.
***
For now that passion was sated, reality was returning. Had returned. He held in his arms, her warm and naked body against his own, the woman he had fallen in love with fourteen years before when she was a graceful girl newly become a woman. He had thought of nothing but his infatuation for several weeks, wondering how both she and her father, the rector, would welcome the suit of a fellow who had run wild through his youth and early manhood and had nothing to recommend him except his name and his wealth and his property—none of which would have weighed more than a feather with either of the two people he would wish to impress.
He had paid dearly for his secrecy, for his lack of courage in coming to the point. For if he had had little enough chance of winning her anyway, he had had none at all after Web had confided his love for her and his determination to marry her. He had been quite unable to compete against Web. Not just because Web had everything to offer while he had nothing, but because Web was dearer to him than a brother. And he would not allow a woman to come between them. Especially a woman who deserved Web a thousand times more than she deserved him.
And so he had lost her before he had ever had a chance of having her. And had determinedly, over the next several years, pushed the pain and the longing into the background of his mind, forced friendship to the fore, and won his battle. He had made her into his dearest friend—along with Web. Always, safely, with Web, their names linked inextricably in his mind. Never Allie. Never once Allie until after Web’s death. Always Web-and-Allie.
And now Allie again. For the last two years. Keeping himself away from Westhaven Park while she was still at Chandlos, making every excuse for doing so except the real one. And not wanting to return to Westhaven ever again once she moved away to Bath, but wanting and wanting to go there to see her. For friendship’s sake. Merely because she was his dearest friend. His only dearest friend now that she was alone.
And now, since her arrival in London, the need to see her daily, the excuses to see her, the brightness of his days, knowing that in so many hours he would see her again, be with her again. Because she was his friend. Only because she was his friend. What other reason could there be?
He smiled rather bitterly up into the near darkness.
The candle, he realized suddenly, had gone out. God, the light had gone out. He was in darkness.
Allie. The woman he had loved in different ways for fourteen years. But always deeply. Always more deeply than he had loved anyone or anything else, including himself. Especially himself. Indeed, he was very close to hating himself at that moment.
What had he done?
He had come to her in his need, forced himself into her private apartments at midnight or later, forced her to listen to his woes while he calmed himself with her presence. He had forced her to wish him well in his coming marriage, and then he had been incapable of taking his leave of her.
Tomorrow she would have been free of him. She would have been on her way back to the life she had chosen for herself. And he had been unable to let her go.
He had played on her sympathy for him, her friendship, her willingness always to listen to him and comfort him. And he had violated her. He had forced her into something for which she would hate herself the next day, when she had finally realized what she had done.
God, he had slept with Web’s wife. He closed his eyes, appalled at the realization. And she had given herself to him, not just from sympathy but with more passion than he had ever known in a woman. Allie. Who had been without Web for two years. He had come to her after midnight in her own rooms. At a time when she had been at her most vulnerable.
He hated himself with a depth of hatred he had never felt for anyone else.
He could not marry her. For several reasons he could not marry her. He had compromised another lady that night—oh, yes, another young innocent—and was duty bound to offer for her the next day. And he had known that full well when he had reached out for Allie. It was Cassandra Borden he must marry, not Allie.
And even if it were not so, even if he were as free as he had been that morning, he could not marry Allie. How could he doom her to spend the rest of her days with him? When she had known Web? When she was Allie? How could he take advantage of the need he had so carelessly and selfishly aroused in her? How could he marry her when he knew that she would spend every day of her life pining for his friend?
And yet he had made love to her. And in the process killed everything. Killed the one good thing in his life. For they could no longer be friends. From tomorrow on they would find it almost impossible to look at each other. They would never be able to do so without remembering what had happened between them on this particular night. She would hate him. And he would hate himself, knowing that.
And so this was the end. The end of a friendship that had brightened his life through most of his adulthood. Not the end of his love. Now that he was conscious of it again, that would live on, perhaps for the rest of his life. But not as a light and a warmth. It would become dark and bitter, the knowledge that his love had been a selfish thing, reaching for its own gratification and destroying the peace of his beloved.
For Allie would suffer for what she had done this night. And he would be the last person on this earth who could comfort her.
She stirred at his side and opened her eyes. In the semidarkness he watched her look of bewilderment fade almost instantly. She smiled at him, and he bent his head and kissed her mouth. And continued to do so, warmly, lightly, so that he would not have to speak to her.
“Mm,” she said sleepily, and her arm came about his chest. He hated his own weakness, his vulnerability. At least the first time he had taken himself by surprise, he had acted from instinct, thought having played very little part in what had happened. He had no such excuse this time. He knew what he did and what needs in her he played upon. And he knew that tomorrow their friendship would be at an end and he would go off to make his offer to another woman.
He knew his own selfishness, his own evil.
He turned her on the bed and came into her without foreplay. And he spent a long, long time moving in her, taking her slowly through the stages of arousal, and gradually—very gradually—to climax, drawing a cry of abandonment and pleasure from her at the end. And kissing her and holding her with a desperate tenderness and self-loathing when it was all over again.
He got out of bed and dressed himself in the darkness. And he bent over her and spoke the first coherent words he had said to her since their first lovemaking had begun.
“Don’t get up,” he said. “I will see myself out.”
But of course she had to come downstairs with him in order to bolt the door again, so that the servants would not know that anyone had been there. She put on her nightgown and robe again.
He took her into his arms when they were downstairs and held her close, rocking her against him.
“Allie,” he said against her hair, “forgive me if you ever can.”
He saw only the beginnings of her calm smile before letting himself out through the door and closing it behind him again without looking back.
***
Alice went back upstairs, dropped her robe beside the bed, and lay down again—on the side of the bed where Piers had lain, on her stomach, her nose buried in the pillow.
She would not think before morning. She would not allow herself to think. She would only feel. There was the soreness left by his lovemaking—the delicious soreness that was almost a throbbing. And there was the languor from that second, lengthy encounter finished only a few minutes before and still leaving its weakness and its drowsiness.
And there was all the wonder of a fifteen-year-old love now come to a glorious consummation. She would glory in the wonder of it.
She would not think. She would not recognize until the next day that what Piers had been saying downstairs was good-bye. She would let that fact reach her consciousness tomorrow.
But despite all, despite the pain and the wretchedness that she knew were ahead for her, she would not permit herself to regret what had just happened.
Never that.
She was living through the most wonderful night of her life. And there was still some of it left. There was still the warmth and the smell of him in her bed, and there were still all the effects of his lovemaking on her body to be enjoyed.
She must never allow herself to feel either regret or remorse.
Chapter 11
MR. Westhaven was clearly expected when he arrived in Russell Square late the following morning. Cassandra was nowhere in sight, as was proper. Mr. Bosley and Lady Margam were in the lower salon, looking rather as if they were awaiting a call from royalty, Piers thought.
Lady Margam was inclined to be tearful and worried that her daughter was far too young to be considering matrimony. Though if she must marry, of course, the mother could think of no one more suitable than Margam’s dear friend.
Piers clasped his hands behind him and bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment.
Mr. Bosley was jovial and shook his guest heartily by the hand. He had seen young love at work the evening before, and who was he to stand in its way? Though of course, his little Cassie might have aspired to the hand of a duke if she had not fallen in love with a mere mister determined to turn her head.
He chuckled merrily as he shook Mr. Westhaven by the hand again.
Piers smiled and made a suitable reply. He was invited to take a seat.
What was she doing now? Was she up yet? Yes, of course she would be up. It was not Allie’s way to lie in bed until noon. And probably she had not slept anyway, any more than he had. Was she getting ready for her journey to Bath? Had she left already?
Mr. Bosley became businesslike. He was prepared to settle such and such a dowry on Cassie’s husband the day after the wedding—“for there is more to making a marriage than merely speaking a few words at the altar, as you will know, my dear sir.” He named a sum that had Piers raising his eyebrows in surprise.
Mr. Bosley waved a hand at Mr. Westhaven’s protestations that he had no need of such a dowry, that he was well able to support a wife and a family, too. Perhaps it would be better to put the money in trust for Miss Borden and any children of the marriage.
But that would not do, either. Much as Mr. Bosley was fond of his niece, he would not give tuppence for the female brain, especially when it came to managing money.
“No, my dear sir,” he said magnanimously, “the money will be yours the morning after the night before, so to speak, to do with as you wish. If you are foolish enough to settle it on Cassie, then so be it. A man in love has been known to do worse things, I suppose.” Another hearty laugh.
How was she feeling this morning? Wretched with remorse and guilt? He need not phrase it in his mind as a question. He had been trying all night and all morning not to think of how she must be feeling. But he had not been able to go to her. That was no longer an option in his life.
Mr. Bosley would have the contract all ready to sign a week later. “Not that I could not have had it ready this morning, sir,” he explained. “But it is as well in such matters not to rush. And we know, of course, that your word as a gentleman is every bit as valuable as your signature on a contract.”
Piers inclined his head again at the compliment.
But should he at least have called on her this morning to explain to her that it had all been his fault, that she must not blame herself at all? Should he have gone at least to apologize to her? But how was an apology possible? “I am sorry that I burst in upon you last night and violated you?” It was impossible. It was better far to stay away. He would be the very last person she would want to see during the rest of her lifetime.
“Ma’am.” He turned to Lady Margam. “With your leave, may I have a few minutes alone with your daughter? Or under your chaperonage, if you prefer.”
She rose to her feet. “I trust you with Cassandra, Mr. Westhaven,” she said. “I shall send her down to you here. Brother?”
Mr. Bosley crossed the room to her and set a hand on the door handle. “Ho,” he said, “Cass has probably paced a mile in her room this morning. And doubtless slept not a wink last night. I’ll wager you did not either, sir.” He chuckled at his own joke and opened the door for his sister to precede him into the hallway.
But perhaps he should have called any way. How can one step out of a woman’s bed and out of her life? He had done it before on numerous occasions, of course. But this was entirely different. A thousand, a million times different. How could he just walk out on Allie as if she were a whore not worth revisiting?
He shuddered. She would not, of course, put that interpretation on his absence.
It was strange, he thought a few minutes later, how sight had been restored to him the night before and had taken away more than one form of blindness. For this morning Miss Borden’s timidity, her inability even to peep up at him from beneath her lashes, appeared totally false. She had been in company with him frequently in the past few weeks. The evening before, she had taken refuge from the storm on his lap and in his arms. And yet this morning she could not look at him.
But would he be able to raise his eyes to Allie this morning?
“I have spoken with your mother and your uncle this morning,” he told the girl’s bowed head. “They have both approved my suit. Your mother has permitted me to have a few minutes of your time so that I might have the honor of asking you to be my wife. Will you, Miss Borden?”
“Oh,” was all she said, and pleated the skirt of her muslin dress between her fingers.
She wanted more. Well, then, he thought. “I have grown fond of you in the past few weeks,” he said.
Allie. Where was she now? What was she doing?