He twirled her about a corner of the floor and tightened his hand against the back of her waist. They were not touching, but they were definitely closer than they ought to be.
Ought to be according to whom?
“Hugo,” she said, looking up into his eyes—his lovely dark, intense, smiling eyes. And she forgot what she had been about to say.
They danced in silence for several minutes. Gwen was very consciously aware that they were among the very happiest minutes of her life. And then, before the music ended, he bent his head to murmur in her ear.
“You noticed,” he said, “that there is a loft at the far end of the stables? Where the puppies are?”
“I noticed,” she said. “I climbed right up there with Mrs. Rowlands, did I not? When she chose her puppy?”
“I cannot have you in my bed here,” he said, “while I have family and guests in my house. But after everyone has gone home and to bed, I am going to take you out there. None of the grooms sleep there. I cleaned the loft and spread fresh straw this morning and took out blankets and pillows. I am going to make love to you for what remains of the night.”
“Indeed?” she said.
“Unless you say no,” he said.
She ought to. Just as she ought to have down in that cove at Penderris.
“I’ll not say no,” she said as the music drew to an end and he waltzed her into one more twirl.
“Later, then,” he said.
“Yes. Later.”
She felt not a qualm of conscience.
And that little fluttering at the edge of her consciousness that she had felt when he held up his hands earlier to address the pleas that he waltz opened like a curtain from across a window, and she could see what was within.
Gwen did not want the evening to end and yet she did. There was a magnificence to a ton ball that she would always enjoy, but there was a warmth to this one that made it at least equally enjoyable. She loved the way all the guests at the house had called her by her first name as soon as she had invited them to do so on the second day here. And she loved the informal, affectionate way in which Hugo’s neighbors treated him. He was an angel in disguise, the butcher’s wife told Gwen at one point in the evening, forever mending chair legs or clearing blockages in chimneys or sawing off tree branches that were in danger of falling on a roof if the wind ever blew hard enough or working over a garden for someone who was getting too elderly to do it without a great deal of painful effort.
“And him Lord Trentham,” the woman said. “You could have knocked us all over with a feather when we found that out last year, my lady. But he still went on doing it, just as if he was any ordinary man. Not that many ordinary men would do what he does, mind you, but you know what I mean.”
Gwen did.
And at last the evening came to an end and all the outside guests drove off or walked in the direction of the village, lanterns held aloft and swaying in the breeze. It seemed forever after that before the last of the houseguests drifted off to bed, though it was only a little after midnight, Gwen discovered when she reached her own room. But of course, all these people worked for a living, and even when they were on holiday they did not stray far from their early mornings and early nights.
Gwen dismissed her maid for the night and changed into different clothes. She set her cloak on the bed—the red one she had been wearing when she sprained her ankle. And she sat on the edge of the bed, waiting.
Waiting for her lover, she thought, closing her eyes and clasping her hands in her lap.
She was not even going to start considering whether this was right or wrong, whether she ought or ought not.
She was going to spend the rest of the night with her lover and that was that.
And finally there was a light tap on the door and the handle turned quietly. He too had changed, Gwen saw as she got to her feet and flung her cloak about her shoulders and blew out the candles and left the room to join him in the long, dark corridor. He was holding a single candle in a holder. He took her hand and bent to kiss her on the lips.
They did not speak as they passed along the corridor and down the stairs and across the hall. He handed her the candle while he drew back the bolts on the door and opened it. Then he took the candle back, blew it out, and set it down on a table close to the door. It would be unnecessary outside. The clouds, which had made a dark night of it when the guests were leaving, must have moved off, and an almost full moon and millions of stars made a lamp quite unnecessary.
He took her hand again and turned in the direction of the stables. Still they did not speak. The sound of voices carried far in the night, and some people would not have been in bed for much longer than half an hour.
The stables were in darkness until Hugo took a lantern off a hook just inside the great door and lit it. Horses whinnied sleepily. The familiar smell of them and of hay and leather was not unpleasant. They walked the length of the narrow passageway between stalls, hand in hand, their fingers laced. And then he released her hand to light her way up the steep ladder to the loft before following behind her. Two or three of the puppies were squeaking in their large wooden box, and a quiet woof indicated that their mother was with them.
Hugo hung the lantern on a hook beneath a wooden beam and stooped to spread a blanket over the fresh straw. He tossed a few pillows to one end of it and turned to look at Gwen. He had to stoop slightly so that his head would not bang against the roof.
“I had better say one thing first,” he said curtly, “and get it out of the way. Otherwise I won’t know a moment’s peace.”
He was frowning and looking really quite morose.
“I love you,” he said.
He glared at her with set jaw and fierce eyes.
It would be absolutely the wrong thing to do to laugh, Gwen decided, quelling the urge to do just that.
“Thank you,” she said and stepped forward to set her fingertips against his chest and lift her face for his kiss.
“I didn’t do too well with that, did I?” he said—and grinned.
And instead of laughing, she found herself blinking back tears.
“Say it again,” she said.
“You would torture me, would you?” he asked her.
“Say it again.”
“I love you, Gwendoline,” he said. “It is actually a bit easier the second time. I love you, I love you, I love you.”
And his arms came about her and he hugged her to him tightly enough to squeeze most of the breath from her body. Gwen laughed with what breath she had left.
He released his hold on her, looked into her eyes, and undid the clasp at the neck of her cloak.
“Time for action instead of just words,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed as her cloak fell to the straw at her feet.
Only one thing had kept their lovemaking in the cove at Penderris from being perfect in Hugo’s memory. He had had his hands all over her on that occasion, and he had ridden her deep and long, but he had not had her naked. He had not known her flesh to flesh, as a man ought to know the woman he loved. Know in the biblical sense, that was.
Tonight they would both be naked, and they would know each other with no barrier, no artifice, no mask.
“No,” he murmured when she would have helped him undress her. No, he would not be deprived of this. And there was no real hurry. It must be at least one o’clock already, and the grooms would be here by six. But that still left plenty of time for a few good lovings and maybe a little sleep in between. He had never slept with a woman. He wanted to sleep with Gwendoline almost as much as he wanted to have sex with her. Well, maybe not quite as much.
He unclothed her slowly, her dress, her shift—she was wearing no stays—and on down her body until only her silk stockings remained. He stood back to look at her in the lamplight. She was beautifully, perfectly shaped. She had a woman’s body rather than a girl’s. A woman’s body to match his man’s body. He ran his hands down lightly over her breasts and in to her waist and over the flare of her hips. She shivered, though not with cold, he guessed.