The Officer and the Proper Lady (20 page)

‘Typical,' Nell muttered. ‘That is all we need, a vengeful Romany who sees himself as a romantic hero!'

 

Hal seemed to be dealing with the previous night's events by pretending that nothing had happened. He was polite, attentive and remote. Alert for every opportunity to carry out Nell's suggestions, she became acutely aware that he was making great efforts not to touch her.

So she touched him. When he held a door or a chair for her, she paused and laid her fingertips on his hand for a fleeting moment. When they were close, she reached up and brushed imagined flecks from his lapels; and when she handed him his tea cup after dinner, she let her fingers tangle with his. Yet all the time, she kept her eyes modestly downcast.

The results were fascinating. She found she was physically aware of him as she had never been before and, out of the corner of her eye, she could tell that he was watching her, his gaze dark and intense.

At half-past ten she went up to her room, changed into the new rose-pink silk night gown, draped a pretty shawl around herself and went to lie on the chaise in the parlour with a book, making sure that not only was the door into Hal's room ajar, but that a candle was left burning on a shelf close to it.

Time passed and she became so immersed in her book that the sound of the door opening wide made her look up in surprise. Hal stood in the doorway, fully dressed, staring at her.

‘What is the matter?'

‘Nothing. I was reading. Nell and I went to the bookshop today.'

‘What is it?' He came into the room and stood at the foot of the chaise, his eyes on the thin silk that flowed about her body. With what seemed to be an effort, he turned his gaze on the book. ‘That is a nice binding.'

‘Yes,' she agreed, closing the volume and holding it out to him. ‘
The Corsair,
a present from Stephen Hebden.'

‘You are jesting.' Hal did not take the book, and it seemed to Julia that he had become tensely alert, although nothing showed in either his face or voice.

‘No, I am not. He came up to me in the shop today. I accused him of trying to kill you, he denied it. Truth fully, I think. It surprised him.'

‘And you wait until now to tell me?' Hal demanded.

‘I could hardly blurt it out in front of your parents and Verity: it would have alarmed them. And you did not come in until late afternoon. I was quite safe, in the middle of a book shop in Piccadilly.'

‘Quite safe! After I have told you the things that man is capable of, you think he is quite safe?' Hal was furious. Julia realized that about a split second before she discovered how exciting she found it.

She shrugged, getting slowly to her feet, allowing Hal to study the effect of her new night gown as it moulded itself around her body. It did not seem to calm his anger. ‘The man is obviously capable of all you say, and more,' she conceded. ‘But he
is
extremely attractive.'

Julia almost reached her bedroom door, before Hal caught her by the shoulders and spun her round to face him. ‘Do not even
think
of associating with Hebden.' He sounded as though he was using all his will not to raise his voice to her. ‘Or I am going to have to kill him.'

She put up her own hands and caught his wrists. Hal freed her at the touch, but his eyes were fierce and dark and she could see the rise and fall of his chest as he con trolled his breathing. He was angry and dangerous, and she had aroused those feelings because he felt—what? Protective towards her? Possessive? Hope flickered that it might be more.

Slowly she walked back wards to her own door, watching him. ‘I said he was extremely attractive.' She reached behind herself to turn the handle, her eyes locked on his. ‘I did not say he was more attractive than my husband.' Julia slipped through the door and closed it behind herself.

She leant back against the door panels and heard his footsteps, half a dozen strides that brought him to the door. Then silence. He was just the other side; she sensed it as strongly as though her back was against his chest, not against solid oak. Would he try and come in? Had she intrigued him enough? Or angered him—or worse, disgusted him?

Then she heard his foot steps again, going away. With a sigh, she put the book down on the bedside table and tossed the shawl onto the chair. She would try again tomorrow: she would not give up.

 

Hal stared at the door as though he could penetrate it by sheer will alone. All evening Julia had not looked directly at him, yet she had always seemed to be close, her fingertips touching in the most fleeting way, her scent tantalising his nostrils, his awareness of her body and his new knowledge of its sweetness threatening to overturn his control and make him forget the guilt he felt about last night. And now…
I did not say he was more attractive than my husband.
Did Julia really mean that she
wanted
him? After the fiasco of that clumsy coupling? She had said to him that she wanted him to come to her bed, she had asked him to
teach her. She wanted to feel married. But he could not risk hurting her again.

Hal turned away, back towards his own room, then stopped. He was not some in experienced youth, even if he had behaved like one last night. There were ways to make love to his wife, ways to show her that he cared for her. He turned back, making a bet with himself.
If she still has the candle lit, I will go in, if not, I will leave her.

He blew out the candles in the branch she had been reading by, the single one placed, he realized, to lure him into the room, then stood in the darkness looking at Julia's door. Yes, there was a thin line of light along one edge.
I
am
a lucky gambler,
he thought. But no bet had ever seemed quite so important as this.

H
al tapped on the door and opened it without waiting for a response. His wife was sitting up in bed, her arms around her knees and her chin resting on them. She seemed deep in thought. As she heard him, she raised her gaze from the foot of the bed and stared at him, her eyes wide and dark and mysterious. Female.

‘May I come in?'

Julia nodded, watching him as he came to sit on the end of the bed. It seemed she was content to let him speak.

‘I thought I should treat you as though we were both in experienced,' Hal said without preamble, thinking his way through this, explaining to himself as much as her. ‘I was ashamed of my experience—of my
experiences.
I wanted to come to you like a bride groom who had been virtuous all his life.' She frowned, a line of puzzlement between her brows that he wanted to kiss away.

‘So, I tried to make love to you in the obvious, simple, way. The bread and butter way.' The frown vanished, and her lips twitched, just a very little. Heartened, he pushed on. ‘The way such a virtuous man, relying on instinct not
experience, would make love to his new bride. I did not stop to think that, with my leg as it is, it was a foolish thing to do and that there were many other ways to make you mine, ways that would pleasure you far more.'

‘Cake love, not bread and butter?' Julia asked, her eyes alight with amusement and something he rather hoped was excitement.

‘Plum cake with cream,' Hal promised, aware that he was becoming most definitely aroused. His experience in sin, he realized, was not something to discard, but a gift he could give to this woman he had married.

‘Perhaps I would want cream cake every time,' she mused, making him wonder where his delusion had come from that, because she was innocent, she must also need teaching to desire.

‘Occasion ally, a little bread and butter is welcome,' Hal informed her, getting off the bed. He picked up the single candle and walked round to touch it to the wicks of the other dozen or so others that were placed around the room.

‘All those lights?' She was biting her lip now, un certain. Hal realized how much he wanted to see her naked.

‘Of course, otherwise the cream could go anywhere.' Hal began to undress, watching her steadily to gauge her responses, trying to keep the mood light.

‘That might be quite fun,' Julia said demurely, making him grin. She had courage—he knew that already—but the glimpses of a wicked sense of humour were a constant surprise.

‘Perhaps another day,' he promised, down to shirt and silk evening knee breeches now. ‘Come and help with my buttons?'

 

Julia was tempted. She felt so restless, she wanted to touch Hal so badly, but instinct was telling her to tease and
to prolong. ‘I want to watch,' she decided, wondering if she would embarrass him.

No, of course not: this was the rake she had fallen in love with, not the respectable gentleman he had been trying to counterfeit. Hal raised one eyebrow, then began to undo his shirt. Very slowly. It dropped to the floor and then he undid the fastenings of his breeches. Even more slowly. It seemed two could play at teasing. Julia licked her lips.

When he stood there naked, almost arrogant in his arousal, she caught her breath. She had seen his wounded body, the honed muscles slashed, the golden skin scored and bruised. Now she saw that nearly all the bandages were gone, with only a strap ping round arm and thigh where the sabre cuts had been deepest. The new scars, still red, laced across older white ones, but to her they did not detract from his beauty, they were badges of honour. On his left breast, the bruised outline of her notebook was still faintly visible. Such a tiny chance, that she had thought to give it to him. And without that impulse they would not be here, in this room, tonight.

‘This seems rather unequal,' he observed as she continued to stare at him.

‘Mmm,' Julia agreed. Cream cakes, indeed. She wanted to…wanted to
lick
him. All over. And bite. Just there, and there…tiny, playful nips. ‘Oh my,' she murmured.

‘That is a delightful night gown.'

‘I bought it today. Nell took me to some of her favourite shops.'

‘Now I know why Marcus looks so smug these days.' Hal took hold of the corner of the sheet and whipped it back. ‘Spending your dress allowance, Julia?'

‘My non-existent dress allowance,' she corrected him, reaching up her hands to flatten the palms on his chest as he leant over her, intent on the ribbons. Under her palms, his skin was smooth and hot, the muscles hard, the hair crisp.

‘Such a mean husband you have,' he sympathised, leaning down, pushing against her hands so she was forced back to the pillows. ‘But you have such delightful taste I can see that I must give you a large allowance, all to spend on flimsy nonsense like this. Now, how does it come off?'

Of course she had to wriggle and bat at his hands, so that he was compelled to tickle her, roll her across the wide bed, pretending to pounce until she sensed it was time to stop fighting. Julia lay still, quiescent under those clever hands while he smoothed the gown up and over and off, letting it caress her until she did not know what was his fingertips or his breath or the whisper of silk or even, as he bent his head to her breast, the brush of his hair.

Hal lay on his side and pulled her against the length of his body, then lifted her leg over his hip until she was open to him. It felt strange, but she let him do as he wished, finding she could lean in to lick along his collar bone, his neck, nip the point of his chin with her teeth, soothe with her lips. He tasted good: warm and slightly salty.

Then he began to explore her with his hands, boldly, intimately, until she writhed against him, panting, the tension mounting and knotting inside her as it had done last night. But this time she knew she was going to get to wherever that spiral of heat was taking her. And then he slid into her, easily, slowly, so that all she was conscious of was him filling her, making them one as he rocked her up, up until she was wound so tight it was impossible.

‘Now,' Hal breathed in her ear. ‘Come with me now.'

Where? Where…
And then she knew and let go and flew with him, over the edge, up and up as he gasped her name and held her safe until, so slowly, the world came back and she was tangled in his arms on the big bed.

It was possible that she would never move again, that they would stay like this, still joined, for ever. It seemed to Julia to
be a perfect fate. She closed her eyes against his sweat-damp chest and floated.

‘Are you asleep?'

Julia blinked and opened her eyes to find his, blue and clear and smiling into hers, very close. She wriggled a little. ‘You've gone.'

Hal chuckled. ‘That happens. Now we start again. Can you ride?'

‘No.' Mystified, Julia watched him roll onto his back.

‘Now's the time to learn.' He lay there watching her from under hooded lids while she worked it out.

‘Me? On top? Hal, that's…' Indecently bold. Indecently exciting. ‘Like this?' His lean hips felt right between her thighs and she kept her weight forward, away from his wound. And beneath her, his body was stirring into life again. ‘Oh yes, I see—Oh, Hal! We fit together so well.'

And he smiled and then, as she took him fully into herself and began to move, his eyes closed. ‘Julia. Oh my God,
Julia!
'

 

The next morning at break fast, Julia felt as though she must have
Satisfied Wife
emblazoned across her forehead. They had made love a third time before they slept and then again this morning. Then Hal had kissed her lingeringly and padded off to his own room before her maid came in.

He had put his foot through the sheet at some point, she realized, finding the maid's studious disregard of the tangled bedding and crumpled night gown every bit as pointed as a comment would have been.

But she was too happy to be embarrassed, even though unexpected muscles ached and she was aware of her body, inside and out, just as though he was still touching her.

‘Good morning, Mrs Carlow,' Hal said, sitting down again as she took her own seat at the break fast table. He looked,
and sounded, politely attentive, but his eyes, full of mischief and messages, were anything but those of a staid gentleman at his break fast.

‘Good morning, Major Carlow,' she rejoined, demurely shaking out her napkin while trying to convey that she was most willing to try whatever that mischief was suggesting.

No-one seemed to notice the by-play. Lord Narborough, looking rather better that morning than he had for several days, settled back to his perusal of the news pa per while his wife discussed the desirability of harp lessons with Verity.

‘Would you like to go for a drive, Julia?' Hal asked. ‘It would be a pleasant day for a ride, but, of course, you do not ride, do you?'

‘Not yet,' she said, compressing her lips. ‘You must teach me.' Oh but he was wicked, and she did love him.

Everything was perfect now, except for that one small detail, she thought, the desire to smile fading. He had never said he loved her, not even in the extremes of passion or those precious intervals while he had held her in his arms before they slept. But that was too much to hope for, she supposed. After all, this was a marriage of necessity, not a love match. Hal enjoyed her in bed, he desired her, he appeared to like her company—that was all far more than she had ever looked for in marriage.
I must not be greedy,
she thought.

‘I will see you in the hall in an hour then?' Hal folded his own news pa per and got up. Julia agreed, managed a smile, and was promptly appealed to for support by Verity whose godfather had promised her a harp if she wanted to learn.

‘Only I don't know if I do,' she said. ‘It isn't like the piano—everyone has a piano and it can be fun as well as something one has to do at parties. The harp always seems such a performance.'

‘It does make the player appear very graceful and femi
nine. Perhaps Lord Ked din ton thinks it would be a useful accomplishment for the Season,' Julia suggested.

Verity wrinkled her nose. ‘I suppose you mean it will help attract gentlemen. I don't want the sort of gentleman who would like me because I can play the harp. I want someone dashing, like Hal or Marcus. Or Gabriel,' she added, with a wary eye on her mother who pursed her lips slightly at the mention of her son-in-law's name.

‘Some excitement is good,' Julia conceded, wondering what well-behaved, sheltered Verity would make of a dashing and dangerous suitor if she found one. He would probably scare her to death. ‘But I do not think you can predict in advance the kind of man you will want to marry. I thought I wanted to find someone very ordinary and stolid.'

‘And instead you fell in love with Hal.' Verity beamed at her, ignoring Julia's blushes and her mother's
tut
of disapproval.

And thank goodness Hal was not in the room to hear that,
Julia told herself. She hoped he believed she had gone to the battlefield out of friend ship, not because her deeper feelings were engaged. If he thought that, he might easily think she had compromised herself deliberately. She was not certain which was worse: that he might think she had set out to entrap him as a husband, or that he guess she loved him and he, not returning that sentiment, pitied her.

‘I am sure Verity will find someone entirely suitable,' Lady Narborough pronounced, rising grace fully from her place. ‘Unlike dear Honoria, one can always rely upon Verity to do the right thing.'

 

‘That is a most provocative bonnet,' Hal observed when Julia came down to the hall for their drive. ‘There is the smallest area of tender skin just between the ribbon and your ear that makes me want to nibble.'

‘Ssh!' Julia cast a hunted look round for footmen. ‘Oh thank goodness you are leaving your tiger behind,' she added as the lad let go the horses' heads and Hal sent them off towards Piccadilly at a smart trot. ‘If you are going to say such shocking things I most certainly do not want an audience.'

‘Neither do I,' he admitted. ‘But that was not the main reason I wanted to be alone. Green Park or Hyde Park?'

‘Green,' Julia decided. ‘So much quieter.' She felt slightly apprehensive, his tone was so serious all of a sudden. ‘What is it you want to talk about?'

‘Hebden. Or Beshaley, to give him his Romany name.' Hal negotiated the gates and guided the horses away from the reservoir with the strolling pedestrians enjoying the summer morning sun on its banks. ‘I realize you were only trying to provoke me last night, but I need you to be careful with that man, Julia.'

‘If he has done all these things, why not have him arrested?' she asked. ‘Or call him out.'

‘If Marcus or I called him out he would avoid the challenge.' Hal reined the pair into a walk. ‘He has no concept of honour. He is not a gentleman, even though he was brought up as one as a child—until his father was murdered and the family threw him out. Now he has the talents and the instincts of a gutter rat.'

He drove in silence for a few moments. ‘And the things he has done are not for public consumption; they affect the honour of wives and sisters, young women like Mildenhall's new wife who is Hebden's own half-sister. Or they cannot be proved against him—the attempt to give my father heart attacks, for example. He's as slippery as a snake and as elusive as smoke, damn him.'

‘It all goes back to that murder,' Julia mused. ‘It seems strange to me: the man was hanged, so why does this still continue?'

‘Unless he was innocent,' Hal said, reluctantly.

‘Who is the obvious suspect if—Wardale was it not?—was innocent?'

‘My father.' Hal sounded grim.

‘They suspected no-one else was involved?' He shook his head. ‘But the man who paid the trooper to try and kill you was not Hebden, yet there was that silken rope, so we know there is someone else connected with this,' Julia said, trying to work through it logically.