“Shall we agree to the compromise?” he asked her.
“It will be the greatest of pleasures,” she said, “to move back into my own house. For me as well as for you.”
“You see?” he said. “When we try hard enough, we can come to mutual agreement on more than one theme. How bad is smuggling in this part of the world? Would you like some wine?”
“Yes,” she said after a small hesitation.
She took her glass from him after he had poured the wine, but she did not move away toward a chair.
“My father-in-law liked his brandy,” she told him, “as do most of the gentlemen in this part of the world. He saw no wrong in defrauding the government of some taxes and tariffs. He saw customs officials and riding officers as the natural enemy of freedom and luxury, while the smugglers were heroes upholding the right of a gentleman to the best brandy his money could buy.”
“This house is close to the sea,” he said. “Its cellars were used to store smuggled goods, I suppose?”
“Close, but not close enough,” she said, swirling the wine in her glass for a moment before lifting it to her lips.
“The dower house?”
She raised her eyes to his. “You may have noticed,” she said, “that it is not far from that precipitous path to the beach. There are steps and a doorway on the side of the house facing the sea that lead directly to the cellar. I insisted upon having every item of contraband removed and the door blocked up from inside and out before I went to live there. Father-in-Law saw to it. He was fond enough of me to want me to be safe and not endangered in any way by all that viciousness. And he knew that Dicky had always been vehemently opposed to allowing smuggling on Hardford land and the products of smuggling in the dower house.”
Well. Interesting.
“Viciousness?”
“It is not a romantic business,” she said, “despite all the stories to the contrary that you parodied on the way home.” She drained her glass and set it down on the sideboard. “Good night, Lord Hardford. And if you ever try to kiss me again, I will reply with my fist rather than my open hand.”
He grinned at her. “A tactical error, Lady Barclay,” he said. “One never forewarns an adversary. To forewarn is to forearm.”
She turned and left him. She closed the door quietly behind her. Not for Lady Barclay any unbridled passion or slammed doors.
His cheek was still stinging.
What the devil had possessed him? But if that kiss had lasted for two seconds, and he believed it had, then for at least one of those seconds she had kissed him back. It was like that laugh at the Kramer ladies’ house—blink and you missed it.
He had not blinked on either occasion.
When was marble not marble? And why was marble marble? Especially when it was not actual marble but a woman. Why was she marble? There must be thousands of women who had been widowed by the Napoleonic Wars. If they had all turned to marble forever after, England would be a marble nation, or half marble anyway. There would still be human men, he supposed. Pretty frustrated human men.
He considered his book. Perhaps poetry—blank verse, no less—was just what his mind needed to compose itself for sleep.
He strode back into the hall instead and donned his greatcoat and hat and gloves. He ought to go upstairs to change his footwear, but evening shoes would have to do. He let himself out through the front doors and strode directly across the lawn toward the cliffs. The clouds had moved off sufficiently to allow some moonlight and starlight through to light his way and ensure that he did not stride right off the edge. An alarming thought—but he would be pricked to death first by the gorse bushes.
Hector, he noticed suddenly, was at his heels. Lord, that dog would be sleeping at the end of his bed next.
“Protecting me from ghosts and smugglers and other assorted villains, are you?” Percy asked him. “That’s my boy.”
7
Imogen’s palm was still stinging. It was still red too, she saw in the light of the candle on her dressing table.
She hated him. Worse, she hated herself. Hated herself.
She could have avoided that kiss. She could have kept her distance from him. But even apart from that, there had been time to realize his intent and turn away. There had been a look in his eyes to warn her, the lifting of his hand to set at the back of her neck, the bending of his head toward hers. Oh, yes, there had been time.
She had not turned away.
And though for the first moment after his mouth touched hers—mouth, not just lips—her mind had been blank with shock, there had also been that next moment when her mind had not been blank at all, when she had wanted him with a fierce longing and had kissed him back. Just the merest moment.
But how long was a moment? Had anyone ever defined it? Set time limits upon it? Was a moment one second long? Half a second? Ten minutes? She had no idea how long her moment of weakness had lasted. It did not matter, though. It had happened, and she would never forgive herself.