“Officially you were.”
“And now you have made sure that officially I am not. You have made sure that there will be no arrangement with Anthony.”
He did not miss the note of accusation in her tone. “Was your innocence essential to that arrangement? He is more a fool than I thought.”
“You do not sound sorry that you have ruined everything. Perhaps your conscience will speak differently when we are all thrown out of this house.”
“He is not going to take this house.”
“It isn’t as if you can stop it.”
That remained to be seen.
“I am not sorry at all, Celia. If you want that life, I cannot stop you, but at least you will not go to
him
now. The last of my thoughts is concern that I interfered with your decision on that. He was blackmailing you into it.” That sounded harsh, so he added, “You said it must be your choice. And it was tonight, and your choice wasn’t him.”
“No, it was you, with an unfair amount of encouragement on your part.”
He’d be damned before he apologized for that.
And yet . . . he
had
seduced her. There was no other word for it. And she
had
been an innocent, in the way that mattered in these things.
She rose up on her arm and looked down at him. His heart almost stopped at how beautiful she looked in the light from the fire. But he also saw that the daze had passed, and she was thinking now, and assessing what had just happened.
“Do not speak what you think you are obliged to speak,” she said, as if she saw his deepest thoughts. “Do not get tediously proper and guilty with me, when you did not bother with such things an hour ago.”
“I was not thinking clearly an hour ago. I knew nothing except that I wanted you.”
“And now you have had me. It changes nothing. I will still choose my own path. I do not want you to twist things around to create any story for me now. There isn’t any that is suitable for the two of us. This just
was
, the way you said it could be sometimes.”
Most men would kill for such uncomplicated intimacy. He would have often enough in the past. So why did he want to argue with her now, and explain that in truth it could never just be, unless two strangers met in the dark?
Content that she had absolved him of any inconvenient guilt, she nestled down beside him. “I wonder if Marian is going to scold.”
“Perhaps, if she guesses. She will probably say that you have been reckless.”
“At least she will not talk about sin. As for reckless, it is not the word I would use.”
“Brave?”
“I suppose that is apt, in a way. But it was not foremost in my mind.”
He rolled, so his body pressed against hers and she looked up at him. “Seductive, then.”
“I was not the one who was seductive. Remember?”
“You were very seductive. You have been from the start. Quietly, subtly, and very effectively.”
She thought about that, and gave a little shrug, ceding the point.
“Seductive, and enchanting, and brilliant,” he said. “I do not normally lose all sense over women, Celia. At least know that this is no common desire.”
She appeared to flush. “Brilliant now. An odd word.”
“It speaks of both your mind and radiance.”
“Well, thank you, Jonathan. That is very poetic of you.”
He would have laughed if she did not look honestly touched. No one had ever called him poetic before; that was certain.
She watched his face very closely, while she ran her fingertips down the side of his cheek. She studied him as much as he had ever been studied, while her expression turned earnest and serious.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I am making sure I remember, Jonathan. How you look and how I feel. I want to remember everything about how it just is, while it just is.”
He did not like her matter-of-fact assumption that there could be nothing more between them. Nor did he like thinking about where she would go when she ceased being brilliant with him.
He lowered his head and kissed her thoroughly. Then he cast aside the bedclothes. “I will go now, so there is no danger of falling asleep and being discovered here by Marian or Bella.”
“You can come back tomorrow night, if you want.”
Oh, he wanted. He was glad for the invitation, but he did not think he would have waited on one if it did not come. He wanted her again right now, but it would be inconsiderate. She said he had not hurt her much, but he had hurt her some.
She lay on her side, watching him pulling on his garments. She was unashamed of her nakedness. The line of her body from shoulder to knee formed a sinuous, entrancing curve. He looked long and hard, at that line and her breasts and the face that always reflected good humor. At her brilliance.
He bent and kissed her, and stayed there, hovering over her upturned face with his hand cupping her chin. All kinds of erotic images of her entered his head. He almost reached for her, to make at least one a reality. Instead he tore himself from the bedside, and went above to his monk’s cell, to be tortured until tomorrow night.
Chapter Sixteen
M
arian knew.
The next morning she brought Celia breakfast in bed, which she had never done before. Face impassive, she placed the tray on a table, glanced at Celia’s naked shoulders above the bedclothes, then surveyed the satin dresses that had been thrown off the bed the previous night.
“Pretty things,” she said, bending to pick some up. “Too costly to be in a heap like this.”
“I was examining them for repairs when . . . when . . .”
“When you became a bit distracted, did you?”
“Yes. Distracted.”
“Peculiar, that. Must be something in the air. Mr. Albrighton looks this morning like someone suffering from distraction too.” An impish smile played on her lips while she folded the satins.
“How odd.”
“Speaking of the distractions, Mr. Albrighton is bathing in the kitchen. We’ll be heating water for you next.” She draped the discarded undressing gown on the foot of the bed.
Celia was glad she would not have to pretend with Marian. When the bath was ready, she went below. The house seemed different today. Something about the light had altered, and the way her body moved through the spaces. Of course it was not the house that had changed, but rather her.
As she approached the stairs to the kitchen, someone grabbed her and pulled her around the stairwell’s wall. Jonathan pinned her against it while he looked around the corner and listened. Then he kissed her in a way that showed last night had done nothing to diminish his desire.
“You look beautiful,” he muttered, between kisses. “I favor that undressing gown.”
“It is hardly attractive,” she said, laughing between gasps.
He looked down at it. “I’ll be damned. You are right. Let’s get it off you again. No, wait, that won’t do here. Marian and Bella. Is it wrong for me to wish they lived elsewhere?”
“It can be excused by the moment, I think.” She met him in a less frantic kiss that went on and on. “Now, I need to have my bath, as you had yours.”
“I’ll come and help.”
“You will not. You will go about your day, as I will go about mine.”
“I will be useless. Send them away, and come above with me and we will spend the day in bed.”
She gave him a playful slap on his chest. “The wagon is coming from The Rarest Blooms early this afternoon. Do you want Daphne to find us up in your bed? She owns a pistol.”
He kissed her once more, then reluctantly stood back and let her free. “Off with you, then, to your bath and duties. I will find some way to survive. Perhaps I will not think about you for a few minutes at least.”
Happy that he had found her, glad that there had been no awkwardness when they met again, pleased that he had conjured up some romantic words, she made her way down to the kitchen and the tub.
The water’s warmth stirred her senses again. A memory of pleasure lapped over her along with the liquid eddies. For the first time in her life, she mentally thanked Mama for the education that had taught that a woman should feel pleasure without regrets. There were sins in the world, great ones to be sure, but sensuality was not one of them.
A pleasant daze of happiness suffused her for the next few hours. Thoughts of Jonathan and even Mama, of the night’s initiation and of the night to come, all mixed in her mind. In an odd way, she felt closer to Alessandra today than she ever had. More her equal too, perhaps, now that she was no longer ignorant.
In late morning, while Celia waited for the wagons and plants, she opened the trunk that had been brought down from the attic by Jonathan. The dresses and other garments had long ago been inspected and stored in her wardrobe.
She lifted the large folio-size boards that rested on its bottom still. She had glanced through the top images days ago, but now she wanted to study each one, and imagine her mother drawing or painting it. She wanted to feed her nostalgia about Alessandra, and perhaps know more about her from her artistry.
“What do you have there?” Marian asked, entering the chamber with clean sheets over her arm. There had not been much blood, but there had been some.
“My mother’s watercolors and drawings.” She set the folio on the writing table near the window and turned back the cover. “She made all of these, over time.”
Marian looked over her shoulder. “That one could be in a shop window.”
“She was very talented.” The watercolor in question showed this house’s garden in late summer, she realized. Mama must have sat on the little terrace when she painted this.
“If I painted that good, I would have sold some,” Marian said.
“Perhaps she did. There is so much I do not know about her.” She turned the sheets, one by one, and admired the little landscapes and views with Marian.
“There be a lot there,” Marian said. “I’ll be leaving you to look at them. I’m taking Bella to the shops, and making her do the buying. She has to stop being so shy about such things.”
Marian left, and Celia continued admiring her mother’s artistry. The watercolors gave way to drawings, most of them landscapes but some quick sketches of people. Halfway to the bottom of the stack, however, a very different kind of painting faced her.
It was a coat of arms, carefully drawn in pencil and colored. The next sheet held another drawing of similar subject, without the watercolors. Curious, she thumbed through the rest of the sheets. All of them showed coats of arms, some of which she recognized. Ten of them were colored.
One by one she turned them. As she flipped one, she realized that there were numbers on its back. She checked and discovered numbers on them all. There were a few numbers on some, long columns on others, but only two on the colored ones, one number at the top and one at the bottom.
She frowned at those numbers, each six digits long. Then suddenly she realized what they were and what they meant.
The discovery startled her. She perused those drawings again and again, until Marian called up that the wagons had arrived.
“F
ollow me. I must show you something.” Celia issued the command after the plants had been brought in and arranged. She led Daphne up to her chamber. Verity and Audrianna, who had visited today so they could see Daphne too, followed.
“What a pleasant chamber,” Verity said upon entering. “It is very fresh in its simplicity.”
“Can you believe my mother decorated this?” Celia asked. “It is so different from the house she lived in most of the time.”
“Perhaps it reminded her of her childhood,” Daphne said, fingering the muslin drapes. “If so, she came from simple folk. Country, it would appear.”
The observation startled Celia. How like Daphne to comprehend this house in ways Celia had not. She thought of her mother as the Venus, because that was what she had known. But Daphne was possibly correct, and this house represented the real Alessandra, who lived inside that famous woman. The woman her daughter had never met.
She gathered them around the writing table and opened the large folio. Most of the watercolors and drawings now rested on her bed. Only the coats of arms were inside it now. “Look what I have found. See here, on the backs. I am sure those numbers are dates.”
They flipped through a few, all of them peering down with their heads together.
“Is it a record?” Audrianna asked, her sweet face showing astonishment. “Like a journal, do you think?” She flipped one back and forth. “This lord, on these nights? Goodness, I know some of these crests. It may be hard to keep a straight face when I call on some ladies with Sebastian’s mother now.”
“It was very apparent it was a record once I realized they could be dates,” Celia said.
Verity lifted one of the sheets. “Oh, my. This baron is known as very upright and fastidious about not sinning. He is always making speeches about it.” She turned the sheet and perused the numbers. “He appears to have slipped up a few times seven years ago.”
They all looked at one another, and bit back laughs.
“Won’t this be the talk this season if this gets out,” Audrianna mused. “Look here. Do you think it was the father or the son?” She pointed to one of the sheets.
“That is a good question,” Daphne said. “Perhaps we should not assume it was the peer. It could be the heir.”
Audrianna giggled. “You are no fun, Daphne. I rather like the thought that this particular viscount erred. I don’t care much for him; he is so arrogant. I expect his insufferably conceited wife would be most shocked to learn of it. She is very sure he adores her.”
“We can enjoy all of those later,” Celia said, gesturing to the drawings. “These are the ones that interest me. They are colored. Special. And the only ones without a list of dates. See, only two. One at the beginning, and one at the end. I think these were ongoing affairs, and those dates mark beginning and end.”