The Escape by Mary Balogh
18
Mrs. Price cooked them a chicken-and-vegetable pie, which she explained was her son’s favorite dish and had been her late husband’s. It was to be preceded by leek soup and followed by jellies and custard. She set out cups and saucers with sugar and milk and a cloth-covered plate of cake on a tray in the kitchen. The kettle was left to hum on the kitchen range with the teapot warming beside it.
Gladys laced Samantha into her stays and helped her into her rose-colored silk evening gown, which she had ironed carefully so that even the two frills about the hem and the small ones that edged the sleeves were free of wrinkles. She dressed Samantha’s still slightly damp hair in an elegantly piled and curled coiffure. She clasped the pearls about her neck and clipped pearl earrings to her lobes before standing back to admire her handiwork.
“Oh, you do look lovely, Mrs. McKay,” she said. “I bet you could turn heads even at one of them grand balls in London town.”
“And all thanks to you, Gladys,” Samantha said with a smile. “But all I have to attend is dinner downstairs.”
“It is with the major, though,” her maid said with a sigh. Clearly she was smitten with Ben. “I bet you will turn his head.”
“If I do,” Samantha said, rising from the stool in front of her dressing table, “I shall be sure to tell him that it is all thanks to you.”
“Oh, go on with you,” Gladys said, blushing rosily. “He will only have to take one look at you to know how silly that is. You could be dressed in a sack and outshine every other lady for miles around.”
Samantha did feel good, even exuberant. She had used to feel just so when dressing for assemblies and balls during her youth and the early months of her marriage. But, it struck her suddenly, perhaps it was unfair of her to dress with particular care for the evening when Ben would be wearing the clothes in which he had come from the village this afternoon, or, rather, the dry ones into which he had changed after their swim.
She was not sorry, though, when she saw the admiration in his eyes as she joined him in the parlor. And he looked very good indeed to her eyes. He must have found a brush with which to rid his coat and boots of all traces of sand. And polish too—his boots gleamed. His waistcoat was neatly buttoned beneath his coat, and he had tied a fresh neckcloth in a style more suited to evening. His hair was neatly combed into a Brutus style, which suited him.
He got to his feet, even though she signaled him with one hand to stay where he was, and made her a courtly bow.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“Despite the sunburn?”
His own face was ruddy with color, but attractively so. He looked healthy and virile.
“The sun turns your complexion bronze instead of scarlet,” he said. “Yes, beautiful despite the sun.”
Mrs. Price appeared in the doorway at that moment to inform them that she had set the hot dishes on the table and they must come now if they did not want their food cold and spoiled. And she would, if it was all the same to Mrs. McKay, hang up her apron and walk home with Gladys.
And so they dined alone together, Samantha and Ben, though Tramp came padding in from the kitchen to plop down in front of the empty fireplace and keep an eye out for fallen morsels of food. None did fall, but Ben fed him a few morsels anyway, to Samantha’s amusement. He pretended to dislike the dog, but she had never believed him, for Tramp liked him, and dogs did not like people who disliked them.
The food was plain but wholesome and delicious.
He told her some stories from his military years—not anything about the fighting and the violence, but amusing anecdotes. She told him stories about her year with Matthew’s regiment, mostly funny little incidents involving the other wives that she had not thought of in years. He told her stories from his Penderris years—again light, entertaining incidents involving his friends. She told him about the kittens at Leyland Abbey. A groom had discovered a litter of them in the loft of a barn and had concealed them and tended them in secret so that they would not be drowned—until Samantha had caught him at it. But she had not reported him. Rather, she had aided and abetted him and had loved those kittens until they grew into cats and deserted in order to earn their living and their daily bread as mousers.
“Ungrateful wretches,” she said, laughing softly.
She had forgotten until now that there was anything at all good about that year in Kent.
“But you would not have wanted them at your heels for the rest of their lives, would you?” he asked.
“Oh, heavens, no,” she said. “There were eight of them.”
“The dog’s nose would be severely out of joint,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Poor Tramp. He would have been grossly outnumbered and would doubtless have slunk along at the back of the line instead of asserting his superior size. He does not know he is large, you see. He believes he is a puppy.”
They both laughed, and Tramp thumped his tail on the floor where he sat.
Samantha cleared the table and carried the dishes into the kitchen, where she stacked them on the counter. She made the tea and carried the tray into the sitting room and lit the lamp. And they sat and talked more—mainly about books this time—while they drank their tea and the sky beyond the window turned a deeper blue. And then indigo.
Then it was dark.
She got up to close the curtains.
And suddenly there was no way of reviving the conversation. The very fact she had moved had acknowledged the fact that night had fallen and they were here together in her cottage, quite unchaperoned. She stood facing the window for a few moments even though she had already drawn the curtains.
“Should I leave?” he asked. “Do you wish me to leave?”
Perhaps she should simply say yes. Nothing much had happened between them so far, despite a rather lengthy journey that had thrown them into proximity. In another few days he would be gone. And it had to be that way. There could be no future together, for any number of reasons. Perhaps it would be better not to take that extra step into the unknown, the unpredictable.
Perhaps it would be disappointing if they did proceed. No, that was not what made her hesitate. Perhaps it would be painful. Not the act itself, but its aftermath. For he would leave. There would be a goodbye. Which would be more painful? Not to have slept with him and forever regret it? Or to have slept with him and forever … regret it?
He had asked her a question. Two, actually.
She shook her head as she turned. “No, don’t leave.”
And so she committed herself.
She watched as he got to his feet, using his canes, and she moved toward him until she was standing in front of him.
“Don’t leave,” she said again, and she lifted her hands to cup his face. He had even shaved, she realized. He must have brought his razor with him. He must have expected to stay.
“Are you sure you will not regret it?” he asked her. “I cannot take you with me, Samantha. I am, at least for the present, a nomad. And I cannot stay. There is nothing for me here. Besides, it is too soon for you to remarry. And I cannot … ever marry. I do not have wholeness to offer.”
Because he was half crippled? Strangely, she would have agreed with him just a few weeks ago. She had wanted nothing more to do with wounds and disfigurement. But, slow as he was in his movements, it was hard to think of him as disabled. Except that he could not hold her now because he needed his hands for his canes.
“I was once promised a lifetime,” she said, “and was given four months. Not even that, actually, as it was all illusion from the start. It was all a lie. This afternoon you promised me a week. Let us make it a week to remember.”
“An affair to remember?” he said.
“With pleasure and affection,” she said. “And no regrets. Will you regret it? Would you rather go back to the inn?”
For a few moments she thought he was going to say yes. Then he dipped his head closer to hers, closed his eyes, and set his forehead against hers.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that I will be inadequate.”
Did he mean impotent? Did he fear that?
“I am afraid I will disappoint you,” he said.
She stepped back from him and smiled as she went to fetch the lamp.
“Come upstairs,” she said. “Even if you do no more than hold me, I will not be disappointed. One of my loveliest recent memories is of waking at that inn where we were forced to share a room to find you holding me against you, one arm about me. It was so very long before that since anyone had so much as touched me—except you, when you kissed me at Bramble Hall.”
Tramp padded off to the bed Mrs. Price had made him in a corner of the kitchen, next to the stove and his water bowl, and Samantha led the way upstairs, holding the lamp aloft so that he could see his way. She closed the curtains in her bedchamber and watched him remove his coat and waistcoat and neckcloth. She watched him pull off his shirt to reveal his muscled, suntanned, scarred chest. Only then did she move toward the dressing table.
“Allow me,” he said, and he crossed the room, propped his canes against the side of the dressing table, sat on the bench, spread his legs wide, and drew her down to sit between them, her back against his chest.
His fingers worked at her hair, and she tipped her head downward, watching his hand as it came forward to deposit pins until her hair fell about her shoulders. He took up her brush and began to draw it through the curls Gladys had so carefully created.
“Two hundred strokes?” he asked, his voice low against her ear.
She shivered slightly. “One hundred will do.”
“In a rush, are you?” he asked.
“No.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Time does not exist. I do not want it to exist.”
“Then it does not,” he said and drew the brush through her hair until she could feel that all the tangles had gone—and all the curls too.
She did not count, but after a while he tossed the brush back onto the dressing table and undid the clasp of her pearls. He unclipped her earrings. And his fingers worked down the line of fasteners at the back of her dress until he could fold back the edges and set his lips against her shoulder blades, one at a time. She was holding the dress against her bosom, but he reached around and removed her hands and drew the dress down over her arms, and down over her breasts until she was bare above her shift and her stays.
His hands cupped her breasts, pushed high by her stays. His fingers were warm as they played lightly over her flesh until she could feel a stabbing of sensation down through her womb and along her inner thighs. He caught her nipples between a finger and thumb of each hand and rolled them before rubbing his thumbs over the tips. She pressed her head back against his shoulder and opened her eyes—and met his gaze in the glass in the flickering light of the lamp.
She could, she realized, watch what he did, as he was doing it.
Oh, dear God.
She spread her hands over his clad thighs on either side of her body, but lightly lest she hurt him.
And he unlaced her stays and stood her up in front of him and stripped her clothes down her body until they were pooled at her feet. Then he drew her down to sit in front of him again.
She was still wearing her silk stockings and her pink garters, she thought as she watched his hands move over her—and felt them too. Her arms and shoulders and a deep half circle above her breasts were bronzed from this afternoon’s exposure to the sun. The rest of her was pale in comparison. His hands too were bronzed.
He had been celibate as long as she. But he obviously knew a great deal more than she ever had. And, as with swimming, it seemed it was not something he had forgotten. He knew just where to touch her, and just how—with his palms, with his fingers, fingertips, and thumbs, with his fingernails. And finally the fingers of one hand slid lightly through the triangle of hair at the apex of her thighs, and pushed downward and inward, cupping her heat, pressing into her most private place, lightly probing and stroking there. His thumb circled lightly a little higher until she felt such a raw ache of longing that she cried out and shuddered against him and would have doubled over if his free arm had not held her firmly back against his chest.
“Oh.” She was panting for breath. She felt hot and damp and suddenly drained of energy in a thoroughly pleasurable way. “I am so sorry.”
His laughter and his voice were low against her ear. “Sorry? I certainly hope not.”
And she knew that she was the merest novice, that he had made love to her with his hand and given her that exquisite pleasure quite deliberately with the skill of his fingers.
“But I am not able to give you any pleasure,” she protested.
“Are you sure?” He laughed against her ear again, and she looked at him in the mirror and saw his eyes, heavy with … what? Desire? Passion? Sheer enjoyment?
He was, she thought, incredibly handsome.
“You are almost fully clothed,” she complained.
“That can be remedied.” He stood her up again and reached for his canes. “Lie down on the bed.”
She turned back the covers, sat on the edge of the mattress, and removed her stockings while he watched. She had never been naked with a man before. She did not feel self-conscious, though. Perhaps it was because the lamplight was soft and flattering. Or perhaps it was because of that look in his eyes. Or because he had made love to her with his hand and she was still warm with pleasure.
She lay down and watched him seat himself at the bottom of the bed and pull off his boots and stockings. Poor man, it was the second time in one day he had had to do that without the aid of his valet, and it very evidently was not easy.
And then he stood and extinguished the lamp, which was standing on the table beside the bed. She could hear him removing his lower garments. It was disappointing. She wanted to watch. And she wanted them to be able to watch each other as they loved. But even through his clothes it was evident that his legs were somewhat deformed, and that the muscles were not as developed as those on the upper part of his body. It was understandable that, unlike her, he did mind being seen naked.
“I only hope—” he began as he lay down beside her.
But somehow in the darkness she found his mouth with her hand and covered it.
“Ben,” she said, turning onto her side. “I did not know you before you were injured. The man you were then does not exist for me. Only the man you are now. And this is the man with whom I have chosen to have an affair. It does not matter if you do not have great prowess. I do not have any expertise either. I have known one other man, and that for only a brief time almost seven years ago when I was seventeen.”
“I cannot move nimbly,” he said, “even when I am lying down. Only in the water, it seems. Perhaps we ought to be doing this there.”
She raised herself on one elbow and pushed at his shoulder until he was lying on his back.
“Ah,” she said, lowering her mouth to his, “but I can move nimbly.”
“Heaven help me.” She heard him laugh softly as he reached out to hold her by the hips.
She moved over him until she lay on top of him, her legs on either side of his lest she give him pain. And she breathed in the warmth and the slightly musky smell of him mingled with the salty smell of the sea, though he had washed after coming up from the beach. Her breasts pressed against the warm, hard muscles of his chest. She set her mouth to his and opened to the pressure of his tongue.
She straddled him at the hips, raising herself onto her knees so that she could move her hands over him and feel all the magnificence of his physique. And so that she would feel his hands on her—on her breasts, up over her shoulders, down her back, over her hips and along her outer thighs to her knees, up to cup her bottom. She lowered her head to kiss his chest, to lick his nipples and nip them between her teeth, and with her hands she felt the narrowness of his waist and hips, the warmth between his thighs, the hard thickness of his arousal.
She took it in her hands and both felt and heard him inhale slowly. She caressed him with her palms and with her fingertips while he grew harder.
She lifted herself higher onto her knees, spread them wider, held him against the most tender part of herself, and lowered herself onto him as his hands came to her hips again and clasped them firmly.
For a moment, when she was deeply penetrated, she tightened inner muscles and held still, her head bent forward, her eyes tightly closed. There was surely no lovelier feeling in the world. Ah, there could not possibly be. And he was Ben. He was her lover.
It was a word she spoke consciously in her mind, savoring it.
He was her lover.
Better than husband. Ah, far better. There was freedom in being a lover. Pleasure freely given and freely received.
His hands lifted her slightly by the hips, and suddenly he was in command, moving in her, withdrawing and thrusting with firm, deep strokes that had her reaching for his chest with her fingertips to steady herself and tipping back her head so that she could feel. He was working fast and hard but with a steady rhythm that invited a slight turning of her hips to circle his thrusts and a contracting and relaxing of inner muscles to gather him deeper and release him. And she braced her knees and rode while his hips flexed and relaxed against her inner thighs and his breathing became labored and his chest and her hands on it became hot and slick with sweat, and always, unrelentingly, he demanded entrance to … where?
Where else was there to go? He was already deeper than deep.
But then something opened up anyway, something deep within, something soft, near painful, beyond words to describe, and he came in hard and deep and thrusting and she closed around him and spilled out all the inner wonder of that unknown place and whispered his name.
He came two, three, four more times into that soft, lovely place, thrusting his demand and then finding his own place. She felt heat, heard him sigh, felt him gradually relax, and went down into his waiting arms until she was lying along his body again, her legs straight beside his own. They were still joined.
Wasit impotence he had feared? Perhaps she had feared it too—for his sake. She almost laughed with delight.
A few moments later she felt the bedcovers come up over her back and shoulders. His arms held them in place, and they lay still and relaxed in each other’s arms for several minutes.
“We forgot something,” he said at last, his voice soft against her ear.
“Mm?” She was more than half asleep.
“I spilled my seed in you,” he said.
“Mm.” She was awake now. The fingers of one of his hands were playing through her hair.
“We will have to make … arrangements before I leave,” he said.
She opened her eyes to stare at the lighter square of the window.
“I must see to it that you have somewhere to write,” he said, “if I need to come back.”
She had thought of it but had deliberately ignored the thought, which was extremely foolish and irresponsible of her.
“I did not conceive during my marriage,” she said.
“Which does not mean you are barren,” he told her.
Did this mean their affair was over? Almost before it had begun? Would they not risk it again?
“I would not trap you into marriage,” she told him.
“I do not doubt it,” he said. “Though trapped would not be a pleasant word to use if there really were a child, would it?”
She did not answer him. But she did move off him to lie beside him. He reached for her hand and they laced their fingers.
“Must it end, then?” she asked him.
He did not answer immediately.
“Would it be a terrible disaster to you,” he asked her, “to be with child? To have to marry me?”
“Not a disaster,” she said. For a long time, while she had been living at Leyland Abbey, she had thought her life might be bearable if only she had a baby, though after Matthew was injured and came home, she had been deeply thankful that there was none. “Would it be a disaster to you?”
“If there were a child,” he said, “I would not want to have to remember for the rest of my life that I had once called the possibility of his or her conception a disaster. Neither of us wants marriage, and the circumstances would make it difficult for us to marry even if we did want it. However, the needs of any child of mine will always come first in my life, and a child needs father and mother if it is humanly possible—married to each other and loving each other.”
He spoke in a soft voice, obviously choosing his words with care. Samantha felt a deep welling of … grief? No, it was not grief. But it was something that made her ache with a nameless longing and brought tears to her eyes and the soreness of unshed tears to her throat.
… married to each other and loving each other.
How wonderful it would be to be loved by Benedict Harper and to share a child with him. If only the circumstances were different …
She rested her temple against his shoulder. It was not supposed to be like this. They were supposed to be having a brief affair, entirely for pleasure.
“What are we going to do?” she asked him.
“We promised each other a week of lovemaking,” he said, “before we pick up the threads of our own separate lives. Shall we keep that promise and deal with any consequences that may arise if and when they do arise?”
She knew something then with a terrible clarity. She knew she was not made for casual affairs. She had thought after the first numbness of loss following Matthew’s death had passed that all she wanted was to be free, to live. But all she really wanted to do, all she had ever wanted to do, was to love. And, if possible, to be loved.
Instead, she had begun an affair, something that by its very nature was temporary. Something that was purely carnal. Something that would leave her more bereft than she had ever felt before.
Unless there was a child.
Yet she must hope that there would not be, for she would not wish to bind him to her on such terms.
He squeezed her hand.
“I do not doubt,” he said, “that there will be people to take note of the exact minute and hour at which I return to the inn. I would not be so late that it will be obvious I have done more here than dine with you and sit afterward over tea and conversation.”
He leaned closer and kissed her on the lips, and then she swung her legs over the far side of the bed, got to her feet, and found her nightgown and dressing gown.
“I shall see you downstairs,” she said and left him to get dressed.
She walked out to the barn with him fifteen minutes or so later in her slippers and dressing gown while Tramp galloped about the garden, delighted to have an outing he had not been expecting. She waited while Ben hitched up the horse to the gig.
He spread one arm to her before climbing in, and she stepped close to him and hugged him. He kissed her and smiled down at her in the moonlight.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For?”
“For making me feel like a man again,” he said.
“You always seem very much like one to me,” she said, and she saw the flash of his smile in the darkness.
“Thank you,” he said again, and he climbed slowly into the gig, settled his canes, gathered the ribbons in his hands, glanced at her once more, and gave the horse the signal to start.
“Good night, Samantha,” he said.
“Good night, Ben.”
She did shed tears after he had gone and after she could neither see nor hear the gig any longer. She could not help but think of the fact that in a week’s time it would be goodbye, not just good night.
What had she done?
