Oh, dear, God, where were the words coming from? Why had she had to bring that up again?
“I think,” he said softly, “my wagering days are probably over. I hurt you dreadfully.”
It was not a question.
“Yes, you did,” she said, and burst into tears.
“Katherine.” His hands cupped her shoulders.
But she would not collapse against him and cry her heart out. She beat her fists against his chest instead, sobbing and hiccuping and keeping her head down. Oh, how foolish she felt. Why this sudden hysteria? All that had happened a long time ago. It was ancient history.
“How could you?” she cried, gasping and sobbing as she spoke. “How could you do that? What had I ever done to you?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I have no excuse, Katherine, no defense. It was a dastardly thing to do.”
“All the gentlemen in that club must have known,” she said.
“A goodly number, yes,” he agreed.
“And now everyone knows,” she said. “And it is too convenient to blame Sir Clarence Forester.”
“Yes,” he said, “it is. The fault was entirely mine.”
She looked up into his face even though she knew her own must be red and swollen.
“How could you do that to yourself ?” she asked him. “How could you have so little respect for yourself? How could you have so little regard for human decency?”
He pursed his lips. His eyes-wide open now-looked steadily back into hers.
“I do not really know, Katherine,” he said. “I am not much given to introspection.”
“And that has been deliberate on your part,” she said. “Feelings must have been unbearable to you as a boy, and so you cut them off. But when there are no feelings, Jasper, there can be no compassion either-for other people or even for yourself. You end up treating other people as you have been treated.”
She swiped the back of her hand over her wet nose, and he turned abruptly and strode back to the flat stone. He leaned down to his coat, drew a handkerchief out of a pocket, and came back to her, his hand outstretched.
She dried her eyes and blew her nose and balled the handkerchief in one hand.
“I am not going away,” he said when she looked at him again. “This is my home and you are my wife. What I did to you three years ago was unpardonable, but unfortunately you are stuck with me. I am sorry about that. But I am not going away.”
“Oh, Jasper.” She looked at him, glad despite herself. He was not going to go away. “Nothing is ever unpardonable.”
He pursed his lips and gazed at her in silence for a few moments.
“If the wager is off,” he said, “is it all off? All the conditions too?”
“Yes,” she said, and it was an enormous relief to say so, for of course she knew to which condition he referred. He was not going to go away, but their marriage as it was now was no marriage at all-thanks to that condition she had imposed on the wager during their wedding night.
She had missed him so much, which was a ridiculous thing when there had been only that one night. Not even a full night. He had slept in their private sitting room for much of it.
“Come to me tonight,” she said, and felt her cheeks turn hot.
She dropped the handkerchief to the ground and lifted her hands to cup his cheeks. The marks of her fingers were still visible on the left one. And her face must look an absolute fright.
He took her hands in his and turned his head to kiss first one palm and then the other.
“Katherine,” he said, “you cannot seriously expect me to hear that yes at one moment and come to me tonight at the next and be content to wait that long. You could not expect it of any self-respecting red-blooded male. Least of all me.”
“But everyone would wonder where we had gone,” she said, “if we were to disappear to our rooms as soon as we returned to the house. Besides-”
“Katherine,” he said softly, and kissed her lips.
And of course she knew instantly what he meant, what he intended. She was aware just as instantly of sunlight and heat, of the chirping and whirring of unseen insects, of the call of a single bird, of the softness of grass and wildflowers about their knees. And of the smell of his cologne and his body heat and the feel of his lips against hers again. And of a welling of desire that engulfed her from head to toe.
She wrapped her arms about his neck and opened her mouth.
And somehow they were down on the ground, the grass waving above them, and all was hot, fierce embrace and labored breathing and urgent, exploring hands and mouths, and clothing discarded or pulled and pushed out of the way-until she lay on her back and his weight was on her and his face above hers, filled with a desire to match her own.
“Katherine,” he murmured.
His waistcoat and neckcloth were gone. His white shirt gaped open at the neck to show the muscles beneath and the dark hair that dusted his chest. His pantaloons were opened at the waist. Her bodice was down below her breasts, her skirt up about her hips. Her legs were spread on either side of his, her stockinged feet resting on the warm, supple leather of his Hessian boots.
She twined her fingers in his hair, which was warm from the sun.
“The ground makes a damnable mattress,” he said, “especially in the act of love.”
“I do not care,” she said, and lifted her head to kiss him, to draw him down onto and into her. She did not care that he must know he had won that stupid wager long before it had been abandoned. She did not care if he knew that she loved him. Love was vulnerable, she had just told him.
Ah, yes, it was.
But it was not to be avoided for that reason.
“Let me be noble.” There was a smile in his eyes. “For once in my life, let me be noble.”
And he rolled with her until he lay on his back. He had taken her legs in his hands and bent them so that she was kneeling on either side of his body. She set her hands on his shoulders and lifted her head so that she could look down at him. And he raised his hands and pulled out her hairpins until her hair fell down on either side of her face and onto his shoulders.
“Come,” he said then, and he grasped her hips, lifted her, and then guided her down onto him so that she felt his long hardness slide into her wet depth. She pressed down onto him, clenching her inner muscles as she did so, and closing her eyes.
There was no pain.
And surely-oh, surely!-there was no lovelier feeling in the world. And in the outdoors too. She opened her eyes and was aware of the pinks and mauves of the wildflowers that bloomed in the grass all around their heads.
She closed her eyes again, relaxed her inner muscles, and lifted herself half off him for the sheer pleasure of pressing downward again and clenching her muscles once more. She did it again. And again.
Perhaps a minute passed-or two or ten-before she realized that he lay still beneath her, that she rode him for her own pleasure. His hands were spread warm and firm over her outer thighs.
She opened her eyes once more and looked down at him. He was gazing back, and she knew that she was riding him to pleasure too, that there was a mutual delight in lovemaking no matter which of them it was who was making the primary moves. There was power in being a lover, man or woman. She smiled down at him as she rode on, and his lips lifted ever so slightly at the corners.
But there was pain too. Or, if not exactly a pain, then an ache that threatened to turn into pain. And a recklessness in continuing to lift herself off him only to impale herself on the pain again.
His hand came to the back of her head and drew it down, first to his opened mouth, and then to his shoulder. Then both hands went to her buttocks, grasping firmly and holding her half off him while he moved at last, driving hard and fast up into her until he pulled her down and stopped all movement so abruptly that she shattered without warning and cried out.