Nicola Cornick, Margaret McPhee, et al (36 page)

‘If I have disappointed in any way,’ she began, ‘if I’ve failed
to live up to the expectations that your husband’s trust has put in me and my
scholarship, why—’

‘Oh, nonsense,’ said Lady Hamilton, sweeping her gloved hand
through the air, as if sweeping aside Abigail’s objections. ‘There’s not one
tiny fault with your blessed scholarship, an’ you know it. Sir William finds
you the very soul o’ accomplishment. Which makes your entanglement with
Richardson all the more troubling to me.’

‘It’s not an entanglement, my lady, but a rare friendship and
regard,’ Abigail said, as firmly as she could—which wasn’t very firmly at all.
‘I have the highest regard for him, and he for me.’

‘And
that
, Miss Layton, is a peck o’ spoiled fish,’ Lady
Hamilton said succinctly. ‘I’ve seen how the two o’ you gaze at one another,
an’ worse. How he watches you with that hungry man’s look in his eyes. An idle
flirtation’s well an’ good, but that—ah, that makes me fear for you, Miss
Layton.’

‘But I’m not frightened, my lady, not at all,’ Abigail said, and
just the thought of how he called her Abbie, how he brushed her hair back from
her forehead, how he kissed her and told her he loved her—ah, it was enough to
make her smile again. ‘Why should you be?’

‘Because, as clever as you are in book matters, Miss Layton,
you’re as innocent an’ as ignorant as a new babe in more worldly ones,’ Lady
Hamilton said. ‘You’re smiling now, imaginin’ his handsome face, aren’t you?’

‘And why not?’ Abigail said defensively. How could Lady Hamilton
speak to her like this when she herself seemed to be conducting an intrigue
with Admiral Nelson? ‘Lieutenant Lord Richardson is a gentleman, an officer of
the King, who puts honour first among all things.’

‘First o’ all things he is a man, an’ you are a woman, a very
pretty young woman.’ She leaned closer, resting her hand on Abigail’s knee.
‘Your lieutenant may be handsome as the day, an’ gallant as they come, but he’s
also a peer’s son. He’ll dally where he pleases, then wed where his papa says.
No matter what he tells you, he won’t wed you. He’ll love you now, an’ tell you
you’re his world, but soon enough he’ll sail away without a care, an’ leave you
with his brat in your belly. An’ all the Greek an’ Latin you know won’t help
you then, Miss Layton. It won’t help you at all.’

Abigail flushed again. ‘But Lieutenant Lord Richardson is
different, my lady. I can tell. He wouldn’t treat me with such—such disregard.’

‘Do not believe it, Miss Layton. Or him,’ she said sternly. ‘You
are the most clever girl ever I’ve met, an’ I’d not want to see you turn
foolish now. When I was far younger than you—long before I met Sir William—I
believed a gentleman who promised me everything, an’ the sum o’ what I had from
him was his bastard daughter.’

‘Oh, my lady, how sad!’ exclaimed Abigail softly, shocked. Of
course she’d heard of girls who’d been deceived by false lovers—girls who’d
been ruined and seemed to vanish into the air—but she’d never heard the tragedy
from a girl herself, now grown and wed and received by a queen. ‘I am so sorry
for you!’

‘I don’t want your sorrow or your sympathy, Miss Layton,’ Lady
Hamilton said, her smile tight. ‘I want you to know the price o’ love before
you risk everything for it, an’ listen to your head before your heart. Will you
promise me that, Miss Layton?’

‘No, my lady, I will not,’ Abigail said slowly, looking down into
her lap. ‘I will not, because I won’t make a promise to you that I cannot
keep.’

‘Oh, lamb, please—’

‘Forgive me, my lady, but I must speak,’ Abigail said, her words
tumbling in a rush directly from her heart. ‘I love him—yes, love him with
every bit of my soul and my heart. How could I do otherwise, with the world
overrun with madness and Frenchmen? What if this is my one chance in my life to
love, and be loved in return? What if I were to drown as I returned to England,
or be shot dead by a Frenchman’s gun, and never knew the joy of love?’

‘Then I am too late.’ With a groan, Lady Hamilton dropped back
against the seat. ‘I wouldn’t ever wish my fate upon you, Miss Layton. But if
ever you need another, in sorrow or in joy, I will be that friend to you.’

‘I’ll always thank you for that, my lady.’ Abigail didn’t try to
hide her tears, letting them slide down her cheeks. ‘You’ve never shown me
anything but kindness, my lady, yet I wouldn’t change a thing. I didn’t come to
Naples to fall in love, but I did, and I won’t regret it—or James.’

‘There he is now,’ Lady Hamilton said softly. ‘Ah, no wonder you
love him so!’

The carriage had slowed as it drew up before the embassy, and
from the window Abigail spotted James at once, waiting beside a small hired
carriage decked gaily with ribbons and tiny bells. James was grinning and
waving, and melting her heart with the joy he so obviously felt in seeing her
again. James, the one man on this earth she was meant to love.

‘Ah, so fine a gentleman puts all promises to shame, don’t he?’
Lady Hamilton smiled wearily. ‘But no matter how sweet, remember the price o’
love, an’ be sure. Be
sure
.’

Abigail sat in the stern of the little boat, the wind tossing her
hair inside the brim of her bonnet and rippling the fringe on her shawl. Spray
scattered like diamonds in the sunlight as the boat cut across the blue water,
and she laughed with pure delight as the white-winged gulls danced across the
cloudless sky overhead. She’d never been in a small boat before—so different
from the ancient, lumbering merchantman that had carried her from England—and
she marvelled at how James could send them flying across the bay with no more
than a single sail and the tiller in his hand.

‘How do you know how to
do
that, James?’ she asked,
holding the ribbons on her bonnet so it wouldn’t blow away. ‘To bend the wind
to your will like this?’

Now he laughed, too. ‘Those are things a sailor must know,
sweet,’ he said, raising his voice over the sounds of the taut canvas and the
wind singing in the lines. ‘If I cannot manage a neat little craft like this,
how could I possibly manage a frigate?’

‘It’s a mystery to me, that’s all,’ she said, marvelling as much
at how handsome he looked, with his golden hair blowing back in the wind, as at
his talents as a sailor. Instead of his glittering dress uniform, he’d dressed
like the common sailors today, in a billowing white shirt and short jacket, his
wide-legged trousers rolled at the hem over his bare legs and feet—and all of
it was vastly becoming. She wished he’d not felt the need for his pistols
today, but she knew the reason for it, and why it could not be helped. ‘There
seems to be so much to learn.’

‘That is how I felt when you began spouting Homer to make a point
to Sir William,’ he said. ‘And in the original Greek, too. How’s a poor sailor
boy to cope with that?’

‘I’ll show you how to cope, you poor lord sailor boy,’ she said,
reaching over the side to flick a handful of water at him.

‘Don’t begin that game, madam,’ he warned. ‘Not unless you can
swim.’

‘You know I can’t,’ she said warily, grabbing the side of the
boat just in case. They were almost at an empty beach in a small inlet, and she
guessed she could likely wade from here to shore if she had to. ‘James, please,
don’t jest about that.’

‘You began it,’ he said, running the boat in until they were
almost ashore. He furled the sail, then hopped out into the water, taking care
to keep his pistols and powder clear. Wavelets lapped his knees as he tied the
boat to one of the old timbers jutting from the water—all that remained of a
wharf. Then he turned back towards her with arms outstretched.

‘Come along, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll not wait for you all the day
long.’

She frowned, looking from him to the water and back, then swiftly
stripped off her own stockings and slippers. Bunching her skirts over her
knees, she swung her leg over the side and into the water, shrieking at the
unexpected chill.

‘You didn’t have to do that, Abbie,’ he said with dismay. ‘I
would’ve carried you.’

‘You could’ve dropped me, too,’ she called over her shoulder,
laughing as she hurried clumsily through the water towards the beach. As hard
as she tried to run, she knew he’d catch her, and he did, seizing her around
the waist.

‘Are you that eager for your surprise, then?’ he asked, laughing
too, taking her hand. ‘You don’t even know where you’re bound.’

But
he
did, leading her away from the beach and up a
narrow, sandy path between scrubby bushes and large vine-covered rocks until,
at last, he turned into a small clearing overlooking the sea. Overgrown
thickets of trees shielded and shaded the space, almost as if it were a private
room outdoors. Abbie gasped, and forgot her waterlogged skirts as she pressed
her hand over her mouth in amazement.

A red coverlet had been spread over the grass, with striped
pillows piled invitingly. A wicker hamper of food stood waiting to be unpacked,
with plates and glasses already arranged on the coverlet. Festive red ribbons
had been tied into extravagant bows around the branches and trunks of the
trees, and a score of small brass bells had been hung from the branches, where
they’d chime in the breezes from the water.

‘Well, now,’ James said, more sheepish than amazed. ‘I paid to
have this rigged out like Christmas at home, but I’m afraid it’s more gaudy old
Naples than merry old Devon.’

‘It’s perfect, James,’ Abigail said with awe. ‘To think that you
would do this for me! Oh, it’s the most perfect, perfect surprise ever.’

‘It will be in a moment, anyway.’ He opened the hamper and drew
out the music box she’d given him, winding the key. ‘It’s cold tonight, I know,
and that wind is blowing something fierce. We’ll have snow up to the sills by
morning.’

‘Then we’d best begin the Christmas ball at once, my lord, to
help us keep warm.’ She smiled, and held her damp skirts out in a curtsey as
the first notes of ‘Greensleeves’ thrummed to life. ‘Will you honour me, my
lord?’

He took her by the hand, drawing her close. ‘You honour
me
,
love,’ he whispered, his voice rough with longing as he trailed his lips across
her cheek and along her jaw, in small, teasing kisses that made her shiver.
‘You always have, and you always, always will.’

‘Always,’ she murmured in return. She thought of what she’d told
Lady Hamilton, and wondered how she’d even dared consider anything that felt
this fine, this
right
. Tenderly she pressed her lips to the hollow at
the base of James’s throat, silently pledging herself again to the heart that
beat so strongly there. They’d come this far together, and she wouldn’t be the
one to halt now.

Together: yes, that was the keystone, wasn’t it? What she and
James had done—what they were doing even now—had been done together, two as
one. They belonged to each other, seamlessly, as lovers equal and true. She had
trusted James with her life, and now her heart. All that was left to give him
was her body, and with a sweet shudder of resignation she sank with him onto
the red coverlet.

He lay half atop her, his kisses salty from the sea and so heady
that she could well have been floating, as they had in the little boat. She
slipped her hands inside his shirt, restlessly running her hands along the
broad muscles of his back. For all that he was so much larger, she didn’t feel
trapped beneath his body. Instead her own body seemed to relish the weight of
his upon her, and as they kissed she stretched and wriggled languorously
beneath him, her movements an unconscious amplification of his mouth over hers.

‘God in heaven, Abbie,’ he groaned, and she froze. Perhaps what
she found pleasurable was not so to him? Perhaps to be agreeable she shouldn’t
move, but lie still?

‘Forgive me, James,’ she said anxiously, ‘if I’ve acted wrongly
or—’

‘Nay, love, not wrong.’ He brushed his lips across her cheek to
reassure her. ‘Nothing wrong, and everything right.’

As if to prove it, he shifted more heavily across her, and she
sighed with the
rightness
of it. He slid his hand over her breast,
tugging aside the muslin and linen until he reached her skin. Now it was her
turn to gasp as his palm teased her nipple into a tight, hot bud of longing.
Impatiently she arched against his hand, seeking more, and she felt the deep
rumble of his chuckle at her eagerness.

As distracted as she was by his caress, chuckling did register as
better than a groan, and boldly she returned the caress. His skin was hot,
burning, as if he’d been too long in the summer sun, and her touch was enough
to make him groan again.

With another little sigh she whispered her legs apart and let
James’s body settle there, between, and at once that little sigh changed into a
startled gasp. Even though she was still protected by layers of her shift and
his trousers, she could feel the rigid heat of that most masculine part of him,
pressing hard against the place where she was most a woman.

But instead of retreating, her body longed to be closer still to
him. She felt soft and warm and aching, her own heartbeat now concentrated in
that same place between her legs, and instinctively she drew her bare legs up
higher around his hips to draw him closer.

‘Damnation, Abbie,’ he rasped, with a desperation of his own, his
breath as laboured as if he’d run from town. ‘You’ll unman me if you keep doing
that.’

‘Then love me,’ she said in a rush, not sure of anything else.
‘Just—just love me.’

‘I love you already, lass,’ said James, and kissed her hard, his
lips demanding enough to steal her breath and maybe her soul with it.

She felt him pull her skirts higher, into a mass of crushed
muslin at her waist, and then he was sliding between her legs, touching her,
telling her how beautiful she was, how much he wanted her, and stroking that
warm, secret place at the top of her thighs until she realised that the low,
animal sound was coming from herself. Her body was tightening, coiling
strangely inside, and then suddenly he was inside her, too, filling her in a
way that she hadn’t realised was possible, but felt impossibly perfect.