Chapter 17

17

Leo wasn't easy in his mind. His body – that was a different matter. His body was happier than it had ever been in its, in his life. It was Christmas and birthday and carnival all rolled into one, as far as his body was concerned. But his mind, and for that matter his poor heart, they were an entirely different kettle of fish. He hadn't in the least enjoyed the conversation with Isabella that had preceded the best hour or so of his existence so far. He was deceiving her, and he hated it. He hadn't lied to her on that occasion, not in so many words, because it was perfectly true that he remained in ignorance of what Cassandra knew or didn't know about what he'd confessed to Hal. He could say that if he wanted, but he had a pretty shrewd idea that Hal had told his wife everything he knew. Of course he had, because Leo would have wagered a large sum that he always did, and furthermore, why otherwise would Cassandra have suddenly taken it into her head to invite Lady Ashby to be her guest in Hampshire?

She hadn't set up the party for Isabella's benefit – that had been happening anyway, and Leo had been just about to tell Hal and Cassandra that he wasn't joining them as he'd previously agreed to but was staying in London and taking lodgings, for excellent reasons of his own. He just hadn't thought of the reasons yet, and now he didn't need to. And yes, all he'd said to Isabella about Cassandra and her possible matchmaking was true, in a way. Lady Irlam might very well be doing that, inspired by some sweet but misguided desire to help him, but if he and Isabella showed they weren't receptive to being subtly pushed together he was sure, as he'd said, that she'd stop. He could get Hal to tell her to stop, he supposed, if it became necessary, though that was a conversation he'd rather not have.

What really made him uncomfortable, even in the aftermath of an incredible orgasm wrought by the mouth of the woman he adored, and with the prospect of so much more to come, was the knowledge that she believed him to be helplessly in love with Cassandra. Because he'd lied and told her he was. He had been able to tell from her expression – he chose to believe that other people couldn't read her face as easily as he could – that she'd seen how agitated the whole conversation made him, but had ascribed all of it to the fact that he was in love with Cassandra and didn't want to discuss her. Jesus. It was a kind of protection for him – in that sense, it was working better than he could ever have anticipated when he'd blurted out Cassandra's name in extremis that day – but it was a lie, and he could dimly envisage all kinds of hideous scenarios, all kind of monstrous complications, that might arise from it now that they were all going to be living cheek by jowl for several weeks. With, as if all that wasn't bad enough, his dear mother.

And that was another thing. He'd told Isabella, in another of his patented not-quite-a-lie-but-not-quite-a-truth-either statements, that he didn't mind in the least creeping around Castle Irlam in order to make passionate love to her while his mother stayed under the same roof. Well, roofs – it was a castle, after all. It wasn't as though he feared bumping into his mama in the early morning as he crept back to his bed. He had his own room there, which he had occupied since he and Hal had graduated from the nursery to more adult quarters, and his mother had a suite of her own since she had spent so much time there when the boys and Georgie were growing up. They weren't in close proximity. He knew that that wasn't what Isabella had meant, though – she had meant, did he have a problem with deceiving his mother while engaging in a sordid sort of an intrigue? And he had said that perhaps he should, but he didn't. He wasn't sure what she had made of that – they'd been rather delightfully diverted and perhaps she hadn't had time to dwell on it – but he thought now that there would be an inevitable awkwardness to it, and of course he didn't want his mother to know what he was doing, because she wouldn't understand. But the reason he didn't mind the whole situation as Isabella had thought he might was that, for him at least, this wasn't some sordid intrigue. This was the woman he loved. And the pain would come, must come, not from the deception he was engaged in, but if he saw his mother beginning to like her, beginning to see her as exactly the sort of young woman her only son should marry. She might easily see that, he thought, because she was his mother, and knew and loved him. She might even speak to him of it, ask him if he had not thought to seek Lady Ashby's hand in marriage, and then what would he say? That would hurt. Lying to his mother about his deepest feelings, if it came to a point where he was obliged to do that, would hurt.

What would hurt the most, of course, would be the end of it all. He didn't know, and wouldn't ask, how many more items there were on the list. He couldn't know the extent of her experience with her husband. Perhaps they could explore new things together; he thought she might easily agree. It would still be her list, if she chose to make it so, he could say to her. He wanted to marry her and live with her, and make a life together, but if he couldn't have that he was quite prepared to grow old in her service, to take the list into the hundreds and the thousands. Yet he knew she wouldn't. He knew that once her purpose was achieved, once she had regained the sense of self that she had lost, she would call a halt, and he would bow his head and agree, raise not a word of protest though his heart would be shattering into a thousand pieces in his chest. She would leave, hugging her secret to her.

It might be that this would happen quite soon; when the house party ended, in three weeks, or four. Before winter set in, certainly. Before the first snows fell, she'd want to get back to Yorkshire.

It was with a deeply divided mind and heart, then, that Captain Winterton swung himself into the saddle as Hal did the same at his side, and set off, accompanying the coach that carried his love and his torment, his mistress in every possible sense of the word, along with Cassandra, whom he'd said he loved but didn't, to Hampshire and his fate.