Besides, despite his wish for it to be otherwise, this Willie-Wilhelmina-was not someone he knew. Though there were still occasional haunting flashes of the young Willie, this woman was virtually a stranger-self-possessed, shrewd, knowing. And damned desirable.
When they’d reached the green, Sam removed his greatcoat and spread it over a stone bench, still damp from the rain. After they were seated, Willie was the first to break their long silence. “I’m sorry, Sam,” she said, placing a hand over his, “but I still feel badly about that heartsick young man. I’m sorry I hurt you. I want you to know that.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I know, my girl. It was just that I’d thought of you as mine. I’d been very possessive of that memory of your father’s hayloft.”
When he had sought her out at the theater that first time, back in ’94, that sense of possession had driven him to believe she could not be what the rumors claimed. But everything changed the instant he saw her surrounded by her court of admirers.
He’d been surprised at her looks. She’d been only twenty-one, but looked older. Not in a haggard way. No, she had still been beautiful, take-your-breath-away beautiful. But all hint of graceless youth, of girlish roundness, was gone, replaced by a willowy slenderness that brought out the strength of her features: the high cheekbones, the straight nose, the elegant curve of jaw set upon the slim white column of her neck. And more than the physical change, the inevitable casting off of youth, was the expression in her face. Worldly. Sophisticated. Smart. It suited her, and certainly suited her chosen profession. The girl he’d left behind had become a woman. Almost too much of a woman. She was not his Willie anymore. She’d even somehow managed to lose every hint of Cornwall in her voice. She was a lady of London now. The notorious Wilhelmina. And no longer his.
“I could see all those memories of Cornwall, and a hayloft, beneath the anger in your eyes,” she said. “The same memories flooded through me at that moment, I assure you. But I sent you away with my show of disdain and hoped never to endure that pain of regret again, hoped that you would stay away.” She laughed softly. “And then five years later, you showed up on my doorstep. The proud lieutenant.”
Sam joined her rueful laughter. It really was an embarrassing memory. He never quite knew why he’d gone to see her. “There I was, shoe buckles sparkling, Nile medal gleaming on my chest, dressed for a king’s levee and standing in line at your door with a dozen other hopeful chaps clamoring to be allowed in. Finally, when that damned fearsome beast of yours let me enter-”
“Smeaton. He’s very protective. But when he said there was a Lieutenant Samuel Pellow who wished to see me-well, my heart leapt a little at the thought of seeing you again. I convinced Smeaton to let you in, though he would have preferred to toss you down the front steps, thinking a mere lieutenant beneath my notice. But I longed to see you, despite our less than friendly encounter years before, and asked to have you shown in to my private sitting room.”
“My fellow supplicants at the front door were green with envy when that hatchet-faced butler led me inside. And I followed him past rooms filled with well-dressed gents who I knew in my gut, though I did not know any of them by sight, were some of the highest men in the realm. Beautiful girls in dresses that left little to the imagination sat with them in animated conversation, or more. When I happened to see Admiral Blackwood with a plump little blonde on his lap, I almost turned and bolted. I didn’t like to think of you in such surroundings, but it was in fact what I’d come to see. To reassure myself that you had turned out badly and I was better off with my Sarah.
“But then there you were, ensconced on a chaise like an odalisque, looking beautiful and sophisticated and far above my touch. Your Smeaton was right about that. I had come to gloat, and yet words dried up in my throat and I did not know what to say.”
“Your first blurted words, as I recall, were: ‘I am married and have a son.’”
Sam groaned. “I can’t imagine what you must have thought of me, the perfect idiot. I was no longer a callow youth, and ought to have had more finesse. Better yet, I ought to have stayed away. But I had come to gloat, after all, so I just launched into my speech without preamble.”
“And I accused you of coming there to be unfaithful to that wife I’d just learned about. I can’t imagine what you must have thought of me, saying such a hateful thing as that.”
“We both drew our lines in the sand that day,” Sam said, “establishing clearly who we were and the very different lives we led. You knew exactly what you were doing, Willie, establishing boundaries between us. I figured that out much later, and realized that you were a wiser person than I’d ever be. And despite pretending to despise your life, I found I admired you.” And even still loved her a little.
“Did you, Sam? Oh, I am so glad you told me. It means a lot to know you haven’t been hating me all these years.”
No, he hadn’t hated her. Never that. Sam had seen Wilhelmina casually a few more times after that meeting at her salon in ’99. Whenever he came up to London to visit the Admiralty or take care of other business, he always heard of her and sometimes ran into her at a social function. Once, after he’d exchanged a few polite words with her at a rout party, several of his fellow officers teased him, wondering why he never mentioned that he knew the infamous Wilhelmina Grant and wanting to know all about her. He skirted their questions and said little. He kept to himself the fact that he’d never known the great courtesan, but had once loved the blacksmith’s daughter.
“I could never hate you, my girl.” He kissed her hand again, and she gave him a smile that shot right through to his vitals. It emboldened him and, without thinking or giving himself time to change his mind, he bent his head and kissed her on the mouth. It was a simple kiss, nothing elaborate, but the sensation of his lips on hers, on the lips of the girl he’d loved, finally, after all these years, was filled with a sweet poignancy that made him feel young again.
He put his arms around her and deepened the kiss. Her lips parted beneath his, and he savored the strangely familiar warmth of her mouth. When he lifted his head, she looked at him with eyes wide with wonder. Had she, too, been momentarily transported back more than twenty years?
He trailed a knuckle along her jaw. “Never think that I have hated you, Willie. You will always be special to me. My first love.”
“You have surprised me, Sam.”
“By kissing you?” He smiled. “Let’s just say it was for old times’ sake.”
“For old times.” She moved out of his arms. “Thank you, Sam. You have relieved my mind. I did think you had hated me. I never thought you would be able to get beyond the life I led, to forget who I’d become.”
“Oh, I never forgot,” he said, shooting her a grin. “How could I when your every move was reported? I heard rumors…”
She sighed and scooted farther away on the bench. “I have no doubt of it.”
“It was said that even the Prince of Wales-”
She rolled her eyes. “I have been the object of rumor and gossip since I was sixteen. I long ago stopped listening. Or commenting. I am quite certain that many of the rumors you heard are true. Or based on truth. But I am equally certain that just as many of them are pure invention. People love to spread tales of women like me, whether they are true or not. You may choose to believe what you want, Sam. I will not go down a list with you and say yes to this one and no to that one.”