Chapter Twenty-Four

"Mrs. Cartwright, will you please pass the salt?"

"Of course, dear," she said absently. She didn't look away from the page of The Times she was reading as she pushed the salt dish over to Catherine, who sat opposite her father in the sunny morning kitchen. They were surrounded by a pleasant morning feast of eggs and toast and kippers and coffee.

Catherine sprinkled some salt over her eggs and scooped her fork into them.

She dropped the fork with a clatter when Mrs. Cartwright gasped theatrically.

"Good heavens, Mrs. Cartwright. What is it?"

"The news about Lord Kirke!"

Freezing dread roared through Catherine with such force she nearly toppled from her chair. She dug her fingertips into the edge of the table.

Her lips couldn't form the words "what news?" She merely made an inarticulate questioning sound. Almost a whimper.

"The beautiful speech he gave on the floor of the House of Commons a few weeks ago," Mrs. Cartwright expounded. "They're saying grown men were weeping. Weeping! Now, that must have been a sight. They're calling it ‘The Clover Speech.'"

When Catherine said nothing for long seconds, Mrs. Cartwright looked up. "Catherine dear, you've gone pale."

Portent had sent tingles racing all along Catherine's arms and up the back of her neck.

She couldn't speak for the white-hot flare of hope in her chest.

"My dear. What's wrong? Something's wrong." Her father laid a hand on her arm.

Catherine could scarcely get the words out. "Did they print it? The speech?" Her voice shook.

"Of course."

"Will you read it to us, Papa?"

Mrs. Cartwright passed the paper to her father. "He does the voice so well, doesn't he?"

No. No one can do his voice justice, Catherine thought.

Her father cleared his throat and read it, in the stentorian voice he liked to adopt for Lord Kirke. "When I was a boy..."

When he was finished, Catherine brushed at her cheeks, surprised to discover they were wet.

"It is very moving, isn't it?" her father said gently. Deeply confused.

She nodded.

"I'll warrant he's a fine man," her father said, clearing his throat.

"The finest," she said fervently, thickly.

Her father and Mrs. Cartwright blinked.

Catherine found herself reflexively standing.

And then, without another word, she turned, walked out of the kitchen, and out of the house entirely.

Because some emotions were too big to be felt at a breakfast table. They required the whole of the blue sky and miles of unfurling green and movement.

Once out there she walked and walked. Faster, and faster. Until she was running. Because some great weight on her spirit had finally shifted and dissolved.

She wanted to cavort.

Perhaps roll down a clover-covered hill.

Finally she did twirl a little, arms straight out, for the pleasure of feeling the rush of country air sift through her fingertips.

He loved her.

He did love her.

And all along, she'd thought that he'd been willing to fight for everyone except her. When the truth was he was willing to fight for everyone except himself. He had tirelessly done all of his own fighting for so long, and that included battling his feelings for her.

How he must be suffering to call to her so in that speech. A speech the whole of England, in essence, had heard. How magnificently bloody clever of him.

With his marriage proposal he had tried to claim her in a way that protected his terribly wounded heart.

How had she not seen it?

She'd said never to him and he'd stood like a man killed. Her stomach turned in on itself as she relived the perpetration of such a cruelty.

But the fact that he had delivered that speech meant that he hadn't believed her. Not completely.

So she forgave herself. In the storm of emotion and pride and hurt feelings in the aftermath of the gossip, she had been unable to see anything clearly. She had no experience at all with this sort of thing, after all. And they both had botched things.

But how simple it all seemed now—if they loved each other, she knew there was nothing they couldn't face.

The winning is in the fighting, he'd said. He was a man who simply did not give up. He might not have fought for her a few months ago.

But he was fighting for her now.

And she could meet him halfway.

A little over a fortnight after he'd given the Clover Speech, Kirke encountered Pangborne on the street just as he was leaving a pub in which he'd taken lunch.

They greeted each other with genuine pleasure that surprised both of them.

And then Kirke took a sustaining breath to gather nerve. "I'm glad I saw you today. I've been wanting to thank you for your book recommendation. My son loves Rob Roy."

Pangborne went motionless. "Your son?"

To his credit, he managed not to inflect it with anything like shock. He said it almost gently.

"He's seventeen years old. We've met only lately. But I'm very proud of him. The feeling is not yet mutual," he said dryly.

Pangborne took this in silently for a second or two, during which Kirke's heartbeat ratcheted up in speed. Finally he said, "Take it from this parent: no matter what you do, it may never be, Kirke. And even if it is, he may not ever tell you."

It wasn't at all easy. It did not come naturally. But Kirke told him, very matter-of-factly and in just a few sentences, how Leo had come into the world: a youthful romance gone awry, a happy enough ending. And that the current relationships between all parties were civilized and congenial. He was paying for his son to attend college.

He was determined that thusly he would rob the gossip sheets of the air needed to kindle any more rumors. And anyone who bothered his son would need to answer to him.

"I am trying to protect him from gossip," he added. "It may be futile. But I want the world to know I am not ashamed of him."

Pangborne nodded once. He paused a moment, reflecting. "Well, if he can tolerate your company for the duration of a house party, bring him grouse hunting at my estate in Kent in August." Pangborne sounded amused. "And... if he is unable to accompany you, just bring yourself."

Kirke couldn't speak for a moment. He endured a tiny pang of warm gratitude. "Thank you for the invitation. I hope we can join you."

And thus, little by little, his life, long held as jealously close to his vest as a hand of cards that could make or destroy his fortune, unfolded a bit more.

He left Pangborne and made for his favorite retreat spot, the pair of ugly lions flanking a bench in the park near the Commons, between which he could sit and glower and breathe in London in peace for a time before he dove back into the fray.

Ten feet away from his favorite bench he stopped abruptly.

It was already occupied.

By a woman.

And as comprehension settled in, his knees nearly gave way beneath him.

He found himself reluctant to move forward. Because if she was a hallucination, he didn't want it to ever end.

Finally, one cautious step at a time, he paced toward her. Slowly. To prolong the journey. To tease out the sweet miracle of it.

He stopped a few feet before her.

Her blue bonnet ribbons fluttered in the breeze while they regarded each other in a silence born of perfect, dumbfounding joy.

"I have looked behind every fern and every green thing I've seen for the last month," he said finally, quietly. "And every last one of them broke my heart, Catherine, because you weren't there."

She smiled tremulously. "I apologize if I'll be intruding on your meeting." She gestured to the lions.

He said nothing for a moment.

"Did you want to hear me breathing?"

She stared at him, and he could see her eyes welling with tears.

"Yes." The word was in shreds.

"I should think you'd be able to hear my heart beating right now, too."

She gave a soft little laugh. "I would stand but..." Her voice was faint. "I fear I do not trust my knees to hold me."

"May I sit down?" he asked gently.

She nodded.

He lowered himself next to her, carefully, at a discreet distance. "Please tell me you didn't come to London alone?"

She shook her head. "My aunt and I are staying with Lady Wisterberg. They are off gallivanting and won't be home until later this evening. She thinks I am having a leisurely day of reading."

He smiled slightly. "Your father—is he—"

"My father is well. He is still tired, but happy enough. He was glad to have me back."

"Very, very good." He paused at length. "And you?" he said tenderly. "Are you well?"

It was a long moment before she replied.

She swallowed. "I came to tell you something, Dominic. I thought I could do it. I am not as good at speaking as you are. I fear I am too nervous."

"Perhaps you wouldn't mind if I spoke?"

She shook her head.

He could hear his own breath gusting in and out in the silence, as if it were part of the weather. He could feel his own heart, his own precious heart, rising up from the ashes, thudding in his chest. Measuring out seconds before the courage gathered completely.

"Catherine... I am fatally in love with you."

His words seemed to echo in the absolute silence, like the toll of a bell. They hovered there, glistening. Nothing would ever be the same after.

"I think I fell in love with you the moment you handed your handkerchief to me. I love your wit, your kindness, your gentleness, your wisdom, your optimism, your eyes, your hair, your resilience, your mouth, and oh God, the way your body fits against mine. I could foresee no happiness for me unless you were happy, and yet I didn't think I could ever be what you wanted, or offer you the kind of life you wanted to live. And I tried—God how I tried—but I could not imagine the rest of my life without you in it. It was quite a predicament, Catherine. I have been wretched. I am confessing my wretchedness. How cruel of you to look so radiantly happy about it." Her face was, in fact, blindingly beautiful, a tiny sun. "And now you're smiling. All those white teeth. You monster."

She laughed delightedly and dashed her tears away with her hand.

One landed on the back of his hand, like a perfect diamond.

And that's when his own eyes began to burn in earnest.

"Bloody hell." The words were a soft, cracked laugh. "I like you better than anyone I've ever met."

Which only made her more radiant.

They gazed at each other, smiling, and no one except a nearby bird said a thing for a good long while.

"I think I can speak now," she ventured, whispering.

He drew in a steadying breath, preparing.

"I came here to tell you that you have indeed ruined me," she said softly.

"Have I?" he said gently.

"Oh yes. For... polite people. For people who take the easy way. For men who have never had their hearts broken, who don't know what passion means, or what commitment means, or what forever means." Her words trembled with urgency. "If what you want is my happiness, you must accept that I love you and allow me to love you. I will do it so well, Dominic, I promise you, and I will never stop and I will not leave you. That's... that's what I came to tell you."

He nodded because he couldn't speak. She was blurry now, and he pressed a palm to his eyes to clear his tears.

"And..." She pulled in a breath. "I want to apologize for being so unkind and such a child and for hurting you. I didn't know... I wasn't sure... I didn't want to make you miserable by saddling you with a wife. Making you miserable while I loved you so is the worst thing I can imagine."

"Well," the word was graveled. "Don't apologize. I was a fool, and I deserved a thorough castigation. But I have never been more grateful to be an orator whose words are written in the newspaper. Because here you are. I summoned you. Like a genie from a lamp. Thank you for being brave when I could not be."

"No." She shook her head vehemently. "It was easy for me to be brave because I'd never before had my heart savagely broken. I think you are the bravest person I have ever met. So many people in England think so." She pulled in another breath. "And I have something else to say."

"Oh?"

"I came to tell you that I lied."

He went still.

"When I said the word ‘never.'" Her lips tipped in a tremulous smile.

A gust of joy swept through him and took his breath with it.

It was a few moments before he could gather enough air to speak.

And when he spoke, his voice—the voice that rang out over the floor of the Commons, that stirred jaded grown men to tears, that little by little helped to move the mountains that stood between the vulnerable people of England and a safer, freer, more loving future—was textured like coarse velvet. And shook.

"Catherine. You are... you are my very heart. I am yours, forever, body and soul, no matter what happens after this day. I want only you, forever. If you would do me the honor of marrying me, the whole of my life will be devoted to loving you and our family. I think we would be so happy. I will live to make you happy."

She dashed her hands against her eyes again. Her words were tremulous.

"Yes. Yes, please. I want only you. I want to be your wife."

His head went back hard on an exhale and then he gathered her against him. They clung to each other tightly, wet cheek pressed against wet cheek, their bodies such a perfect fit it was hard to know whose hammering heart was whose.

He took her face in his hands, and laid his mouth on hers.

And between two scowling lions, he kissed her with such unrestrained longing that they were both in quite a state within seconds.

"I want you so," she whispered against his neck. "I cannot bear it any longer. I have wanted you so."

"We can be married inside a fortnight. I can obtain a special license." The words were rushed, staccato with need. "But I want to do this properly, Catherine. I want to speak to your father first. But..." He gave a short, humorless laugh. "Dear God, I want to make love to you."

"Your home," she said swiftly. "Is it fully rebuilt?"

"Very nearly. I've a chair." He paused. "And a mattress on the floor."

"Take me there now."

He closed his eyes. "Catherine."

"Please. What else am I going to do with this afternoon?" she added.

He gave a short, pained laugh.

"God help me," he said. "If something happens to me between now and the time, we're married..."

"It won't. I will not allow it. Even so, I would have made love to you. And then I might get to carry your child. And then I would still have you with me forever. And this is all I want. You forever. Don't you see? It's urgent we not waste another moment."

After a moment, he kissed her very softly and whispered, "So I see."

He grasped her bonnet ribbon and pulled gently until it came undone.

He lifted it from her, and set it aside.

She turned so he could undo the laces of her dress.

His fingers trembled.

His cravat tangled as he tried to drag it off; she helped him free it. He flung it aside.

He gently lifted her dress from her, and her arms went up to abet him.

He tore off his own shirt.

She reached for his trouser buttons, feeling the jut of his swelling cock against them, and freed it, working the buttons swiftly with shaking fingers.

Thusly they swiftly, almost ceremoniously, unwrapped each other. This methodical statement of intent ramped her desire unbearably, and her nerves, too.

For there would be no return from being entirely mutually naked.

Dominic was somehow much more primal and fearsome without his clothes. He was also almost too beautiful to be borne. She had not quite anticipated this. He seemed an entirely new person, or rather, an additional person, and this made her faint with a sort of erotic fear. The vast vertical line of his shoulders and the bulge of his biceps, the slant of his torso to his narrow hips, the legs that might well have been turned on lathes, much of all of this scattered liberally with dark hair, was the most shockingly carnal construction she could have imagined.

This weakness she felt at her knees—she wondered if it was a deliberate feature of their species: this impulse to crumple in the face of overwhelming strength and beauty and just be taken.

His eyes were black with fierce longing, his face tight with surging emotion, and that's how she knew he was undone, too.

She closed her eyes, shivering with nerves and desire.

He immediately clothed her in himself. Gathered her up into his naked body.

She found herself pressed against thighs so hard it seemed as though he could crush one of hers between them, the flats of his hands glided, feather soft, down either side of her spine, his fingers tracing the bumps of it; down, down, to scoop under her buttocks and urge her up against his swelling cock. And when he did, her head went back on a gasp as lust spiked her. And yes, she wanted to climb him.

His hands traveled back the way they came, and cradled her head, he laid his lips against her throat, where surely he could feel her pounding heart.

How glorious to have skin, so she could feel his against it. Hallelujah, her mind sang. She had never fully comprehended what a gift it was that it comprised nerve endings. Her nipples chafed against his hard chest, lightly furred in dark hair, arousing her nearly unbearably; she turned her cheek against it and rubbed shamelessly. His torso was cut into sections of muscle; he was constructed of furrows, planes, and hard curves. She kissed his nipple, like a wanton, like she knew anything at all about what she was doing. The little leap of his chest when his breath hitched, his arms tightening around her, told her, yes, she perhaps possessed an instinct or two.

She wrapped her arms around his vast back and set her hands free, finding the ditch made by muscles alongside his spine, the little indents in drum-tight buttocks made just for her hands. His skin was hot and smooth. And his cock curved up toward his belly, harder against her, and when she moved against him, his head went back on a hissed-in breath.

Their lips met, and his hands moved over her, long drugging kisses that made her desperate.

Suddenly she was falling, it seemed, or was she flying? But when she felt the mattress beneath her she understood she'd been lowered there, like a fainting maiden. For a moment, he stood, looking down like a conqueror, then he stretched out alongside her. She turned to him.

So odd that the sun was fully blazing into the room over their nude selves. She stroked his hair from his eyes.

"I hardly know where to touch you first." His voice was hoarse. "You are indescribably beautiful. Every bit of you."

"Everywhere," was her whispered suggestion. "Please. Don't miss even one spot." Her heart was hammering. He would be inside her soon, which was what they both desperately wanted. But she was, indeed, equally a little afraid, and consumed with need. She trembled with the surfeit of emotion.

He knew. He was so gentle, so purposeful. He set out to soothe, to arouse, ultimately to possess. Gently, he drew his fingers along the inside of her arm, lighting every one of those cells on fire, showing her a place she'd long taken for granted was a pleasure to touch, and could arouse her when touched.

He lowered his mouth to her breast, and pressed his lips softly against her little birthmark, then took her nipple into his mouth and gently sucked.

"God..." she breathed, and arched into his touch.

His hand roamed to her hip, traced the curve of her waist, and his lips were fellow travelers. She sighed when his lips skimmed her belly, while his hands slipped between her thighs, stroking so lightly the shockingly tender skin there, sending rivers of pleasure to the outer reaches of her body, until she was made of nothing but pleasure. It was everywhere in her. Rising, rising like a flood.

"Dominic...?" she whispered frantically.

He knew what she needed. His lips returned to hers while his fingers lingered to twine through the curls between her legs, before sliding into her wet heat to take up a rhythmic stroking. She could feel his cock, hard, large, and impatient-feeling against her hip, and the swift gust of his breath against her throat as her head thrashed back, the pleasure building and building until her body whipped upward, a silent scream torn from her. He held her while bliss broke her into what felt like stardust.

He was shaking with need when he bridged her body. "Sweetheart..." His voice was shredded.

She slid her hands down his furred chest. "Don't be afraid," she whispered. "I love you. I want you so much. You won't hurt me."

But her heart was hammering as she shifted beneath him so he could guide himself into her.

The glorious strangeness, the joy of being filled by and completely joined with him, stole her breath.

His eyes were shining with unshed tears as he looked down at hers.

She kept her gaze locked with his, her heart nearly splitting apart from joy and wonder, which evolved quite steadily into a fresh wave of volcanic lust when she witnessed him lose himself completely in her. Saw him, little by little, go mindless with the pleasure of moving in her body. The muscles of his back quivered beneath her clinging fingers. She arched to meet the rhythmic, languid dive of his hips. And she felt everything he kept leashed. The cords of his neck taut. His eyes black and dazed. His breathing a tattered roar.

He closed his eyes. "Oh God. My love. I'm..." His breathing was bellows-ragged.

Her hands slid down to his buttocks and she arched against him.

"Faster, please. Dominic. Please. Oh please." She was chasing her own release now, too. That she might get yet another one was quite a miracle she hadn't anticipated.

In a mad, swift collision of bodies, of groans and sighs and gripping hands and oaths as pleasure built and built, they shattered together.

The joy seemed scarcely bearable. He thought it might crack him in two, but that was only because he was resisting it, as was his habit with any force greater than himself.

He breathed out and humbly surrendered. He felt as though he was indistinguishable from it.

She was curled up against him, her petal-soft curves tucked against his hard body, her eyes dreamy and sated, her arm draped over his belly. He possessively smoothed his hand over the pearly curve of her arse.

She rose up on her elbows to gaze down at him earnestly, gently stroking the hair away from his eyes. Her breasts now entirely filled his vision.

"Are you all right, love?" he said softly.

"Never better. Your eyes have gone very dark, suddenly."

"Because your breasts are right there and I love them," he said with grave sincerity.

She laughed, and like a wanton, dipped to brush her nipples across his lips, and he caught one, lightly, in his teeth. The sound she made, the little helpless gasp, went straight to his cock.

"It's just that I didn't know you would be so beautiful," she murmured. "It's quite overwhelming."

"You thought perhaps I was a minotaur under my clothes?"

"I'd hoped you were. This is even better."

He laughed quietly. Feeling almost shy.

"I didn't know there would be this lovely little road, for instance..." she said, and drew a finger lightly, slowly down the line of hair that divided his ribs, traveled down to his belly to his stirring cock. "Or that you would be composed of these distinct sections..." One at a time, softly, she kissed the six segments of hard muscle on his abdomen. "Or that there would be lovely fur here, and I could do this..." She dragged her fingers gently through the hair on his chest, back and forth over the hard rise of it, and closed her teeth lightly over his nipple.

"Christ," he half breathed, half moaned, very impressed and absolutely in thrall, as she discovered and seduced him all at once.

"Or that your thighs would be so frighteningly gorgeous and thick..." She drew her toes down one in a caress.

"And speaking of gorgeous and thick..." She shifted down and kissed his cock, which had leaped to attention and was now arched against his belly.

He made a guttural sound. "God... if you wouldn't mind terribly... doing that again..."

She laughed softly. "Like this?" She drew her tongue along it.

"Holy... Mother of God..." he breathed.

She quite rightly took this as a suggestion to continue what she was doing. And soon his chest was heaving with hoarse breaths, and he pulled up his knees, and his head thrashed back as he struggled to cope with the pleasure.

Finally he raised himself up on his elbows. "Catherine... please... come here..."

He opened his arms and gathered her, bringing her up close to him so she sat across his thighs. With a thrust he was inside her again. Her head fell back on a caught breath.

"Move with me," he whispered next to her ear. He gripped her hips and urged her in a rhythm guaranteed to drive them both to blissful madness, quickly. They locked eyes, and he knew a surge of triumph and gratitude from watching her eyes go hazed and dark, and feeling the frayed gusts of her breath against his lips, from how she shifted with him to find her own pleasure. He kissed her throat and felt her moan vibrate beneath his lips as they collided more swiftly.

"Dominic..." she gasped. She was close now. He loved the desperate, joyful way she said his name in the throes of passion. As if he were the key to the universe. As if he were her salvation. He would do anything for her, give her anything she wanted, lay down his life, slay dragons.

He held her tightly as release rocked her body and she screamed her pleasure to the echoing room, and when he came the pleasure nearly blinded him.

"I can't believe we're allowed to do this whenever we want for the rest of our lives," she murmured. His chest was her pillow. His arms were looped beneath her breasts. They might as well have been Adam and Eve lying there, naked in broad daylight on a mattress. "And as loudly as we like."

His laugh rumbled beneath her head. "And the ways in which we can do it, Catherine..."

Ways! Plural! This struck her as very promising, indeed.

Happiness was a consuming occupation, too, she thought. Nothing more seemed necessary ever than this man, this bed, the sun through the window drying the sweat on their well-loved bodies.

"What will the ton think when they discover we've married?" she wondered.

"I'll tell anyone who asks that we were introduced, I apologized for the distress the gossip may have caused you, and, subsequently, we fell in love. I will explain that we owe a debt of gratitude to whoever made the false insinuations, because they have made us the happiest humans alive. I'll make certain it's printed in TheTimes. All of those things are in essence true. And God, will it annoy a good portion of the ton."

"Clever," she said happily. "You are rather wily."

"Never with you," he said. "I never will be with you."

She was quiet a moment. "They can't hurt us if they don't know us," she said softly. Contentedly.

They were an "us" now; a new entity. There would be storms; he would always attract attention. Together they would always be the eye of any storm.

"If anyone ever tries to hurt you, I will end them," he said calmly. "One way or another."

"Likewise, Lord Kirke."

He smiled, and his chest rose and fell beneath her in a contented sigh.

She propped herself up on her elbows and gazed down at him. "Lady Wisterberg told me about... how you paid the footmen. She found out through a sort of chain of gossip."

She felt him go still. And then he gave a soft, rueful, not entirely amused laugh. "She is quite something, Lady Wisterberg is."

Her eyes were so soft. Her hair was coming down, the ends of it brushing his chin. The pleasure of it. She completely undid him. He felt incinerated by love and need. Humbled and made absolutely new. He was the bloody phoenix, rising right out of the ashes of a burned house.

To look at her was to crave her.

"I suppose," he said softly, his voice husky and careful, "it's because I loved you from the first."

She kissed his right eyebrow because he was hers, and because she could.

He'd long wondered whether he'd deserved to ever love or be loved again at all, but it seemed to him her love was proof that he was worth loving. That she loved him was a miracle, and yet he believed in it, while he didn't, for instance, believe in genies that lived in lamps, because he knew her heart was honest and true. It was simply who she was.

And if it seemed unlikely a beautiful young woman would choose a complicated life with a man like him, he understood that something in her craved those inhospitable crags and treacherous peaks that were part of his character, just as he craved the soft, green slopes and surprising, hidden, wild rivers in hers. They both were part light and part shadow and this had given their moments together a rare dimension from the first.

Love would be the new terrain they built their life on. They would have a lifetime to explore its perils and glories.

He noticed her gaze roving about the empty room, as if she was filling it with imaginary furniture.

"Do you know anything about decorating? Because I fear that I don't. As you may have noticed."

"Oh, I think we can make our house lovely and not spend a good deal of money at all," she said confidently and comfortingly. "And I think we should have blossoms in a vase in our room, don't you?"

Our house. Our room. He loved the word "our." He loved the word "we." He loved the word "wife." He decided he was going to use them with such obnoxious frequency that from now on this was what people would quote to him when he encountered them at balls and in sitting rooms.

"Precisely what I was thinking," he agreed, softly.