The Proposal (16 page)

She was thirty-two years old. She had had beaux when she first made her come-out and then a husband. She had had a lengthy widowhood interspersed with more beaux. She was not without experience. She was no innocent, naïve girl. But suddenly she
felt
like one, for there had been nothing in her experience to help her understand the sheer lust that she and Lord Trentham felt for each other. How
could
she understand it when he was not at all the sort of man who could be expected to attract her, either as a flirt or as a possible husband? This, she supposed, this new, unexpected feeling, was what led people to have affairs.

She ought to hurry back to the safety of the house before he came out of the water, she thought—until she opened her eyes and remembered that she was a few miles from the house and that she still could not put weight on her right foot. She had not even brought her crutches. Besides, it was too late. He was swimming toward the beach, and then he was standing up and wading toward the shallow water and out onto the beach.

Water streamed down his body and droplets glistened in the sunlight as he approached. His short hair was plastered to his head. His drawers clung to him like a second skin. Gwen did not even try to avert her eyes.

He bent and picked up the towel he had brought with him and dried his chest and shoulders and arms with it—and then his face. He looked down at her. His swim had done nothing to lighten his mood, it seemed. He was frowning, even perhaps scowling.

“You said you would watch me with envy,” he said.

Had
she said that?

“Oh, what are you
doing
?” she cried suddenly.

He was leaning over her and scooping her up into his arms. His skin was cold and smelled of salt and maleness. It was very … bare. She could feel the wetness of his drawers against her side before he hoisted her higher. She wrapped both arms about his neck.

“No.”

But he was striding down the beach again, and the tide was higher now than it had been when he first went in. It must be almost on the turn.

“Why come to a beach,” he said, “if one is merely going to sit and observe? One might as well stay at home and read.”

“Oh, please,” she begged as he waded into the water and she could feel a few splashes of it, cold against her bare arms. “
Please,
Lord Trentham, don’t drop me in. I have no change of clothes. And it must be like the arctic.”

“It is,” he said.

She was clinging more tightly then and pressing her face to his neck and laughing helplessly.

“I may
sound
amused,” she said, “but I am
not
. Please. Oh,
please,
Hugo.”

He was holding her higher still in his arms, she realized. And he was holding her tightly. A trick? To lull her into a false sense of security?

“I am not going to drop you,” he said, his voice low against her ear. “I would not be so cruel. But there is nothing like being out here, seeing the light create many colors and shades on the water, and listening to it and smelling it.”

He turned right about with her as she raised her head, and then spun about twice more as she lifted her head and laughed with the sheer exuberance of it. It was cooler out here, though not really cold—though perhaps his body heat had something to do with that. She had never really liked the water. But they seemed to be in a vast and shimmering liquid world, which was sheer beauty and no threat at all. She felt perfectly safe in the warm, strong arms of a man who would not drop her—who would never drop her.

She had called him
Hugo,
she realized. Oh, dear, had he noticed?

“Gwendoline,” he said as he stopped spinning.

He had noticed.

Her eyes met his, just inches from her own. But she could not bear the intensity she saw there. She dipped her head to rest against his neck again and closed her eyes. Would she remember the poignant wonder of this moment for all the rest of her life? Or was it a foolish fancy to imagine that she would?

She rather thought this might be more than just physical attraction. What she was feeling was not
just
lust, though it was undoubtedly that too. There was also … Oh, dear. Why were there never words to describe feelings adequately? Perhaps she was falling in love with him, whatever
that
meant. But she would not think of it now. She would work it out some other time.

He sighed then, deeply and audibly.

“I expected to despise you,” he said. “Or at the very least to be irritated by you.”

She opened her mouth to reply and shut it again. She did not want to begin any conversation. She wanted simply to enjoy. She raised her head and set her temple against his cheek. They gazed across the water together, and she knew that she
would
remember. Always and ever.

After a few minutes he turned without a word and waded out of the sea with her and up the sand to the blanket, where he set her down. He peeled off his wet drawers, picked up the towel, and dried himself off again without turning his back.

Gwen would not look away. Or perhaps she
could
not. She was not even shocked.

“You may say no,” he said, looking down at her as he dropped the towel. “It would be best to say it now if you must, though. But you may say it at any time before I enter your body. I will not force myself upon you.”

Ah, always the man of plain speech.

Gwen was holding her breath, she realized. Had it come to this, then?

Foolish question.

She knew many women who were of the opinion that widows were to be envied provided they had the means with which to live independently—as Gwen did. Widows were free to take lovers as long as they were discreet about it. In some circles they were almost expected to do so, in fact.

Gwen had never even been tempted.

Until now.

Who would know?

She
would know. And Hugo would know.

Who would be hurt?

She might be. He almost certainly would not. No one else would. She had no husband, no fiancé, no steady beau. He had no wife.

She would be sorry afterward. She would be sorry either way. If she said no, she would forever wonder what it would have been like and would forever regret that she had not found out. If she did
not
say no, she would forever be plagued with guilt.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

The thoughts tumbled through her mind in a confused jumble.

“I am not saying no,” she said. “I
will
not say no. I am not a tease.”

And thus were decisions of great moment made, she thought. Impulsively, without due consideration. From the heart rather than from the head. From impulse rather than from a lifetime of experience and morality.

He came down beside her and moved the cushion at her back so that it lay flat and she could set her head on it. He tossed aside her cloak and the two cushions beneath her right leg. He slid large, blunt fingers into her hair and tilted her face up and kissed her openmouthed. His tongue pressed deep and withdrew again.

He knelt beside her and drew her dress off her shoulders and down over her breasts, which were lifted into prominence by her stays.

He looked at her while she resisted the foolish urge to cover herself with her hands. But he did it for her when he spread a hand over one of her breasts and lowered his head to the other. She spread her fingers wide over the blanket on either side of her as he took her nipple into his mouth and suckled her, rubbing his tongue over the tip as he did so. With his thumb and forefinger he rolled the nipple of the other breast, squeezing almost but not quite to the point of pain.

An almost unbearably raw ache spread upward to her throat and downward through her womb to settle between her thighs. She lifted her hands and set one over his wrist, the other against the back of his head. His hair was damp and warm.

He kissed her again then, his tongue simulating the nuptial act with long, deep strokes into her mouth.

He was, she realized over the next several minutes, ten times, perhaps a hundred times, more experienced than she. She knew only kisses of the lips and the act itself.

He did not unclothe her fully, but his hands found their way unerringly beneath her clothes to unlace her stays and find places that gave him pleasure and were sweet agony to her. They were large, blunt-fingered hands whose gentleness she had discovered before. But they were more than just gentle. There was erotic seductiveness in them. They could and did play her like a musical instrument—and not just with competence, she thought with wry humor, but with sheer talent too.

And finally, when her body hummed with desire and need almost to the point of pain, he used one of those hands on the heart of her. It found her beneath the muslin of her dress and the silk of her shift, and his fingers made skilled love to her, parting, stroking, teasing, even scratching. One finger slid long and rigid inside her and she clenched muscles about it and both heard and felt her own wetness. The finger was removed and replaced with two, and then they were removed and replaced with three. They played inside her as she tried to capture them with her muscles, driving her to near madness. She clutched his shoulders and kneaded them with her fingers. At the same time the pad of his thumb was doing something that she did not consciously feel but to which she reacted by shattering about his fingers and hand, crying out as she did so.

He was right over her then, blocking the sunlight, his knees pushing her legs wide, his weight on his forearms, his eyes gazing intently down into hers.

“We can be satisfied with that if you wish,” he said, his voice harsh. “It is still not too late to say no.”

Some semblance of her virtue would remain intact.

“I will not say no,” she told him.

And she felt him against the sensitive area he had just been caressing, finding her, positioning himself, and then pressing hard and firm into her until he was deeply imbedded.

She had inhaled slowly, she realized, and was holding her breath. He was indeed large. But he was not hurting her. Quite the contrary. He had made very sure that she was wet enough to receive him without discomfort. She exhaled, relaxed, and then clenched her inner muscles about him.

She was glad. Oh, she was glad. She would
never
be sorry.

He had waited for her, she realized. He was still gazing down into her eyes, though his had lost some of their usual intensity and were heavy lidded and naked with desire. But he would wait no longer. He had given her exquisite pleasure even before entering. Now it was his turn. And he took it. He lowered his head until his forehead touched her shoulder, and worked her with deep, swift, powerful strokes, half his weight on her, the other half still supported on his forearms. She could hear the raggedness of his breathing.

She lifted her legs from the blanket and twined them about his thighs. She felt a momentary twinge in her right ankle but ignored it. She tilted her pelvis so that he could come deeper still. And she listened to the wet sucking of his withdrawals and felt the deep, satisfying penetration of his thrusts. Although she knew this was not primarily for her—he was deep in the throes of his own physical need—she felt again the heightened sensation of renewed passion and pressed against him, matching his rhythm with the clenching and unclenching of her muscles, moving her hips in a rhythmic circular motion.

She had no real experience. Ah, incredibly she had almost none. She mated with him out of pure instinct.

But she certainly had not done anything to dampen his ardor. He worked her with undiminished power until he stilled in her suddenly, rigid in every muscle, straining for greater depth, hot and slick with sweat, and she felt the hot gush of his release at the same moment as he spoke low against her ear.

“Gwendoline,” he said and relaxed his full, not inconsiderable weight down upon her.

There was no mattress beneath her back, only the sand beneath the blanket. Who would have guessed sand was so hard and unyielding? But she did not care.

She did not care.

She probably
would
. Perhaps soon.

But not now. Not yet.

He mumbled something after a minute or two and rolled off her to lie beside her, one arm flung over his eyes, one leg bent at the knee.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I must have been crushing you.”

She tipped her head to one side to rest against his shoulder. Was it possible that sweat could smell this good? She thought about lifting her dress up over her breasts and pushing down her skirt over her legs, but she made neither concession to modesty.

She slid into a relaxed state halfway between sleeping and waking. The sun shone warmly down on them. The gulls were calling again. Eternally calling. Sounding harsh and mournful. The sound of the sea was there too, as steady and as inescapable as a heartbeat.

She did not believe she would ever be sorry.

But of course she
would
.

The eternal cycle of life. The balance of opposites.

She came back to full consciousness when he got to his feet and, without a word to her, strode the short distance to the water. He waded in a little way and bent to wash himself.

Washing off the sweat?

Washing off
her
?

She sat up and set her dress to rights after reaching beneath it and somehow doing up her laces. She drew her cloak about her shoulders and clasped it at the neck. Suddenly she felt a little chilly.

They drove back to the house in near silence.

The sex had been good. Very good indeed, in fact. And all the more so because he had been starved of it for too long.

But it had been a mistake anyway.

A colossal understatement.

What was one supposed to do when one had bedded a lady? And when it was quite possible that one had impregnated her?

Say thank you and leave her?

Say nothing?

Apologize?

Offer her marriage?

He did not
want
to marry her. Marriage was not about beddings. Not exclusively about them, anyway. And the parts of marriage that were
not
the beddings were every bit as important as those that were. A marriage with Gwendoline was impossible. And, to be fair, that applied to
both
of them.