Mary Balogh: One Night for Love

He grinned at her. "Portfrey would challenge me to pistols at dawn for even thinking it," he said.

"Neville." She leaned a little closer. Their proximity would have scandalized the beau monde at a ton ball. But they were among family, who watched them with affectionate indulgence while pretending not to watch at all. "What is the alternative to the library? Oh. Shall I say it? You mean the valley, don't you? And the waterfall and pool. The cottage."

He nodded and smiled slowly.

"Tomorrow morning?" she asked. "No, that would not provoke a challenge from any irate father. You mean tonight, don't you?"

His smile lingered, as did her own. But they were gazing deep into each other's eyes, performing the steps of the waltz almost without realizing that they still danced. And Lily, feeling a tightening in her breasts and a weakening in her knees, knew that the moment had found itself. The perfect moment. He spoke again only when the music came to an end.

"You will go there with me, Lily?"

"Of course," she said.

"After everyone has settled for the night? I will knock on your door."

"I will be ready."

Yes, Lily thought as she made her way to her room a short while later, having hugged the countess, Elizabeth, and her father, and said a decorous good night to Neville. Yes, it was entirely right that they go to the cottage. Tonight. She was a lady now, daughter of a duke, and she was single, and she was bound by all the rules by which polite society regulated itself. But deeper than those realities was the fact that she was Lily , that in her heart she was married and had been for almost two years, that she was bound by something far stronger than mere man-made rules.

***

An almost full moon beamed down from a clear, star-studded sky. It was autumn and it was cold. But Lily, her hand clasped in Neville's, saw and felt only the beauty of this moment to which they had come. They hurried past the stables, down over the lawn, through the trees, through the ferns, down the steep slope to the valley. They did not speak even when they were far enough from the house not to disturb anyone with the sound of their voices. There was no need of speech. Something far deeper than words pulsed between them as they went.

They turned up the valley together at last, making their way toward the waterfall and the pool and the cottage. It was there they had lived through another moment—a tantalizingly brief moment—of total, utter happiness before being torn apart by a series of events that did not need to be remembered just now. They were back where they had been happy together. And where they would be happy again.

They were back where they belonged.

He spoke before opening the cottage door.

"Lily," he said, bending his head toward hers, cupping her face with gentle hands, "we will make love before we talk, will we? Even though church and state do not recognize our right to do so?"

"I recognize it," she told him. "And you do. It is all that matters. I am your wife. You are my husband." It had always been true, from that moment on the hillside in Portugal, when she had been dazed with shock and grief. Even then she had known that he was everything in the world that she would ever need or want. No one—least of all the impersonal forces of church and state—could destroy the sanctity of that ceremony.

"Yes." He touched his forehead briefly to hers and closed his eyes. "Yes, you are my wife."

He lighted two candles inside the cottage. She carried one of them through to the bedchamber while he knelt at the fireplace there, lighting the fire. The air was frigidly cold.

"It will take awhile to warm up in here," he said, getting to his feet and opening back his cloak before drawing her against him and wrapping it about both of them. He rested his cheek against the top of her head. "Let me hold you and kiss you until it is warm enough to undress and lie down on the bed."

But she laughed and tipped back her head to look up into his face. "It was cold," she reminded him, "on our wedding night."

"Oh, Lord, yes," he said, grinning. "Only cloaks and blankets and a tent to keep out the December chill."

"And passion," she said.

He brushed his lips against hers. "I must have crushed you horribly. It is not the introduction to passion I would have chosen for you if I had had the planning of it."

"It was one of the two most beautiful nights in my life," she told him. "The other was here. The air is already warm by the fire."

"But the floor is hard."

She smiled dazzlingly at him. "Not harder than the ground inside your tent in Portugal."

They used the pillows and all the blankets from the bed. They used their cloaks. They did not remove all their clothes. The floor was indeed hard and cold, and the air was not comfortably warm despite the crackling fire that was catching hold in the hearth.

Their passion knew none of the discomforts. For each there was only the other, warm and alive and eager. After a while, after they had caressed each other with hands and mouths and murmured endearments and he had raised her dress and adjusted his own clothing and pressed himself deep inside her, there was not even each other, but the two of them seemed one body, one heart, one being. And, after he had moved in her and with her for long minutes of shared passion and pleasure, there was not even the one left but only a mindless bliss. Oh, yes, they were married.

***

He was still inside her. He had been sleeping, all his relaxed weight bearing down on her. And her back was to the hard floor of the cottage. He disengaged himself and rolled off her, keeping his arms about her. But she moaned her protest at the loss of him and turned against him with sleepy murmurings.

The fire, he saw over her shoulder, was blazing healthily. He could not have been sleeping for long, then.

"You must have a bodyful of squashed bones," he said.

"Mmm." She sighed. Then she moved her head and kissed him with soft languor on the lips. "Are you going to make an honest woman of me?"

"Lily." He hugged her to him tightly. "Oh, Lily, my love. As if you could ever be dis honest. You are my wife . You can say no a thousand times over, you can say it for the rest of our lives and never make me waver in that conviction."

"I do not intend to say no a thousand times," she said. "Or even once. I said yes the first time you asked. I married you an hour later. I have been married to you ever since even though I could not agree to make it legal back in the spring. I am not saying no now. I am married to you and I want the world to acknowledge the fact—Father, your mother, everyone. But only to acknowledge what already is."

He kissed her.

"Father will want a grand wedding," she said, "even though the only wedding that will really matter to me is the one in Portugal. He will want us to get married at Rutland Park. We must give him what he wants, Neville. He is very special to me. He is… I love him."

"Of course. And Mama will expect it too," he said, kissing her again. "Society will expect it. Of course we will get married again—in the grand manner. When, Lily?"

"Whenever Father and your mother want it," she said.

"No." He smiled at her suddenly. "No, Lily. We will decide. How does the second anniversary of our first, our real wedding sound to you? December—at Rutland Park."

"Oh, yes." She smiled back with obvious delight. "Yes, that would be perfect."

Everything was perfect—for the present. It would not remain so throughout the rest of their lives, of course. Life did not work that way. But now, this night, all was well. The future looked bright and the past…

Ah, the past. The past that Lily had endured and he had never found the courage to share completely with her. It did not matter, perhaps. The past was best left just where it was. But then the past could never remain there. It encroached on the present and could blight the future if the issues it had raised were never dealt with. Lily's past would always be something he tiptoed about, something she deliberately never spoke about to him.