Time off? From what? Her marble existence?
I intend to enjoy every moment that offers itself. As though there were a time limit.
As there was. That had been clearly agreed between them. He had set one for himself. He intended to leave here soon after the ball, probably never to return. She was going off to her reunion with that Survivors’ Club group.
Was he too merely taking time off, then? From what, though? His meaningless existence? Was he going to go back to pranks and dares and mistresses and the occasional appearance in the House as a sop to his conscience?
“Tonight,” he said, “I will make sure I come with enough energy to climb the stairs to your bed. And we will make full use of it, Imogen, for hours and hours. Be prepared.”
“Oh, I will be,” she said, but she did not look at him. She was busy pulling on her gloves as he stood up.
And standing up, of course, put him in sight of the house over the gorse bushes and up the lawn. It would not do to pull her into his arms and kiss her. All the elder relatives as well as assorted servants might well be lined up in the windows gazing seaward.
His legs were still feeling decidedly unsteady, and one glance at the long drop not far from his feet assured him that he still had a very healthy fear of getting too close to the edge. But by Jove, he had climbed up.
They walked back to the dower house without talking, and he took her hand when they were on either side of the gate and squeezed it without raising it to his lips. He had not forgotten the look on her housekeeper’s face when she opened the door to him earlier.
He feared that he really had stepped into some hornet’s nest this morning.
“Until later,” he said.
“Yes.”
He strode away across the lawn without looking back.
*
To her shame, Imogen was almost an hour later than usual rising the following morning. She intended walking into the village and calling upon a few people, including Tilly and Elizabeth. She was marvelously well blessed, she realized, to have two such close women friends—close in mind and temperament as well as in age.
She was going to need them in the foreseeable future.
But she would not think of that yet. She stretched luxuriously and turned her head toward the pillow beside her own. No, she had not mistaken. He had left something of the smell of his cologne behind.
He had come just before midnight and not left until well after half past four. And, as he had promised, he had kept her very busy indeed during the intervening hours, with only brief respites for relaxation and snatches of sleep. They had made love four separate times. But making love with Percy, she was discovering, consisted not just in the joining of their bodies and the brisk activity that followed. It was also about talking—often utter nonsense—and laughing and touching and kissing and rolling about and—yes!—hurling pillows at each other and forgetting all about reserve and decorum and adult dignity. It was about sexual play that preceded penetration. But she had learned to give as good as she got in that aspect of lovemaking. If he could make her beg—and he could—then she could make him beg too. Oh, yes, she could.
And the joining of their bodies! Ah, there was nothing more wonderful in this life after lengthy romping and even more lengthy sex play. And the hard rhythms of lovemaking, and the rhythmic sounds of wetness and labored breathing, and the gradual building of tension and excitement. And the release at the end of it all—the most wonderful moment of all, and the saddest, for following that moment, there came the gradual awareness of separation even while they were still joined, the knowledge that they were two.
But there was the knowledge too that they still had some time left—more than a week.
He had left after sitting, fully clothed, on the side of the bed and kissing her slowly and thoroughly as though the previous hours had not been enough, would never be enough.
“Tonight,” he had murmured against her lips, “and tomorrow night and . . .”
She had laughed then, for Hector had been peering over the side of the bed, his chin on the bedcovers, his eyes bulging. He was such an ugly, adorable dog.
She had listened to them leave, to the sound of the key turning in the lock, and she had indulged in her usual little weep before falling so deeply asleep that she could not even remember if she had dreamed.
And now she was late waking, though it really did not matter.
Mrs. Primrose brought her breakfast to the dining room as soon as she came downstairs.
“You was wise to sleep late, my lady,” she said as she poured Imogen’s coffee. “A nasty, dismal day it is out there.”
It was too. Imogen had not noticed. There was rain on the windows, and they were even rattling in the wind. The sky beyond was leaden.