She rose onto her knees and let the pace of his body take her. Never in her life had she felt so wanton. Never had she wanted anything so much. The rich, earthy scents of the greenhouse surrounded them, and grew hotter. She pushed the fabric of his shirt all the way up as she rode him, and watched the muscles of his abdomen flex and relax. Closing her eyes, she let the rhythm wash over her, until time seemed indefinable, and regret seemed so ephemeral.
Oh, this would not last. Not for either of them. It had come on too fast. Too hot. Another few strokes, and she cried out, feeling perfect ecstasy edge near. Beneath her, she felt Quin surge, felt him set his hands on either side of her hips, and thrust one last and perfect stroke. Viviana shattered as he trembled beneath her, her voice sobbing softly in the heat.
She came to her sense to find she had collapsed onto Quin, her face buried in the dampness of his neck. She drew a deep, unsteady breath, rich with the scent of sweat, soap, and bergamot. Quin. Always, always Quin.
“Oh, God, Vivie,” he whispered, his voice soft with wonder. “You are a dangerous woman.”
Viviana pulled herself from the sensual fog, and sat up a little. “It isn’t me,” she whispered. “It…it is
us,
I think. Together, we are like…like
polvere nera.
Like gunpowder.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “And may it always be so, Vivie. I should rather endure your temper and your horsewhip a thousand times over, just to have one moment like this with you.”
She said nothing but simply pressed her lips to his forehead, praying he would say no more.
He crooked his head to look at her. “There could be many more days like this, Vivie,” he whispered. “Did you ever think of that? Do you ever wonder whether…whether it really is too late for us?”
She had thought that nine years with Gianpiero had been payment enough for her sins. But she had had no idea what a just price truly was. For an instant, she considered telling him everything. On her next breath, she realized what an unforgivable mistake that would be. The truth would make him hate her. And so she said nothing. Instead, she lifted herself off him and turned away to right her clothing.
“Vivie?” His hand came up to cup her cheek. “Vivie, look at me. Is it? Is it too late?”
She turned and looked at him, just as he asked. “It is too late,” she whispered. “Too late for anything more than this, Quin.”
“Why?” he demanded, rolling up onto one elbow. His face had gone suddenly bloodless. “Why does it have to be that way?”
She could not hold his gaze. Blindly, she pulled on her jacket. “We have separate lives now, Quin,” she answered. “Yours is…here. Mine is not.”
“Vivie, you cannot deny what we have,” he began.
“Chemistry,” she interjected. “Pure, physical…magic, Quin. Yes. I know what we have. What we have always had. But life is not so simple as you make it out. Life is filled with hard choices.”
“My choice is how and where to live my life, Vivie,” he answered. “I’m tired of wasting it. I want to be with you.”
“It is not possible.”
“It
is,”
he countered, his voice firm. “I have never wanted anything else, Viviana. I know that now. I am willing to do what I must to have that. Do you understand me?”
She rose to her knees in the pile of straw, and slowly tidied her shirt and coat. “In a few weeks or months, Quin, I must return to Venice with my children,” she said. “You will forget me then as you forgot me all those years ago. And I will forget you.”
His eyes flashed with anger. “Will you, Vivie?”
“I will try,
si.”
“And it’s just that easy for you, is it?” he growled. “Well, by damn, it’s not like that for me.”
She looked at him with hurt in her eyes. “How many tears, Quin, have you shed for me these last nine years?” she asked.
“I won’t dignify that with an answer,” he said.
She touched him lightly on the cheek, and gentled her tone. “Quin,
caro,
your life is here,” she said. “You are Lord Wynwood now. You have responsibilities.”
“Nothing Herndon cannot manage,” he returned. “In less than a week’s time, he and Alice will be married. He will be a part of my family.”
Viviana looked at him incredulously. “You would actually go away with me?” she whispered.
“I am willing to do whatever is necessary,” he answered. “I said that, and I meant it. I want to put an end to this foolishness which has separated us all these years. Viviana, I…I want us to marry.”
Viviana found herself blinking back tears and swiftly turned away. She had waited a long time to hear those words, and now they were bittersweet indeed. How could she wed Quin, knowing he would inevitably discover what she had hidden for so long? She dared not do it. Indeed, she would not.
She jerked awkwardly to her feet. “I am too old for you,
caro mio.
I have three children, and many responsibilities. Find someone your own age, and be happy.”
He made a sharp, incredulous sound. “Too
old?
Oh, Vivie, that won’t wash. And I adore your children. It cannot be easy for you, raising them alone.”
She shook her head. “Think of your mother,
caro,”
she said. “A marriage between us would kill her. No, Quin, I won’t do it. Stop asking me.”
He rolled up onto both elbows and watched her as she mechanically picked the straw from her clothes. His shirt was still rucked up, exposing an expanse of lean, taut belly, and his hair was tousled almost boyishly. But his expression—oh, she knew it well.
Quin rose almost languidly to his feet. “What a liar you are, Viviana,” he said, stabbing his shirttails back into his riding breeches. “Yes, I heard all about that little bucking-up you gave my sister last night. You told her, I believe, that Mamma’s wishes could not come first. That there were more important things.”
“Alice is with child,” said Viviana.
“As you may well be, too,” said Quin. “Did you ever think of that, Viviana? Did you?”
Viviana felt the blood flow from her face. The panic rose like bile in her throat.
Quin leaned into her. “What if you were, Viviana?” he rasped, seizing her arm. “What then?”
Viviana jerked away. “I would not marry where I did not love,” she said. “I have already made that mistake once. I shan’t make it again.”
“Conceive
my
child, Viviana, and you
will
be making it again,” He gripped her arm so hard she wondered he did not bruise it. “Besides, I don’t believe for one moment, Vivie, that you don’t love me. A woman cannot make love as you do and not feel love, too.”
“Believe it, Quin,” she answered, pushing his hand away. “What we have is pure lust. I do not love you, and you do not love me.”
“There they are again, Viviana,” he answered. “Those two little lies that ruined our lives. I wasn’t confident enough to disbelieve them the first time. But I sure as hell don’t believe them now.”
“Then you are a very arrogant man,” she said, scooping up her hat. “I am leaving now. And if you are any manner of gentleman at all, Quin Hewitt, you will not follow me. You will not press your suit where it is not wanted. You will stay away from me, my children, and Hill Court in general. Do I make myself plain?”
His eyes hardened to small, black slits. “Quite plain.”
Stiffly, she inclined her head. “Then I bid you good day,” she said. “I wish you well, Quin. I will leave you to find your own way out.”
An Adventure in the Forest.
Q
uin Hewitt kept his word. During the days which followed, Viviana saw him but once, riding through the village on his big bay. At the Black Lion, he dismounted, handed his reins to a waiting servant, and vanished into the shadows of the tavern’s entrance. If he saw her, which he almost certainly had, he did not acknowledge her presence by so much as a tip of his hat. Viviana told herself she was relieved.
“What on earth have you done to my poor brother?” asked Alice two days later.
They were sitting by the schoolroom hearth, Alice with her needlepoint and Viviana with some hemming, waiting for the children to finish a board game Lottie had brought from Arlington Park. “I have no notion,” Viviana murmured. “Why? What has he said?”
Alice’s mouth curled into a knowing smile. “Very little,” she said, drawing her stitch taut. “But he’s cross as an old mule, and we dare not speak your name in his hearing. Mamma has grown suspicious.”
Viviana winced inwardly. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“Well, I am not,” Alice declared. “It draws her attention from my little faux pas.”
“Yes,” said Viviana dryly. “Having to welcome Mr. Herndon into the bosom of her family is one thing. But having one’s son entangled with an Italian opera singer would be quite beyond the pale, would it not?”
Alice froze in midstitch, and looked at her pointedly.
“Are
you entangled with my brother, Viviana?”
Viviana dropped her gaze. “I am not,” she said firmly.
“Does he wish you to be?” Alice still did not resume her sewing.
Viviana shook her head. “It is just that your brother is stuck in the country and bored by it, I daresay,” she answered. “I am sure he is accustomed to a much more exciting life.”
Alice laughed. “Oh, Quin is infamous in town for his exciting life,” she admitted. “But no, I do not think that is his problem. Indeed, he seems not to miss it at all. Henry says Quin seems finally to have found his place at Arlington Park.”
Viviana smiled. “Speaking of your betrothed, how is he holding up?”
“Mamma has him taking all his meals with us now,” Alice admitted. “And she won’t take her eyes off the poor man.”
“Why?”
“I think she is afraid he’ll confuse his egg cup with his fish fork, or some such nonsense, and embarrass us all irrevocably,” Alice admitted. “And it is all so unnecessary, Vivie. Henry is from a fine old Oxfordshire family. He is every inch a gentleman.”
“His feelings must be quite hurt.”
Alice bit off her thread. “Strangely, not a bit of it,” she said. “He says that Mamma has a right to want only the best for me.”
“But Mr. Herndon
is
what is best for you,” said Viviana indignantly. “You love him.”
“And I always have,” Alice quietly admitted, tucking her needle away. “In three days’ time, we will be wed, and it won’t much matter what Mamma thinks. Which reminds me—I do hope the weather won’t keep him from home again tonight. I heard Basham say his bad knee had gone stiff, and that it will be deathly cold tomorrow.”
“To those of us with Mediterranean blood, it has been deathly cold for weeks now,” said Viviana on a shiver. “Where has Mr. Herndon gone?”
“With Quin to London,” said Alice. “To get the special license and to do some Christmas shopping at Hatchard’s. By the way, I asked Quin to bring back some things for your children, too.”
“You should not have done so, Alice,” Viviana chided. “You are involving yourself in matters you do not understand.”
Alice shoved her needlepoint back into her wicker basket. “Oh, I think I’ve grasped the situation,” she said. “But never mind that. What of our little escapade tomorrow? I hope you have some old clothes with you—warm ones, too, I might add.”
“What escapade is this?”
“Our trip to cut the Christmas greenery, assuming Henry gets home,” said Alice. “We will be tramping about in the forest with the village children half the afternoon. I only hope it does not rain. Christmas is but three days hence.”
“It will be snow, more likely,” said Viviana, shuddering at the thought. “Or sleet.”
“Well, snow is tolerable, perhaps even pleasant,” said Alice. “But rain is not. Unfortunately, it is already looking gray, and Basham’s bad knee is never wrong.”
But Viviana arose after yet another near-sleepless night to find that there was no snow the next morning, though the sky remained leaden, and a strange, expectant stillness lay heavy in the air. Inexplicably, she felt as if the Sword of Damocles was suspended above her head, just waiting to drop.
Matters worsened when, in the midst of breakfast, Alice sent word that the gentlemen had been detained in London for yet another day, and the children’s outing was to be postponed. Viviana could barely hide her disappointment. She yearned for Alice’s company, and, pathetically, almost any word of Quin. Instead, she was relegated to the music room, where she spent much of the day at her harp, plucking out the most melancholy tunes she knew.
Quin’s bittersweet proposal haunted her waking moments, and many of her sleeping ones, too. Was this, then, to be her punishment? To awaken every night with her beloved’s feverish words echoing in her brain? To know that, but for the fact she was a liar and a fraud, she might have had one last chance at happiness—and with Quin, the man she had never once stopped loving?
Viviana was relieved the following afternoon when she looked down from the schoolroom window to see Alice and Henry Herndon arriving at last. They brought with them the dogcart and two large wagons, one of them already filled with the village children. But Viviana’s relief was short-lived when she saw the unexpected guest who accompanied them.
Lady Wynwood sat regally in the dogcart as if it were the finest landau. She was wrapped in what looked like a heavy wool blanket and was wearing a hat bedecked with ribbons more appropriate to an afternoon soiree.
In the schoolroom behind her, Nicolo and Felise were quarreling over a pair of red mittens, whilst Cerelia was tugging on her coat. Eventually, all three were dressed. Viviana took up her wool muffler and began to follow suit.
“Are you sure, my lady, that you do not wish me to go?” asked Miss Hevner.
Viviana shook her head. “There is no need for both of us to freeze to death,” she answered, tugging on her gloves. “Besides, I wish to be with the children. Why do you not enjoy a few hours of solitude?”
Miss Hevner looked relieved.
Outside, the children rushed around the wagons, trying to decide with whom they would sit and on which side of the wagon. The older boys sat on the open end, their feet dangling. Cerelia looked at them longingly, then gingerly squeezed between them and went to join Lottie in the front.
“Will you join me, Contessa Bergonzi?” called Lady Wynwood from her dogcart.
There was no polite way of refusing. Alice already sat with Mr. Herndon, who was driving the first wagon. “I should be pleased to,” Viviana answered, stepping up onto the rear gate, which had been let down. Lady Wynwood gave her a hand, and soon they were snugly ensconced on the rear-facing seat. The groom at the reins clicked to his horse and they set off, the second wagon bringing up the rear.
“What a pleasant surprise to see you, ma’am,” said Viviana. “This must be quite an important village tradition.”
Lady Wynwood made a dismissive noise in the back of her throat. “Oh, pish, I never go,” she said. “But this year, my daughter has left me little choice.”
A breeze was picking up now, lifting the brim of Lady Wynwood’s hat. Viviana pulled her muffler tighter and tried to hide her incredulity. “You—you are here to lend propriety, then?”
“Oh, heavens no!” said Lady Wynwood, clamping one hand down on the crown of her hat. “Even I am not such a high stickler as all that. I am here to show my approval of this marriage. Society will be on guard for the slightest sign of family discord. I shan’t give them the satisfaction.”
Viviana managed to smile. “I am sure, ma’am, that you are doing the right thing.”
Lady Wynwood somehow managed to look down her nose at Viviana. “I
always
do the right thing,” she sniffed. “Whether I wish to or not.”
Just then, as if her icy words had summoned it, the snow came whirling down. In the wagon up front, the children shouted with glee.
“Mamma! Mamma!” screeched Felise from the lead wagon.
“Neve umida!
Snow! Real snow!”
The snow was very real indeed, but heavy and wet. On the road, it was turning to slush, but by the time they had circled around behind Hill Court and Arlington Park, a distance of perhaps two miles, some of the snow was sticking in the hedgerows. Another mile farther, along the Wendover road, they passed the Watsons’ cottage to see Lucy dashing madly about in the side yard, jerking board-stiff pieces of laundry from her shrubs and fences. At the sight of the entourage, she waved a pair of frozen drawers and shouted greetings to the children.
Soon they reached the entrance to Arlington Park’s great forest. Mr. Herndon slowed his wagon and turned sharply uphill, into the shadowy canopy of the trees. They went something less than a mile, for the road was little used and not very wide. Here, there were no bare, wintry branches clattering overhead. Instead, there was only a cold, tranquil silence punctuated by the soughing wind, and lush, dark evergreens as far as the eye could see.
“It’s like an enchanted forest!” cried Cerelia, climbing down off the wagon. “Look at all the snow floating through the trees!”
“Do you not have snow in Venice?” asked Lottie.
“A little.” Cerelia made a face. “But it always melts.”
“Si,
and this is lovely, is it not?” said Viviana, giving Cerelia a swift hug. “Now take hold of Nicolo’s hand,
cara,
and do not let him from your sight.”
The footmen and two of the oldest boys were given hacksaws, and instructed to do all the cutting. The younger children were to carry the greenery for loading onto the wagons. Soon they were all dashing excitedly into the trees, their happy cries shattering the forest’s silence. Alice accompanied them, but Herndon stayed long enough to build a fire with dry kindling he had brought with him. Then he covered a low stump with a large, thick rug, and situated Lady Wynwood on it.
Soon the children began to return with armloads of pine boughs and baskets of holly. Each child was permitted to gather enough to decorate their own cottage or village shop, as well as the church, thus the need for two wagons. Viviana supervised the loading of the greenery onto them, taking care that the little ones did not slip and fall on the slick pine needles.
In short order, the bottoms of the wagons were covered. The snow was still falling, faster than before, and Viviana could feel the chill deepening. They were almost an hour in the forest before the breeze roughened, and the whirling snow turned to spates of sleet. The fire still burned brightly, but despite it, Lady Wynwood’s teeth were soon chattering. By then, both wagons were heaped with pine boughs and holly. Leaving Alice and Viviana to count heads, Mr. Herndon and the servants shooed the children out of the pines and back to the wagons.
With pink cheeks and red noses, the children all seemed to wish to speak at once as they clambered back into the wagons. There was a great debate about who had found what, and which of them had worked the hardest. Lady Wynwood settled the dispute by regally declaring Ben, the fourteen-year-old baker’s son, the victor.
“I want to sit on the end of the wagon,” Lottie declared as the children clambered onto the first wagon. “Cerelia, Hannah, and I are the oldest. We should sit on the end of the last wagon so that the boughs don’t slide off.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Herndon gruffly. “Boys on this wagon, girls on the last.”
With screeches of glee, the girls and boys divided, the littlest girls climbing over the mounds of pine and holly to sit squarely in the middle of the wagon, like chicks in a nest of green. On the open end, Lottie looked very pleased with herself and let her dangling heels swing back and forth triumphantly.
Herndon knocked the fire down and kicked a little soil over it. Clearly, the weather would take care of the rest. Viviana turned around to see Christopher holding securely to Nicolo’s hand as he climbed into the boys’ wagon.
“Your grandson Christopher has the makings of a true gentleman,” she said to Lady Wynwood as she helped her up into the dogcart.
Lady Wynwood acknowledged the compliment with a slight incline of her head. “Alice has raised her children well.” Then, almost reluctantly, she added, “Your girls are very prettily behaved, too. But what of your youngest? Is he still a handful?”
Nicolo
was
a challenge, and Viviana did not mind admitting it. They spent much of the drive back commiserating on the difficulty of raising boys, and Lady Wynwood began to thaw ever so slightly.
At the foot of the hill, Herndon turned his wagon onto the main road. But when the groom driving their dogcart did the same, Viviana felt a sudden jerk as the wheel beneath her slipped in the slush. The wagon bringing up the rear slowed to a near halt. Viviana looked up to make sure it followed. After a moment had passed, the wagon edged carefully around the turn and back into Viviana’s line of sight.
Beside her, Lady Wynwood shivered. Her cloak and heavy blanket were not enough to keep her warm. Viviana looked around for something more. “Oh, dear,” she said quietly. “I believe we forgot that rug you were sitting on, ma’am.”
Lady Wynwood seemed touched by her concern. “It would have done nicely across our laps, would it not?” she remarked. “Will you share my blanket, Contessa?”
“Thank you, I am fine.” But the return was perfectly miserable as the precipitation spattered down on them, half ice and half cold, freezing rain. Eventually, even the heaviest wool began to dampen. Ice began to form on the hedgerows and trees lining their journey, and Viviana began to wonder if the wagons would make it back up the high hill to Lord Chesley’s house.
Relief surged through her when at last the wagons were pulled around the circular carriage drive. The eldest boys hopped off, and began piling part of the greenery by the front door. Herndon ordered one of the footmen to hold his horses’ heads, then leapt down to lift Nicolo from the wagon.