Chapter 2

2

Leo Winterton was twenty-seven years old and had spent almost half of his life in the navy, but the wars were over at last, thank God, and he was done with it all. He had passed the wet, cold summer of 1816 teaching his wild young cousins how to sail, but now they were at school – God help the school and its poor unsuspecting teachers – and he was at a loose end. His older cousin and close friend Hal, Lord Irlam, aware of his lack of purpose, had invited him to come and stay with him and his wife Cassandra at their grand mansion in Town, and, for want of anything better to do, he had agreed, and here he was.

He had little experience of polite society – whatever the navy had been, it hadn't been that – and after taking ship so young this was his first real taste of London parties and London life. Somewhat to his surprise, he had found himself in demand in a modest sort of a way. He was well-born and well-connected enough, though he was no aristocrat, and somehow word had got round that he had taken several valuable prizes during the late wars with France, and had won by his exertions a respectable fortune to add to the modest sum and small Hampshire estate his father had left him. Various young ladies had looked up at him with melting eyes and invited him to share his fascinating reminiscences of life at sea with them – these offers he had politely declined. He had no taste for puffing off his own consequence, and he didn't think any of these refined damsels were really interested in what it was like to go into battle, the sights, the sounds, the smells… No.

But it was undeniably pleasant to be clean, healthy, well-fed and well-dressed, with nobody firing cannon at him or attempting to put a period to his life in any other manner, and to take a good-looking young woman in his arms and twirl about the dance floor in exhilarating motion. The waltz was now danced everywhere, and it was an innovation greatly to his liking. It was pleasant too to ride in the park on one of Hal's excellent horses, and to sit at ease in Hal's club and take a glass or two of good wine with one of his Corinthian friends, or to while away a few hours in pugilistic exercise at Gentleman Jackson's saloon, where Hal was a regular and favoured visitor.

He found, also, that he enjoyed Cassandra's company, and this was new. He had been back at sea when his cousin had married her last autumn, so he had only made her acquaintance quite recently, and he liked her enormously. She and Hal were plainly very well-suited and very happy, and perhaps inevitably the sight of them together made a man think of settling down. He'd never thought about marriage before – as a naval ensign, lieutenant and then commander it had not crossed his mind, he'd been too young, and when, a little older, he had gained his own ship and really begun to make his way in the world, he had been too occupied to dwell on such things. It had seemed unwise to cherish dreams that might never be realised when a French cannonball or a wickedly sharp falling spar or heavy piece of timber could at any moment have cut him down, knocked him overboard, crushed or maimed him.

But here he was, whole and more or less undamaged, unlike so many, and he felt for the first time in his life the pleasure of refined feminine society, as he sat in Cassandra's parlour and took tea with her. He was not in the least in love with her, but she was friendly, sympathetic, quick-witted, as well as undeniably attractive to look upon, and he could perfectly understand why his cousin had fallen for her so quickly and completely. He was not a savage; he had spent time with his mother, of course, while on leave, but he realised now that he was not closely acquainted with very many young ladies at all, and none who were not his relations by blood. This was an omission that should be rectified, he felt, and London was the place to do it. If he cherished a memory of a girl in blue laughing up at him, one warm night in Brussels, he'd pushed it away. It had, after all, been nothing more than a fantasy.

And then he set eyes on Lady Ashby again so unexpectedly. It hurt just a little to see that she had no memory at all of him, but when he realised that her husband had fallen at Waterloo – had been recovered from the battlefield horribly wounded and died in her arms – he understood why it should be so, after all that she had suffered, and could not think to blame her for it. The last thing he wanted to do was remind her of that time, which had ended in such tragedy for her. And so he said nothing. Having not mentioned it at first, of course, it was now too late to raise the matter as their intimacy increased.

The connection between the families meant that they were often in each other's company as the weeks passed; if he'd wanted to avoid her, which he didn't at all, he'd hardly have found it possible. They made up pleasant family parties and attended the theatre, the opera and many private events. It was very odd indeed to think of Georgie the tearaway as Her Grace the Duchess, married to a reformed rake with a terrible reputation, but they seemed ridiculously happy, just like Hal and Cassandra. Everybody was married and everybody was happy. Nobody was single and lonely and a little sad, going to sleep and waking up in a cold, empty bed, apart from him. And, dare he imagine, her? Leo felt that fate, or providence, or one of those Greek deities they'd bored on about endlessly at school, was practically yelling at him, irritated by his obtuseness, See these other fellows? This could be you, sapskull! Could it, really? Could the past be overcome so easily? Slowly, cautiously, Leo began to hope that it might.

He'd thought at first that Lady Ashby, widow of a duke's younger son as he now knew her to be, must be far above his touch, but on talking to her he'd found to his delight that this was not the case at all. As he grew to know her better he discovered that she came, in fact, from a background much like his own: her parents had a small estate just outside Harrogate, and like him she was an only child, having lost several siblings in infancy. She told him with a frankness that touched his heart that she had met Lord Ashby, a major in the Seventh Hussars, when he had been recuperating in the spa town of Harrogate from wounds taken around the time of Toulouse, and thus her connection with a grand ducal house was only by marriage rather than by blood. This was heartening, as it was not entirely dissimilar to his own relationship with the Pendlebury family; his father had been a solid country gentleman of unremarkable fortune and his mother was a country lady, whose late sister had happened to marry very well, becoming Countess of Irlam. He believed with some confidence that he need not fear that she, Lady Ashby – Isabella – her parents, nor anybody in her family would think him presumptuous in aspiring to her hand.

He did aspire to it, he realised as the weeks passed and their acquaintance deepened. But he resolved to take things slowly. It would be foolish to rush matters, and he must be patient. It was not just a question of respecting her grief, though that was responsibility enough. He understood from things that Isabella herself had said – for it seemed to him that deception or concealment were entirely foreign to her nature – that she had been most unwell after her husband had died, and lost in a sort of fog of unhappiness for a long time, from which she had only now emerged. He detected in himself a desire to take care of her, to protect her from the world, but he could see that that was not in the least what she wanted. Quite the reverse, in fact. In a burst of entirely characteristic frankness and not quite characteristic volubility, she had told him one brisk, cold day, as they strolled together in the park with Cassandra and Georgie a week or so before the Duchess's ball, that she had come to London to escape from her parents and a concern for her that she had begun to experience as stifling and oppressive, though she understood why they should feel so anxious about her always.

Their companions being ahead of them, arm in arm, clearly exchanging confidences, Countess to Duchess, Lady Ashby had spoken openly to him of her illness; he had not at the time understood why she had chosen to confide in him of all people, but had been glad of it, taking it as a sign that their relationship was deepening and heading in the direction that he so ardently desired it should. ‘I was mad, for a while,' she said, looking up at him with those liquid brown eyes that made him melt into a puddle of wanting. He must have made some instinctive protest, for she said matter-of-factly, ‘No, I really was. It seemed to me so… so wrong that Ash should be dead, and I just could not believe it for the longest time. He was so very alive, you see, and then such a short while later… The sight of him, so terribly wounded, in such dreadful pain, was always present to me, and… It was a nightmare time. But one does not speak of such things; forgive me, sir.'

He hastened to tell her that he understood, that there was nothing to forgive. And it was true, of course; he too had seen terrible things, things of which one did not speak, things which most young ladies could have no comprehension of, and why should they? Was that not one of the reasons men fought, to shelter women from such things? But she had not been so sheltered. And he knew she'd loved her husband, and he her – he'd seen them together, glowing with happiness. But of course he could not say so.

She was not done; she continued bravely on as the autumn leaves fell around them in a whirl of bright colour. ‘Ash and I had so many plans for our life together, and it was very hard for me to understand at last that none of them would come to pass. My brother-in-law had not the least intention of marrying at that point in his life, you know, before he met your cousin. He was quite open about the fact with everybody. And so it was generally expected that Ash and I would have children and raise them at Northriding, and then in the course of time he, or our son, would eventually inherit the ducal title and the estate. So far more was lost than our future together; Northriding itself was suddenly in peril, with nobody to inherit after Gabriel. Their poor young cousin John, the next heir, died after Waterloo too, you see. And I felt such a failure, you know, because I had not been able to give Ash, give all of them, an heir when they were all depending on me. I knew they were counting on me for that, though of course they never spoke of their bitter disappointment. They scarcely needed to. And so somehow I persuaded myself that not all of him was gone and that I was indeed with child. I could easily have been so, you understand.' He did. Once more they were speaking of matters that were not generally discussed, but he could not think to stop her. And it was ridiculous and unseemly to be jealous of her intimacy with a dead man, and one furthermore who had fallen in battle, given his precious life and all his future for his country, even though he had been a duke's son and surely need not have put himself at risk.

‘But I wasn't. I was deceiving myself. And that too was a great grief to me, when I was forced to realise it, and my illness came back, and I was truly not in my right mind for quite a while. I was under the care of a doctor in York, where they specialise in such matters. Everyone was very kind to me, and patient, my parents most of all. But now I am better, and although I am very grateful, and always will be, for the care they took of me, I can quite understand that it will take them a long while to accept that I am well now, and stop treating me as though I were made of china. Because I'm not.' She tilted up her chin adorably when she said this, and he wanted to kiss her then and there, but of course he couldn't. It would be most improper and she could not possibly welcome it.

‘They are bound to be protective of you, I suppose,' he said instead.

‘I know they are. But that's why I came away, to stay with my sister-in-law. I think it will be good for them as well as me, not to always be worrying that I am becoming unwell if I say the least little thing that makes them think I am cast down or low in spirits, as anybody must be every now and then. Because,' she said with a perfectly straight face, ‘sometimes when they hover over me with anxious expressions on their dear faces, much as I love them, I want to scream and throw things.'

‘Which would relieve your feelings for a short time, no doubt, but hardly reassure them as to your complete recovery.'

‘Exactly,' she replied in tones of satisfaction. ‘And that is why it is so much better to be staying with Blanche and her daughter Eleanor, because although they are very fond of me and were worried about me when I was ill, they were naturally never concerned about me in just the way that my parents were, nor did they see me at my very worst.'

‘I do understand,' he said. ‘I too have a mother, who worries.'

‘I did not know. Well, obviously I did, for everyone has a mother, at least to begin with.' They laughed a little awkwardly, both visibly relieved to speak of less intense matters. ‘Does Mrs Winterton not care for London society, then?'

By tacit mutual consent, their conversation turned to lighter topics, and presently they caught up with Cassandra and Georgiana, who appeared to be still so absorbed in their conversation that they had not even noticed their absence.

After this moment of closeness, Leo met Isabella frequently and danced with her on several occasions, but he had no opportunity to converse privately with her again until she engineered their moment together at Georgiana's ball. That was entirely unexpected. At first, he had feared she was unwell, and no thought of anything else had entered his mind, but when she pressed herself against him he realised – for he would have been very dull-witted indeed not to realise – that she had planned this. She soon admitted as much. She wanted him to kiss her, she said she did, and Christ knew he wanted that too. When he brushed her lips with his a little tentatively, her mouth opened to him in invitation, sweet and wet and tempting. It was all he had dreamed of, and when he nibbled on her full lower lip she gave a tiny gasp and her arms came up to clasp about his neck, and she pressed her lush body closer yet. God, it was so good.

Leo had himself under very strict control, and so it was a kiss, the kiss she had asked for, and nothing more. He held her tightly about the waist and she fitted into his embrace as though she belonged there, warm and soft and gloriously right, but he did not allow himself to explore her body. He wanted to run his hands down her back and caress every curve and hollow; he wanted to pull up her gown and petticoats and touch her bare skin; he wanted to lift her up so that she could wrap her legs around his waist while he pressed himself, hard and hot, against her belly. He wanted to plunder her mouth with his tongue and then kiss his way down her shoulders to her breasts. He wanted all sorts of things that would be wonderful, but wrong. He kissed her and she kissed him back, and if she were aware of the urgency of his desire – and he thought she must be, as a woman who had been married – she gave no sign of it.

When the kiss was finished, and it had to finish before he lost his self-control entirely, he spoke to her – he wasn't entirely sure what he said – but she seemed to gather her wits more quickly than he did. At first, he thought she might be proposing marriage to him, and although it was undoubtedly unconventional and sudden, he would have been perfectly happy to accept, to say, Yes, Isabella, I will marry you, please let it be very soon, and in the meantime may I kiss you again? But no. It didn't seem to be that at all. He couldn't imagine what it could be.

He was still holding her and had no wish to let her go; she didn't seem to want to be released, was still relaxed and warm in his embrace. Every inch of him was still thrumming with unfulfilled desire, and he would have wagered she was in the same state. His body had decided opinions about all this: about the desirability of continuing, and the madness of stopping. And it was almost impossible to think, to do anything at all but feel, while he held her, but he must. ‘A proposition…' he said dazedly. ‘You have a list…? I'm afraid I don't perfectly understand what you mean, ma'am.'