Mary Balogh - Simply Perfect

Claudia had been very strongly of the opinion earlier, while she waltzed with Joseph, that they were being watched with interest as a possible couple. But while she was fetching her shawl it occurred to her that perhaps the looks—if there had been any—had been simply ones of incredulity that she should so presume. Or possibly even looks of pity. But when had she started to think of herself as unworthy of any man, no matter who he was? She was no one’s inferior. By the time she had made her way back to the ballroom and found Joseph waiting for her outside its doors, there was purposefulness in her stride and a martial gleam in her eye. And when had she started to think of him all the time as Joseph? “Perhaps,” she said, “we ought to go for just a short stroll.” He grinned at her. There was definitely a difference between a smile and a grin, and he grinned. She bristled with indignation. She was making a cake of herself in front of a large number of the aristocracy of England, and he was amused. He took her by the elbow and guided her toward the outdoors. “I have a theory,” he said, “that your girls all obey you without question, not because they fear you, but because they love you.” “A goodly number of them,” she said dryly, “would be very interested to hear that, Lord Attingsborough. They might not stop laughing this side of Christmas.” They stepped out onto the terrace. It was deserted but by no means silent. There was the sound of music from the ballroom above. There was also the sound of merrymaking and music of a different sort coming from the direction of the stables and carriage house, where grooms and coachmen and perhaps some off-duty servants were enjoying revelries of their own while they waited to convey their employers home. “I am Lord Attingsborough again, am I, Miss Martin?” he said, turning to walk in the direction of the stables. “Is it not a little ludicrous in light of last evening?” That irresponsibility had seemed somewhat excusable then because it was never to be repeated—she had known that Miss Hunt would not break off her engagement permanently. Last night had been a once-in-a-lifetime thing, something she would remember for the rest of her life, a private tragedy she would hug to herself and not allow to embitter her. The fact that Miss Hunt had ended the betrothal again tonight—and permanently this time—ought to have simplified her life, raised hope in her, made her happy, especially since he had immediately asked her to waltz with him and then asked her to walk out here with him. But her life seemed more complicated than ever. “If you could go back,” he asked, somehow picking up her thoughts where he had interrupted them, “and refuse my offer to escort you and your two charges to London, would you do it?” Would she? Part of her said an unqualified yes. Her life would be as it had been if she had said no to him—quiet, ordered, familiar. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she would have met Charlie anyway at Susanna and Peter’s concert—and perhaps she would have reacted slightly differently toward him. Without the existence of Joseph in her life, perhaps she would have fallen in love with Charlie again. Perhaps she would now be making a decision regarding him. Perhaps… No, it was impossible. It never would have happened. Though perhaps… “It is pointless to wish to change one detail from the past,” she said. “It cannot be done. But even if it could, it would be foolish to do it. My life would have progressed differently if I had said no, even though it was only a few weeks ago. I do not know how it would have progressed.” He chuckled before striding away from her into the revelries about the carriages and returning a few moments later with a lit lantern. “Would you do things differently?” she asked. “No.” He offered his free arm and she took it. He was tall and solid and warm. He smelled good. He was handsome and charming and wealthy and aristocratic—he would be a duke one day. And he was very, very masculine. If she had ever dreamed, even at her age, of love and romance—and of course, she had dreamed—it would have been of a man altogether different in almost every way. “What are you thinking?” he asked. They were walking down the main driveway, she realized, in the direction of the Palladian bridge. It was rather a dark night with high clouds hiding the moon and stars. The air was far cooler than it had been last evening. “Of the man of my dreams,” she said. He turned his head toward her and lifted the lantern so that he could see her face—and she his. His eyes looked dark and unfathomable. “And?” he prompted. “A very ordinary, unassuming gentleman,” she said, “with no title and no great wealth. But with an abundance of intelligence and good conversation.” “He sounds dull,” he said. “Yes, and that too,” she said. “Dullness is an underrated quality.” “I am not the man of your dreams, then?” he asked her. “No,” she said. “Not at all.” They stepped onto the bridge and stopped by the stone parapet on one side to watch the water flow dark beneath on its way to the lake. He set down the lantern. “But then,” she said, “I cannot possibly be the woman of your dreams.” “Can you not?” he said. She could not see his face, the lantern being behind his head. It was impossible to know from his tone alone whether he was amused or wistful. “I am not beautiful,” she said. “You are not pretty,” he conceded. “You very definitely are beautiful.” What a bouncer. He would carry gallantry to the end, would he? “I am not young,” she said. “It is a matter of perspective,” he said. “To the girls in your school you are doubtless a fossil. To an octogenarian you would appear to be a sweet young thing. But we are almost exactly the same age, and since I do not think of myself as old—far from it—I must insist that indeed you are young.” “I am not elegant or lively or…” She ran out of ideas. “What you are,” he said, “is a woman who lost confidence in her beauty and charm and sexual attractiveness heartbreakingly early in life. You are a woman who sublimated her sexual energies into making a successful career. You are a woman of firm character and will and intelligence and knowledge. You are a woman bursting with compassion and love for your fellow creatures. And you are a woman with so much sexual love to give that it would take far more than your quiet, dull scholar to satisfy you—unless he too has hidden depths, of course. For the sake of argument let us suppose that he does not, that he is simply ordinary and dull with conversation to offer you and nothing much else. No passion. He is not a dream man at all, Claudia. He is verging upon nightmare.” She smiled despite herself. “That is better,” he said, and she realized that he could see her face. “I have a marked partiality for Miss Martin, schoolteacher, but it is possible that she might choose to be a cold bed-fellow. Claudia Martin, the woman, would not be. Indeed, I have already had proof of it.” “Lord Attingsborough—” she began. “Claudia.” He spoke over her. “We have had our fairly brief stroll. We can return to the house and ballroom now if you wish. It is altogether possible that not above half of the guests here have noticed we are gone. We can enjoy the rest of the ball—separately so as not to arouse gossip among that smaller half. And tomorrow I can come and take Lizzie, and you can return to Bath, and we can both deal with receding memories over the coming weeks and months. Or we can extend our stroll.” She stared at him in the darkness. “This is one of those moments of decision,” he said, “that can forever change the course of a life.” “No, it is not,” she protested. “Or at least, it is not more important than any other moment. Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives.” “Have it your way if you must,” he said. “But this moment’s decision awaits us both. What is it to be? A desperate attempt to return to the way things used to be before I presented myself at Miss Martin’s School for Girls, a letter from Susanna in my coat pocket? Or a leap in the dark—almost literally—and a chance for something new and very possibly quite wonderful? Even perfect.” “Nothing in life is perfect,” she said. “I beg to disagree with you,” he said. “Nothing is permanently perfect. But there are perfect moments and the will to choose what will bring about more such moments. Last evening was perfect. It was, Claudia. I will not allow you to deny it. It was simply perfect.” She sighed. “There are so many complications,” she said. “There always are,” he told her. “This is life. You ought to understand that by now. One possible complication is that the little lodge in the woods might be locked tonight as it was not yesterday afternoon.” She was speechless—except that she had understood the moment he asked her to come walking with him where they would go. There was no point in trying to deny it to herself, was there? “Perhaps,” she said, “they keep the key over the lintel or beside the step or somewhere else easy to find.” She still could not see his face. But for a moment she caught the gleam of his teeth. “We had better go and see,” she said, drawing her shawl more closely about her. “Are you sure?” His voice was low. “Yes,” she said. This time when they walked on, instead of offering his arm he took her hand in his and laced their fingers. He held the lantern aloft. It was needed at the other side of the bridge, where the trees obscured even what little light was provided from the sky. They found the faint path by which they had returned yesterday and followed it through the woods until they arrived at the hut. The door was unlocked. Inside—she had only half noticed yesterday—there was a fireplace with a fire set in the hearth and logs piled beside it. There was a table with a few books on it and a tinderbox and lamp. There was a rocking chair with a blanket draped over it. And against one wall there was the narrow bed upon which they had found Lizzie. It all looked prettier, cozier tonight. Joseph set the lantern down on the table, took up the tinderbox, and knelt at the hearth to light the fire. Claudia sat in the chair, rocking slowly, holding the corners of her shawl, watching him. There was the pleasurable anticipation of what was to come. All day her breasts had been tender and her inner thighs and inner passage slightly aching from last night’s lovemaking. It was to happen again. How absolutely lovely marriage must be… She rested her head against the chair back. The fire caught and he got to his feet and turned to her. His eyes looked very blue in the lantern light, his hair very dark, his features chiseled and handsome. He set one foot on a runner of the chair to stop it rocking, set his hands on the arms, and leaned over her to kiss her openmouthed. “Claudia,” he said, lifting his head a few inches from hers, “I want you to know that you are beautiful. You think you must be unlovely because circumstances once forced an essentially weak man to leave you and because you are now in your middle thirties and unmarried and a schoolteacher. You think it impossible that any man could find you sexually appealing any longer. You probably even tell yourself that last evening happened only because I guessed I would not be free today to pursue our relationship further. You are wrong on every count. I want you to know that you are incredibly beautiful—because you are the product of who you have been and become in over thirty years of living. You would not be as beautiful to me if you were younger, you see. And I want you to know that you are endlessly appealing sexually.” She gazed up at him. “This appealing.” He took one of her hands in his and spread it, palm in, against the bulge of his erection. “Oh,” she said. “Endlessly appealing,” he said. Her hand slid to her lap, and he reached up both hands to remove all the pins from her hair. She was going to have to repair it later, she thought, without benefit of a brush or a mirror. But she would think of that later. “It is a crime,” he said as her hair fell in heavy waves over her shoulders, “to dress this hair as ruthlessly as you do, Claudia.” He took her hands in his and drew her to her feet. “You are not my dream woman. You are right about that. I could never have dreamed you, Claudia. You are unique. I am in awe. I am humbled.” She gazed into his eyes to detect irony, or at least humor, there, but she could see neither. And then she could see nothing very clearly at all. She blinked away tears. And then he leaned closer and licked them away with his tongue before drawing her closer and kissing her deeply. She was beautiful, she told herself as they undressed each other slowly, pausing frequently to caress or embrace each other. She was beautiful. She ran her palms over the muscles and light hairs of his chest after removing his evening coat and waistcoat, his elaborately tied neckcloth, and his shirt. And he moved his hands all over her before cupping her breasts, rubbing her nipples with his thumbs, and then bending his head to take them, one at a time, into his mouth and suckling her so that raw desire stabbed downward into her womb and along her inner thighs. She would not feel self-conscious or inadequate. She was beautiful. And desirable. There was no doubt of that once she had removed his silk evening breeches and his stockings. She was desirable. And she was not the only one who was beautiful. She twined her arms about his neck, pressed her full naked length against his, and found his mouth with her own. When his tongue pressed into her mouth she sighed. He was right, there were perfect moments even though they were both pulsing with need. “I think,” he said, drawing back his head to smile at her, “we had better make use of that bed. It will be more comfortable than the ground was last night.” “But narrower,” she said. “If we were planning to sleep, perhaps,” he agreed, smiling at her in such a way that she felt her bare toes curl on the hard floor. “But we are not, are we? It is quite wide enough for our purpose.” He drew back the blankets, and she lay down on the sheet and lifted her arms to him. “Come,” she said. He came down on top of her and she spread her legs and twined them about his. They were both ready. He kissed her and murmured low endearments against her ear. She kissed him back and twined her fingers in h is thick hair. And then he slid his hands beneath her, she tilted herself to him, and he came inside her. His size still shocked her. She inhaled slowly as she adjusted her position to allow him full access, and closed her inner muscles about him. There could surely be no lovelier feeling in the world. Though perhaps there could. He withdrew from her and pressed deep again and repeated the action until she could feel his rhythm and match her own to it and revel in the sheer carnality of their coupling. There could be no lovelier feeling than this—both during the first few minutes of controlled pleasure and during the final minute of deeper, more urgent lovemaking as the climax neared. And then it came—for both of them at exactly the same moment, and she opened to the outpouring of love and gave back in equal measure, and that was the loveliest feeling of all, though it was almost beyond feeling and well beyond rational thought or words. She was beautiful. She was desirable. And finally… Ah. Finally she was simply woman. Simply perfect. No, she thought as she gradually began to return to herself, she would not go back and change a single detail of her life even if she could. There were all sorts of complexities, complications, impossibilities to face when she had been restored entirely to herself and sanity, but that time was not yet. There was this moment to live. He inhaled deeply and audibly, and then let the breath go on a sigh. “Ah, Claudia,” he murmured. “My love.” Two words that she would treasure for a lifetime. Even the costliest jewel could not tempt her if it were offered in exchange for them. My love. Spoken to her, Claudia Martin. She was one man’s love. Just a few weeks ago all this would have been quite beyond the bounds of credibility. But no longer. She was beautiful, she was desirable, and…She smiled. He had lifted his head and was looking down at her with heavy-lidded eyes, one hand smoothing back her hair from her face. “Share the thought,” he said. She opened her eyes. “I am woman,” she said. “Hard as this may be to believe,” he said with laughter in his eyes, “I had noticed.” She laughed. His kissed her eyelids one at a time before kissing her lips again. “It only astonishes me,” he said, “that it seems like a novel idea to you.” She laughed again. “You have no idea,” she said, “how a woman’s femininity becomes identified with an early marriage and the production of a number of children and the running of an orderly home.” “You surely might have had those things if you had wished,” he said. “McLeith cannot have been the only man who showed an interest in you when you were a girl.” “I had other chances,” she admitted. “Why did you not take any of them?” he asked her. “Because you loved him so dearly?” “Partly that,” she said, “and partly an unwillingness to settle for comfort over…over integrity. I wanted to be a person as well as a woman. I know that may seem strange. I know it is hard for almost anyone else to comprehend. It is what I wanted, though—to be a person. But it seemed that I could not be both—a person and a woman. I had to sacrifice my femininity.” “Are you sorry?” he asked her. “Though you did not do it with any great success, I might add.” She shook her head. “I would do it all again if I could go back,” she said. “But it was a sacrifice.” “I am glad you did it,” he said, feathering light kisses along her jaw line to her chin and then lifting his head again. She raised her eyebrows. “If you had not,” he said, “you would not have been there to call upon when I was in Bath. And if I had met you elsewhere, you would not have been free. And I might not have recognized you anyway.” “Recognized me?” “As the very beat of my heart,” he said. Her eyes filled with tears again, and she bit her upper lip. She heard the echo of what he had said in the carriage on the way to London when Flora and Edna had asked him to share his dream. I dream of love, of a family—wife and children—which is as close and as dear to me as the beating of my own heart. She had judged him quite insincere at that time. “Don’t say things like that,” she said. “What has this been about, then?” he asked, somehow turning them so that he lay on the inside of the bed, pressed against the wall, and she lay facing him, held firmly by his arms lest she fall off the bed. “Sex?” She thought for a moment. “Good sex,” she said. “Granted,” he agreed. “I did not bring you here for good sex, though, Claudia. Or not just or even primarily for that.” She would not ask him why, then. But he answered the unspoken question anyway. “I brought you out here,” he said, “because I love you and because I believe you love me. Because I am free and you are. Because—” She set her fingertips over his lips. He kissed them and smiled. “I am not free,” she said. “I have a school to run. I have children and teachers dependent on me.” “And are you dependent upon them?” he asked. She frowned. “It is a valid question,” he said. “Are you dependent upon them? Does your happiness, your sense of self, depend upon continuing your school? If it does, you have a genuine point. You have as much right to pursue your happiness as I have to pursue mine. Fortunately, Willowgreen can be run from a distance as it has been for the past number of years. Lizzie and I will take up residence in Bath. We will live there with you.” “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I will be as silly as I need to be,” he said, “to make things work between us, Claudia. I was in a basically arid relationship for twelve years even though I was fond of poor Sonia—she did, after all, give me Lizzie. I came within a whisker this year of entering into a marriage that would surely have brought me active unhappiness for the rest of my life. Now suddenly, just this evening, I am free. And at last I want to choose happiness. And love.” “Joseph,” she said, “you are an aristocrat. You will be a duke one day. My father was a country gentleman. I have been a governess or teacher for eighteen years. You cannot just give up all you are to live at the school with me.” “I would not have to give up anything,” he said. “Nor could I if I wanted to. But one of us does not have to sacrifice our life for the sake of the other. We can both live, Claudia—and love.” “Your father would have an apoplexy,” she said. “Probably not,” he said. “But the matter would admittedly have to be broached carefully with him—yet firmly. I am his son, but I am also a person in my own right.” “Your mother—” “…would adore anyone who could make me happy,” he said. “The Countess of Sutton—” “Wilma can think or say or do what she likes,” he said. “My sister is certainly not going to rule my life, Claudia. Or yours. You are stronger than she is.” “The ton—” “…can go hang for all I care,” he said. “But there are precedents galore. Bewcastle married a country schoolteacher and got away with it. Why cannot I marry the owner and headmistress of a respected school for girls?” “Will you let me complete a sentence?” she asked him. “I am listening,” he said. “I could not possibly live the life of a marchioness or a duchess,” she said. “I could not possibly mingle with the ton on a regular basis. And I could not possibly be your wife. You need heirs. I am thirty-five years old.” “So am I,” he said. “And one heir will do. Or none. I would rather marry you and be childless apart from Lizzie than marry someone else and have twelve sons with her.” “That sounds all very fine,” she said. “But it is not practical.” “Good Lord, no,” he agreed. “With all those boys I would never know a moment’s peace in my own home.” “Jo-seph!” “Clau-dia.” He set one finger along the length of her nose and smiled at her. A log crackled in the hearth and settled lower. The blaze began to die down. The little hut was as warm as toast inside, she realized. “There are some problems, admittedly,” he said. “We are from somewhat different worlds, and it seems that they would make an awkward fit. But not an impossible one—I refuse to believe it. The idea that love conquers all may seem to be a foolishly idealistic one, but I believe in it nonetheless. How can I believe otherwise? If love cannot conquer all, what can? Hatred? Violence? Despair?” “Joseph.” She sighed. “What about Lizzie?” “She loves you dearly,” he said. “And if you marry me and come to live with us, she does not have to fear that you will take the dog away from her.” “It is all quite impossible, you know,” she said. “But there is no conviction whatsoever left in your voice,” he told her. “I am winning here. Admit it.” “Joseph.” Once more her eyes filled with tears. “This is no contest. It is impossible.” “Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll come over to Lindsey Hall to see Lizzie, and you and I will talk. But perhaps you should have a word with my cousins before you leave here—Neville, Lauren, Gwen. Perhaps you had better not talk to Wilma, though she would be able to tell you the same thing. They will all tell you that I never played fair as a lad, that I always had to have my own way. I was quite detestable. I still do not play fair when I want something badly enough.” He had snuggled closer—if that were possible—while he talked, and was now nuzzling her ear and the side of her neck while smoothing his hand over her hip and buttock and along her spine until her toes curled again. “We had better dress and go back to the house,” she said. “It would be too shameful if everyone were ready to return to Lindsey Hall and I was nowhere to be found.” “Mmm,” he said into her ear. “In a moment. Or several moments might be better.” And he moved them again so that this time he was lying on his back and she was lying on top of him. “Love me,” he said. “Never mind practicalities or impossibilities. Love me, Claudia. My love.” She spread her legs to set her knees on either side of his hips and raised herself onto her arms to look down at him. Her hair fell forward to form a sort of curtain about them. “Once upon a time,” she said, sighing one more time, “I thought I was a woman of firm will.” “Am I a bad influence on you?” he asked. “You certainly are,” she said severely. “Good,” he said and grinned. “Love me.” She did. 24