Judith Ivory (13 page)

It took several minutes for both of them to catch their breath. She came to awareness slowly. Realization. The warm, embracing dark. The distant sound of night insects. A frog by the pond. Adrien was quiet except for the slight rasp of his breathing. He lay nestled on her body, his cheek against her breast. Hesitantly, she reached down and touched his face. She traced his eyes, his brow, his cheekbone, the angle of his jaw. He answered by turning his mouth and taking her fingers, one at a time, sliding over them. Wet. Slippery. His tongue in the interstices. She spread her fingers. And another realization—he wasn’t finished; he was beginning again. Through her chemise, he kissed the nipple of her breast with his open mouth.

He made love to her a second time there in the grass. She simply let her hands fall back into her hair; she let go. It was exquisite, incomparable. She shivered and trembled under the siege of his hands, his fingers, his tongue, never making the first move to stop
his doing anything. All was permitted. She felt liquid.

She found it so much easier to flow with anything, everything he asked—so much easier to let him become her lover than to rebel against what now seemed always to have been ineluctable.

Sometime after, he scooped her up into his arms. She collapsed against him. Even as he carried her toward the house, he kissed and stroked and petted her. Christina had never felt such languid, heady contentment.

But as they came to the top of the front steps, a little breeze of reality wafted into their cozy situation. Thomas. He was leaning in the doorway, drinking a large measure of brandy.

“Here,” he said. He put her dressing gown into the crook where her body curved against Adrien’s. “She may need this. It’s a cool night.”

This didn’t seem to trouble Adrien. He accepted the wad of nightclothes and went in. He turned and mounted the stairs.

But Christina couldn’t take her eyes off the little bundle on her belly. “My rooms,” she said. Adrien had turned on the first landing toward his.

“What?”

“I want to go to my rooms.”

“Not without me.”

She smiled. “No. With you.”

This settled, he didn’t question the wish further. He humored her up another flight of stairs.

And, likewise, in the bedroom, when she wanted distance—“Let me be for a minute”—he let her have it. He moved away. For perhaps fifteen minutes they demanded nothing of each other. No conversation. No contact. There was nothing between them but the solitary comfort of being able to be alone in each other’s presence.

Christina sat on the sill of her window, looking out.
Behind her was the noise, the splash of Adrien washing in the basin by her bed. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. There was a fire going. She stared down onto the front lawn and drive. She almost knew, before she saw, what she would find. Out there, below, it was dark. But not that dark. The moon was out. She could see the shadows of trees. And she could see the shadow of Thomas lying out on the grass, drinking brandy and contemplating the stars.

Civilization knocked. It was breakfast. The sound had startled Christina, but Adrien hadn’t budged. Christina accepted the tray at the door. There was only one cup, but a larger than usual pot of tea. And there was milk—she didn’t take milk—with the regular bread and jam. Discreet, she thought. There was knowledge downstairs. Not blatant. Not showy. But in evidence, there on the tray.

Presently, Christina sat in bed, wrapped in a blanket, drinking tea, eating bread and jam. She was naked except for the blanket, while the sleeping man beside her wore only a shirt, the cuffs and placket open. The woolen jersey was lost somewhere over the edge of the bed. His pants—she had empirical knowledge of the fact—were also somewhere on the floor. He slept in her bed, tangled among the covers, in just the rumpled shirt.

It was the earl who lay there, not the sailor. Beneath the jersey had been a heavy silk shirt. It was cut very full and long. It had lace at the cuffs, pleats down the front, and every edge was finished in a rolled hem with
tiny hand-stitches. Christina smiled. Such details concerning his clothes, concerning anything that belonged to him, she realized, were a source of pleasure to her. Each fact, each recognition fascinated. She collected observations of him and piled them up like stored treasure. It was a kind of paradise to be able to study him, to take him in, at such close range, at such leisure. It was surely unwise, she thought, foolish, wrong, but all she could feel was joy in having him there in her bed. She felt like a child at Christmas, staring at an impossible, extravagant gift put in front of her.

She leaned over on one elbow. Adrien’s face was peaceful; unshaven, but serene. There were circles beneath his eyes, shadows across his face. He looked strangely dark nestled in the white of the bedding and loose shirt; the same sort of shock as catching glimpses of his dark nakedness against her white skin. His shirt was completely unbuttoned—he had a chest full of black hair. At the end of one sleeve, his wrist lay exposed, cradled in a mass of unconfined frills and cuff. His hands were neat. Clean, smooth fingers—on one, a heavy gold ring, an intaglio. The face of the ring would make a raised pattern in wax, a seal.

Then, at the lower edge of the shirt, a turned-up shirt tail, a break in the covers, a long stretch of naked abdomen. Last night, she had felt the dark, swirling hair as it fanned out across the muscles of his chest. But she had yet to be bold enough to touch the place where her eyes fell now. The pattern tapered over his abdomen, like the tail of a tornado, to run down his belly in a narrow line—a broken line; there was the scar. It was a lovely belly, taut, flat. Narrow hips. He was in incredible physical condition. Like a man half his age. The hunting and tennis and dancing, the coming and going of his life certainly seemed to agree with him physically. It might be partly luck that he had survived the brutal attack in France three years before. Yet it was also something
unique to him that he had; most men would have succumbed to the loss of blood and inevitable fevers. Yet, even after such a trauma, his body positively exuded strength and robust health.

Christina reached out to run her finger along the scar. Her finger had barely touched him when his stomach suddenly contracted. He drew in his breath and grabbed her hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking at you.”

“What?”

“I’m looking at you.”

He laughed. “Looking at me?” he repeated. “Why?”

“Because you’re beautiful.”

Again he laughed. But he seemed uneasy, even a little embarrassed. “I’m supposed to say that to you.” He made a face. “A man can’t be beautiful.”

She smiled. His unexpected abashment gave her courage. “But you are. Look.” She took hold of the edge of his shirt and pushed it up.

He didn’t seem to know how to take this. He laughed, protested, allowed it. He seemed sleepy, not completely alert, and—rather pleasantly—without his usual smooth response. She liked this discovery—that he could be disarmed, at least for moments, of his interminable self-possession.

“You’re like a statue,” she said. “Perfect.” Then she sat back on her heels. She hadn’t realized—The scar, in a single line, ran down and around his body. It was thin, neat as it went from his shoulder blade and under his arm. But as it came across his belly and onto his hip, the scar tissue became thick. He would have had a deep wound across his bowels and into his hip joint. “What an awful thing,” she murmured. “That anyone could do this to you.” She looked at him. “Tell me about it.”

He shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. A rather nasty mob. They brought everyone out of the house, made us
lie down in the dust—there’d been no rain, massive crop failure—while they razed the house. They tormented us a little. I should have been quiet. Instead, I spit at one of them. Voilà. He cut me in two. It was a stupid thing to do.”

“You spit at him?”

“It was about the only retaliation left to me, tied up with curtain cords, lying there on the ground in my nightshirt.” He laughed at himself. “Silly, isn’t it? But I had a great sense of myself then.”

“Then,” she repeated.

“Then.” His fingers grazed her cheek. He pushed her hair back from her shoulder and drew her to him.

She smiled. “We should get up. We won’t get another thing done all day—”

He lifted his eyebrows slightly and smiled, suggesting he saw nothing wrong with this. His fingers went farther into her hair, and he pulled her head down.

He kissed her with an easiness, an unhurried contentment. His hands smoothed down her spine. He pressed her buttocks to him. Then he rolled her over, brought his body onto hers. He became sidetracked, rose up a bit. He was trying to get rid of the sheets and covers between them.

Christina held them. But his teasing mood persisted. They tussled. He pulled at the covers. “You’re more beautiful without them.”

“And more embarrassed.” She’d won temporarily. “Richard once told me only whores make love with their clothes off. For an added price. Do you suppose that’s true?”

“I don’t much like this Richard, the more I hear.”

She laughed. “No. I don’t think I do either. But, do you think it’s true? That whores charge extra?”

He sat back between her legs and took the covers with him, wrapping them about his shoulders. “I don’t know.” He was shaking his head at her, smiling. “I don’t
know any whores. Do you suppose Richard does?”

“Do you suppose?” She laughed. A jolly, real laugh such as she had not enjoyed in ages. “That prig. What an absolute, stuffy, old hypocritical prig!”

Her laughter faded. Adrien was watching her, running his eyes over her nakedness. Then his hands. It was odd, but after all her fears and worries, Christina realized she trusted him completely in this sense. It was a physical trust, having nothing to do with words or promises. Her body opened up to his. She could let him do anything; nothing shocked.

She brought his hands up to rest on her belly. “What now?” she murmured. Her eyes flicked to the door. “In here, it’s all fine. I love your touching me. But a moment ago, when the tea came…Eventually, we have to open the door.” He didn’t seem to understand. “It’s not so simple, you know.”

“We’re not going to discuss this again, are we? ‘The complexities of being an earl’s mistress—’”

“I’m not your mistress.”

He grinned. “I think you are.”

“I’m trying to tell you, I’m not.”

“Fine.” He made a mock solemn face. “And I am sure you are right. Now, turn over for a moment, will you?”

He took her by the hips. He knew about moving a woman’s body; where to grab hold, where he wanted it to be.

“Don’t,” she murmured. “Oh—” she sighed, “Oh, God—” He kissed her mouth and neck as he rotated her. “Adrien—Ooh, don’t—I can’t think, ah—I can’t think when you do this.”

“Good,” he murmured.

He pushed her all the way onto her stomach and slipped an arm under her hips. He lifted.

“God in heaven, what are you doing?” She struggled, laughing.

He made a guttural sort of sound; acknowledgment, preoccupation. His body curved against hers.

More earnestly, she cried out, “Stop!”

He did. Quite suddenly. He withdrew completely. She twisted around. And there he was. The wounded male. As if he’d been reprimanded for sexual perversion.

He wouldn’t speak for a moment. Then he said very quietly, “I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I know that.” She touched his cheek. Then she shook her head and looked away. “No,” she said, “we both know you will hurt me. Eventually.”

He couldn’t deny this. An earl. With no heir. For him, a barren lawyer’s daughter could not be true love for all eternity—and that was why Christina had been so wary of beginning with him. She could so easily foresee the end.

“Christina—” he began, as if there were promises and explanations that could be made. Then he gave a huge sigh and rose from the bed. “Where’s the tea?”

“Over here.”

Bleakness had settled over the little bedchamber.

“Is there milk?”

She made a sniff at that. “Apparently. In the little pitcher. There’s only one cup, though—here.”

He poured and fixed his tea, then came back to bed. The bed sank, a deep depression where he sat and leaned back.

It would allow nothing but a slow slide toward him.

Christina had to brace herself back. “Why aren’t you married?” she asked quietly.

“There’s no reason to be.”

“An heir?”

“I can recognize any one of several children and have an heir.”

She blinked. “You have children?”

“They do seem to crop up now and then, in the natural course of things.”

“Bastards?”

“Not a very nice word for the little darlings, but yes. I have bastards.”

“Many?”

“Five.”

“Dear God.” She was suddenly overwhelmed with the density of his life, the thirty-four years where she didn’t exist, didn’t fit in. Their one night together seemed all at once tenuous, fragile; even less significant than what she’d imagined. “Don’t you want a wife? A real family?” she asked.

“I have a real family. Besides the children, I have a grandfather in France. And some cousins abroad.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

He heaved another long sigh. “I know. And if by not marrying you I would hurt you, then you’re right. I would.”

Had she been so obvious? She rolled away from him, or as far away as she could. The bed, his weight, wouldn’t let her stay very far away. Slowly, she slid back in his direction. She turned and gave him her back. This seemed a particularly good decision, since she began to feel like she might cry.

“Christina,” he said, “why marriage and marriage alone? Don’t you care anything for romance, affection, loving?”

“I associate those things with marriage.”

“Did your husband give you those things?”

“Don’t box me into a corner with your crazy, specious logic.”

“Is it? Just because it doesn’t lead to the prescribed conclusion? The truth is, Christina, marriage didn’t give you anything it was supposed to.” He left a pause. “But I do.”

He did not speak from arrogance. He was not asserting anything they didn’t both already know. Whether it was love or not, whether it was affection or romance, he
injected into her life what she needed, what she had heretofore always had to manufacture on her own. Friction, excitement, irritation, allure.

“I know,” she said.

He rolled her over and laid her head in his lap. He adjusted a little, scooted to make them both comfortable. Then he sat back and drank his tea while he petted her hair.

There was an odd, little bright note that same day. An inkling of just how enamored Adrien was of her was demonstrated that afternoon when Cybil Chiswell and her father called.

The lady and her father arrived without notice or warning just after tea. They were instantly closeted, apparently at their request, with the earl in his front study. Christina’s heart sank. They were all behind the closed door for nearly an hour, only to come out and have the young woman lean on Adrien’s arm and whisper to him. She and he walked back into the room for a conference between just the two of them.

Christina tried to behave casually, to not hover in the entrance room waiting for this episode to be over. Eventually, she went out with a group into the garden. When she returned, the room was empty. She couldn’t find Adrien at all.

She discovered him out on the terrace all alone sometime later. “You are looking forlorn,” she said.

He darted a surprised smile at her. He had been lost in his own thoughts. “It is always a little sad, I suppose, to see one’s options narrow.”

“Yours are narrowing?”

He nodded.

“Does this have to do with the Chiswell conference in the study?”

“Indeed. It was a sort of fish-or-cut-bait conference. Henry Chiswell wanted to know ‘my intentions’ and if
I was ‘trifling’ with his daughter’s affections. Good, old-fashioned words, to a good old-fashioned end.” He looked at her. “I have never discussed marriage so much all in one day. And I’m not very good at it, apparently. Lord Chiswell was not pleased.”

“So you told him you did not intend to marry his daughter.”

“In so many words.” He raised his hand to point. “Do you see where the woods end near the center of the horizon? The land begins to roll a little? Well, that’s the edge of his land, her dowry. It’s really fine land and would fill mine out.”

“Then why didn’t you do it?”

He shrugged. “I was going to. That is, I had always more or less planned to. But all at once it seemed like an incredibly stupid reason to marry a woman. I think it was our discussion this morning. Love and affection, all that mess.” He looked at her. “I suspect you have dulled a perfectly fine cynical edge I have been honing for almost ten years.”

She smiled. “I’m flattered. And how did she take it?”

“Graciously. Too graciously. Though there was one awkward moment. After her father and I had already got through the worst of it, she insisted on raking it all up again. Privately. Do you know what she wanted to tell me?” Christina gave a shake of her head. “That she understood. That she knew a ‘strong, virile man’ might require ‘outside interests.’ And ‘if that is the problem…’”