He forced himself to turn away, cursing his own weakness, cursing his vivid imagination, which wasn’t really imagination, for he knew well her flesh would be soft and warm and there would be her scent, only hers, and he would breathe in that scent and it would drive him mad.
Still, he saw even as he was turning, the silken material fall below her waist and he glimpsed her white belly, white as a saint’s brow, white as the body of a virgin, which she was. Oh, Jesus. Despite the coldness of the night, he was sweating. With a growl he broke away, forcing himself not to look back. He knew he couldn’t look back and see the rest of her, the thatch of auburn hair covering her, the long, white thighs, sleek with muscle, for she was a country girl used to walking and thus fit and strong. He remained outside, until finally, shivering violently from the cold, he was forced to go back into the villa.
“His lordship isn’t here?”
“No, my lady. ‘Twas quite early his lordship left this morning to go into the village. He said he’ll be returning for dinner.”
Mrs. Crayton thought it strange that his lordship hadn’t informed his countess of his plans. Indeed, she wondered at her ladyship’s puffy eyes and remembered the crumpled gown she’d picked up from the floor. She decided that they must have had a lovers’ quarrel the previous evening, surely unfortunate, but not unusual for a man and wife newly wed. She remembered the arguments during those early years when she and James had screamed at each other, yelling the most ridiculously horrid things, not meaning them of course, at least not ten minutes later.
“I see,” Kate said, slipping into a wrapper. Perversely, she felt slighted that he hadn’t told her, but then, of course, she’d not given him the opportunity. She’d left both him and that delicious lamb chop quite alone.
She managed to keep herself busy throughout the morning poking her head in and out of the elegant rooms in the villa. After a light luncheon, she donned a shawl and strolled out into the grounds. It delighted her that there were no formal gardens, for she had never enjoyed her mother’s pastime of pulling up weeds and putting in her favorite flowers, particularly the rose plants she’d brought from Scotland, carrying them on her elopement. The vast wilderness of forest and mountains here gave her a feeling of unrestrained freedom. From the edge of a cliff to the left of the villa she could make out the small village nestled in the valley below. She sat down near the edge and wrapped her skirt about her legs. Although she had gotten used to being alone, particularly after Harry left for Eton, she found that now she didn’t enjoy her solitude. She didn’t understand herself. It was disconcerting.
She wandered back to the villa, selected a small volume of Lord Byron’s poems from the shelf in the well-stocked library, and curled up in the window seat. But her attention wasn’t long held by the poet’s bold, haunting words, for she couldn’t help remembering Julien’s telling her with laughter and a touch of regret in his voice of Lady Caroline Lamb and her flaunted affair with the quixotic Byron.
She had thought then of the excitement of belonging to such a world, of meeting people who cut such a romantic dash through London society. She sighed and leaned back on her elbows and allowed the thin vellum volume to drop to the floor. Somehow she still felt like the provincial Kate Brandon. She wondered when she would feel like a countess. Julien had said she was a countess, that whatever she did, it was all right, because she was a countess. She couldn’t begin to understand him.
Later in the afternoon, bored with her inactivity, she sallied forth, and without any particular destination in mind, began to walk down the single winding road that led to the village. Being used to country life, she found the exercise invigorating and maintained a brisk pace. She didn’t see a single soul. She allowed herself to be drawn into the quiet serenity of the ageless forest. She had bent down to stroke a soft fern that had wound itself around a tree trunk when she was startled to her feet by a shrill cry. She wheeled around and, seeing nothing, hurried around a bend in the road. She pulled up short, not believing what she saw. A peasant stood in the middle of the road, flailing a mare with a knobby stick. The horse whinnied and shied, blowing hard, trembling, her flanks rippling, but the man held her firmly, cursing as he rained blows on her head and back.
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